Theories of Depression

Albert Bandura: Developed the Social Cognitive Theory of Depression that states that an individuals personality is molded by behavior, thought, and the environment . Each piece in a puzzle can and does affect the shape of the other pieces . Bandura believes that environment plays a greater role in shaping our behavior than genetics , because human behavior ends up being largely a result of learning , which may occur by observation and through direct experience . 

Juliann Rotter:Developed the social learning theory that stated that personality represents an interaction of the individual with his or her environment . One cannot speak of a personality , internal to the individual , that is independent of the environment . One cannot focuses on behabior as being an automatic response to an objective set of a environmental stimuli. Rather to understand behavior , one must take both the individual , his or her life history of learning experiences and the environmental those stimuli that the person is aware to respond to . Rotter describes personality as a relatively stable set of potentials for responding to situations in a particular way.

Martin Seligman:Learned helplessness is the state of mind created when an animal or human being learns to behave helplessly, even with the means to escape or avoid an unpleasant situation. According to Seligman the learned helplessness theory holds that clinical depression and other mental illnesses may arise from the perceived lack of control over a situation.

Aaron Beck:According to Dr. Aaron Beck, negative thoughts, generated by dysfunctional beliefs are typically the primary cause of depressive symptoms. A direct relationship occurs between the amount and severity of someone's negative thoughts and the severity of their depressive symptoms. In other words, the more negative thoughts you experience, the more depressed you will become.

Bib:

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13006&cn=5

http://directory.leadmaverick.com/Helping-Psychology/DallasFort-WorthArlington/TX/10/9748/index.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

      

Frontal Lobotomy : Walter Freeman

The field of mental health suffers weird offbeat and arguably despicable characters, but in the earlier 2000 the father of lobotomy appeared. This father was called Walter Freeman, that performed about 3,000 lobotomies over his long career. That took this procedure , Walter lifted the patients eyelid and inserted an leucotome through a tear duct . A few taps with a surgical hammer breached the bone . Freeman took a position behind the patients head , pushed the leucotome about an inch and a half into the frontal love of the patients brain , and moved the sharp tip back and forth .Then he repeated the procedure for the other eye socket .Freeman attended to Yale University and to Pennsylvania University of medicine. Concerned with the tragedy of wasted lives in mental hospitals, he introduced insulin shock therapy and ECT for patients in the George Washington University Hospital. When he found that chimpanzees became passive when their frontal loves were damaged . 

So he decided to start try Portuguese physician and neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz’s procedure . This experiments started with his colleague James Watts that started practicing on brains from the hospital morgue . In 1936 they were ready for their first patient called Mrs. Hammatt who was 63 years old , who suffered from agitated depression and sleeplessness . The procedure of the experiment of Moniz consisted of entering the frontal lobes through the eye sockets, and for that they drilled six holes into the top of her skull. The operation of Mrs. Hammatt was successful she could go to the movies and watch the movie normally , and she lived five years more . Freeman and Watts claimed that 52 percent of their first surgeries had good results, but they did not offer a clinical yardstick for what constituted an improvement for patients brains . Patients often had to be re taught how to do many basic things like eating and going to the bathroom. Relapses were common, and three percent died from the procedure. President Kennedy’s sister was mentally ill and Freeman attended her. Freeman operated Rosemary from the frontal lobe but she died after that because she need full time care. Freeman believed lobotomies worked because the procedure severed connections between the frontal lobes of the brain and the thalamus , he thought it was the seat of human emotion . Although his theories have been not given so much credit , he was one of the few psychiatrists of the era who believed that mental illness had a physical biological component . I n his final stages of his career of lobotomy he had his license removed after killing a patient , Freeman had fallen and society really didn’t needed him because pills for mental illness were invented . 

http://www.mcmanweb.com/lobotomy.html

Boy Interrupted Reflection

Boy Interrupted is about Evan Perry's bipolar disorder and his sudden death at the age of 15 . When were talking about bipolar disorder we are talking about a phenomenon thats so big that it can cause death . Bipolar disorder is a serious brain illness , that swings a person's emotions from high and irritable to sad and hopeless and then back with periods of normal mood in between . This brain disorder usually starts in adolescence or in adulthood years . In this case for Evan Perry it started in his early years of life , like when he was five years old . Evan's firsts thoughts of death were shown when he was five by talking with his mother about various detailed ways of how he would kill himself . When Evan gets to fifth grade he gets to a professional doctor to back up the disorder . Then life for the Perry's started looking tough with Evan's brothers hoping that Evan will make it through life with his bipolar disorder . Evan;s doctor prescribed lithium for his disorder , but when Evan stopped taking it and went back with death ideas . Finally Evan jumped off the window of their apartment in Manhattan when he had only fifteen years . In his computer besides his bed he had left his suicidal note , with why and why not bullet points for what he would live .

In my opinion I think that this documental about bipolar disorder was though for the audience like me and for all families that have bipolar carriers . This is because we see the death of a carrier of bipolar disorder so it creates a more controversial point . This video was shocking but gives a thought of hope for all the people that have bipolar disorder .