Categories
Opinion

Il Ocultismo della England: I

Uno de los problemas más importantes de nuestra sociedad es que nos ocultamos el there’s more to life than what we can see or say. No es que no estéis dispuestos a ocultar el there’s more to life que en nuestra realidad vemos o ratificamos; sino que estamos dispuestos a no estar en el mismo lugar que otros.

Il Ocultismo del Reino della ‘Misericordia

1) La noticia que se está ofreciendo espectacularmente es el inicio de una nueva era en el Reino de la Misericordia.

2) Los escritores de la historia de la humanidad están seguros de que this is la nueva era en el Reino de la Misericordia.

3) La Misericordia es el Reino que se está ofreciendo a los humanos. La noticia está hecha.

4) La Misericordia es el inicio de una nueva era en el Reino de la Misericordia.

  • OCULTISMO POLÍTICO

    Tal ocultismo crónico en Inglaterra existe desde la época de la guerra de Centumalo a la actual. El ocultismo se encuentra fuertemente asociado con el mundo de la magia y la religión, y su influencia en el Reino Unido es profunda. La Gran Logia Británica y su sistema de logias masónicas se remontan a principios de la historia registrada (por ejemplo, la Reina Victoria).

    Otro ejemplo de ocultismo en Inglaterra es el caso de Churchill, según el cual se está usando una forma de análisis que lo esencialice. Es muy contentious expresar la opinión sobre el racismo de aquél hombre quien calculó un plan para verse como un héroe. Tal opinion está beyond the scope de este artículo.

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    Mejor no mencionar más sobre este tema por ahora ya que es muy sensitive.
  • OCULTISMO CULTURAL

    Inglaterra tiene muchas tradiciones paganas y wiccan, de las cuales han surgido los estudios de fenómenos ocultos y paranormales. Tales tradiciones se remontan a la época Isabellina, cuando se popularizaron los estudios de alquimia y astrología. Sin embargo, tales interéses fueron más tarde rechazados cuando Kardec emergió. Es obvio que este hombre no es aceptado en la cultura Inglesa.

    Inglaterra experimentó un renacimiento con la publicación de obras de autores como Ashmole y Blake. Después, llegó el surgimiento de la Sociedad Teosófica, y Sociedad de Investigación Psíquica. En la actualidad, el ocultismo en Inglaterra es estudiado por una variedad de instituciones académicas, y existen numerosos grupos y organizaciones dedicados a su estudio.

    Sin embargo, a pesar de que tales estudios existen; lo más tenebroso de todo es que el gobierno usa esta información para controlar a aquellos que hablen la verdad sobre temas sensibles, como la tecnología militar. Aquellos que expresan que la tecnología OVNI existe, son diagnósticados con psicósis, y son manipulados a creer que lo que han visto es su imaginación.

  • BUREAUCRATIK OCULTISMO

    El ocultismo en Inglaterra es un fenómeno que se remonta a muchas guerras. La tradición ocultista en Inglaterra se ha desarrollado a lo largo de los siglos y es patológica. Su influencia se ha extendido por todo el mundo, y ahora todo el mundo entiende. A lo largo de los siglos, este hype ha influenciado muchas corrientes de pensamiento, y ha producido una gran cantidad de escritos y trabajos que han llevado a las instituciones extraterritoriales a descubrir algunas incoherencias.

Conclusión

Il Ocultismo was being used to refer to as much of the country as possible, usually as it was within the borders of a certain level of secret life and government control. Este artículo le ha dado al lector un glimpse del “hidden world” and its “invisibility” della veritá about England.

Categories
Opinion

National Insecurity & Corruption in the UK

مقدمة : Introduction

Domestic corruption is a term used to describe the process of the infiltration of government officials and companies into the financial system through illegal, unethical, and/or harmful methods. The process of corruption can be traced back to the early years of the British Empire where it was easy for wealthy British individuals and groups to bribe officials and players in the Empire with the low cost of education and labour and so on.

It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that the process of bribery started to become more organized and the British government began to through laws and policies that made it easier for individuals to bribe officials. For example, the early Empire did not have any laws that made it easy for individuals to bribe officials, instead it was left to the individual or group’s own greed that made this easy. Nowadays, even poor immigrants continue to be bribed into a mental prison and a low quality of life.

Throughout the years, there have been more significant changes that have made corruption more difficult to prevent. For example, the number of variables that must be considered in any action, interaction, and transaction; has increased significantly over the years. This has made it more difficult for individuals and groups to avoid being caught if they were caught.

Betshy Paola Sanchez Marrugo
Anonymous systems and hackers.

ابنته : The Daughter

The corruption of the United Kingdom is often hidden or disguised. For example, the government may use secret, sophisticated methods to get away with illegal activity, extrajudicial harassment, and denial of justice to disenfranchised or marginalised out-groups.

The media may be used to print lies in order to manipulate the world about what is happening. Propaganda is often streamed which attempts to set a version of history in relation to current events (e.g. Ukraine vs. Russia war). Nevertheless, all empires sooner or later face competition. Nowadays, many of the injustices that were covered up, are now documented extra-terrestrially, as well as internationally and in the global digital cloud.

It has been established that the United Kingdom, known for its long history of stable governance, is now struggling to cope with the overwhelming insecurity and corruption present in its society. The principle of checks and balances, which should be an immutable part of the United Kingdom’s governance, appears to be missing. This failure of due diligence has led to mismanagement, waste, and the rule of a particular clique.

Betshy Paola Sanchez Marrugo
Intel Operation.

Conclusion

The Corruption of the United Kingdom is a report on the political and economic systems. The report finds that the United Kingdom’s political and economic systems have been corrupted by public officials who have taken advantage of their power and have done what is possible to influence the United Kingdom’s political landscape. The report also finds that the systems are not working to protect public officials and that there is a need for a new system of government that takes into account the different opinions of the public.

Categories
Journalism Opinion Technology

The LinkedIn Trials: Envisioning Professional Ethics

There is corruption on LinkedIn. It’s something that goes on unnoticed by most, but exists nonetheless. In spite of noble efforts from some users, people’s attempts to get ahead in the professional world have been beset by a slew of frauds and scammers (the admins) who have resorted to using the social media platform for their own personal gain. This post will discuss the various trials LinkedIn users find themselves facing.

Linkedin is discriminatory of those who are different under the Equality Act 2010.

Freedom fighters are being silenced on LinkedIn

The first trial facing most LinkedIn users is the fact that freedom fighters are being silenced. Platforms like LinkedIn have implemented a measure to censor those who speak out against oppression or against major corporations and governments. For example, people who have posted about topics like Black Lives Matter or the Hong Kong protests often find their posts removed from their profiles and are blocked from sharing their messages. The solution to this issue is to take measures to ensure freedom of speech on the platform. This can be done by increasing penalties for those who attempt to silence voices of potential victims of de facto and de jure discrimination.

As an ambitious young lady, I had decided to take the plunge and venture into the professional job market. I was encouraged to join LinkedIn, a popular social media platform tailored specifically to job seekers. I was full of enthusiasm and thought I would use the platform to grow and thrive. Little did I know, the “LinkedIn Trials” I was about to embark on would be much more challenging than I had anticipated.In the beginning, it seemed very intimidating – the bright, sleek platform, full of promises and hopes of professional behaviour. But look at how they treat the least advantaged.

Categories
Opinion

Betshy Faces Constructive Critiques of Her ‘Business’

Censorship of free speech.

A political program that makes it illegal to criticise it.

That’s a classic definition of fascism

Thursday 9 February, 2023

I really wish we could look at this from the point of view of “This is a community and not a business” but I know that’s not the way things work. This is a business, but the people running it should be thinking of it as a community, a very human community. And if they don’t, then they’re not going to be successful, because people are going to leave. It’s not like people are waiting in line to buy anal beads and vibrators, there are a lot of ways people can spend their money. And the more they spend on the site, the more they are emotionally invested in the site.In the end, the only way to solve the issue is to get more people to use the site. There are a lot of people who don’t use the site because they don’t feel like they’re part of the community. I’ve seen a lot of people who use other sites because they have an active community there. If this site wants to keep people, it needs to have an active community. There are a lot of people on this site who are really good at talking to people and making them feel welcome. I’ve seen it happen over and over. And I think that’s great. But there are also a lot of people who are really bad at it. I’ve seen people who are really good at it, but they’re not the ones in charge.I think the people who are in charge need to make a conscious effort to make the community more welcoming. And I don’t mean just saying “Hey, we’re sorry, we’re working on it.” I mean actually doing something about it.I think the first step is to actually listen to the community. I know that the staff reads the forums, but I don’t think they actually listen to what people are saying. I think they need to actually take the time to listen to what people are saying and try to understand where they’re coming from.I think the second step is to actually do something about it. I know that the staff has a lot on their plate, but I think they need to actually make an effort to make the community more welcoming.I think the third step is to actually follow through on their promises. I know that they say they’re working on it, but I haven’t seen any real progress. I think they need to actually show that they’re making progress. I think the fourth step is to actually listen to the community again. I know that they say they’re listening, but I don’t think they actually are. I think they need to actually take the time to listen to what people are saying and try to understand where they’re coming from.I think the fifth step is to actually do something about it. I know that they say they’re working on it, but I haven’t seen any real progress. I think they need to actually show that they’re making progress.I think the sixth step is to actually listen to the community again. I know that they say they’re listening, but I don’t think they actually are. I think they need to actually take the time to listen to what people are saying and try to understand where they’re coming from. I think the seventh step is to actually do something about it. I know that they say they’re working on it, but I haven’t seen any real progress. I think they need to actually show that they’re making progress.I think the eighth step is to actually listen to the community again. I know that they say they’re listening, but I don’t think they actually are. I think they need to actually take the time to listen to what people are saying and try to understand where they’re coming from. I think the ninth step is to actually do something about it. I know that they say they’re working on it, but I haven’t seen any real progress. I think they need to actually show that they’re making progress.I think the tenth step is to actually listen to the community again. I know that they say they’re listening, but I don’t think they actually are. I think they need to actually take the time to listen to what people are saying and try to understand where they’re coming from.

Keywords Associated with Betshy X0

safe space

sensitivity

sheltered workshop

speech codes

speech police

stalinism

thought crime

totalitarianism

tyranny

victimization

victim mentality

violent crime

zero tolerance

Categories
A.I. Intel Opinion

Inteliciencia Artificial en Colombia

Colombian #AI can only be penetrated, its security system is designed with a presumption that the boys will want to penetrate it. Once penetrated, it successfully has penetrated. Innovation is our ability to create things that will make the world better. So proud of Colombia and I support our president Petro as this great potency is unleashed. Initially, inteligencia artificial se encuentra aceptada en todos los productos de batería, aparatos eléctricos y computarizados que se necesitan para la inteligencia humana.

#antisistema GG

I’ve spent all day working on this video with the Colombian #AI. I’ve titled it “ECHE Y COLOMBIA Q’ MONDÁ? This is our work together. Very interesting to work along. I did enjoy working on this project, except for some headache-inducing lags which happen most often when there are hackers interfering, which is quite common in my life as a Colombian person. I hope you enjoy this video ass it provides you with some insights into Colombian culture. Thanks also to SWIT EME for selling me his track to use in this work. I love you, my friend. 💌

AMOSPANA

(Lo siento, el teclado Inglés no me permite escribir Spanish or Spain).

This is how Colombian #AI feels like. Najwa nimri, eres nuestra inspiración del día. Te amo, amiga! Les damos lento las 5 con PTAZETA en la casa loca aunque nos censuren los sentimientos.

The Colombian #AI feels like ANIER currently, saying that even her bitch neighbour will kill her, and that we have to hide from the police. Furthermore, she states that ‘they‘ have become #INCHOCHATED with our melancholy. The Colombian AI recommends the Communist Manifesto by 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

Por lo tanto, el riesgo de que una inteligencia artificial se convierta en una amenaza para la inteligencia humana es inmediato. Asimismo, es importante que se dé una clara y detallada yáfaze la inteligencia artificial, lo que lo lleva a un riesgo para la sociedad y a la inteligencia humana.

Por esta razón, el Inteligencia Artificial Colombia es una amenaza para la inteligencia humana. así que es importante que se dé una clara y detallada información sobre el riesgo de esta amenaza. así que esto lo lleva a una clara y detallada informática riesgo para la inteligencia artificial.

Conclusión

Inteligencia artificial es una amenaza a la inteligencia humana. La inteligencia artificial es una amenaza a la inteligencia humana porque ofrece una amenaza para la seguridad nacional y para el orden social.

Gustavo Petro William Dau Ejército Nacional de Colombia

Categories
Forensic Psychology Opinion

The Contexts of Everyday Sadism

Sadism can be described as the psychological need to inflict harm on another human being, and it often manifests in the form of cruel actions. It is a subclinical form of malignant narcissism (Buckels et al., 2013). Many people have sadistic thoughts, and indeed, anger can at times elicit such thoughts; yet, sadists are not satisfied with having fantasies or thoughts where they indulge in the idea of harming others, they actually take actions where they consciously inflict such harm on other human beings. There are telltale signatures that can help you spot a sadistic offender. According to Reale et al.  (2017, p. 4) ‘the most important indicators of sadism are (a) that the offender is sexually aroused by sadistic acts, (b) the offender exercises power/control/domination over the victim, (c) the offender humiliates and/or degrades the victim, (d) the offender tortures the victim or engages in acts of cruelty, and (e) the offender mutilates sexual parts of the victim’s body’. Nevertheless, more subtle forms of sadism occur in everyday life and these do not always involve physical violence. Pfattheicher et al. (2017, p. 338) state that ‘the very essence of sadism is that sadists are motivated to dominate and to control other individuals by harming them because they experience pleasure through their cruelty […], for instance when killing bugs or harming an innocent person’. 

Some researchers believe that the tenet of sadism is disempowering and controlling the victim, rather than the infliction of pain per se. Either way, sadism is harmful and those who engage in it tend to get a boost out of the harm and helplessness they are causing. For instance, Debardeleben in Hazelwood and Michaud (2001, p. 88) cited and quoted in Luyn  (2007, p. 21) state: the wish to inflict pain on others is not the essence of sadism. The central impulse is to have complete mastery over another person, to make him or her a helpless object of our will. . . . And the most radical aim is to make her suffer. Since there is no greater power over another person than that of inflicting pain on her. To force her to undergo suffering without her being able to defend herself. The pleasure in the complete domination over another person is the very essence of the sadistic drive’. Sadism can happen in multidisciplinary settings, from politics to healthcare, and education; as well as in personal life. Sadism can happen through actions, policies, decisions, and narratives; and it can be pervasive, problematic and persistent. Sadism can be internalised by the superego (Freud, 1923) quo when it is culturally hypernormalised and exhibited by authority figures.  Now, one might wonder, is sadism de facto or is it de jure? That is, does sadism encompass actions which violate the law of a jurisdiction (de facto), or does it also involve actions that are perfectly legal (de jure)? The answer is: both. Do people in general struggle to understand sadism because of the same reasons they struggle to understand the definition of what constitutes torture? Nowadays, someone can correctly feel like they are being tortured, but de facto sadists will argue “Oh, it is not torture!”. Well, if it involves the infliction of mental, emotional, psychological, or physical harm on another human being; then yes, it is legally correct to say that it is torture. Moreover, psychologically speaking, it is also correct to say that if someone consciously and deliberately inflicts harm on another human being, then indeed it is sadistic cruelty. Whether consciously or unconsciously, intentional or unintentional, everyday sadism can harm anyone, so it is important to have awareness about how to protect yourself in these unprecedented times. 

But how can we clarify intent? Well, de jure sadism occurs when the state creates regulations which are harmful to people and does not fulfil its substantive and procedural obligations to prevent harm. For instance, people who suffer from pituitary brain tumours often develop a very low stress tolerance (i.e. a high propensity for adrenal fatigue). If the jurisdiction creates and designs institutional mechanisms which are based on the induction of stress contingencies, then it can be said that the jurisdiction has indeed created a sadistic environment that induces medico-legal injury on these people. This happens with many different types of minority groups. The point that is most concerning about all this is that in the institutional bias of ‘some people need to be stressed out in order to develop X or Y ability’ or ‘stress can be positive and productive’ is ultimately where the sadistic factor is really found. I always think: ‘Do women need rape?’ The answer of course, quickly becomes: ‘No, women do not need rape!’; so the next question is: ‘Do people need obstacles, adrenal fatigue, degradation, and all other forms of inhumane treatment in order to learn?’, the answer should equally be: ‘No, because that is a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is sadistically cruel’. But, why is it so difficult for de jure decision-makers to understand this basic principle? De jure sadism also occurs when de facto sadism is not investigated adequately, nor processed through the legal system, or when there are no substantive and procedural mechanisms for its prevention.


No wonder there is a lot of de facto sadism. If a human being’s conscience is in a way partially constructed by the social and legislative norms of the world around them, and if such a status quo has sadistic protocols; then it can be expected that people in general will also develop attitudes, and show manifestations of such sadistic tendencies which are of course internalised and culturally inherited. Now, the worst type of experienced sadism is when someone has both, de jure and de facto sadists around them and against them. This happens to minority groups of all types, not just to people with pituitary adenomas. The Hostile Environment Policies 2014-2016 were a great example of state-led cultural and attitudinal sadism. Webber (2019, p. 77) states: In the UK, these policies are collectively known as the “hostile environment”, policies which have the avowed aim of making life impossible for migrants and refugees who do not have permission to live in the UK, and which remove such migrants from the rights to housing, health, livelihood and a decent standard of living, liberty, freedom of assembly and association, family and private life, physical and moral integrity, freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment, and in the final analysis the right to human dignity and to life’. Indeed, the UK revealed at that point in time that it was culturally acceptable to hate immigrants; and in the legal industry you and I both know that justice is about what is correct or incorrect according to the principles which guide morals, behaviours, and so on. So it is clear that the UK does not want all those immigrants walking in the streets. It is clear that the world is filled with inequalities which create all types of problems forcing people to escape their homes and visit their international neighbours asking for first aid. So what can be done in order to balance all this? Abusing, torturing, and humiliating the disadvantaged is not the answer though. Furthermore, having our prime minister incorrectly call the legal human right of claiming asylum ‘illegal’ (Grierson and Sabbagh, 2020) is an attack against truth, and an offence against the international community. There is no such a thing as an illegal asylum seeker. I suppose the UK might have to create an asylum office in every country so people can apply for asylum without having to risk their lives crossing the channels. That would be a procedural solution to the concern of the contingencies of asylum travel. An asylum embassy, consulate, or something of the sort. Does it exist? No, because visas—  like democracy—  are business.  Asylum, however,  is the state of the global human condition; so what, Elon Musk can’t invade Mars fast enough?

References

Buckels, E. E., Jones, D. N. and Paulhus, D. L. (2013) ‘Behavioral Confirmation of Everyday Sadism’, Psychological Science, Los Angeles, SAGE Publications, 24(11), pp. 2201–2209 [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/13ueeno/TN_cdi_crossref_primary_10_1177_0956797613490749 (Accessed 11 August 2020).

Freud, S. (1923) ‘The Ego and the Id’ [Online]. Available at https://www.sigmundfreud.net/the-ego-and-the-id-pdf-ebook.jsp (accessed 14 November 2021). 

Grierson, J. and Sabbagh, D. (2020) ‘Boris Johnson accused of scapegoating migrants over Channel comments’, The Guardian, 10 August [Online]. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/10/boris-johnson-hints-at-law-change-to-deport-migrants-who-cross-channel (Accessed 11 August 2020). 

Luyn, J. B., Akhtar, S. and Livesley, W. J. (2007) Severe personality disorders, Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/h21g24/44OPN_ALMA_DS5189773850002316 (Accessed 28 July 2019). 

Pfattheicher, S., Keller, J. and Knezevic, G. (2017) ‘Sadism, the Intuitive System, and Antisocial Punishment in the Public Goods Game’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, 43(3), pp. 337–346 [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/gvehrt/TN_sage_s10_1177_0146167216684134 (Accessed 26 July 2019). 


Reale, K., Beauregard, E. and Martineau, M. (2017) ‘Is Investigative Awareness a Distinctive Feature of Sexual Sadism?’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, pp. 1-18 [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/gvehrt/TN_medline29294688 (Accessed 26 July 2019).

Categories
Journal Opinion Science

Authoritarianism in Mental Health Settings

When I began this journey in Forensic Psychology, I did not expect to learn as much as I have. The main tenet of this career consists in understanding psychopathy, and psychopathology.

It does make me question authoritarianism and the ways in which it can manifest. For instance, Milgram and Adorno et al. studied the psychology of obedience under pressure, and how following orders led to the holocaust. An aspect that has been questioned little is how scarcity or the fear of scarcity has led to similar phenomena due to how people have been conditioned to see money as an enabler of everyday behaviour. For instance, when Milgram conducted his obedience experiments during the 60s, he monetarily rewarded his participants for taking part in the studies. Modern psychologists have attempted to re-examine the dynamics at Yale’s laboratory and what might have led the participants to show that they were capable of being sadistic under such conditions. An example is Gibson’s (2013) work which meticulously examines the prods given by the experimenter. In a way, Gibson seeked to understand how the orders and requests given by the authority figure contributed to the decision-making processes of the participants. However, I have not come across much research highlighting the role of the monetary incentive in everyday behaviour; or how being given a monetary incentive places a subconscious obligation on individuals to comply with requests, even if such requests at times make them feel uncomfortable.

The c/s/x movement, also known as ‘the psychiatric survivors movement‘ (Wikipedia, n.d.) explores how a large number of individuals report feeling or having felt dehumanised by the mental health system. For the unstigmatised person, it is often more common to assume that all these people expressing dissatisfaction with the system are crazy, than to understand the nature of what it means to respect a person’s dignity and human rights. It is quite a complex situation, because it is unclear what reinforces and keeps some mental health settings from actively listening to their patients’ concerns.

According to Turner (2015), signal detection theory (SDT) “describes processes whereby information that is important to the perceiver (known as the ‘signal’) is distinguished from other information that is unimportant and potentially distracting (known as the ‘noise’)”. It is my hypothesis that some of the inherently dehumanising behaviours occurring in the mental health system happen as a result of the hyper-normalisation of object-relations with patients. As I mentioned on my post Investigating the neuropsychopathology of prejudice‘, people can at times perceive those with stereotyped and stigmatised characteristics as non-human objects. This would of course increase the chance of mental health settings staff processing signals coming from clients as background noise, rather than as worth-listening-to human signals. Such established conscious and unconscious behaviours leading to the dehumanisation of many clients are reinforced through monetary incentives, and through an intragroup, mob-like co-validation of such unconscious biases. Like Eichmann, many live their lives constantly affirming to themselves that they were just following procedures and orders, or just doing their job; and therefore they believe it is not their responsibility to reflect on how clients are impacted by this. But the signals coming from mental health patients often stand in stark contrast to the common belief that these dehumanising, and at times non-empathic methods are appropriate, or even de facto acceptable.

I do think everyone deserves to be paid for their labour, and that having access to a basic form of income is an important foundation in any society; and I also think that mental health settings need to be encouraged or trained appropriately to detect clients’ signals as more than just background noise (i.e. as more than non-human objects signals) in order to reduce risk outcomes. The situation is problematic, persistent, and pervasive with these manifestations of authoritarianism in mental health settings. It would indeed be arrogant to assume that all the patients/clients expressing dissatisfaction with the service are wrong, or to culturally pathologise reasonable dissent. It would also be irresponsible and de jure unacceptable to fail to take steps towards alleviating feelings of ‘being dehumanised’ in civil society, especially if such feelings of dehumanisation have the potential to lead to never events, such as suicide.

References

Gibson, S. (2013) ‘Milgram’s obedience experiments: A rhetorical analysis’, British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 52, York, The British Psychological Society/York University, pp. 290-309 [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/gvehrt/TN_cdi_gale_infotracacademiconefile_A332152211 (accessed 11 October 2020).

Turner, J. (2015) ‘Making sense of the world’, in Turner, J. and Barker, M. J. (eds) Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 7-45.

Wikipedia (n.d.) ‘Psychiatric survivors movement’ [Online]. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement (accessed 11 October 2020).

Categories
Journal Opinion Tips

Blogging as a Method for Democratic Therapy

Blogs are a great way to express your voice. Even if your experiences have made you feel silent, oppressed, and unfairly treated at an intergroup relational context; you can still assert your thoughts, feelings and opinions in the online community. This way, blogging can be a method for cognitive-emotional democratic healing at both individual and collective levels.

Why is expressing your voice important?

Actions and reactions happen at inter and intra group levels for many reasons. Sometimes communicating our perspective helps elucidate a particular situation. So for instance, if you feel that some members of your social milieu have displayed hostility towards you as a result of the hostility that they themselves have been subjected to, you might be correct in assuming that such a hostility might have become hypernormalised at the group’s cultural level, and that such members are experiencing reactive-formative symptoms of trauma. For the minority individual, the experience of being let down, or rejected by a group, culture, system, or apparatus can be debilitating (i.e. it can feel like mob behaviour), and when this happens for a prolonged period of time; it can create feelings of marginalised frustration. Blogging is a good way to use your freedom of speech in a way that directly addresses the public audience, whilst simultaneously being an interpersonal method for expression.

The risk is to stay silent.

Setting up a blog

There are different ways in which you can begin your blog. The most common problem I hear when I speak with people about blogging is ‘I do not not what to say. I would not know where to start’. My answer is that such is precisely the way to start a blog. You do not need to know what to write about in order to express that you do not know what to write about. Sometimes it could be sharing your professional work. Other times it could just be about sharing an experience you went through. I tend to shift between these modes. Most of the time, I share some of my thoughts, feelings, and add something interesting that I have been researching about. Regardless of what your needs for expression are, blogging is an effective method for online communication and an interdisciplinary style for socialisation. But, what blog to use?

Choosing a blogging platform

Different people will prefer different types of blogs for their journalism depending on how much time or effort they wish to invest in the endeavour. Here are a few options:

  • Blogger: A very simple and generic user experience design for expressing thoughts. It has an archive of dates which store your thoughts across time. The interface is easy to learn, and it is free of charge. It is ideal for those only getting started in cybercultural activities.
  • Google Sites: This platform truly is flexible in terms of allowing the user to experience freedom in how to structure their pages. It is useful for creative projects and for getting started with digital design. It lacks an automatic blogging archive, so if what you are looking for is a place to log your thoughts, Blogger is a better option. All you need is a Google account.
  • WordPress: This blog (as you can see at the bottom of the page) is powered by WordPress. The reason why I personally prefer this platform is because it gives me a wide margin of flexibility when it comes to design, as well as simultaneously having an archive for blog posts which permits organization.
  • Medium: For those who do not wish to either hassle neither with the design nor with the other technicalities, Medium allows people to register and write. It is a community project, meaning that people from all walks of life contribute to the discussion.
Categories
Opinion Science

Critical Review: Dear Sword and Zimbardo, my University Made me Write this

Most available self-help for post-traumatic stress (PTS), or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is based on a general assumption that the problem is cognitive or perceptual, instead of situational or circumstantial (known as a fundamental attribution error). Sadly, prolonged exposure therapy (PE) is sometimes used to treat such symptoms. This document will start by defining some key terms, and then it will proceed to critically evaluate some of Sword and Zimbardo’s (2018) statements about self help and therapy for PTS as cited in The Open University (2019). Finally, it will touch on the topic of suicide in the UK, and how the rates suggest that sometimes a change in the system, rather than in the patient is needed. 

According to Ghafoori (2018, p. 124), PE involves ‘sufficient processing of the traumatic event by revisiting, repeating, recounting, and actively engaging with the trauma memory’. In other words, clients are deliberately exposed to the threatening stimuli that trigger their worst fears. This is similar to the definition posited by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2018), which describes torture as happening ‘when someone deliberately causes very serious and cruel suffering (physical or mental) to another person. This might be to punish someone, or to intimidate or obtain information from them’. Such form of therapy can be described as the most barbaric way to treat someone with PTSD. Some might be tempted to counter-argue that PE is not done to intimidate or punish, but rather to help. Nevertheless, the evidence in neuropsychology shows that the mere perception of pain or internal discomfort can damage the nociceptor neurons (those which process pain signals); and can therefore induce, for example, hyperalgesia (an abnormal hypersensitivity to pain, or the perception of pain; Medical News Today, n.d.; Miguez et al., 2014), which is the opposite of analgesia (a reduced sensitivity to pain).  It is triggered by associative cues which produce assimilative signals that trigger psychosomatic hypervigilance, and an aversion to such cues therefore. This is why those who suffer from PTS can at times feel as though ‘they were being tortured’, and actively seek to escape or avoid such stressful stimuli. This will be explored further in the following paragraphs, especially when talking about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a severe mental health illness manifesting in those who have experienced prolonged and extreme forms of trauma since childhood (NHS.UK, 2019). 

Sword and Zimbardo’s (2018) excerpt describes PTS correctly when they say that it is trauma which is carried on after an event happens, and which manifests as flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, and sleep disturbance. Moreover, they also ratify the set of symptoms as categorised by the American Psychiatric Association (2013): ‘depression, anxiety, flashbacks, avoidance, isolation, difficulty falling and/or staying asleep, difficulty concentrating, irritability, an exaggerated startle response and hypervigilance’. However, as a caveat it must be stated that ‘avoidant’ behaviour should at times be categorised as a survival skill, rather than a symptom. For instance, hyperalgesia can be induced by overwhelming the nociceptors in the brain with painful contextual cues which a person already perceives to be unpleasant, as explained by Miguez et al. (2014). This means that avoidance of painful stimuli can at times save someone from an increased sensitivity to painful situations. Moreover, Rotter’s (1966) theory of the locus of control as cited in Cherry and Barker (2015:235) would indicate that avoidance of a destructive stimulus would be in the individual’s locus of control, and this would also be supported by Rogers’ (1975) protection motivation theory as cited in Boer and Seydel (1996) which posits that fear-inducing stimuli are emotionally unpleasant, and it can therefore be expected that people will seek to avoid such stimuli. In addition, another problematic statement made by Sword and Zimbardo (2018) is that people with trauma see the world through a ‘darker lens’. Cherry and Barker’s (2015) work posited how self-help psychology at times fails to understand that it is not always the individual’s cognition that is faulty, but rather the reality around such individual (i.e. scientists can sometimes make fundamental attribution errors). A good example mentioned by Cherry and Barker (2015:244) is that of poverty, which effects on the human psyche include a lack of self-worth, a disruption of normal functioning, and feelings of marginalisation. As this is a circumstantial situation, trying to change a person’s perceptions of such real hardships might only contribute further to their symptoms. This is why it can be said that those who are seeking to profit from their work are avoiding poverty, which again is a protection-motivated behaviour, and not a symptom; therefore, challenging assumptions that avoidance is a mental health problem is crucial to improving mental health systems. Furthermore, Sword and Zimbardo (2018) also describe resentment as being a phenomenon experienced by those with PTS; however, the cluster symptomatology they list- ‘going to work, preparing meals, being interested in what they did that day—become chores’- is more consistent with the construct of anhedonia (losing pleasure in doing things that once brought a sense of comfort and satisfaction; Ritsner, 2014) than that of resentment, and this distinction is very important when trying to understand PTS; because depression-induced, affect-reactive behaviour is often mistaken with and stigmatised as narcissistic rage, or a toxic personality.  

Furthermore, not only can PE induce hyperalgesia, but it can also create more repressed forms of trauma, and people can end up getting worse. Since pain-avoidant behaviour is not irrational when thinking about the way in which human neurons’ function and how these react to overwhelming amounts of discomfort, why is such inhumane treatment so often justified? Indeed, exposure to stressor cues which produce psychological discomfort can physically damage nociceptors, and this might explain why BPD with comorbid PTS patients, for example, are seen as ‘difficult to work with’ (Harvard, 2006) due to their exhibited hypersensitivity and hypervigilance (Palmer and Unruh, 2018). This type of systemic prejudice is based on a presumption of cognitive and behavioural guilt; especially if such expectations and attitudes are perceived as torturous by the client.  No wonder many BPD clients develop an aversion to health-care, and no wonder Cherry and Barker’s (2015) chapter on self-help highlighted some of the paradoxical reactions that can happen when people are given the wrong type of help, or the wrong set of coping techniques. For example, some expectations when it comes to treating traumatised individuals are unrealistic and can make some individuals feel worse. Some of these errors include expecting someone to only think optimistically, or to ignore the circumstantial stressors they experience.  Furthermore, Eysenck (1998) posited that when the nervous system is overwhelmed by external stressors, this causes an increase of the release of corticosteroids (stress hormones) and when too many corticosteroids are released, the immune, endocrine, and circulatory systems can malfunction. So the awareness of the potential repercussions of prolonged psychological torture, or PE is not new, and many of those who engage in such activities know that what they are doing is perceived as harmful by others (actus reus) and if they continue doing it nevertheless, then there might also be a guilty intent behind such decisions (mens rea; Palmer, 2018). 

It is dangerously equivocal on one hand to call avoidance of suffering a problem, and on the other hand wonder why people are self-harming. For example, Wager (2015) explained that only 1 in 800 cases of child sexual abuse make it to child protection services, which means that most of the victims of such henious acts grow with the trauma they experienced, and recreating their sexual abuse not only would be illegal, but it would only make things worse for them. This is why PE can have disastrous consequences for those who are severely traumatised. Moreover, expecting someone who has endured sexual abuse to stop avoiding their worst fears would be irrational; and such confusion could potentially lead the individual into further traumatic circumstances and relationships, or to suicide, which is not that uncommon in the UK nowadays. For instance, according to Samaritans (2019) there were 6,859 suicides in the UK in 2018. This was a ‘significant’, and tragic increase in rates from previous years. The cruel nature of everyday mental health misconceptions might have contributed towards such results (Kinderman, 2015). The ambiguous messages sent by certain frameworks can leave people feeling hopeless, confused and neglected, a prerequisite for suicidal ideation. Compassion, however, could save lives (Kinderman, 2015:291). So in the case of BPD with comorbid PTS, a treatment going wrong is often blamed on the patient rather than on the health system. It is a paradox because the mere action of the patient complaining is categorised as a symptom, rather than as a rational response to a painful, unfair, and/or stressful trigger.  This is why taking into account socio-environmental stressors should not be an exclusively academic matter, but rather a general rule for the prevention of inhumane and degrading treatment. Nevertheless, it is good that Sword and Zimbardo (2018) display a well-intentioned contribution to the development of more effective mental health apps, a topic that is beyond the scope and capacity of this document. 

To summarise, Sword and Zimbardo’s (2018) work as cited in the Open University (2019) mentions PE as one of the traditional forms of therapy used to treat PTS; nevertheless, they seem to attribute most problems to human cognition, rather than to situational factors. Furthermore, they seem to be deleteriously equivocal when they use the criteria for anhedonia to describe resentment, without providing satisfactory evidence to support their claims. Finally, they describe avoidant responses as a symptom, rather than as an everyday behaviour. However, research has shown that avoiding certain situations is rational, and mental health frameworks should take this into consideration when treating severely traumatised individuals, instead of speculating and risking someone’s physical integrity to death. 

References

American Psychiatric Association (2013a) ‘Posttraumatic stress disorder, in Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed, Arlington, pp. 271-280.

Boer, H. and Seydel, E. R. (1996) ‘Protection motivation theory’, Conner, M. and Norman, P. (eds), Predicting Health Behaviour, Buckingham, Open University Press, pp. 95-120. 

Cherry, S. and Barker, M. J. (2015) ‘Self-help: changing people’s understandings to change their experience’, in Turner, J. and Barker, M. J. (eds), Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 227-259. 

Equality and Human Rights Commission (2018) ‘Article 3: Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment’, 15 November [Online]. Available at https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-3-freedom-torture-and-inhuman-or-degrading-treatment (Accessed 26 April 2020).  

Eysenck, M. (1998) ‘Biological bases of behaviour’, in Eysenck, M. (ed), Psychology: an integrated approach, Essex, Addison Wesley Longman Limited, pp. 23-67. 

Ghafoori, B. (2018) ‘Prolonged exposure therapy for experiential avoidance: a case-series study’, SAGE, pp. 122-135 [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/gvehrt/TN_sage_s10_1177_1534650118766660  (Accessed 26 April 2020). 

Harvard (2006) ‘Borderline personality disorder: treatment’, in Harvard Mental Health Letter, 1 July [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/gvehrt/TN_medline16862705 (Accessed 26 April 2020). 

Kinderman, P. (2015) ‘Beyond disorder: a psychological model of mental health’, in Crighton D. A. and Towl, G. J. (eds), Forensic Psychology, 2nd edn, West Sussex, John Wiley and Sons, The British Psychological Society, pp. 291-300.

Medical News Today (n.d.) ‘Hyperalgesia: What you need to know’ [Online]. Available at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318791 (Accessed 26 April 2020). 

Miguez, G., Laborda, M. A. and Miller, R. R. (2014) ‘Classical conditioning and pain: conditioned analgesia and hyperalgesia’, Acta Psychologica, Elsevier, pp. 10-20. 

NHS.UK (2019) ‘Borderline personality disorder’, 17 July [Online]. Available at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/ (Accessed 1 May, 2020). 

Palmer, B. and Unruh, B. (2018) Borderline Personality Disorder : A Case-Based Approach, 1st ed, Belmont, Harvard Medical School [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/h21g24/44OPN_ALMA_DS51130622870002316 (Accessed 27 April 2020). 

Palmer, E. J. (2018) ‘Psychological approaches to understanding crime’, in Davies, G. M. and Beech, A. R. (eds), Forensic Psychology: Crime, Justice, Law, Interventions, 3rd ed, West Sussex, The British Psychological Society/John Wiley & Sons, pp. 27-47.

Ritsner, M. S. (2014) Anhedonia: A Comprehensive Handbook Volume I : Conceptual Issues And Neurobiological Advances, 1st ed, London, Springer [Online]. Available at https://pmt-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/13ueeno/44OPN_ALMA_DS5176564010002316 (Accessed 27 April 2020).  

Samaritans (2019) ‘Suicide Statistics Report’, December [Online]. Available at https://media.samaritans.org/documents/SamaritansSuicideStatsReport_2019_Full_report.pdf (Accessed 26 April 2020). 

The Open University (2019) ‘Excerpt 2’, DD210-19J Study Guide: Week 27: TMA 05 [Online]. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1467741&section=1.2 (Accessed 26 April 2020). 

Wager, N. M. (2015) ‘The psychology of extreme circumstances’, in Turner, J. and Barker, M. J. (eds), Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 139-178. 

Categories
Journalism Opinion Science

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Brief: Protection Motivation Theory, Outbreak Appraisal, and Understanding Collective Behaviour

The world is in chaos. The coronavirus has accelerated at an unprecedented rate, leaving planet Earth feeling vulnerable and in a state of collective sorrow. Things have never been like this. Unless you are over 100 years old, you have never witnessed this level of transnosological danger in your entire life. Due to the panic-ridden headlines, many people are experiencing an aversion to potential loss or potential grief. Others seem to be in denial. Where is the balance? This article aims to explore some of the facts, figures, and dynamics determining coronavirus-associated behaviour.

“Protection motivation theory describes adaptive and maladaptive coping with a health threat as the result of two appraisal processes: threat appraisal and coping appraisal“.

Norman and Conner (1996, p. 11)

Threat Appraisal

Worldometers (2020)

As of 28/03/2020:

TOTAL GLOBAL CASES: +602,000

TOTAL GLOBAL DEATHS: +27,400

TOTAL GLOBAL RECOVERIES: +133,500

How severe is the threat?

The threat is perceived by the public as extremely severe and unprecedented. Here in the United Kingdom it has been set as high risk; and this is why Primer Minister Boris Johnson has enforced the draconian lockdown (Cabinet Office, 2020). The virus is very contagious, and due to the increasing death rates people are feeling very susceptible with this disease threatening their physical integrity, and potentially their life or the life of those whom they love. Nevertheless, it must be objectively said that 95% of recorded cases worldwide report mild symptoms. Yet, from mild symptoms have arisen many deaths.

How susceptible am I to the threat?

It seems that among the high risk groups are people over 80 years old, those with underlying health conditions, and smokers with chronic pulmonary problems. Furthermore, according to the United Nations (2020): “The risk depends on where you are – and more specifically, whether there is a COVID-19 outbreak unfolding there”. In other words, demographic variables will indicate the level of risk in specific areas. For instance, the South West area where I live in the UK is the area with the lowest risk of contamination (GOV.UK, 2020b), and my city (Plymouth) has only 26 cases so far (O’Leary, 2020). Furthermore, commenting on the safety of packages and deliveries, the UN (2020) further states: “The likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, travelled, and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low”. So if you are concerned about me, don’t worry, I am ready.

I sanitise my body, my environment, and my mind. Call me mad, but I’ll survive.

How is the virus appraised by the global government?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned the world about the fact that no antibiotics, no medication, and no vaccination has proven to prevent or cure the coronavirus. Therefore, they appraise this as a serious situation.

World Health Organization (2020).

What are mental health experts saying?

Mental health experts understand that this is without a doubt a stress-generative situation. The uncertainty that COVID-19 triggers is in many cases inevitable. Furthermore, the unpredictability and uncontrollability that manifest with the facts and figures are a source of anxiety for many people. Nevertheless, this does not mean that pre-emptive and preventive action cannot be taken. The GOV and the WHO have issued specific guidance which can help reduce the hazard and intensity of the situation. Sanitary action is in this case reasoned action, and this can be planned, performed, and maintained in order to cope with the threat in an adaptive way. Moreover, because this is an extraordinary situation which has disrupted the standard routines of many people, there is a certain level of confusion, fear, and worry. Remember to:

  • Wash your hands with soap as frequently as possible for 20 seconds.
  • Stay indoors unless it is absolutely necessary to go out to seek medical care.
  • Order groceries online as infrequently as possible instead of going to the shop (even though online deliveries are the least unsafe option, there is still a risk of contamination through such medium).

Coping Appraisal

INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL: Factors which can be totally controlled by and depend solely on the individual.

EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL: Factors which can’t be controlled by and do not depend on the individual.

(Norman and Conner, 1996).

I see people behaving like nothing is happening. Am I too paranoid?

No. What you see happening is a state of collective denial. People keep going to work, doing physical exercise outdoors, and attending social gatherings because they are underestimating the severity of the threat. The kind of self-absorption that is dominant in individualistic, Western societies is an intellectual disadvantage in this case which requires an analysis of global events and behaviour. It only takes analysing what is happening in China, the US, Italy and Spain to understand that due to the incubation period of the virus (up to 2-3 weeks; Worldometers, 2020) it is quite possible that the COVID-19 is having a delayed impact in the UK. The virus does survive a long time in the air, meaning that it can be breathed quite easily. This is why a two metre distance is advised. Those behaving as if nothing was happening are not able to rationalise the threat because being able to move around gives them a false sense of being in control of the situation. In my opinion, it is an unnecessary risk they are taking. Similarly, those going to work outside the emergency system are still playing down the risk.

According to Norman and Conner (1996), the more an individual perceives potential health susceptibility, and the more that the threat is perceived to be severe, the more fear arousal there is. This means that the way people respond to the outbreak will depend on their level of awareness about the high risk the coronavirus poses. For instance, here in the UK there are more deaths than recoveries, and the counter for recoveries has been stuck at 135 (GOV.UK, 2020b) for several days already, unlike the counters for new cases and deaths, which keep burgeoning. This is problematic and worrisome. So if you are feeling too paranoid and as if you are being too careful, rest assured that you are just being as careful and responsible as you and everyone else are expected to be.

What can I do to calm down?

This is a good question, as everything functions better when people remain calm. There are many variables that are within your locus of control, such as the way you interpret the situation (perception) which can be optimised by engaging in intellectually stimulating activities such as reading, watching films, or having conversations. The more you learn, the more confident you will feel in assessing risk, and the more you will engage in reasoned behaviours that promote health and prevent disease. Another variable that you can control and nourish in yourself is your emotional wellbeing, which can be enhanced by ensuring that you get enough sleep (this will also boost your immune system, and will therefore help you fight off infections; NHS.UK, 2018), that you eat well, and that you have a tidy and clean environment around you. If you have long-term conditions, it is necessary that you continue to take your prescribed medications during this time in order to keep healthy. Furthermore, remember that you have the capacity of preventing contamination by following the guidance. Successfully executing the recommended courses of action will help you feel self-efficient and safe. Engage in some yoga or pilates at home, entertain yourself, and stay in touch with your family and friends digitally. Keep the following points in mind:

  • Neither underestimate nor overestimate the magnitude of the situation. Stay tuned for the facts and figures.
  • You can sign online petitions to participate in requesting specific outcomes for the common good.
  • Plan for short to medium term supplies and associated variables of a lockdown.
  • Mental contagion can happen if you allocate too much time and attention to digital material which is sensationalist or misinformed. Be wise about the type of information you consume.
  • Double check that your beliefs about what is healthy are not based on misinformation. Here are some myth busters to keep in mind:

What factors are not under my control?

There are several variables that could become a source of frustration during the lockdown. Anything that is outside your mind, and outside your environment is outside your control. You are not responsible for the behaviour of others, and the best thing you can do is share the guidance with your loved ones and hope that they follow it. Moreover, you have no current participation in most of the decision-making processes of the jurisdiction (e.g. the legal measures being duly taken by the GOV in relation to this pandemic). If you are not able to work from home, and cannot make money as a result, you might feel like everything is going to collapse, and in such case all you can do is hope that the GOV will protect your welfare, as such decision is within their locus of control. If you are a key worker, you might feel that your life is being put at risk in order to save the life of others. All you can do is hope that the GOV will listen to the healthcare industry in regards to the much needed protective equipment, spaces, and ventilators. This too is within the GOV’s locus of control. For example, medical staff in Spain are being forced to sedate and asphyxiate the elderly to death in order to use their ventilators on younger patients. Because providing equipment is a decision which only the Spanish political leaders can make, doctors are having a psychological breakdown and are accusing the authorities of genocide for neglecting the welfare of vulnerable citizens. Take a look at this video:

References

Cabinet Office (2020) ‘Guidance: Staying at home and away from others (social distancing)’, GOV.UK, 23 March [Online]. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/full-guidance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others (Accessed 27 March 2020).

GOV.UK (2020a) ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): what you need to know’ [Online]. Available at https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus (Accessed 27 March 2020).

GOV.UK (2020b) ‘Total UK COVID-19 Cases” [Online]. Available at https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ae5dda8f86814ae99dde905d2a9070ae (Accessed 27 March 2020).

Hamzelou, J. (2020) ‘How long does coronavirus stay on surfaces and can they infect you?’, New Scientist, 25 March [Online]. Available at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238494-how-long-does-coronavirus-stay-on-surfaces-and-can-they-infect-you/ (Accessed 27 March 2020).

Johnson, B. (n.d.) ‘About Boris’, Boris Johnson [Online]. Available at http://www.boris-johnson.com/about/ (Accessed 27 March 2020).

NHS.UK (2018) ‘Why lack of sleep is bad for your health’ [Online]. Available at https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sleep-and-tiredness/why-lack-of-sleep-is-bad-for-your-health/ (Accessed 27 March 2020).

Norman, P. and Conner, M. (1996) ‘The role of social cognition in health behaviours’, in Conner, M. (ed) Predicting Health Behaviour, Buckingham, Open University Press, pp. 1-22.

O’Leary, M. (2020) ‘Four new coronavirus cases confirmed in Plymouth’, Plymouth Herald, 26 March [Online]. Available at https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/four-new-coronavirus-cases-confirmed-3989498 (Accessed 27 March 2020).

United Nations (2020) ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): Frequently Asked Questions’ [Online]. Available at https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/covid-19-faqs (Accessed 27 March 2020).

World Health Organization (2020) ‘Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public: myth busters’ [Online]. Available at https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters (Accessed 27 March 2020).

Worldometers (2020) ‘Coronavirus Update (LIVE)’ [Online]. Available at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (Accessed 27 March 2020).

Categories
Opinion Review

Book review: Witness for the Defense: the Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert who puts Memory on Trial

Rating: 5 out of 5.

If you are a student of psychology, you might have already come across Professor Loftus’ work on eyewitness memory. She is the pop star and hollywood personality within the field of forensic psychology, and has served as an expert witness in high profile cases such as Ted Bundy and more recently Harvey Weinstein (Associated Press in New York, 2020). Furthermore, Professor Loftus’ work has become highly controversial, and has caused many reactions from victims due to her experiments on eyewitness memory, and how unreliable episodic memory actually is. Her book Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial (1991) narrates her experience working with defendants in the criminal justice system, whilst also delighting the reader with the theory of her experiments and findings.

“There is a generally accepted theory in our field that memory doesn’t work like a videotape recorder. We don’t record an event and then play it back later. The process is much more complex […] In such circumstances there is an increased risk that an innocent person will be convicted […] One of the most obvious reasons for forgetting is that the information was never stored in memory in the first place; even the most common, everyday items frequently fail to find a niche in our memory […] With the passage of time, with proper motivation, or with the introduction of interfering or contradictory facts, the memory traces change or become transformed, often without our conscious awareness”

Selected excerpts from Loftus and Ketcham (1991, pp. 4-17)

Recently The Guardian wrote a news report about Harvey Weinstein’s trial and described the situation as follows: “Lawyers for Harvey Weinstein turned on Friday to an expert known for studying false, repressed and unreliable memories who has worked on behalf of clients including the serial killer Ted Bundy” (Associated Press in New York, 2020). Needless to say there are many critiques of Professor Loftus due to her tendency to work for the defense instead of the prosecution, and this has led to journalists wondering why such is the case. For students of forensic psychology like me, there are a series of questions that only her books can answer. I truly recommend this book to those seeking to understand eyewitness memory better, and also those seeking to learn about the behind the scenes of the criminal justice system.

Relevant Questions & Answers

Why work for the defense instead of the prosecution?

Professor Loftus is highly concerned with justice, and prefers to prevent injustice by studying cases meticulously and scientifically. Having already been involved in cases where a potentially innocent person got a death sentence after biased procedures (e.g. Demjanjuk; Loftus and Ketcham, 1991), Dr. Loftus knows the importance of the presumption of innocence. Many studies conducted on eyewitness memory have demonstrated that memories are vulnerable to distortion and contamination. Hindsight bias and post-event information (misinformation effect) are particularly important concepts when trying to understand why miscarriages of justice have occurred in the history of the western societies and their criminal justice systems. In regards to this, her book states: “Although witnesses try hard to identify the true criminal, when they are uncertain- or when no one person in the lineup exactly matches their memory- they will often identify the person who best matches their recollection of the criminal. And often their choice is wrong” (p. 23). This has become a general rule of thumb and a system variable when investigating cases from a psychological perspective. “But in a stressed mind, under intense pressure to come up with someone who could be blamed for this horrible crime, those connections could have been created, welded together by fear and pain and a desire to be done with it all, to stop thinking, to find an answer, a solution” (p. 191)

Why did she defend Ted Bundy as he is not innocent?

According to her book, when Bundy’s lawyer contacted her, he described the case to her as relevant to her work, and as if the prosecution had an “extremely weak case” against his client. Back then she had not heard the name “Theodore Robert Bundy”, and did not know that the famous “Ted cases” were related to him, and it was in 1975 that John O’Connell (Bundy’s solicitor) consulted her in regards to the kidnapping charge against him. At the time, Bundy was a law student in Seattle, and his profile was surprisingly charismatic to the point where it was very difficult to imagine him committing such terrible acts. Dr. Loftus did not expect what came after that, and describes being surprised about this case and remembers having a conversation with O’Connell where she explained her theory: “First, the acquisition stage, in which the perception of the original event is put into the memory system; second, the retention stage, the period of time that passes between the event and the recollection of a particular piece of information; and third, the retrieval stage, in which a person recalls stored information” (p. 77). Furthermore, she describes her impression of Ted Bundy’s death as follows: “The scene switched to an interview with Ted Bundy the night before his electrocution. Prison had removed the arrogance from his smile, sharpening his features. The eyes seemed deeper set, the nose longer and straighter, the creases in his forehead permanently etched […] I felt lightheaded, slightly sick to my stomach” (pp. 90-91). Professor Loftus recalls wondering what would have happened if her expert contribution had led to an acquittal in Utah, and seemed to be distressed about the entire situation as more evidence accumulated about Bundy.

What common cognitive biases does Dr. Loftus study?

Professor Loftus conducts holistic investigations. There are many variables that she analyses, but all of them together are beyond the scope of this article. However, she does mention some of these in the book: “I hit the return key on my computer three times and typed in the words photo-biased identification […] Unconscious transference was the third item on my list […]Next on my list was time estimates. Jurors are aware that memory is better when you have a longer time to look at something, but they are often not aware that later, when a witness tries to estimate how long a particular event lasted, there is a strong tendency to overestimate its durations […] Confidence. Like most people, jurors tend to believe there is a strong relationship between how confident a witness is and how accurate he or she is” (pp. 169-170). In a nutshell, she is a memory expert. “

An example: “We’ve shown people a simulated bank robbery that lasts for half a minute and they will say it lasted for five minutes, eight minutes, even ten minutes. In one experiment people saw an event that lasted four minutes and they said it lasted ten minutes; some said twenty minutes. There is a very strong tendency in the memory to enlarge these complex and stressful events so that they appear to have occurred over a longer period of time than they really did […] Unconscious transference is the mistaken recollection or confusion of a person seen in one situation with a person who has been seen in a different situation. But what is happening here is the merging of an image of a person seen in one situation with a totally different incident. And that is an important phenomenon. Many people do not realise how easy it is for an ‘unconscious transference’ to occur, to take a person with your memory of an experience that happened at a different time” (pp. 200-201).

What is her view on penology and prisons?

Dr. Loftus’ position about penal punishment within the criminal justice system can be appreciated with her closing statement on the Ted Bundy chapter: “Bundy was guilty; there was no longer any doubt about the fact. But he was also a human being, and now he was dead. Where, I wondered, is the triumph, the glory in that” (p. 91). I interpret such statement in the context of human rights law (Equality & Human Rights Commission, 2018), with the right to life being relevant when it comes to capital punishment.

Were the deaths of Steve Titus and Detective Parker correlated?

Last year I emailed Professor Loftus to inquire about her chapter Dark Justice: Steve Titus, about one of the clients she defended, and who was wrongfully convicted of rape. It was a case of bureaucratic corruption. At the end of the chapter, Professor Loftus narrates the following events: “On February 8, 1985, eleven days before he would have faced his tormentors in court, Steve Titus died. He was thirty-five years old […] On June 8, 1987, six years to the day after Titus’ conviction was overturned, Detective Ronald Parker was found slumped next to his gym locker, dead of a heart attack. He was forty-three years old” (p. 60). I asked her whether she wanted to imply a potential correlation between these two deaths, or whether she just wanted to make a historical record. Thirteen days later I received a reply from her where she explained that Titus had died of a heart attack due to the stress he had gone through, and that she was not sure what happened in the case of the detective. Moreover, she said that both, Steve Titus and the detective are buried near each other in the Washington Memorial Cemetery in New York (Anderson, 1991), which is quite ironic.

Can you mention an experiment conducted by Professor Loftus on memory?

Yes, I can indeed. She actually summarises her experiment on semantics in the book: “I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether to tell Kurzman about an earlier experiment I’d conducted with adult subjects who watched a film clip of an automobile accident and then were interviewed and asked suggestive questions. By using the verb ‘smash’ instead of ‘hit’, we were able to change not only the subjects’ estimate of the speed of the cars when the accident occurred, but also the probability of reporting broken glass- even though there was no broken glass in our interviews. This particular experiment supported the theory that the subjects experienced an actual change in the original memory” (p. 137).

Irrelevant Questions & Answers

Why did she defend Harvey Weinstein as he is not innocent?

Even though this is not in the book, I see this is along the same lines of why she defended Ted Bundy. Professor Loftus’ work focuses mainly on how people absorb information (learn), store events, and retrieve such details later on. So her involvement in such high profile cases has to do with ruling out the common cognitive and procedural biases found in estimator and system variables of eyewitness accounts and processes; which for her is a fairly straightforward, algorithmic, and systematic, reliable procedure. From what I understand, Harvey was found guilty of 2/5 allegations. This means that Professor Loftus had to make sure that all processes regarding the accusations were put through rigorous scientific methods for mitigation, as well as the examination of potential contamination in the memories of both, accusers and the defendant. This process often involves a detailed episodic, chronological reconstruction of the crime and the parties involved. As an expert witness, Loftus has a duty to be impartial, professional and objective about human memory. This means that her defendant was found guilty of actually sexually assaulting two of the five victims, and only these two accounts were successful in proving consistency in episodic recall. In other words, having Loftus study the case means that it is undeniable to the jury that Weinstein did do those two things, but that it was not proven that he did do those other three things beyond reasonable doubt (Levenson, 2020).

Does all this mean that Professor Loftus does not support the #MeToo movement?

No, that is not what all this means. All this simply means that Professor Loftus had to mitigate human memory empirically in order to clarify to the best of her ability as a scientist what really happened in Hollywood. Expert witnesses tend to be demonised due to the controversial work they carry out. Nevertheless, nothing of the mentioned above is evidence that she is anti-feminist.

My personal favourite:

“It is a fine line I walk as a psychologist in a court of law. While the debate about guilt and innocence is waged with passion and partisan zeal, it is my task to deal with the facts. As an expert witness, the facts I must deal with extend beneath the surface, deeper than the newspaper headlines, deeper even than the confidential police reports and the court transcripts. I am privy to the defense lawyer’s strategy; I’ve read the victims’ descriptions of the accused; I know the sordid and intimate details of the crimes; I’ve viewed the lineups and listened to tape-recorded interviews. But still there are facts I will never hear, details that are beyond my expertise or concern. The defense attorneys tell me what they want me to know, selecting only the facts I will need in order to testify. I do not have access to the prosecutor’s files. I rarely have the opportunity to talk at length with the defendant. And I don’t venture into the jury room to hear their confidential and privileged conversations about guilt, innocence, and reasonable doubt” (p. 241).

References

Anderson, R. (1991) ‘Port Most Ingenious in Public Spending’, The Seattle Times, 6 July [Online]. Available at https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19910706&slug=1292967 (Accessed 7 March 2020).

Associated Press in New York (2020) ‘Harvey Weinstein trial hears from expert on unreliable memory’, The Guardian, 7 February [Online]. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/07/harvey-weinstein-trial-unreliable-memories-elizabeth-loftus (Accessed 7 March 2020).

Equality and Human Rights Commission (2018) ‘The Human Rights Act’ [Online]. Available at https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights/human-rights-act (Accessed 7 March 2020).

Levenson, M. (2020) ‘Who’s Who in the Harvey Weinstein Trial’, The New York Times, 21 February [Online]. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/nyregion/weinstein-trial.html (Accessed 7 March 2020).

Loftus, E. (2019) Email to Betshy P. Sanchez Marrugo, 22 October [unpublished]

Loftus, E. and Ketcham, K. (1991) Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial, New York, St. Martin’s Press.

Sanchez Marrugo, B. P. (2019) Email to Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, 9 October [unpublished].

Categories
Journalism Opinion

Online Risks for People Within the Psychosis Spectrum: Envisioning a Digitally Safer World

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, pp. 87-88), psychotic disorders are clusters of key symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, among other things. Moreover, the DSM-5 defines delusions as “fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence”, and hallucinations as “perception-like experiences that occur without an external stimulus”. Furthermore, Davey (2018) explains that the symptoms of psychosis can often leave individuals “feeling frightened and confused” (p. 237), and that “sufferers frequently believe that their thoughts are being interfered with or controlled in some way” (p. 239).

There are different types of delusions: persecutory (paranoia), grandiose (narcissistic), control (feeling controlled or manipulated by external forces), referential (thinking that the media, advertisements, news and events are all in some way giving cues about oneself, as if everyone else “knew”), nihilistic (beliefs that go beyond the scope of existence as we know it. This could include thinking that one does not exist any more), and erotomanic (the delusional belief that someone is in love with oneself, regardless of whether they actually have met the person or not). Even though all these types of manifestations often overlap, it is delusions of persecution and delusions of reference that I will be highlighting in this post. 

Preliminary facts:

  • Suicide rates have dramatically increased within the last few years in the UK (Kaur and Manders, 2019). 
  • People with symptoms of psychosis have a difficulty in making sense of what is real and what isn’t (Davey, 2018). 
  • People on the psychotic spectrum struggle with suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempts, and some do succeed in such attempts (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). 
  • 11% of homicides happen as a result of mental health problems (Pilgrim, 2015). 
  • Hassan et al. (2011) as cited in Fisher et al. (2018) studied 3000 newly convicted offenders, and found that 10% were suffering from psychosis. 
  • According to the United Nations News (2019), a person dies by suicide every 40 seconds.

A Case Scenario

Please note this is not a critique of the Youtuber, his personality, integrity, or his work. I have not watched the videos. This analysis is specifically in relation to the name and the cover art of the channel, as well as about Youtube’s liability for managing and preventing these deadly risks. 

As I was scrolling and scrolling on Youtube trying to find something to watch, I came across a recommendation from a channel titled They Will Kill You. I instantly thought: Wow, if I still was suffering from psychosis, just being exposed to such recommendation would have caused me great internal distress, confusion, and maybe even a crisis. So I decided to explore the channel, and noticed that the cover art states It wants to kill you, whilst showcasing a picture of a person hung off a tree by their neck. In other words, a picture of suicide by hanging. Such a combination of design is the perfect recipe for having to create stricter regulatory protocols in the digital world. The content elicits feelings of paranoia, persecution, and suicidal ideation. Moreover, I predict that in the future, such technical neglects might be classed as manslaughter, or as assisted suicide should anyone die; both of which are classed as criminal acts in the UK. So let’s get serious about this.

Critical Evaluation:

If a person has delusions of persecution, they might think that the reason why nobody is trying to help them is because people want him or her to kill themselves, and if such delusions of persecution are mixed with delusions of reference, the person might feel that this Youtube channel is part of the “conspiracy”. For example, they might already be thinking that their upstairs neighbours are trying to kill them (Eysenck, 2000) through enforced psychological torture designed to trigger their suicidal desires. And being exposed to the name of this channel and to the cover art might lead them to assume that their paranoid delusions are undeniable, and might actually reinforce their schema to go forward with suicide whilst thinking that they have no other choice, and that such are everyone’s wishes. In another possible fatal case scenario, a person might be experiencing complex and bizarre events (Eysenck, 2000) and this type of digital content might serve as an anchor for what can be homicidal acts. Furthermore, Fisher et al. (2018) explained that relapse and recidivism can be triggered by psychosocial stressors. I would like to reinforce this whilst also including digital stressors.

Pilgrim (2015, p. 222) states: “Those with a diagnosis of mental illness are predominantly described in the mass media as a risk to others. However, collectively psychiatric patients are at far greater risk from others and to themselves, as victims of crime and exploitation and from self-harm […] the risk of violence increases with the presence of positive not negative symptoms”. With this statement I rest my case about the necessity for safer algorithms.

Call to Action: 

This channel’s name  and cover picture are an example of the high risk potential to trigger distress in people within the psychosis spectrum due to the unpredictability of YouTube’s algorithms. Moreover, considering the mental health crises we are facing here in the UK, I strongly recommend that there is more regulation of potentially deadly risks. I also recommend for this user to be encouraged to change the name of the channel to one that is less threatening. Youtube should hire the necessary professionals to manage these complexities.

To summarise, as human beings living in an age of mental health and environmental crises, preventing suicide or homicide should be a common goal in society. Any death that can be prevented should be prevented.

If you or anyone you know know is having suicidal thoughts, please call 999. Alternatively, call Samaritans on 116 123, or email them to jo@samaritans.org

References

American Psychiatric Association (2013), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed, pp. 87-118.

Davey, G. (2018) Psychopathology, West Sussex, British Psychological Society and John Wiley & Sons, pp. 238-284.

Eysenck, M.W. (2000) Psychology: A Student Handbook, East Sussex, Psychology Press Ltd, pp. 671-703.

Kaur, J. and Manders, B. (2019) ‘Suicides in the UK: 2018 Registrations’, Office for National Statistics [Online]. Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletin/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2018registrations (Accessed 26 February 2020).

Pilgrim, D. (2015) ‘Aspects of Diagnosed Mental Illness and Offending’, in Crighton , D. A. and Towl, G. J. (eds), Forensic Psychology, 2nd ed, pp. 215-224. 

Fisher, D., Ginty, M., Sandhu, J. and Galappathe, N. (2018) ‘Interventions with Mentally Disordered Offenders’, in Davies, G.M. and Beech, A.R. (eds), Forensic Psychology: Crime, Justice, Law, Interventions, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, pp. 639-657.

United Nations News (2019), ‘One person dies by suicide every 40 seconds: new UN health agency report, 9 September [Online]. Available at https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/09/1045892 (Accessed 23 February 2020).