Why We Pathologize Normal Behavior

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Your client is 45 minutes into a heavy session, crying and close to a panic attack, and the screen freezes. Someone in their house just started streaming in 4K. This episode starts there.This is a long review of a six-hour telehealth training for counseling students, both parts back to back. We go through the material in order, and every topic ends with a mnemonic and a quick recap of what to know for the training quiz.In this episode:- Part 1: What telehealth and telemental health are, where they came from, synchronous and asynchronous care, and the benefits and risks- Part 1: HIPAA for counselors, cybersecurity basics, encryption, the Privacy Rule and Security Rule, business associates and breach notification- Part 1: Choosing your tools, the three kinds of telehealth platforms, and when to use email and text messaging- Part 2: Hardware that makes or breaks a session, from headsets and Ethernet to lighting and what is on the wall behind you- Part 2: Orienting clients, running the session from start to finish, and crisis planning with local emergency services- Part 2: Legal and ethical rules, including where you are, where the client is and why you do not cross state lines without a license there- Part 2: Coordinating care with local resources, special populations such as veterans and children, and tips for staying well as a telehealth counselor- Religious frameworks, from the confessional to the Sabbath, plus mnemonics and everyday examples to help it stickTo close: if the screen is just a window, does real closeness in counseling depend on being in the same room?#Psychology #Counseling #Telehealth #TelementalHealth #HIPAA #CounselingStudent #StudyWithMe #MentalHealth

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In 1932, researchers in the United States began a study that ran for 40 years, tracking Black men with syphilis and leaving them untreated. This final counseling profession review begins with the Tuskegee experiment.This is the third long exam review episode for our counseling profession course, covering Chapters 13 through 18 of Neukrug (2022). Every chapter ends with a rapid recap of what to know for the final.In this episode:- Chapter 13: Research and evaluation, the Tuskegee experiment, grounded theory from Glaser and Strauss, and Lincoln and Guba's trustworthiness and credibility- Chapter 14: Theory and concepts of multicultural counseling, including Crenshaw's intersectionality- Chapter 15: Knowledge and skills of multicultural counseling- Chapter 16: School counseling, George Merrill, the American School Counselor Association and comprehensive school counseling programs- Chapter 17: Mental health, addiction and rehabilitation counseling, with Kenneth Donaldson's Supreme Court case- Chapter 18: College counseling and student affairs, Chickering's seven vectors, the Clery Act and the Tarasoff duty to warn- Religious and spiritual frameworks, memory hooks and everyday examples to help you remember the conceptsTo close: if the counseling specialties keep overlapping, will they eventually merge into one?#Psychology #Counseling #CounselorEducation #ExamReview #ResearchMethods #Tuskegee #MulticulturalCounseling #Intersectionality #SchoolCounseling #AddictionCounseling #CollegeCounseling #Chickering #CounselingStudent #PsychologyStudent #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!You are sitting in a circle of eight strangers, about to share something you have never told anyone, and you realize the person next to you could be subpoenaed. This episode begins with that group, then covers diagnosis and careers before turning to testing.This is the second long exam review episode for our counseling profession course, covering Chapters 7 through 12 of Neukrug (2022). Every chapter ends with a rapid recap of what to know for the final.In this episode:- Chapter 7: Group work, Moreno and the origin of group psychotherapy, Tuckman's stages, and confidentiality in groups- Chapter 8: Consultation and supervision, and the Tarasoff duty to warn- Chapter 9: Development across the life span, including Kegan's subject-object theory, Kohlberg, Gilligan and Levinson- Chapter 10: Abnormal development, the DSM-5, Rosenhan's study, psychopharmacology and tardive dyskinesia, and the case of Ellen West- Chapter 11: Career development, Frank Parsons and Holland's theory- Chapter 12: Testing and assessment, reliability, Cronbach's alpha and projective tests like the Rorschach- Religious and spiritual frameworks, memory hooks and everyday examples to help you remember the conceptsTo close: what if liking the color blue were a diagnosis?#Psychology #Counseling #CounselorEducation #ExamReview #GroupCounseling #DSM5 #Psychopharmacology #CareerCounseling #Holland #PsychologicalTesting #Tarasoff #Kohlberg #CounselingStudent #PsychologyStudent #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!You are 57 years old, you wake up one morning and the house is entirely silent because your child has finally moved away. This final lifespan review begins with that experience and covers development through the end of life.This is the third long exam review episode for our lifespan development course, covering Chapters 10 through 13 of Coker et al. (2022). Every chapter ends with a rapid recap of what to know for the final.In this episode:- Chapter 10: Cultural and contextual factors of middle adulthood, the case of Ellen, Hays's ADDRESSING model, Bronfenbrenner, ecomaps and genograms- Chapter 11: Kohlberg and the Heinz dilemma, Gilligan's challenge, Loevinger's ego development and Erikson in midlife- Chapter 12: Cultural and contextual factors of late adulthood through end of life, the case of Rose, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, the Flynn effect and Gerstorf's cohort research- Chapter 13: Erikson and Joan Erikson on the final stages, Gene Cohen's human potential stages, and Lawton's ecological theory of aging- Religious and spiritual frameworks, memory hooks and everyday examples to help you remember the conceptsTo close: when you picture yourself at 75, what do you actually see?#Psychology #LifespanDevelopment #HumanDevelopment #ExamReview #MiddleAdulthood #LateAdulthood #Aging #Kohlberg #Gilligan #Loevinger #Erikson #FlynnEffect #CounselingStudent #PsychologyStudent #CounselorEducation #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Imagine your bedroom is the only place you are allowed to be yourself, and outside that door you are playing a character. This episode examines identity in middle childhood and adolescence, then in early adulthood.This is the second long exam review episode for our lifespan development course, covering Chapters 6 through 9 of Coker et al. (2022). Every chapter ends with a rapid recap of what to know for the final.In this episode:- Chapter 6: Cultural and contextual factors of middle childhood through adolescence, the case of Dev, Devor's transgender identity formation model, and Vygotsky- Chapter 7: Piaget, Erikson, Crocetti's three-factor identity model and research on LGBTQ youth of color- Chapter 8: Cultural and contextual factors of emerging and early adulthood, the case of Bilal, and the impact of historical trauma and the Black Lives Matter protests- Chapter 9: Jung, Erikson, Levinson and Arnett's emerging adulthood- Religious and spiritual frameworks, memory hooks and everyday examples to help you remember the conceptsTo close: how much of who you were at 16 was the character you played outside your bedroom door?#Psychology #LifespanDevelopment #HumanDevelopment #ExamReview #Adolescence #IdentityDevelopment #Piaget #Erikson #Vygotsky #EmergingAdulthood #Arnett #Levinson #CounselingStudent #PsychologyStudent #CounselorEducation #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In the late 1700s, patients in a Paris asylum were chained to stone walls until Philippe Pinel took off the chains. This episode starts there and traces the counseling profession's development through the theories and skills counselors use today.This is the first long exam review episode for our counseling profession course, covering Chapters 1 through 6 of Neukrug (2022). Every chapter ends with a rapid recap of what to know for the final.In this episode:- Chapter 1: The counselor's identity, the characteristics of effective helpers, Wampold and the common factors, Myers and Sweeney on wellness- Chapter 2: The history of the profession, Frank Parsons and vocational guidance, Clifford Beers, Sputnik and school counseling, Carl Rogers, and O'Connor v. Donaldson (1975)- Chapter 3: Ethics, accreditation, credentialing, and multicultural counseling, including principle ethics versus virtue ethics- Chapter 4: Individual approaches, from Freud, Jung and Adler to object relations, existential therapy with Frankl, Rogers, Perls, Skinner, Bandura, Ellis and Beck- Chapter 5: Counseling skills and the levels of empathic response- Chapter 6: Couples and family counseling, the Palo Alto group and the double bind, Satir, Bowen's differentiation of self, and Minuchin's structural work- Religious and spiritual frameworks, memory hooks and everyday examples to help the concepts stickTo close: if a machine could perfectly simulate unconditional positive regard, would it still be healing?#Psychology #Counseling #CounselorEducation #ExamReview #ACAEthics #CounselingTheories #Freud #CarlRogers #Adler #ExistentialTherapy #CBT #FamilyTherapy #Bowen #Minuchin #CounselingStudent #PsychologyStudent #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!The cell that eventually became you formed inside your grandmother while she was pregnant with your mother. Her stress and her environment were shaping your development decades before you were born.This is the first long exam review episode for our lifespan development course, covering Chapters 1 through 5 of Coker et al. (2022), from the roots of developmental theory through infancy and early childhood. Every chapter ends with a rapid recap of what to know for the final.In this episode:- Chapter 1: Lifespan in context, oogenesis and epigenetics, Locke's blank slate, Rousseau and Darwin- Religious frameworks for human worth and origin, including imago Dei in Genesis and the Hindu idea of Brahman and Atman- Chapter 2: Freud's five psychosexual stages, Erikson, Bandura, Vygotsky, and adult development with Arnett's emerging adulthood and Levinson- Chapter 3: Hays's ADDRESSING model, Hardy on privilege, Bronfenbrenner's systems, and McGoldrick's family life cycle- Chapter 4: Culture and context in infancy through early childhood, the Dunstan Baby Cries Model, the case of Xquenda, and Relational Cultural Theory's Five Good Things- Chapter 5: Freud's early stages, Melanie Klein's Object Relations Theory, Wilhelm Reich, attachment theory from Bowlby, Ainsworth and Main, the ACEs framework, and Porges's Polyvagal Theory- Memory hooks and everyday examples to help the concepts stickTo close: if our earliest stress responses are wired in before we can speak, how much more patient should we be with other people and ourselves?#Psychology #LifespanDevelopment #HumanDevelopment #ExamReview #Epigenetics #Freud #Erikson #AttachmentTheory #PolyvagalTheory #Bronfenbrenner #RelationalCulturalTheory #CounselingStudent #PsychologyStudent #CounselorEducation #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Cognitively, the average 75-year-old today matches the average 56-year-old from the year 2000. So why do we still treat aging as a slow slide into decline?This episode covers the late adulthood chapters of our Human Development textbook, from age 65 to the end of life. We follow the textbook's case study of Rose, a 77-year-old Jamaican American woman who recently lost her wife, Ruth, to cancer, is living with early-stage dementia, and has just moved into an assisted living facility called The Gardens.In this episode:- The Flynn effect in aging, and why today's older adults report being happier than earlier generations- Hays' ADDRESSING framework, explained as faders on a mixing board- Minority stress theory and a study where older Black adults showed stronger cognition in difficult neighborhoods- Gibson's model of disability identity: passive awareness, realization and acceptance (mnemonic: PRA)- Lawton's ecological theory: environmental press vs. individual competence, explained as difficulty scaling in a video game- How Rose uses Jamaican dominoes to set the pace of her own social life, and what Bandura's agency and forethought have to do with it- Erikson's integrity vs. despair, and the ninth stage Joan Erikson added in her nineties- Gene Cohen's four phases of the second half of life, and whether they depend on money and health- Spiritual well-being and physical symptoms of anxiety and depression- Dr. Susan Moore, racial bias in pain treatment, filial piety and stereotype embodiment- Wortman and Silver's myths about mourning, and the Jamaican Nine Night traditionTo close: if smart homes and AI sensors keep older adults perfectly safe, will they also leave them alone?#Psychology #HumanDevelopment #LateAdulthood #Aging #DevelopmentalPsychology #Erikson #Intersectionality #Gerontology #GriefAndLoss #Dementia #PsychologyStudent #CounselingStudent #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!You see someone on the sidewalk carefully stepping over every crack and whispering to themselves. Your first thought is "that's not normal." But who decides what normal is?This episode covers chapter 10 of Neukrug (2022), on abnormal development, diagnosis and psychopharmacology. Neukrug admits that when he started as a therapist he resisted diagnosing clients, until the DSM "soon became my Bible." We take that line literally and use religious ideas to explain how each school of psychology tells the origin story of human suffering.In this episode:- Five origin stories: genetics and epigenetics as predestination, Freud's id, ego and superego as spiritual warfare, behaviorism as karma, humanism as an inner light, and social constructionism as myth- Epigenetics explained as a sound board, where the environment pushes the genetic sliders up or down- Freud's anal stage, and whether anyone still links hoarding to potty training- How negative reinforcement slowly shrinks the world of someone with agoraphobia- Rogers' conditions of worth and the case of Ellen West- The "color therapy" thought experiment: what if loving blue were a diagnosis?- The DSM from 1952 to the DSM-5: dropping the multiaxial system, specifiers, provisional diagnoses and Z codes- The Cultural Formulation Interview and ataque de nervios- Five classes of psychiatric medication: antipsychotics and tardive dyskinesia, lithium, the move from amphetamines to SSRIs, benzodiazepines, and why stimulants calm ADHD- Szasz and Laing's critique, Rosenhan's "On Being Sane in Insane Places," and O'Connor v. Donaldson (1975)- An ethics reminder: changing a diagnosis to satisfy an insurance company is fraudTo close: which traits we treat as disorders today might look like strengths 100 years from now?#Psychology #AbnormalPsychology #DSM5 #Psychopathology #Psychopharmacology #Counseling #MentalHealth #Freud #CarlRogers #Rosenhan #SocialConstructionism #PsychologyStudent #CounselingStudent #CounselorEducation #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!64% of Americans think you should be financially independent by age 22. Only 24% actually are. What happens when what society expects from adulthood runs into real life?This episode covers chapters 10 and 11 of our Human Development textbook, which deal with middle adulthood. We follow the textbook's case study of Ellen (57) and Clark (61). When midlife pressure hit, Clark moved into a downtown apartment and cut himself off from the family. Ellen stayed home to care for her injured 83-year-old mother and her 22-year-old son, who had just moved back after college. Why does one person shut down while the other grows?In this episode:- Hays' ADDRESSING model: identity as a set of overlapping traits, like building a character in a role-playing game- Bronfenbrenner's ecological model explained as a video game's physics engine, plus the "sandwich generation"- Is the "empty nest" mostly a Western, middle-class idea?- Erikson's generativity vs. stagnation, plus "other fathering" and grandparents raising grandchildren during the opioid epidemic- Loevinger's stages of ego development, and why most adults stop growing at the self-aware stage- Why a crisis is often what pushes people to the next stage- Kohlberg's ethic of justice vs. Gilligan's ethic of care, and the problem with studying only teenage boys- How an adult's moral reasoning shapes who they exclude and who they stand up forTo close: if people start living to 100 or 120, what happens to middle age? Could it last 40 years?#Psychology #HumanDevelopment #MiddleAdulthood #MidlifeCrisis #DevelopmentalPsychology #Erikson #Bronfenbrenner #Kohlberg #CarolGilligan #EgoDevelopment #SandwichGeneration #PsychologyStudent #CounselingStudent #ThePsychologyUndergrad #StudyPodcast