Dr. Amen has written a book about a medical model for physiological brain problems which alter behavior, such as ADD, depression, and anxiety. In the third chapter, A Look into Love and Depression, Dr. Amen talks about the deep limbic system which is differentiated from the limbic system by only including the thalamic structures and hypothalamus. Some functions of the deep limbic system include:

-sets the emotional tone of the mind
-filters external events through internal states (creates emotional coloring)
-tags events as internally important
-stores highly charged emotional memories
-modulates motivation
-controls appetite and sleep cycles
-promotes bonding
-directly processes the sense of smell
-modulates libido

Dr. Amen proposes that when the deep limbic system is overactive a painful emotional shading results within a person and this changes how one interprets events which changes one�s behavior. PMS is a good example of the emotional shading principle. Many women with PMS at Dr. Amen�s clinic have been SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) scanned just before the onset of their period and then again a week after the onset of their period. Dr. Amen found that when PMS is present dramatic differences are seen between the two scans. �When a woman feels good, her deep limbic system is calm and cool. When she feels bad right before her period, her deep limbic system most often is hot!� When the deep limbic system is overactive (hot) events that happen will be shaded in a more negative way. Some problems that occur with overactivity are:

-moodiness, irritability, clinical depression
-increased negative thinking
-negative perception of events
-decreased motivation
-flood of negative emotions
-appetite and sleep problems
-decreased or increased sexual responsiveness
-social isolation

This book has opened my eyes to ideas about physiological brain problems that where just thought of as psychological problems before. This approach to treatment has had a great effect on patients� health. Dr. Amen can point to a scan and show someone what is wrong within the brain, which makes the patient feel better because they have a physical brain problem instead of a problem that seems to be intangible (psychological). When one looks at the types of patients that Dr. Amen has referred to (people who are depressed, people who are anxious, and people who have marital problems) we see them as �normal� people but they have problems that are not quite severe. Is Dr. Amen proposing a new standard of normal behavior and brain physiology? Could normal be defined as a man or woman who is never emotionally upset? Could moodiness become a treatable illness?

Dr Amen�s treatment is changing people�s personalities. The real question becomes what is a problem and what is personality? If someone is pessimistic should that be fixed? Should people change their personalities through medical treatment to get a desired effect? One example that Dr. Amen states is about a couple that is going through counseling because their marital problems are effecting their children's daily lives. After many months of therapy Dr. Amen becomes frustrated couple. They are not making progress in their marriage and the children are still suffering, Dr. Amen says, �either you should get an amicable divorce and give yourselves and these kids some peace, or let me scan your brains and see if I�m not missing a biological piece to your marriage puzzle.� Sure enough Dr. Amen found that the husband had ADD (causing him to not be able to pay attention to his wife) and the wife had a cingulate problem (causing her to obsess about certain thoughts or ideas, negative or positive). After giving the couple prescriptions for Ritalin and Prozac the couple finally started to make progress in making their marriage work. The problem that I see with this is that Dr. Amen is changing peoples� personalities. Some may have known the woman for being persistent and some may have known the man for being a bad listener (but what else is new hahaha ). Should those aspects of their personality be changed through medication or should they move on to meet people who they are more compatible with? I say, if the couple wants to stay together than they should do what they can to fix the situation. I would think that if someone�s behavior was damaging to the way they live then they should take medication to fix any problems. If the person is happy with their personality, even if others don�t like it, then that person should not get treatment. Having this type of treatment would be a very personal choice.

This brings me to another aspect of the deep limbic system, love. The deep limbic system appears to be quite involved in emotional bonds that people form between one another. After orgasm the deep limbic system cools itself down and this cooling helps to form loving bonds between people. When these bonds are broken the damage can be quite great because the deep limbic system can become overactive. I wonder if it�s possible for someone to be addicted to another person because of the positive reinforcement that they receive from this deep limbic system cooling that is received from having a sexual partner and limbic bond? If addiction is the case then that would explain why couples have a hard time breaking up or why being broken up with is so painful. My theory would propose that once you are around someone long enough, forming a limbic bond, that this bond would cause a person�s baseline of deep limbic activity to decrease. Once the baseline for limbic system activity has decreased it is that much harder to handle overactivity in this region causing people to have more severe symptoms.

This chapter would indicate that human beings are controlled in part by their emotions but one is only poorly controlled by emotions when one choices to ignore rational. Dr. Amen suggests treatments for everyday life that include using rational thinking to solve problems instead of listening to the negative shading that appears when one�s limbic system is overactive. So next time you�re upset or emotionally charged about a situation just �cool it�.

Thomas S. Szasz theorizes that man is "hiding [his responsibility for his actions] behind the skirt of an all-explaining conception of mental illness". I am in agreement with Szasz�s theory that mental illness is a myth if one is to use Szasz�s definition of mental illness.

Szasz argues that mental illness is a problem of living produced by norms of psychosocial, ethical, and legal concepts and not a brain disease/neurological disorder. Mental illness differs from brain disorders because a brain disorder is purely medical, having physical symptoms, while symptoms of mental illness are based on abstract concepts such as the norms of a society.

Physicians use mental illness as the cause of a problem instead of recognizing the real problem at hand, whether the problem(s) are through one�s family, job, or other societal issues. Like a blanket, mental illness has been placed over society to protect human beings from facing their true problems. An example of this is attention deficit/hyperactive disorder. Children disagnosed with "(a)ttention deficit/hyperactive disorder, predominantly inattentive type [are] characterized by problems such as distractibility, difficulty with sustained attention, inattention to detail, and difficulty completing tasks" (491, Abnormal Behavior). We have all had the experience of being sleep deprived and can affirm that those symptoms accompanying ADHD also are found in sleep deprivation. Children may be sleep deprived for a number of social reasons such as that the parents feel guilt because they are not able to interact with their children during the day, therefore parents let their children stay up later to compensate for the missed activity during the day. Are children who are sleep deprived (problem in living) being mis-diagnosed with ADHD (mental illness)? Possibly.

Szasz would confirm that "(t)he norm from which deviation is measured wherever one speaks of a mental illness is a psycholsocial and ethical one. Yet, the remedy is sought in terms of medical measures". In the sleep deprivation case above the remedy is a medical one which may include medication such as ritalin or other stimulants when the root of the problem may be solved with family counseling or plainly for the parents to take responsibility for what is healthy for their child. Szasz states that "medical action is designed to correct only medical deviations, it seems logically absurd to expect that it will help solve problems whose very existence had been defined and established on nonmedical grounds."

Individuals should take responsibility for their own actions to improve upon their daily lives. By being comforted in the warmth of mental illness individuals may be evading their real problems. To receive real results one must solve real problems.

We got to the museum and walked around the exhibit halls. Rigth now there is a cool exhibit on Sue, one of the most (if not the most) complete skeletons of a T-Rex. We strolled into an exhibit on animals that contained many stuffed ones, such as a lion. This exhibit was wicked cool. I also ventured into the "Big Dig" exhibit. This exhibit (for most Bostonians) just rubs it in our faces that we STILL have to live through this monstrosity! When will it ever end? I did get to write my comments about the "Big Dig" which was somewhat gratifying. After traveling around the museum Gregory, Laura, and I went for eats down the street. At nine o'clock we came back to the museum to see and Omni film.

I haven�t been to an Omni show in quite a while. I was pretty excited to see one. We chose to see Dolphins. So we get in line for the Omni show (this is always an adventure). We have our seats staked out at the top of the black box (this is the best place to sit). We get to the front of the line with twenty minutes to kill. The ticket handler comes out and we get our tickets ripped first. Gregory and I raced to the seats and prevailed, YES!!! So we�re sitting in the best seats, and what do ya know??? A cell phone goes off. This really pisses me off and it sounded like it was coming from the people next to me. Boy was I wrong, it was the Omni film reminding the audience to shut off all cell phones and pagers. So the show starts and they have his new intro. It�s like the old one with the neat speaker set up with Leonard Nemoy speaking except they add this little extra guy who has to made side comments on the screen, it was pretty annoying. And of course they have to cut out the coolest part of the intro where the speaker talks about New England and everyone gets to go on the WICKED cool car ride through Boston. Oh well, ok I can deal with that. Now they have "previews" for other Omni films, they used to do that at the end of the Omni show, geez! Ahhh now the film really starts.

The film was basically a social commentary on how education about dolphins will help to save them in the future from their predators, mainly MAN. The narrator (Pierce Bronsen, no less) talks about the idea of dolphins having emotions. The film even showed some interesting footage to possibly back up this statement (such as a man who really appears to have a relationship with a dolphin). Some of the music for the Omni film was by Sting, so that was pretty cool. There was something definatly lacking in this film though. Now if I remember correctly Omni films used to be those films that threw facts at you every 2.2 seconds. You could leave from an Omni show and say "Wow I didn�t know that preying mantis liked chocolate cake!" (ok so maybe this isn�t what they say exactly but you catch my drift). When going to an Omni show I could always rely on learning tons of useless facts, yet very stimulating to learn and fun. Now it seems that the Omni shows are more heart and less smart. Yes I think it�s dandy that we should cherish dolphins and learning is key for this but at the same time I want to know how long the bottle nose dolphins "nose" (maybe mouth, or both) is. I want to be able to walk out of the film, see my friends the next day, and recant dozens of trivial facts that will draw me some pleasurable attention for ten minutes or so. I�m not saying that this particular Omni show didn�t teach me anything. There were some really cool parts, such as learning about dolphin communication through sounds and body language and a refresher on echolocation. I just wish there had been MORE of this and less, "we have to save the dolphins because�". Omni should go back to being MORE SMART and LESS HEART!!

Choosing romantic partners versus those whom we choose to keep as intimate friends challenge men and women on a regular basis. To explore this issue the terms intimate friendship and romance will be defined, it will be shown how these relationships differ, and tell about the essential difference between a romance and an intimate friendship; sexual attraction, in part using psychological learning theory.

An intimate friendship is equivalent to having a confidant. These friendships develop when people find other�s values/virtues similar or simply appealing compared to their own. These participants mutually respect, love, encourage, admire, and influence each other. The language here is explanatory except for love, an abstract concept of emotion. Love has degrees, therefore people love family members, friends, and romantic partners, in various ways. The love for a confidant is synonymous with feelings of affection, devotion, and fondness.

Romance is the celebration of the appreciation and admiration that two people share for each other, who are fortunate enough to have met a person with agreeable values and virtues. The elements of a romance are similar to those of an intimate friendship, sharing respect, love, encouragement, admiration, and influence for each other. Love between romantic partners takes on its highest degree; being in love, which is the pronunciation of making an individual of major value to one�s life. Love differs from romantic love, being spontaneous and taking the risk-free definition of �I care for you�. Romantic love says �I love you, I value you.� Being in love wants the relationship to be "it" that which brings both partners the most happiness. Love flourishes when an intimate friendship lies at the core of the relationship.

Having entered a romance, a partner may ask his/her self �do I have the emotional capacity/stability to receive and to give love?� which further leads to �could this relationship lead to marriage and a family�. Developmental growth is substantial to a romantic relationship. For a romance to flourish both partners have to be able to grow from and with one another in maturity, intelligence, and emotional capacity.

The essential difference between an intimate friendship and a romance is sexual attraction. The physical is not unimportant and heavily sways us as to who we choose to be romantically involved with. Sexual attraction leads to sex, whether it be for pleasure or procreation. Pleasure itself makes sex inherently good, therefore sexual attraction is favorable. Sexual attraction has further implications leading to procreation, therefore furthering the species. Evolutionarily speaking sexual attraction makes it possible for the species to survive.

Psychology can also help to explain two things: why people maintain romances and why people are inclined to move towards a romance. Two learning styles explain this: reinforcement and operant conditioning.
While in a romantic relationship behavior is reinforced. Both partners reinforce each others�s behaviors by using pleasure (positive reinforcement). This positive reinforcement is reciprocal.
Operant conditioning, the second learning style (also more complicated), first requires a stimuli that elicits an unconditioned response. For example, if one was to blow a puff of air (unconditioned stimuli) at someone�s eye, that person will blink (the unconditioned response). The unconditioned stimuli (the air) paired with a neural stimuli (such as a sound, a bell) causes the neutral stimuli to elicit the same unconditioned response. The neutral stimuli (the bell) causes a conditioned (learned) response when the unconditioned stimuli (puff of air) is taken away. The particular experiment would show that at the sound of a bell one's eye would blink.

This theory works with romantic partners. Example: physical touch (the unconditioned stimuli) causes the unconditioned response of good feelings (because of activating the hypothalamus/pleasure center). If one pairs physical touch with a specific person (neutral stimuli), that specific person becomes a conditioned stimuli to feel happy or to derive pleasure from (in other words the conditioned response). One derives physical pleasure more often and in an intense manor making a romance more favorable than a friendship.

5/6/00

My first thought was to choose death because that choice seemed like the natural thing to do as well as something I�m expected to do as a mortal human being, never having the choice to live or die (with the exception of suicide). Last week I attended the BON salon and since then have been pondering about the possibilities of life extension. I have broadened my knowledge about the possibilities of my life extension instead of being naive about the topic, therefore forming an uneducated opinion, hence previously choosing death. One could say I'm pro-life now ; )

Ayn Rand would say that the primary value is to sustain life. Why should I have ever considered death the good decision when existance is so much more fufilling? The possibilities become endless when life can continue for an exasperatingly long time. In essence I could do anything that I wanted, to perfection. So maybe someday I really will be a rock star, a famous psychologist, a composer, or any number of things that I�ve just glimpsed at marveling to be. The quality of human life will rise because we will be changing our expectations of the human body�s capacity and capabilities. Death is frightful because it is the end. I have very rarely found (infact I can not think of a time) ending anything that I derive pleasure from to be of satisfaction. The possibility of my death has never haunted me as much as the death of my loved ones. When I think of my father playing guitar or having conversations with my mother it makes me realize that those future moments I may share with them should not be sacrificed, if they had a choice to extend their life. It upsets me that they will most likely not have the opportunity to have a choice that I may be fortunate enough to have in the future.

People will disagree with the possibility of life extension because they feel it is not natural. Why is applying the achievement of the human mind seen as unnatural? What could be more natural then using what we, as human beings, have actualized to improve our quality of life. Today, I am in awe of what individuals have accomplished, especially in the sciences. By simply walking down the street I can see the harmony between nature and man�s inventions. It�s amazing how far the human race has come and how much further we will go in the near future. To gaze upon the future will be to gaze upon man�s creation.