Yearly Archives: 2013

John M. Grohol, Psy.D, listed the Top 10 Myths About Mental Health at Pychcentral. Despite a lot of community education in the last few years, many of these myths remain firmly planted in the minds and hearts of the general public.

Let’s examine and dispel the myths in order to gain a better understanding of disorders that trouble hundreds of thousands of individuals. Listed below are the first 5 common myths:

1.     Mental health problems are uncommon.
False! The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 1 out of every 5 Americans will have a diagnosable mental disorder within their lifetimes.

2.     Mental health problems are caused by the person suffering from them.
Mental health problems arise from a complex combination of indiviudal, medical, and social factors. Dr. Grohol correctly notes that people must take responsibility for their own thoughts, feelings, and behavior associated with disorders; however, they are not to blame for them. It is essential that people struggling with mental health problems take responsibility, NOT blame. There is a difference.

3.     Mental health problems are purely biological or genetic in nature.
Mental health problems come from many causes, and usually not just one. They are more than bad choices, bad genes, or bad chemical imbalances. Many issues and vulnerabilities work together to create them. That’s why they can’t be solved with just one strategy, like a particular pill, or a certain style of psychotherapy.

4.      Mental health disorders are often life-long and difficult to treat.
Many mental health problems are short term, and can be resolved with recovery-based treatment strategies. In fact, as Dr. Grohol notes, most medications (with a few notable exceptions, such as those prescribed for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia) prescribed for mental disorders should be taken for short-term (under a year) symptom relief.

5.      Psychotherapy takes forever and gets into childhood issues.
We probably have Dr. Freud to thank for this one (he was actually a neurologist, by the way). The system of therapy associated with Dr. Freud and often portrayed in movies and on television is psychoanalysis, which fits this stereotype. Modern psychotherapy approaches do not. Most use a cognitive-behavioral approach which is short-term and solution-focused. Cognitive-behavioral approaches help people identify irrational thinking that leads to illness-creating behavior and emotions. It is often possible to correct irrational thinking in a matter of weeks or a few months.

David J. Wright, MA., MSW
WKPIC Doctoral Intern

Former intern Margarita Lorence sent word about a seminar at Vanderbilt that could be useful to staff and students:

The route to psychosis: what differentiates individuals with psychotic experiences with and without a ‘need-for-care’?

It is increasingly recognized that there is a thread of continuity between health and psychosis. Large-scale surveys have confirmed the high incidence of seemingly benign positive symptoms in the general population, and high ‘schizotypes’ resemble psychotic patients on a number of experimental and epidemiological correlates. However most of the evidence for the psychosis continuum is based on psychometric identification of psychotic-like experiences, which some authors have argued do not capture the true essence of psychosis. This talk will present a range of studies, using different methodologies, of individuals who experience full-blown psychotic experiences but are not in need of care.  The findings broadly support the predictions made by cognitive models of psychosis. Specifically, it will be demonstrated that maladaptive appraisals and response styles are key in differentiating individuals displaying psychotic experiences with and without a ‘need for care’. The implications for the psychological route to psychosis will be discussed.

Thursday, September 19^th, 2013
4:10pm
112 Wilson Hall

For more information, please see the flier at  Continuing Education: Vanderbilt.

Thank you, Margarita!

The National Institute on Drug Abuse  (NIDA) has a lot of resources for students and clinicians wanting to learn more about alcohol and drug abuse. Following our recent intern seminar on assessment of alcohol and drug use, our students requested a resource to help them recognize the names and street names of commonly abused drugs.

NIDA has just such a resource, in their Commonly Abused Drugs Chart and their Prescription Drug Abuse Chart. They also offer a very helpful Health Effects Chart.

Check these resources out. They have both street drugs of abuse and most common prescription drugs of abuse. The charts list street names, ways to use, and whether or not the drug is scheduled.

Nora S. Frank, BA CADC, CSC

In case you need a little something to tip your mood scale towards the side of happiness today, read on! The Facial Feedback Hypothesis suggests that you may have the ability to give yourself a little boost in mood–and it would only take a moment out of your busy day.  Robert Zajonc, Ph.D., former professor, Director of the Institute for Social Research, and Director for the Research Center of Group Dynamics at University of Michigan and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University, believed that people could manipulate mood through a change in facial expression. Simply put: when we smile we become happier and when we frown we become sadder.

Dr. Zajonc explained that smiling causes facial muscles to stretch and tighten leading to a decrease in blood flow to the internal carotid artery, which is the route taken by much of the blood traveling to the brain.  The idea is that as blood flow decreases, so does brain temperature, which is believed to bring about more positive mood.  In contrast, as the muscles involved in frowning are tightened, the blood flow to the brain increases, increasing the temperature and, therefore, spurring a more negative mood.

Zajonc, R. B., Murphy, S. T. & Inglehart, M. (1989). Feeling and facial efference: Implications for the vascular theory of emotion Psychological Review, 96(3), 395-416.

Cassandra A. Sturycz, B.A.
Psychology Practicum Student