B is for Biological Basis

Mental health problems are frustrating because it is hard to classify them as having a biological or psychological basis. I know there has to be some psychological component, mental illnesses are diagnosed based on behaviour after all. I am hoping for some solid research showing depression and other mental health issues have a biological basis though. If the cause is in my biology, there isn’t much I could have done to have prevented it. It is not in my control. I am not to blame. A psychological basis would imply that my behaviour is the problem. I am responsible for my behaviour and so I am to blame, or so society dictates. Calling depression a brain malfunction would minimize the shame I feel when I have to explain myself. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I don’t want them to always wonder why I don’t just snap out of it either.

There is support for both the biological and psychological sides. Since mental processes are carried out by the brain, all disorders of mental function are biological. Just like the lungs are the organs for breathing, the brain is the organ for the mind. Where else could mental illness be if not the brain? Not so long ago, we didn’t know that much about how the lungs worked. All doctors could do for respiratory disease were observe physiological presentation and listen to patient complaints. Today, there are all sorts of tests to measure lung function. The same principles apply to the brain, we just don’t know enough about it yet.

On the flip side, some go to extremes, arguing that everything from mental illness, to criminality and sexual orientation are seen less as a matter of choice than a genetic destiny. Mental health problems could be the result of normal personality traits coming together in such a way to make functioning in today’s world difficult. One scientist compared the brain to a computer and mental processing to the software. There can be a bug in the software that prevents things from running smoothly, but the hardware is still fine.

What do you think? Do mental illnesses fall into one of two distinct categories (psychological vs. biological), or do they exist on a continuum having different percentages of biological and psychological contributions?

Recent research posed similar questions to clinicians (psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers) to determine their beliefs on the causes of mental illness. I would like to know what my psychiatrist thinks. After all, his beliefs would probably have an effect on my therapy and may determine whether or not he prescribes medication and which medication it would be. The study showed that clinicians tend to look at mental health problems across a spectrum of biological to psychological rather than categorical. They believe disorders with a larger biological component would respond best to medication, while those with a larger psychological component would respond better to therapy.

They didn’t show all 445 identified mental illnesses on this spectrum, but they did show 9 familiar ones. I looked up my primary diagnosis, depression, on the graph and it was right smack in the middle. Clinicians viewed depression as having biological and psychological contributions that were almost even. Darn. Other diagnoses like bipolar and bulimia were more clear cut in clinician minds, showing larger biological and psychological components respectively.

It turns out the biological basis I was hoping would explain my depression is a double-edged sword. Although the average person would probably be more compassionate about a brain malfunction, clinicians would be less so. This study showed clinicians felt more compassion towards those with mental health problems thought to be caused by psychological factors. Researchers thought perhaps the emphasis on biology was dehumanizing, causing the patient to be viewed as more of a biological mechanism than a person.

Regardless of the beliefs of clinicians or those of society in general, I think we can all agree, the more we understand about all components of mental illness, the better.

Resources: Ahn, Proctor and Flanagan, 2009

If We Were Having Coffee…..

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you this blog just turned a year old! I’m glad WordPress reminds me of these things. I knew it was sometime around now.

If we were having coffee, I’d want you to tell me all about your week. I hope it was a good one with lots accomplished and time for fun. I’m going to need to take a few sips of coffee to warm up my voice before I attempt to speak. Yesterday was the annual university conference where all the various vision research projects get presented. I had a poster to present on one of the studies I am working on. I got to show pictures of the retina and there was a 3D virtual environment involved in the testing procedure. It is definitely one of the cooler research projects I have presented. This is probably why the poster was drawing such big crowds. The talk I gave for the poster was only 5 minutes long, but I had to speak loudly so the crowd could hear me and I had to repeat it nonstop for almost two hours. Now, my voice is all crackly and keeps coming and going.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that despite the success of the poster and its award nomination, I’m still feeling rather low. I came home from the conference yesterday and just went straight to bed. I don’t know, maybe it is just exhaustion that is getting me down. When Hubby got home he brought in some mail for me. It was a package from my aunt. She sent some stuff that I had left at her place along with some new paint brushes and a new stencil. Very exciting! Check out the stencil..an eye diagram! Awesome! That cheered me up a bit.

If we were having coffee, I’d probably tell you about a friend and a colleague of mine. I am really worried about them. The colleague was supposed to fly in next week to work on that grant proposal with us but he has had to cancel on account of his heart. He has a weak heart and went to the doc thinking he had the flu. It turns out his heart isn’t sounding good, so he has had to cancel the trip and do a full workup. He is not the only one with concerning health problems though. Hubby and I had dinner with our friend Lynne last night. She is scheduled to have her surgery to have her liver metastasis removed in a week and a half. Her latest CT scan shows a new tumor. We are hoping it popped up on the portion they were going to remove anyway.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you my art class is tomorrow morning. I’m a little nervous. I hope it isn’t too clique-y. I’m also still doing the 30 Day Colouring Challenge from The Daily Marker. There is about a week left. I have been enjoying it. Here is a collection of this week’s stuff. Two of them are from colouring books. The rest I drew myself. I even used regular old crayons this week. It was fun to revisit childhood with a box of nice, sharp, new Crayolas.

If we were having coffee, I’d wish you a good weekend! Hope to see you for coffee next week!

This conversation coffee post is part of a weekly link-up hosted by Part-Time Monster

If We Were Having Coffee…..

If we were having coffee, I would wish you a happy Pi Day! You’d probably give me a strange look and then I would change the subject by asking how you were and how your week was.

If we were having coffee, I’d say I worked a lot this week. There are several studies on the go, a grant proposal in the works, a poster to make, student posters to edit, another presentation to make and my own research on top of that. My own research always ends up being at the end of the list. Everything else has an upcoming deadline or someone else depending on it. Those ending up getting pushed forward and my research trails behind.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve been communicating with an industry rep this week. I contacted him about using his product in my research over a year ago. We’ve been talking on and off since. Currently, he is having trouble entering the market here and thought I’d have some insight. I am all kinds of nervous about talking to him. When I took a moment to rationalize my anxiety, I realized it was because I thought he was better than me. He is a grown up with a real job, a title, a salary and he represents a company. I always see myself as some incompetent kid, but I’m not anymore, am I? I am almost 30 and a Ph.D. candidate. I know the field, I know the right people, I understand his product, why wouldn’t he want to talk to me? I just feel like a fraud, about to be seen through at any minute.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you work has been bringing me down lately. I’m not really sure why. There are some things on the go that I like, some that I don’t. Isn’t that the way work usually goes for everyone. I’ve been trying to lift my spirits with the 30 Day Colouring Challenge hosted by The Daily Marker. Colouring always soothes me a bit. Plus, I have new Neocolors and Gelatos to play with. Today is Day 11. Here are my entries so far.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I came across a rather nice surprise yesterday. I was starting a page in my art journal, trying a new technique. This technique required me to turn my book upside down to let paint drip down the pages. When I did this, two stencils fell out! One was dragonflies (my favourite!!) and another was a bird on a branch. I knew right away who put them in there. It was my aunt. I checked and sure enough, she was guilty. The last I saw her was at the beginning of February though. That would mean they were hiding in my journal for over a month!! She’s sneaky! I never would have been able to keep quiet that long if I were her.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you another one of my friends is having a birthday this month. She lives far away and is having a really rough time. I want to do something to cheer her up a bit, but I’m not really sure what to do. I thought of sending her a care package or some happy mail, but I’m not sure what to send. It can’t cost too much and should be small to keep the shipping costs down. I tried to think of her hobbies, but she doesn’t really have any. She spends time with her family and goes to church. I was thinking of making something. Maybe some cards with inspirational quotes or some of our favourite memories. I’m just not sure. Would you enjoy getting that sort of thing in the mail? Do you have any suggestions?

(This conversational coffee post is part of a weekend link-up hosted by Part-Time Monster. Join in the fun!)

DLP7 – Going Under Cover

The Documented Life Project – Journal, February 14th (week 7)
(For more inspiration or more info on this week’s project, visit Art to the 5th)

Art Challenge: Cover Up Good Stuff

Prompt: Going Under Cover

The exercise this week was about covering up the good stuff. They didn’t specify what the “good stuff” was, so I looked at some of the examples they provided. Some artists started their pages and then covered up doodles or layers that they liked with other layers while some did some journaling and then started layering over top of that. I decided my “good stuff” would be my research notes.

When I am writing a paper or something along those lines, I make notes from the research articles that I read. Writing it out in my own words helps it sink in better and I don’t have to worry about plagiarism and what not. Sometimes I draw diagrams to help explain things to other people. I also work with our lab’s data via paper and pen. I guess I am really a visual learner and it works best with pen in hand rather than typing it out.

I grabbed a bunch of my old notes. I tried to get a good variety; words, numbers, diagrams and different colours of pens. I tore them up and glued them into my journal with gel medium. I got the art challenge down but I still had to figure out the prompt. “Going under cover” makes me think of a disguise. Putting that and my research notes together got me thinking about how I feel at work. I feel like a fake and at any minute everyone is going to see through the confident, intelligent show I put on. I am constantly interacting with the experts in my field. I have authored a couple papers. I have even presented at conferences. I just don’t feel like I know enough to be doing all these things.

I found out that this is actually a common feeling among Ph.D. students. That’s what studies say at least. I am skeptical. The other students I work with seem confident, arrogant even. It’s called Imposter Syndrome. I defined it on my page.

Just in case you can’t read the photo, Imposter Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.

This spread started with my research notes. I glued a few strips of paper from my stash on too. I did a light layer of white gesso over top and a layer of blush pink acrylic paint over that. I was pleased that you could still see the lined paper and my writing through the paint. I used bubblegum pink acrylic to paint some blobs on the page. I used a large stamp with circles on it and pink ink to randomly stamp all over the page. I got stuck for a while at this point.

I decided to draw an eye in the middle of one page. The eye represents my research and my fear of people seeing through my act. The eye was done with watercolour pencil crayons and Neocolour II.

From there wrote the Imposter Syndrome definition in black signo uniball pen. I doodled a DNA strand above that and did some stamping with a butterfly. I have to work on my stamping, it is still coming out blotchy.

I figured I had to do something with those big pink blobs, so I started writing words related to work in them. The blobs that were too small to write in were turned into atoms…Rutherford-Bohr diagrams of Carbon. Why? I don’t know, I don’t really think about that type of science anymore, but that’s just what they made me think of.

It turned out to be a very pink spread. I like pink, so that’s ok.

If We Were Having Coffee….

If we were having coffee, I’d say let’s go to the coffee shop down the street. The street I live on ends at a little village. It’s a really cute place in the summer because you can see the details of all the old stone buildings and the water lies just behind them. In the winter, I start to miss it. We can drop into Bilboquet. It’s primarily an ice cream shop, but during the winter they get most of their business from coffee and treats. I usually opt for a mini cupcake…or two. They have such fun flavours.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you how your week was. My week was relatively stressful and I am exhausted, but it was a good week overall. The stress was brought on by my boss’ great time management skills. She gave me some instructions, sent me a list of references and asked me to make a presentation. Normally, I enjoy this sort of thing, but I got all out of sorts for a couple reasons this time.

1. I hadn’t read most of the journal articles on the list yet which meant a lot of reading
2. The journal articles were old and I couldn’t access a lot of them
3. Her instructions and the content of the articles were conflicting
4. The presentation was to be long, an hour at least.
5. She gave me less than two days notice so I had to drop all the things I was supposed to be doing in order to get this done.

Being the head honcho, I think she sometimes forgets how long it takes to put things like this together. Plus, I am a perfectionist so I make a lot of trouble for myself. That part isn’t her fault. I finished making the presentation with enough time left over to go figure out how to plug my laptop into the big screen TV in the conference room. Anyway, the presentation was a hit, so much so that I’m going to be presenting it at a conference in the fall for continuing education (CE) credits. This is awesome. When your talk qualifies for CE credits you get your flight, conference registration and two nights in the hotel paid for. While we are on the conference topic, I’d also add that I completely lucked out and was awarded an ARVO travel fellowship! ARVO is the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. They have a huge conference every year that I go to. I always apply for the travel award, but never get it. This is good. Really good.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I spent one night this week on FaceTime with one of my dearest friends. Even though we live about 6 hours apart, she has been one of my best friends since the 6th grade. It was nice to catch up with her and her daughter. I helped her set up a blog on WordPress. She has decided to try blogging as a way to cope with all that’s going on in her life. She is one of the few people from my real life that knows about my blog. Her blog is Sparkles and Darkness. I’m sure she would love it if you stopped by to say hello.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that #1000Speak took place yesterday and it gave me the warm fuzzies, lol. I know people value compassion and wish there wasn’t so much hate and violence going on in the world. Despite this, I still see so little empathy, nevermind altruism. I was comforted to see all these bloggers, people like me, who are conscious of the lack of compassion and try to practice it as often as possible. It has restored some of my faith in humanity. I learned a lot doing some background research on my post, It All Starts With You. I focused on human compassion in society, but other posts talked about self-compassion, which I think I needed a reminder on. How can you continue to be compassionate towards others when you are being so hard on yourself? You can only give so much before you have nothing left. Being kind to yourself prevents that reservoir of compassion from getting too low.

If we were having coffee, we would probably have finished our coffee and goodies a while ago. I’d thank you for the company, bid you happy weekend and we’d be on our merry way until next time. 🙂

(This conversational coffee post is part of a weekend link-up hosted by Part-Time Monster. Join in the fun!