On one's namesake

So, this was an idea that I toyed with throughout the weekend. Can a name construct an individual? For example, one continually hears the phrase "Oh, he looks like a Dave" or "Wow, I you just seem like a Griffin." I am starting to wonder how one's name influences one's personality and demeanor. This isn't only with first names. One's last name carries a lot of power. Being a Kennedy can influence the development of one's sense of being, or one's personality. Therefore, can it not be guessed that the name "John" or "Ashley" influences one's development as well?

"Bring honor to the family name!" and "The (Insert last name here) come from a proud, noble lineage" can certainly fill one's being with a sense of honor or purpose, but what does the first name bring to the construction of the self? I would argue that the first name can determine how a person acts by molding their personality to the person's own expectations on how a David, or a Susan should actually act. They get this impression through indirect societal standards.

For example, one imagines the name of Albert to be a very intelligent name because of it's relation to Albert Einstein. Therefore a person named Albert might try to do well in school to 'live up to' his namesake.

This is just a brain thought of mine. If you wish to critique it, please do.

DSM drama

So, with our discussion of the construction of mental illness, there is a fascinating article by psychology today on the subject of the changes that will be made within the new DSM-5. Since some would argue that mental illness is purely a construction, then these changes are a simple reconstruction of mental illness. If there is more to mental illness than just construction, where mental illness does correspond to some kind of reality, then these changes could be catastrophic.

For example, classifying grief as clinical depression implies that there is something wrong, or bad for grieving. By claiming this, grief for a lost spouse, parent, or child can now be considered a mental illness. This brings up interesting questions on what a normal functional human. Is a normal functional human someone who is always content and happy? Or is a functional human someone who experiences sorrow and crippling despair along with happiness?

By constructing this new definition of depression, the DSM is claiming that experiencing grief is not a proper function of human behavior. What are other's opinions on this?

Constructivist magazine starring our wonderful professor.

So, I am doing a project on constructivistic psychotherapy, and as I was researching this topic, I stumbled upon a magazine devoted to philosophical constructivism. And in one of these journals, they have an article written by our incredibly inspiring professor. He posted an excerpt of this article on his blog, but here one can read the full thing. Now, in order to read it, one needs an account, but one can choose to have a free account. Also, there is a response to our professor's article as well which has some interesting insights, which one should read as well.

Constructions of Mental illness

So, if any of you haven't heard, the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM-5 has finally been finalized! This is the therapists and psychiatrists bible, as it describes the symptoms and proper diagnostic criteria of mental disorders, and the previous DSM-4 was severely flawed. However, it seems that not everybody is that excited about this, as shown here. A lot of criticism has been running around about how the DSM will only benefit the pharmaceutical companies and that it will have no impact on psychologists or therapists in any manner whatsoever. A quote that properly sums up the criticism was released on the blog Mindhacks, where I first heard of the release:

"It’s arcane, contradictory and talks about invisible entities which no-one can really prove. Yes folks, the new psychiatric bible has been finalised." (article can be found here.)

There is a lot of debate in the mental health field about what exactly are mental illnesses. Some argue that mental illness is an objective part of reality, just as real as any other illness such as cancer or the common cold. This is called the medical model. In this model, there is an objective existence of depression, psychosis, and autism. The DSM promotes this model. However, some reject this idea, claiming that mental illness is actually a social construct. Some people argue it in degrees, saying that the way we view normality and abnormality influences what we classify as abnormal, but that some of these people actually do have a mental illness. On the other hand, some people completely reject the idea of mental illness at all. One psychiatrist, by the name of Thomas Szasz wrote a book called 'The Myth of Mental Illness.' It is exactly as it sounds. Szasz argued that mental illness was only a societal construct and that psychiatry was a pseudoscience because of it. Although I disagree with him, he did revolutionize the psychological world with his work and brought into light many flaws with the traditional view of the world.

Szasz would have fought tooth and nail against this new DSM, for it tries to pass off a social construct as an objective reality which only ends up hurting those labeled as abnormal. Although I believe the DSM is flawed and will probably always be flawed, I would not agree with Szasz that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. I would argue that the DSM highlights the typical symptoms shown in people who are unhappy, maladaptive to the environment, or a danger to themselves and others. I would not force such labels on anyone, but I would follow to some extent the advice that such a manual can offer me about how to treat such people.

Language and Thought

So, it is pretty well assumed that our experiences and perceptions influence how we create our language, but could the reverse be so as well? Could our language influence the way we think? For example, Luce Irigaray claims that language is inherently sexist, and we think in language, and how we think influences our perceptions of reality. Therefore, we interpret reality with a sexist bent. Language can therefore be an influence on our perceptions, just as our perceptions can influence how we use language.

It seems to me that there is a dialectic occurring between language and perception. They play off of one another and continually alter and change one another. Reality then is filtered through our construction of language, which then changes our language in itself, which alters our perceptions yet again. It is a vicious cycle.

Emotional Constructs

Quick question. Do we construct our own emotions, or do we discover them? This question pops up in a lot of Constructivistic literature, and it got me thinking. We label certain states that we experience with terms and we call some of these emotions. In other words, we use language to describe certain states of being. Language is a constructed phenomenon, and a single word can mean different things to different people. Because of this, one could imagine someone having a sensation that they call happiness than what you call happiness. Is the other person wrong? Is there only one objective state of happiness and some people just have a certain state misleading?

On the other hand, calling something happiness and experiencing it are completely different. So can someone experience happiness differently rather than just mislabeling it? If happiness to me relaxes me and makes me more relaxed, and happiness to you energizes and invigorates you,  are they both happiness? Are they both the same state of being that we experience in a different way because of how we have constructed the emotion?

Personally, I would claim that emotions are partly constructed and partly discovered. There are states produced within us from an external reality, but we all process these states and react to them in different ways. For example, people experience love completely differently, but it still is produced by the same chemicals in the brain.

These are just some thoughts, however. If you disagree with me please do so.

Science and Aesthetics

   So, pardon for the gigantic picture, but I was skimming around the internet and this quote by the famous scientist Richard Feynman popped up. It got me thinking. We often wonder about the relationship between science and ethics, and whether one can influence the other. However, because of this quote I wonder what the relationship between science and aesthetics may be. Can scientific knowledge deepen or change our concept of beauty? Does science 'deaden' our aesthetic sense, or liven it? Can our aesthetic sense influence how we regard scientific knowledge? Does science let us see more of the inherent beauty in an object, or does it just change our perception of the object? Can we call facts such as "A flower is laced with a deeply intricate and complex cellular structure" beautiful? These are just some questions that have popped into my head that deeply tie these two subjects.

    My gut instinct would to say scientific knowledge influences our perception of beauty based on our meta-scientific beliefs, or our beliefs on how we perceive science. For example, if one finds science boring, then science is likely to destroy the sense of beauty one can perceive in an object. If this were the case, then scientific knowledge wouldn't change our aesthetic sense, it would be our beliefs about such knowledge. However, I am unsure about how to go about explaining things in more detail, because I believe there is more to it than that. If anybody would like to expand upon this, please be my guest.