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Psychology Graduate Schools

October 28, 2011 Psychology
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There are 6 different areas of psychology in which you can receive a Ph.D. including:

* Biopsychology
* Clinical Psychology
* Cognition & Cognitive Neuroscience
* Developmental Psychology
* Personality & Social Contexts
* Social Psychology

In addition, there are a number of joint programs of study, offering dual emphasis in different areas:

* Social Work and Psychology
* Education and Psychology
* Women’s Studies and Psychology

As posted on the University of Michigan website, there are several objectives that indicate quality in graduate study. The general objectives of psychology doctoral programs at Michigan include: 1) a general knowledge of the broad subject matter of psychology; 2) mastery of a specialized field; 3) competence in organizing, interpreting, and communicating effectively; 4) competence in research skills and creative work; and 5) professional skills relevant to their field of specialization. This broad array of skills will enable graduates to seek out careers in many different areas and develop their own program of research by working cooperatively with faculty members across the department, and in some cases, the university itself.
What can you do to prepare yourself for grad school at Michigan?

To get into grad school at Michigan, of course, you need to have an excellent academic resume, official copies of your transcript, submit GRE exam scores, and effective letters of recommendation. There are also several helpful tips found on the Department of Psychology website. Specifically, these tips suggest beginning to prepare yourself for grad school during at least your junior year of undergraduate education (although these are not hard and fast rules, as many students also work for a few years before being admitted to grad school):

* Broad undergraduate background in natural, physical, and social sciences
* Courses in Experimental Psychology (or research methods)
* Courses in Statistics
* Experience in the field, laboratory and/or research assistantships
* Undergraduate research project as a plus

Psychology of Aging

October 28, 2011 Psychology
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Aging is one of the most normal and regular processes that affect humans both positively and negatively and along with physiological and physical changes, aging brings out many psychological changes in individuals. Although aging happens throughout life, the primary importance of aging is felt during the transition from middle to old age and could be considered as the most important stage of aging.

So what are these processes that explain aging in humans and what are the psychological theories that explain the differences in people’s thought patterns due to age related changes?

According to WHO, the world’s greying population has been growing steadily with the decrease of fertility rates and longer life expectancy and considering that aging is a part of everyone’s life it is important to understand the psychological changes that can occur during different stages of life when age becomes more than just a number. Age could be considered as largely psychological in that some pessimistic people may tend to feel older even before they are 40 whereas others consider themselves old only when they reach 60 and beyond. Age can be felt by individuals as a measure of health and physical manifestations such as greying of hair, wrinkles of skin or weakness of muscles can indicate changing age. Since most of us identify with our body, aging of the body naturally brings about aging of the mind and with declining physical strength, there may be a decline of psychological strength and this works like a cycle on age related processes. Poor psychological health in turn affects the physical well being of an individual. Although life expectancy of individuals have gone up considerably in the last few years suggesting the improvements in global health, individuals still tend to remain apprehensive about the changes in life that age will ultimately bring.

In psychology, Erik Erikson delineated certain stages of psychosocial development as applicable to adulthood or middle age as well as old age. As the individual continues to grow throughout life, psychosocially, the focus may be on generativity versus stagnation during middle age when individuals tend to contribute to their careers and family. People who choose generativity would be successful in using their skills at work or family or both otherwise with stagnation they can feel unproductive and unrelated with the world. The last stage of psychosocial development that occurs in old age brings out the dimension of integrity versus despair in which individuals look back at their achievements and accomplishments and may develop a sense of pride and integrity or may develop feelings of despair. According to Erikson, old age is a period of self reflection and will generally bring in a feeling of hopelessness or satisfaction.

I would consider middle age as primarily based on materialistic or worldly needs and old age primarily based on spiritual and existential needs. Whereas middle age is about ‘living’ and living properly and individuals focus on increasing assets, properties and savings for the future and also focus on achievements, old age is about ‘surviving’ and the primary concern is about health, illness and death related issues. In certain cases thoughts of dying can become very prominent in certain individuals and they may want to hold on to life through family or creative work which remains even after a person’s death.

Aging cannot be considered a strictly chronological process but rather a psychological process when there is a negative rather than a positive force that justifies a person’s existence. Even a child goes through the process of aging and grows up to an adult but since the child is stepping into the world and expanding horizons the process of aging for a child is positive and the primary aging phenomenon is through ‘knowing’ as a child grows up to know and contribute as an adult. Developing an identity becomes the primary motivation for life and with young adulthood, individuals quickly switch on to the ‘achieving’ mode as young adulthood is about using the knowledge gained to achieve money, fame or even enlightenment for that matter. The ‘living’ stage comes next in middle adulthood as I have discussed and at this time not only the fruits of achievements begin to reveal but the future is also secured with financial and emotional security provided by laying the foundations of family and professional life in the earlier stage. All these stages of knowing, achieving and living are positive phases although all these stages may have specific dilemmas, yet the final stage of surviving is primarily motivated by a fear of death and this negative force brings about the real process of aging. Thus it is easily understood why aging is primarily a psychological process. The fear of death reinforced in old age brings out a negative force in life and if this negative force is somehow overturned or made positive, the process of aging will no longer be seen as something negative and detrimental for an older person.

Psychology of Dreams

October 28, 2011 Psychology
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According to Freud, ‘dreams are the royal road to the unconscious’, in the sense that they could be analyzed in a way that will reveal the hidden impulses in the unconscious. Dreams may thus reveal who we ‘really’ are, what we ‘really’ want and how we want to attain these desires. Yet many contemporary psychologists have moved away from this ‘semantic’ view of dreams that emphasize on repressed desires and ‘meanings’ of dreams, and have suggested that dreams occur simply due to random neural firings in the brain when the body is at rest and these random firings produce images in the brain.

There are several stages in sleep and the REM sleep is the final stage. Dreams are related to this REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep and we tend to have several dreams in one night although we forget almost all these images. We don’t act out these images because during the process of dreaming, the body undergoes temporary paralysis which is a protective or bodily defense mechanism against any external injury.

Dreams according to psychology is also a defense mechanism as all repressed desires which could have harmful effects on our psyche are released through the process of dreaming, so both physiologically and psychologically, dreams have defensive or protective functions helping in release of excessive stress, traumatic thoughts, repressed impulses as also protect the body from external injury. Dream recollection and control through the process of lucid dreaming and hypnosis as used more frequently by traditional psychotherapists are not too popular any more although these processes provide more insights into images in dreaming and how these could be evoked or elicited in psychotherapeutic sessions or could be remembered and interpreted to provide more access to the unconscious.

The physiology of REM stage of sleep may be able to provide answers as to why we dream of certain images yet this mechanism would be unable to explain exactly why these specific images occur. Some theories have suggested that certain repressed thoughts and desires or repeated occurrences could manifest in dreams through images. Sometimes trauma or any event with significant emotional value could lead to repetitive dreams with the same images. Considering existing literature, I suggest that dreams could have five principal functions – a clinical function of explaining mental illness, a cognitive function of aiding learning, an adaptive function of restoring body mechanisms, a cathartic function of releasing traumatic or repressed feelings and a defensive function of providing a protective shield to the mind and the body.

So dreams could actually be explained both from psychoanalytic and psycho-physiological perspectives. In fact we have to understand psychoanalysis and psycho-physiology and integrate findings about dreams from both these fields to reach a comprehensive understanding of these mental processes.

The five functions of dreams are given here and the basic thesis of a comprehensive dream theory should be based on all these five functions.

Clinical Function of Dreams – Some psychologists believe that dreams are closely related to mental illness and that many post traumatic dreams represent anxiety and prolonged or repetitive traumatic dreams could suggest initial symptoms of mental disorder or failed physiological functions in the body. In fact many mental illnesses could be traced back to certain dreams and we can even understand the roots or causes of mental illness by studying why certain dreams occur in certain people. The clinical value of dreams has been recognized in psychoanalysis although the full potential of this function has not been very clear in physiology. Further scientific research is required to understand the role of dreams in explaining, preventing or even curing mental or physical illnesses. Dreams could highlight issues of brain disorder, brain ailments and hormonal changes in the body and could have clinical value in identifying many diseases and abnormal conditions in the body.

Cognitive Function of Dreams – Dreams are useful in learning and scientific studies have proved that they play a cognitive role in children who have many more dreams and increased REM sleep than adults, thus children tend to learn while dreaming and dreaming and REM sleep could also have a positive effect on learning physical skills. This might explain how dreams could also provide insights into problems as solutions and many discoveries, inventions and novel ideas emerge in dreams. Dreams show various possibilities in our thought process and through permutations and combinations provide cognitive solutions to some of our life goals. Dreams could thus be very effective learning tools, help in self understanding and realization and improve and consolidate cognitive abilities.

Adaptive Function of Dreams – Dreams help us to adapt to our surroundings and although the evolutionary advantage of dreaming is not clear or has not been studied extensively, the fact that we continue to dream and even learn and defend ourselves through dreams makes dreaming an important part of our passive and active life. The adaptive function of dreams is however physiologically advantageous as it helps restore bodily mental and physical balance. Although this remains a controversial viewpoint, the complete psychological and physiological advantages of dreaming will have to be studied from an evolutionary perspective.

Cathartic Function of Dreams – Dreams are highly cathartic. They release stress, and through symbolic representation of images, purge out our fears, our impulses and urges and help us to confront our own mental lives. Dreams are more than the ‘royal road to the unconscious’, they are basic shields for our own defense and release. The thoughts and emotions that may be too dark, traumatic, shameful or dangerous for real life are manifested in dreams and help us to confront realities. Psychoanalytically dreams represent wish fulfillment and many images in dreams like elongated objects for example, are considered symbolic of sexual organs. It is however controversial whether all dreams are a type of wish fulfillment and some dreams could simply be a release of anxiety or completely the opposite of any wish fulfillment. If you repeatedly dream of your own injury or injury of close ones, you are simply releasing your unconscious anxiety through the dreams which in turn may help you to function better and be more cautious in reality.

Defensive Function of Dreams – This is related to the cathartic and adaptive functions of dreaming as when we release through catharsis, we also adapt to situations and this in turn provides a defense or protection for the mind and body to continue functioning without harm or hindrance. Although this concept is unpopular among many psychologists, dreams may have strong defensive functions. While we dream, the physiological changes in the body such as release of glycine, an amino acid highlight a defensive mechanism and both physical and mental irritations could be released through dreaming, providing in turn a shield for the body and mind. Dreams are thus not just the ‘royal road to the unconscious’, they are essential covers or shields to protect the mind or body against excess stress. Just like your boiling kettle has provisions to release excess steam, dreams too serve as a regulatory mechanism to release all excesses from the mind and body.

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