The Psychology Thread

What is the biggest challenge between a child with say, PTSD and an adult?

Can you go through some of the same options or is there just something you notice more with kids than adults?

Well with children I understand therapies are very diverse depending on their age. Mostly has to do with play therapy, whereas adults you gotta talk it out with them mostly.

A great thing aout working with children though, is that the fact they do not know how to define a feeling they have also helps you teach them how to identify and name the feeling. Adults are a bit more stubborn.

What I am saying is that we would all communicate better if we killed all adults.

wait...

Oh, that's tough.

Children aren't more elastic, but they are more open in some ways at least in their perspectives. Children are amazingly wise in many ways and come to accurate conclusions by flawed means and that is the tricky part with them. They aren't wrong, but how they came to that conclusion or developed that coping mechanism normally has some horrible side effects. They don't trust as easily, but they value acknowledgement better than adults most of the time. Children have the issue of not knowing any different or not realizing things are wrong or don't have to be that way. That is a very careful thing to balance. You don't want to demonize positive coping skills, but sometimes it takes years of careful therapy to see just how deep the rabbit hole has gone with kids because they may have latent issues that their limited experience and timeline hasn't needed to manifest yet.

Adults are difficult because they know better most of the time. They know their actions are foolish or problematic, but they have been with them so long or their awareness is so heavy that they frustrate themselves or self sabotage more. Adults also have more problems because they have more responsibilities than the average kid. So that's more risk factors, triggers, and complications to try and support.

Do you know of any research that deals specifically with child-adult relations when the parent's part of the military?

Me and some other students are doing a project on military families and that sounds like it'd be up our alley.

edited 16th Mar '15 10:10:22 AM by math792d

I can look around if you like. Nothing I am doing now is an official study, so I am personally not a good source.

Nah, I was just curious if you already had something on hand. If you don't, I can just try a database search the next time I'm at the university library.

But thank you anyway ^^

Honestly, contact your local base and ask to speak to the resident psychologist. They could help you.

It could be that they may not have a study for you, but they could give an interview and that could count as a source. Vet Affairs should be able to hook you up as well. God knows they don't do anything else.

We specifically ruled out vets early on because it's a bit ethically iffy to have relatively new students interviewing veterans.

We're talking about interviewing a military psychologist (thank God for living near the second-largest concentration of soldiers in the country), but we haven't quite decided yet.

Vet Affairs also serves active duty, so you can ask them if they can give you a contact even if the base won't.

Vet's affairs are handled a wee bit differently in Denmark, if I recall correctly. At least I remember the rules being really finicky when we originally started phoning around.

Me and my American-cintric self! I'm sorry! Honestly, your system would probably service your members better than ours. From all I can read it seems when it comes to the EU and Canada, you may have to wait in line for service longer but once you get it it is better quality and closer to your needs than what the US seems to be doing.

I don't know the exact procedure for veterans, but I know that if the state suspects you of being in danger of developing a psychopathology (like, for example, if you're the relative of someone with cancer), you will get a service number issued to you that certain psychologists in the country can 'cash in' for a 60-ish percent discount on therapy, which makes it about 40 $ a session. The state covers the rest.

Same thing with physical therapy if you've suffered some kind of injury.

edited 16th Mar '15 11:02:19 AM by math792d

I know that in the UK you'll get X sessions covered if your GP refers you, after those sessions I believe you need another referral unless you want to start paying. that's civilians though, I know nothing of the military situation.

edited 16th Mar '15 11:07:06 AM by Silasw

Something like that. Although, at least Mental Health has become an Election Issue — knowledge (and funding, hopefully) of mental health issues has really increased here over the last few years.

Random question.

How do you prove to others, especially to the law enforcement officers or other authorities, that you are not clinically insane?

When it comes to that, it is the other way around.

You have to prove that you are insane to them.

You hire a lawyer. Not kidding.

And one will be appointed for you if you are poor, though if there is enough publicity over the case and is something fascinating, then really good lawyers may offer to be pro bono for you.

Hmm, if you have enough faculty to hire or ask for an attorney, I guess that does prove that you can't be clinically insane.

Off topic, but people really should not be hesitate to ask for lawyer and keep their mouth shut. It's not a bad guy thing.

Avoid walking into the club like "what up I got a big dick".

Also there is a thing here. "Insanity" is by no means, an actual diagnosis at all. Psychologists and psychiatrists have abandoned that word due to its kidnapping by cultural appropriation of it and it is not used to describe any disorder whatsoever. The closest a person would go to behave in an "insane" manner would be the most extreme cases of psychotic disorder during its harshest psychotic episodes.

"Legally insane" is a legal term. And a defense that almost never works.

The issue is not "sanity" or "insanity" anymore, really. It's defining how any given mental state impacts on the decision-making capacity of an individual.

You can be as knowledgeable, balanced and emotionally stable as they come: but, if somebody spiked your drink with obscene amounts of psychedelics, it's rather unfair to hold you up to normal standards of blame during the resulting psychotic episode.

The same goes for any condition that messes with your brain chemistry. With or without warning. <shrugs>

I know however that the terms for hindered judgment is not "insanity". Legally it might be but clinically, it is not. There are levels of it.

Not arguing anything, just pointing out more of the same!

edited 6th Apr '15 11:28:09 AM by Aszur

Oh yeah, insanity was a legal term, forgot about that. XP

Sorta cross-posting from the Law Enforcement Officer Thread.

You all know about the Bystander effect, right?

Here's a short version of the context; last night, I was in Mc Donalds and saw a couple verbally fighting. It went on for a while and it only got louder and there was pushing and hitting involved as well. I thought that could lead to some serious fighting and called the police.

On retrospect, I can't help but wondering something:

Why didn't the possibility that someone else probably already called the police come up to my head? Should I feel bothered about this?

Dunno and why? It's not like altruism isn't also a human instinct... <confused>

I am not sure if that was an act of altruism. I think I was being more of Lawful Neutral there.