Social Psychology - Key Questions
Why do we need others?
Our parents, who nourished and raised us, are others. Our friends, who we spend time with, entertain, and give and receive affection, are others. We have acceptance and stimulation and protection in others.
What do you find most frustrating in your dealing with others?
I find the fact that I cannot convey my thoughts clearly to others the most frustrating. Even though we share the same language, the same statement can be interpreted in entirely different ways, and finding the right way to put my feelings and opinions is no walk in the park either. It is so easy to misunderstand and be misuderstood.
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
1) Identify the various dysfunctional behaviors depicted in the film
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest depicts a mental ward and it’s inhabitants’ lives during McMurphy’s stay there. As can be expected in a mental ward, various patients exhibited odd or dysfunctional behaviors. The most obvious were the man who compulsively danced around in a circle continuously and the man who kept making mopping motions. Billy’s self-mutilation and suicide (as well as his past attempts at suicide) were also significantly dysfunctional behaviors. There was also a catatonic man who never moved. The chief’s social withdrawal, pretending to be deaf and dumb, is another example of dysfunctional behavior, brought about by fear of the world. More minor dysfunctional behaviors would perhaps include Taber’s belligerent attitude and Harding’s obsession over the possibility that his wife had been cheating on him.
2) What treatments do patients receive?
The mental institution in the film utilized various therapies. Chemotherapy was regularly administered at medication time. Group therapy also seemed to take place everyday, with Nurse Ratchet asking questions and attempting to get patients to talk about their problems. A few one-on-one sessions with a doctor and McMurphy were depicted, as well as on where several doctors interviewed him at once. Other treatments included restraints, ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), and a lobotomy,
3) What purposes do these treatments serve?
Chemotherapy perhaps serves to relieve certain symptoms or mood disorders, or even simply to bring about the placebo effect. Group therapy should have been a way for patients to reflect on themselves and their problems, as well as let other patients sympathize. (In the film, however, group therapy is a way for Nurse Ratchet to retain control over the patients.) The one-on-one sessions should have given the doctor personal insight into the patients’ condition, and the sessions of several psychologists interviewing one patient probably ensured a broader scope of opinions regarding the patients’ condition. The restraints perhaps served to keep patients from hurting themselves by wandering around at night. ECT is effective in treating depression, but in the movie it was used to calm down overly excited patients and as a punishment. The lobotomy in this film, the removal of parts of McMurphy’s brain tissue, served to stop him from challenging and disrupting the institution of the mental hospital.
4) Why is routine, order, schedules and rituals so important to the running of mental institutions?
These are all important to the institution for two major reasons. The first is the stability of the patients. The men in the ward mostly have some kind of problem, and the predictable routine of life in the mental institution supplies them with a certain sense of security, reducing anxiety. The second is control. The routine and order of the institution ensures that the patients conform and follow the rules, and enforce the authority of those who impose these routines.
5) Who are the victims of institutionalization?The patients are victims of institutionalization. They become conformed to the routine of the ward, and become further unable to face the world outside. None of the nurses or the doctors actually seem to want patients to get any better (as displayed in Nurse Ratchet’s deliberate destruction of Billy’s self-esteem) – they just want to keep control over them. Also, their position in the hospital as patients means that all their actions are seen through colored lenses; their actions are all interpreted in terms of mental illness, even though they seem no odder than many other people outside of mental institutions. (In McMurphy’s words: ‘As near as I can tell you’re not any crazier than the average asshole out in the street.’)
6) What is the film saying about madness and mental institutions?
That madness is not an absolute label and that perhaps the institution which labels people as ‘mad’ and treats them as subhuman is more insane than the patients in it.
7) If you were to reform the mental health services depicted in the film, what would you change? Justify your reforms.
The patients in the film received little personal attention from doctors and nurses. I would require doctors to spend more time with patients in order to get a more accurate assessment of their conditions. I would also train nurses and other personnel to treat patients as human – the nurses in the film, apart from Nurse Ratchet, were almost frightened of the patients. Treating patients as dangerous animals is not likely to help their recovery or raise their morale. Lastly, I would allow a flexible schedule according patients the responsibility of managing their own time. This would give patients a sense of control over their situations while still maintaining stability. It would also adjust them to responsibility and prepare them for life outside the ward.
My First Impressions on Psychotherapies
For now, the behavioral approach to therapy seems the most effective to me. Psychotherapy is too ambiguous and and time consuming, the humanist approach of concerned listening doesn't seem like therapy at all, and as for cognitive therapy - if rational thinking was the key to curing psychological disorders, then people with panic disorders, anorexia nervosa, depression etc who are aware of their conditions should not have these disorders at all. On a personal level, I don't react very well to anger, becoming sullen and resentful, so I don't think the cognitive method of directly challenging the patient would suit me very well. However, given the recovery rate of patients treated according to the cognitive perspective, perhaps there are other aspects I have yet to learn about which would make the cognitive approach the best.From the little information I have acquired now though, I would prefer the behavioral method, with it's visible, concrete results. I do have to admit that the behavioral approach seems to do little for disorders with few outward symptoms, however.
Unit 12 Abnormal Psychology
Studying the Psychopathology unit, it was interesting to note the diversity of psychological disorders, and that most did not fit the conventional image of how a 'crazy' person would be. Schizophrenia was perhaps the most dramatic and least comprehensible of the disorders. Schizophrenics, along with those who displayed psychotic symptoms, were the most disturbing because their normal behavior and reactions were so alien to my experience.
It was also interesting to note that most people with disorders are aware of their condition and yet unable to do anything about them. Psychological disorders are much more complex than most people might think. Because such disorders are of the mind, you would think that knowledge of them would relieve the symptoms, but the brain simply does not work that way. There are many different levels on which we function, not a neat division between brain and body.
