Prince Georges Community College Artificial Sanity Discussion

Description TOPIC FOR POST 1:Artificial Sanity by Sheila O’Brien Quinn.  Case copyright held by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Originally published June 23, 2005. https://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/files/artificial_sanity.pdf Post 1: Artificial Sanity Question 1. Discuss two accepted models of mental illness, i.e., psychological, biological, behavioral.  What assumptions are made within the models? How do they differ?  A psychological model of a mental illness is a model that takes a mental illness to enter into an analysis of reasons the ill person gives for his or her behavior. These reasons are actually inferred from interviewing the ill person, but they are intended to constitute motives for which the ill person is not conscious. In other words, according to this model, people with mental illnesses do not have accurate understandings of their own actions and motivations. The main assumptions in the psychological model of mental illness are that mental illnesses are conditions that affect the operation of the mind and that their key feature is disordered thinking. The biological model of mental illness encompasses the range of hypotheses which view mental illness as biological/physical/chemical dysfunctions in the brain. The holistic approach of the biomedical naturalist while recognizing the social factors involved, maintains that these are secondary and can be reduced (mediated) to such factors such as stress and environmental conditions. There is a tendency in psychiatry to think of mental illnesses as being fundamentally different from other medical illnesses. This is partly due to the obvious differences between the brain and other body organs, but it’s also because there’s no way to directly measure mental health in the same way doctors can measure your heart rate or blood sugar level. So psychiatrists tend to make assumptions based on models from other branches of medicine. The most important assumption they make is that mental illness has a normal function, and becomes pathological when it becomes dysfunctional. The psychological model of mental illness assumes that you suffer from some sort of disorder, determined by your personal environment and behavior, while the biological model explains it in terms of chemical imbalances or other physical problems. The biological model says that illness results from disruption of the mechanisms, both neural and molecular, which under normal circumstances keep the mind running properly. The psychological model says that illness is damage to the mind itself. biological models of mental illness concentrate on the roles of genes, hormones, brain chemistry etc. in causing various disorders. These are explored through neuroscience, endocrinology, pharmacology, epidemiology, biochemistry etc. Psychological models concentrate on how our experiences shape us and cause each of us to develop a unique perspective on the world, often expressed in terms of psychoanalytic concepts such as defense mechanisms and transference. Question 2. How do these two different models influence the treatment of people with mental disorders? Biological models play a significant role in much of health care. In the US, for example, doctors often consider the possibility that a headache or back pain is caused by cancer. Patients with cancer may need chemotherapy Not all biological models are as scary as cancer, however. Some biological models are less dangerous and less unpleasant than others. People also have different reasons for accepting or rejecting biological models of their own behavior. When it comes to mental illness, for example, a lot of people put a lot of effort into finding ways to reject a biological model. To understand these patterns, it’s helpful to start by thinking about biological models of physical diseases. Psychological illnesses can influence the treatment of people with mental disorders. It partly depends on the symptoms and severity of the symptoms, but it is also influenced by the interaction between mental illness and culture. Cultural aspects include how society views that particular illness, the availability of resources, and how much society stigmatizes that illness. Psychological illnesses are unique in that they are the only medical conditions that people are discouraged from thinking about too much. When people are having heart attacks, they are encouraged to learn everything they can about heart disease, so as to better inform their doctors of their symptoms and condition. Yet those of us who have depression or anxiety tend to be aggressively discouraged from educating ourselves about these conditions. Question 3. Tell the class the history of the present case.   What does “right to treatment” entail for Singleton?  Does Singleton have schizophrenia, in your opinion? The article I read describes the condition of Singleton, an aging man who has been recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. The term schizophrenia was not widely used in the Victorian era due to its pejorative connotations derived from the word schizo (split) and phrenia (of or relating to the mind). Singleton, like many patients suffering from mental illness, was put through a year-long process of assessing his sanity. His lawyers needed to prove that he was not sane in order to avoid having him executed. In examining Singleton’s history, character and behavior, the court had to examine the standards used to determine insanity at the time of Singleton’s crime. If their findings differed from those standards, they would have been forced to find Singleton “not guilty by reason of insanity.” The right to treatment, as Singleton seems to see it, doesn’t simply encompass the right to refuse treatment. It encompasses the right to be listened to as a valid interlocutor. A mental patient’s right to treatment dictates the level of care given. Singleton is entitled to care determined by his doctor so he can be rehabilitated. He asks to be allowed to refuse treatment because ‘treatment’ consists of being confined to a room. Singleton asks the court to allow him to refuse an involuntary commitment. The judge ignores the distinction. I don’t think Singleton is schizophrenic in the clinical sense. There are criteria in DSM-IV for a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and Singleton is not fulfilling them. For example, Singleton hears voices that aren’t external to him, the way schizophrenics do. And he believes his life is in danger from forces outside himself, when schizophrenia is essentially a disorder of self-centeredness. In short, Singleton seems to have become delusional, but he isn’t psychotic or schizophrenic in my view. Question 4. What are the assumptions about mental illness held by Singleton’s lawyer and the prosecutor?  Support your answer with direct quotes from each lawyer.            Singleton’s lawyer, as described by Quinn, assumes that Singleton was not responsible for his actions due to his medical condition. In other words, Singleton is said to have been legally insane when he committed the violent crime (O’Brien Quinn, 2005). He says, “Come on, you can’t tell me that just because he is medicated, he’s sane! The symptoms aren’t obvious, but the illness is still there.” Singleton’s prosecutor assumes mental illness is a sign of criminal propensity. He assumes Singleton’s behavior was informed by mental illness and that Singleton had control over his actions. He says, “If he doesn’t have symptoms, he’s sane.” Question 6. What is artificial sanity?  Argue your personal side of the case. Artificial sanity is being so afraid of being wrong, you become wrong. Artificial sanity is when you are so scared of being judged, you are judged. Artificial sanity is when you are so afraid that you disappoint people, or disappoint yourself by standing up for what you believe in that you instead go along with the crowd (O’Brien Quinn, 2005). My thesis is that the default state of the human mind is insanity. I’m not talking about mental illness. I’m talking about normal, everyday life. And I am not even referring to the fact that our brains deceive us all the time. The brain itself cannot possibly generate sane perceptions or cognitions. I would like to be the lawyer representing Singleton. The reasons are as follow: Singleton should be judged as sane because Singleton should not be insane any more even though Singleton had been put into a hospital for observation, Singleton can still see people’s eyes are filled with concern, but it seems impossible for Singleton to take action to prove his sanity to other people he deserves this society trust.  Society as a whole may regard schizophrenia as a serious mental illness or as a kind of urban legend. In my opinion, schizophrenia is not a fiction – it’s a real, physical brain disorder – but the story of the American Family has long been considered one more piece of lore. Ignored by psychiatry and dismissed by psychology, schizophrenics have been muted by expert texts and family histories that haphazardly identify them as “emotionally disturbed.” It is time for this situation to change. References O’Brien Quinn, S. (2005). Artificial Sanity A Case Study for a Class in Introductory Psychology. Retrieved from https://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/files/artificial_sanity.pdf Posting 2: TOPIC FOR POST 2 Sins of the Mother ID Crimefeed (2017, October 25). A look back at Susan Smith – the South Carolina mom killed her two young sons.  (Webpage) Read the attached article.  Then answer at least 4 of the following questions. http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/crime-history/a-look-back-at-the-susan-smith-case-23-years-after-the-south-carolina-mom-killed-her-2-young-sons Post 2: 1. In the case of Susan when she murdered her children, I must get an opinion based on my own perspective on why or how she is doing it. It might be because she has a previous reported of mental disorder which did not properly accommodated by her and consulted to a skilled psychotherapist, she has a childhood abusive experiences coming from her parents or guardians which she does not talk about it to her family that triggers major trauma ever since making her a violent person, she might be a single mother whose children have different fathers and she find it so very difficult to make a living for her children and it triggers her depressive disorders by killing her children, she was a drug addict having violent hallucinations resulting to killing of her children, or she is psychological incapacitated to handle major conflicts and dramatic events that triggers that certain kind of disorders resulting to killing of her own children. FBI’s profile trends about women who kill their children include unmarried, unemployed abuse victims who had limited education and social support, decreased intellect, child victim is abnormal, frequent depression, psychosis, substance abuse, suicidality, prior mental health care, stressors in economic, social, abuse history, partner relationship problem, primary caregiver status, and difficulty of caring a child. My profile given to Susan is somewhat like similar with some of the FBI’s finding such as the mental disorder developed from her childhood experiences which were not consulted to therapist, abuse in drug use, depression which triggers symptoms of suicidality, limited access to knowledge and discipline as in decreased in intelligence, and the single motherhood that accommodates major and lots of problems for daily survival. 2. Sexual abuse can have potential effects on a young woman in such a way that it impacted the psychobiological stature of a young woman as she grow older such as cognitive deficits which is a developed impairment of an individual’s mental processes in the acquisition of information and knowledge, frequent depression, dissociative behavior where the young women always isolate herself from the crowd, sexually maladaptive behavior such as threats, force, or aggression, failure to corresponds to stress responses, dropping out from school, persistent posttraumatic stress disorder, self-mutilation, physical and sexual revictimization, teen motherhood, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence. Susan’s experiences with her stepfather have affected her behavior in such a way that it might create trauma in her psychobiological being in which she does not discussed with her family where it developed certain major mental influence in her of fear and drastic emotional instability and she have no control over it. As it turned out, it might develop behavior of maybe being an alcoholic or drug addict to keep forgetting about it, but it is not making her a inclined to violent event. The frequent behavior might also lead to certain frequent depression correlative to suicidality which she includes her idea with her children. The problem of being a teen mother where there are major of lapses associated with having children at a young age might lead her to some emotional drama and failure to corresponds to emotional stress responses leading to killing her children. 3. The possible pressures on the young couple that marries in their teens as in the case of David and Susan’s marriage might be in handling their married lives without prior plans with their lives and their children’s in socioeconomic aspects, financial hiatus that the couple have to face while deciding to get married without prior plans, the emotional and mental instability of the young people which might be the reason of misunderstanding and frequent quarreling, social support which they also need because they are still young and now they have to give it to their children, lacking of complete education which might lead to stagnation of decreased in intelligence, compatibility issues because of instability which do not procure more understanding towards differences. 5. Susan have done what she did because of her childhood experiences from sexual abuse that creates developed impairment of mental processes in acquisition of information and knowledge, development of maladaptive behavior such as aggression that might leads her to being a violent person, trauma that made her an alcoholic and abusive in drug use. During her childhood when she was abuse by her stepfather, she acquired such trauma that influence her way of mental thinking that made it more unstable as she grows old. The instability correlates to failure to correspond in stress responses which make it more difficult for her to deal with other people by either dissociating or being violent without determination. This added up to her experience in early marriage towards her partner which makes her situation more complicated in terms of psychobiological being that made her identity uncertain, scared and confused. The problems associated with her early marriage was a disastrous event altogether with her childhood experiences that triggers mental and emotional disorder of depression and madness. 6. The role that depression might have played in her actions is the development of hallucinations that creates a thinking of relaxing herself and her children from the misery of her own life. Thinking that way might lead her to unthinkable thought of peaceful way of ending misery without considering much of the physical well-being of her children and of her own. She was brought by the depression into her consciousness without much thinking in actual scenario which is fatal in the reality. She deliberately realized what she has done after she realized and actualized what she had already been done to her children. Her mind might be vague during that time before she realized it was madness associated with her mental disorder, it was less something for her that time where in the actual scenario, it was morbid and tragic.