Psy-Splash

During my undergraduate years, I was fascinated with computers and social media (or what was then the precursor to today’s social media). Even though I was not a computer science major, I worked as a lab consultant in the CIT (Center for Information Technology)’s computer laboratories. I majored in Psychology, and kept computers as a hobby.
While at a social gathering my senior year, I entered into a heated debate about web technologies with an older attendee with whom I had never met. He turned out to be Charlie Knoll, the founder of Andera. He offered me a job on the spot. I had already enrolled in graduate school, and did not accept his offer. However, I never lost my interest in social media. Fast forward a few years to the early days of weblogging. I was in graduate school when the blogging boom happened. A number of my contemporaries were very familiar with writing therapy- which fascinated me to no end. Therapy. Done without a therapist. To someone with my background in computers, I immediately saw Internet Therapy. Blogging was huge- there had to be a connection between the two. I explored the idea with professors, I searched the literature, and I scoured the Internet. No one had put together what I considered to be the most “2+2″ since arithmetic had been invented.
I pitched the idea of doing my dissertation on writing therapy done through blogs to my professors, and none seemed thrilled with the idea. Maybe it’s because they were skeptical of therapy done over the Internet, or the lack of trust for such an open medium, but I felt defeated. I pressed on with my idea anyway, but dragged my feet because I didn’t have much confidence in the concept. Searches through the literature didn’t help either: I had to craft this study from the ground up because no one had done anything similar. Ever.
Years passed, and while I was dragging my feet, other people had finally put two and two together. This past spring I dug my face back into the literature to discover that people were now buzzing about doing therapy using blogs! Take for example this Scientific America article I discovered today.
One the one hand, it’s validating to see that my idea wasn’t as ridiculous as my professors first made it sound. Just because I was new to the field of Psychology didn’t mean that I didn’t have anything to contribute. However, I can’t stop kicking myself for having this idea years before I had seen it in print or on the Internet elsewhere. If I only would have had more confidence in myself, I could have had my dissertation done years ago, and would then have a legitimate claim to what may or may not have been my idea “first”.

A new UCLA study was recently published: Hippocampus plays bigger memory role than previously thought. At the conclusion of the article, the author collect responses from the researcher about what was learned from the study. The point that they dance around is: “We studied the Hippocampus hoping to increase what we knew about it. As a result, we now know less”.
Technically, we didn’t learn less. But what we did learn was that what we knew about it before was wrong. Socrates would be so proud.
This article reminds me of my frustration with neuro-physiology: the function of brain regions are not clearly defined like that of a cell or somatic organs. Even the anatomy is ambiguous: we have regions of the brain that meld into the other regions. The neurons are intertwined, and neural functions are carried out throughout various parts of the brain. The concept of neural plasticity furthers this ambiguity of partitioning. It has been shown that damaged brain centers can be recreated with neural tissue from other parts of the brain. The effect is that someone who lost motor centers for their left side of the body because the right side of the brain was damaged can eventually regain that motor control. This is because neurons on the left side of the brain changed their functions. When trying to memorize the functions of brain centers, I used to get frustrated because ever brain structure seemed to be responsible for a myriad of things. Discovering that the Hippocampus’s role in memory is broader than we thought adds to the frustration that I had in college. My hyperbolic summery: EVERYTHING in the brain is responsible for EVERYTHING.

Staged Abduction video- NBC News

My girlfriend point this out to me after watching a video that one of her friends posted on YouTube. As you can see from the video, there is a staged child abduction. This abduction was repeated over and over again for hours. Every single person passing by ignored the girl’s plight. Some glanced, but none took action. Finally, two men came to her rescue. If you haven’t watched the video yet, watch it now and see if you can notice anything peculiar about it.

See it? Again, my girlfriend immediately took note that the only black guys featured in the video were the ones who turned out to be the heroes. Could this be careful or unintentional editing? It’s possible. It’s also possible that this could be a coincidence. However, the simplest solution is most often the correct one, and it seems very likely that the rescuers’ culture played a big role in their decision to take action.

First off, a basic assumption must be made: the video was taken in a New York suburban city. The black men in the video were dressed differently from the other white people featured in the video and were probably from an inner-city background (again, an assumption). Maybe they themselves did not grow up in NYC, but there was probably cultural influence from the big City that helped to shape their developing years. My girlfriend, who grew up in Oakland (a predominantly black city), gave a lot of input and shared her experiences of growing up in inner-city culture. What we were able to conclude from the discussion was that inner-city black culture is very community orientated. Raising children is a group effort, and even a complete stranger understands the expectations and limits that are expected of another person’s child. This also applies to the nurturing and protection that is given to members of their community. In other words, it would not be terribly out of place for a parent to give a scolding to another child that was not their own, nor would it be odd for a parent to feed a neighbor’s kid if he was around the house at meal time (I’ve witnessed this myself while visiting a friend of mine in a barrio of South Central Los Angeles). This is the first element that probably contributed to the action that the men in the video took.

The second element was the element of bravery. There is an inherent fear that one must overcome when confronting another person. Whether this confrontation takes place in conversation, such as interrupting someone that you are talking to, or challenging a person who cut in front of a line. Those with less social inhibition will have an easier time making this confrontation. Loud, boisterous conversation and actions are valued, particularly in men, in black urban culture. Youth practice how to “holla” at girls, so that when they approach a girl who is a serious contender for romantic interaction they don’t appear shy. To “holla” is to brashly approach a unknown young lady with a verbally aggressive cat call. As soon as one stumbles over one’s words, allows a silence to carry for too long, or any other indication of nervousness, then the attempt is considered a failure and the exercise must be repeated again. The approach is practiced until it can be delivered smoothly. Nervousness in that community is considered weakness and disqualifies one as a quality romantic partner. Contrast this with other cultural communities, where a male’s nervousness might be considered endearing. The value of aggressiveness is amplified when applied to physical confrontation. A male who backs down from the opportunity to either reclaim his dignity (after an affront) or to protect the honor or physical corpus of a loved one is considered weak and treated with great disdain. Again, while these observations of the value of the dissolution of social inhibition might be generalizations to some degree, they represent the frequent experience of people raised in this culture.

The fostering of bravery in the inner city black community can also be attributed to the crime associated with residential neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic status. Many of my past patients have experienced traumatization because of a lack of physical safety. Slow police response and a general fear (or disrespect) of the law has left an element of lawlessness in these communities. This leaves the leaders of the families as the guardians of the weak. When there are no higher authorities responsible for preventing injustice, children learn at a young age that they are responsible for the safety of their relatives. Drug addiction is another plague of the inner city that frequently leaves children, in my experience, as the caretakers of their families. I have had grammar-school aged children that find themselves responsible for their younger siblings because their mother is too high to function or their father is out of the home on an alcoholic binge. These experiences have the culminating effect of teaching individual responsibility and inhibit tendencies to defer to higher social authorities.

Put that all together, and it would make sense that two young men raised in a black urban community would be the first people to step up to become heroes where their white suburban counterparts failed. They didn’t appear to be slowed by social inhibition, and their quick, aggressive action was synchronous. Their inclination to defend was not shadowed with doubt: “What if that guy is her farther?” “Maybe someone else knows what’s going on?” They recognized this as a very real event, and took action. In the eyes of a person who has never witnessed crime, there is typically a moment of disbelief, “Am I really seeing this?” And then the reality of the horror invokes our psychological defenses to shield us from the uncomfortable realization that this child may get hurt. The result? Denial. Judging from the fact that these men showed no evidence of such denial, I am lead to believe that they have witnessed crime in their past, and therefore have been raised with some degree of inner-city influence. Again, a huge assumption is being made by presuming that they did not grow up in a predominantly white, middle classed neighborhood. But the logic behind such a presumption seems sound.

So what are the implications of this video, and what can be learned? First and foremost, the values of a community-minded culture must be applauded. My experiences in South Central Los Angeles brings up the idea that black communities are not the only culture minded communities found in the inner-cities. Centuries ago, Irish communities looked out for one another in a similar manner. Anyone familiar with large cities are also aware of the giant Latino and Asian communities prevalent in localized neighborhoods. Culturally segregated communities exist even in neighborhoods of higher socio-economic status, as I discovered while living near the East Side of Providence Rhode Island. There, one can find Jewish residential communities distinct from Italian neighborhoods (although the physical boundaries between these middle to upper class communities are not as distinct as those separating communities separated by economic standards of living). These cultural communities don’t draw as distinct of a hard between one family and another, and often have boundaries that would be described by mainstream white American culture as loose. Here in mainstream “white” American culture, the attitude of “rugged individualism” has defined us. One of the obvious dangers of this cultural attitude is the resistance that people have to help out a stranger in need. This was a CHILD that was in danger, clearly shouting “This isn’t my father”. She did everything that we teach children to do to prevent their victimization, and yet, it wasn’t enough. Maybe what needs to change is the isolated cultural that we live in.

All of the major theorist of Family Therapy, or Systems, school of thinking are from cultures other than mainstream American culture. When doing therapy, they see the problem as arising from the system that they troubled person lives in. In most cases, the family is the heart of this system, but other influential people are included as well. The client is not seen as an isolated individual who is broken, instead, they are viewed as the result of an ineffective system. Therapeutic change takes place by fixing the system (which is done by changing the way that the members of the family interact).

Depression is rampant throughout our country, and psychopathology worsens as the U.S. ages. Is it possible that our rugged individualism is severing us from the living communities that sustain us? Are we as people being choked off from the life-giving emotional nurturance that communities provide? As the video above suggests, this emotional choking may be affecting us physically, as well. If we exist only to provide for and protect ourselves, then as a country we must slowly be dying.

A quick post to let all the people supporting me know how awesome things are going. I have been meeting regularly with my Dissertation Chair instead of my Coach. This is a good thing, because it means that I am no longer paying for a Coach (holla!). He did his job, and now I’m ready to take the next step on my own.
I have a finalized draft for a couple of sections now, and in doing the work for those sections, I learned a little about myself. If I have two weeks to accomplish a task, I will only actually work the final few days of those two weeks on the task. So why not shorten the time between deadlines? I shared this information with my chair, and she agree that we should pump out as much as I could early on. As a result, I have had two deadlines this week (one of them is tomorrow at 5:00 PM) and have been attacking this thing. Life is great when you’re productive!
Coming up, I am going to need some help. As much as I love statistics, it has been a while since I have had a class. Rather than spending copious amounts of time refreshing myself, I would like to pick the brain of anyone who works in research. I have an idea of what stats I would like to run, but I need some consultation. Badly. Next, I need to find some people with clinical skills. I have a Qualitative component of my study, and I need raters to make judgements about the nature of some writings. In order to do that, I need some people competent in their clinical skills (read: high emotional intelligence) to do some rating. Last of all, I need anyone who has time to sift through the many many blogging networks out there to find therapeutic blogs. A therapeutic blog is any blog where the person is blogging to develop themselves or deal with past issues. Self-help groups are a sure-fire score. I can use people’s help in scouting these things out. I have a methodology for the latter two groups of people to follow, but it’s not too complicated. If you are interested, drop me an email, text, call, Google+ me or Facebook (as a last resort).

Ever since my first study idea was abandoned (see my last entry), I have been confronted with the challenge of finding a new topic to write about. I have mounds and mounds of literature collected about blogs, meaning that it is best to continue with my current subject. I have completed reviewing all of the updated literature that I found, and over the past week have been gradually developing a study question. I’m excited because I think I’ve finally nailed something simple and feasible to work with.

One of the controversies that surrounds using blogs for self-therapy or as a part of structured writing therapy is the risk that putting private information online poses. There is risk to self-esteem and ego, it can damage real-world relationships (or other previously established relationships) because of the potential for rejection or criticism. There are things that we are all embarrassed about, and while sharing them helps us overcome the shame, negative reactions can increase it.

On the other hand, because of the anonymity, the Internet provides the opportunity to be able to disclose this information with leaving little personal to self-esteem. The author’s personal identity and relationships are not at risk, and therefore there is less of barrier when disclosing the most painful secrets.

Comments (systems that allow readers to comment on articles or other posted material, such as Facebook comments or the comments on this blog) unleash the full potential of Internet discourse in that they allow for the validation of disclosure to the masses. When a blogger posts an entry, there is no evidence that anyone read that post. However, feedback from readers solidifies any questions that one might have about the visibility of their disclosure. Reader participation has been sited by many studies as a reinforcing element in the use of blogging for various purposes (e.g. as a teaching tool for graduate students learning Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or for high school writing classes). Reader participation has been key in developing online communities as well. Some of these communities even serve a therapeutic purpose, sharing common experiences of a traumatic event or theme.

When it comes to therapeutic writing, reader feedback (via a Comment system) can encourage bloggers to continue their disclosure and provide encouragement that they are not being judged. A Japanese study has found that negative comments tended to be externalized (i.e. attributed to the reader, e.g. “that guys must have been in a bitter mood to post something so rude on my blog”) and positive comments were internalized (i.e. attributed to the writer, e.g. “That guy was really impressed by what I wrote, I must have done something right”) by the study participants. Such an attitude would only increase the effect that user feedback would have on reinforcing blogging behavior. However, because of cultural differences, those results may not generalize to an American or a world-wide audience. My study will examine real world frequencies of blogging and length of blog entries (as opposed to subjective feedback given on surveys) as an indicator of the reinforcing effect of Comments.

I will examine a great many therapeutic blogs, specifically looking at the comments provided. Positive and negative comments will be coded and counted. The frequency and length of blog postings will be examined over the life of a blog, and statistics will be run to determine any correlation with the frequency of comments. The effect of positive vs. negative feedback will also be examined.

This study will be different from any other study about blogs and therapeutic writing that I have encountered in that it will look at short-lived blogs. Looking at only successful blogs (as all other researchers I have come across have done) fails to acknowledge the experience of the vast majority of bloggers. Past research has shown that there is an incredible amount of ‘blog-churn’ (blogs that die soon after they are started). Some factors are contributing to the author’s decision to stick with their blog or to abandon it. Past research has shown that personality may be one of the factors. Negative emotions are elicited from writing about traumatic events, and in the case of a person blogging for self-therapy, this could be another reason for abandoning the blog. By looking at patterns of blogging participation as evidence of the effects of reader participation, this study will attempt to contribute to the development of an online writing therapy. In other words, I am trying to see if Comments are a helpful part online writing therapy.

There are three major concerns that I have about this proposed idea. The first is that it might not be closely related enough to Clinical Psychology. While I am applying it to blogs that have the intention of providing self-therapy (and thus, bloggers will be disclosing personal information that will be a strong target for negative feedback and criticism), it could just as easily be applied to regular blogs that have nothing to do with therapy. Indeed, if anyone cites the results in the future they would probably be applied to Commenting systems in general. The second problem is that abandoned blogs are difficult to find. Ping Sites post a constant list of updated blogs in real-time as they are made. The front page of Xanga and other similar sites feature recently updated blogs. What these sources do not link to are abandoned blogs. While there are many out there, if they are inactive, there’s no real use for people to find them, and thus no reason to link to them. The final, and most significant flaw to this study is that most, if not all, blog commenting systems give the blogger the ability to delete unwanted comments. If someone received a particularly harmful comment, there is a good chance that they would delete it. This means that there would be no public record of the comment, and thus no way for this study to examine the effect of the negative comment. The only solution that I can think of would be to contact the authors of each and every blog I examine in order to send them a simple survey that would ask if they had ever deleted a comment because it was negative or hurtful, and then what blog entry they deleted it from. If I don’t contact the blog authors, I save myself a ton of paperwork and headache. If I do, I run the risk of having many of them refusing to participate in my study. The quantitative element of this study requires a large number of blogs to be effective. I could do the study and ignore the fact that a lot of harmful comments could have been deleted, but it’s such a critical confound that the study might not get approved.

I didn’t post an update in March, so I will be sure to be more active through April.

In a nutshell: in looking through the new literature that I dug up from the library last month, I concluded that discovering the personality of bloggers is not the natural inquiry that one would make after consuming the information presented. In other words, it doesn’t make sense to test for personality when I really would like to know if blogging makes you mentally healthier. So now the problem is one that I thought I solved years ago when I decided to test for personality: how do you get a measure of psychological health?

Other studies have used participants’ physiological health, although that is not that accurate of a measurement, since it assumes that baseline physiological immune functioning is hindered by psychological concerns. I have thought about using an established Quality of Life assessment tool, but I am not sure what is out there to use that is cheap, easily available, and validated for online use. Another option would be for me to do a qualitative study. The problem here is that I don’t have a lot of experience with qualitative studies, so I am reading some chapters for a book to see if it would do me any good in this situation. The last option is the easiest but cheapest (“cheap” as in a suck-punch thrown in a fight) and do a self-report survey. This will mean that my study won’t hold much merit other than saying “these people think blogging helped them feel better”, which we all know doesn’t mean much. Still, if it will get my dissertation done, then it might be the best thing to do. I am meeting with my coach either this Wednesday or Friday to figure it out.

One of the things that I don’t like about having my own blog is the amount of spam that I used to get. I spent 40 minute chunks at a time cleaning it out. As a result, I ask that anyone wishing to comment (something I highly encourage) either register for a WordPress username or simply log into Facebook, and then allow Facebook to connect with my site.

I understand how much of an inconvenience it is to create a separate user name and then to remember yet another password. Once you have done this, you can even “like” posts! With Facebook Connect, you don’t have to. Just use your Facebook account, and everyone’s life is far simpler. Facebook will attempt to publish stuff to your newsfeed: it you allow this, more people will see my blog. Of course, if they don’t know me, they probably won’t care about my dissertation.