Author: vaughanbell

Apparently Scientific American have been doing ‘online only’ specials for a while, but they completely passed me by until they just released one on the The Child’s Mind.

It’s a collection of various articles that have been published in SciAm over the past few years on developmental psychology and neuroscience.

The issue is not freely available, it costs $5 to download, but this seems good value for those (like me) not wanting to pay for a full online subscription for issues they might never read.

I quite like the idea of a minimum payment for a one-stop collection of previously published special interest articles and I’m hoping other publishers will consider doing the same.

The special has articles with both clinical and ‘pure research’ angles, including “Why Children Talk to Themselves”, “Scars That Won’t Heal: The Neurobiology of Child Abuse”, “Uncommon Talents: Gifted Children, Prodigies and Savants” and “Think Better: Learning to Focus”.

Link to info on The Child’s Mind online special.

Part II of the Australian All in the Mind two-part series on schizophrenia is now online. The second part focuses on the current range of treatments for people diagnosed with the condition.

This includes both pharmacological and psychological approaches, and the programme discusses the current state of research and the advantages and disadvantages of various therapies.

The programme also explains how many current therapies are attempting to directly address difficulties which have been uncovered by cognitive science research.

mp3 or realaudio of programme.
Link to transcript of programme.

Malcolm Gladwell writes an insightful review of “Why?” (ISBN 069112521X) by renowned sociologist Charles Tilly that tackles the social context and motivations for providing explanations.

A recent article in The Guardian also discussed the new book and summarised Tilly’s five ‘types’ of explanation:

There are, Tilly suggests, at least five different ways to explain why things happen. To take Katrina as the example: the first explanation might be “convention” (there’s always a monumental cock-up after a hurricane); the second, “technical explication” (in which the meteorologists precisely chart how weather conditions created the chaos); third, “codes” (in this case, the federal, state and city ordinances that prevented any clear line of responsibility emerging); fourth, “ritualistic” explanations (God’s wrath or nemesis); and “fifth”, stories.

In Gladwell’s New Yorker review, he highlights the fact that these types of explanations have different social purposes and are typically used to achieve certain persuasive ends in a debate.

Proponents of abortion often rely on a convention (choice) and a technical account (concerning the viability of a fetus in the first trimester). Opponents of abortion turn the fate of each individual fetus into a story: a life created and then abruptly terminated. Is it any surprise that the issue has proved to be so intractable? If you believe that stories are the most appropriate form of reason-giving, then those who use conventions and technical accounts will seem morally indifferent—regardless of whether you agree with them. And, if you believe that a problem is best adjudicated through conventions or technical accounts, it is hard not to look upon storytellers as sensationalistic and intellectually unserious.

Gladwell (who was recently profiled in Psychological Science) makes links between Tilly’s work and the work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman who similarly examined seemingly straighforward social interactions.

In his classic book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Goffman argued that how we present ourselves to others is often like a stage appearance, which we try to manage as much as possible to control the impressions that others draw from our ‘performance’.

UPDATE: The first chapter of “Why?” is freely available from Princeton University Press in html or pdf format.

Link to Gladwell’s review of “Why?” in The New Yorker.
Link to Guardian article on Tilly’s “Why?”.

A poem by John Hegley from his 1993 collection Five Sugars Please (ISBN 0413773000).

Outsider art
As a bit of a break for Albert
from the hospital of the mind
I accompanied him to the park for a picnic
and a bit of crayoning enjoyment;
using just the one crayon
he liked to attend to a piece of paper
and meticulously obliterate the surface area.
Some time into the process
a couple who shared Albert’s middle age
came sneaking a fascinated peek
over the shoulder of what they took to be
an amateur landscape artist
but found his interpretation of reality
just a little too modern.

The other All in the Mind (broadcast by Australian station Radio National) has the first of a two-part special on schizophrenia and psychosis.

The presenter talks to Angela, a young woman who has experienced some intense psychotic episodes and has been diagnosed and treated for schizophrenia.

Angela’s experiences were so severe as to need several years recovery. Despite this, Angela is now back at work and enjoying a full life.

The programme also includes input from several researchers and clinicians who explain what is known about schizophrenia-related changes in the brain, as well as known risk factors for developing the condition.

Part two of the programme is due online next week.

The picture on the left is by artist Maureen Oliver and depicts the experience of psychosis (click for more information).

mp3 or realaudio of prgramme.
Link to transcript of programme.

This is one I missed when it first appeared – the United Colors of Benetton magazine Colors had an issue focusing on mental illness and its treatment around the world.

Despite the flash-heavy website, there’s some beautiful photography in there, including some self-portraits taken by patients (like the one on the right).

The issue features patients from Cuba, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Belgium and Los Angeles, and shows the striking inequalities in mental health treatment throughout both the developed and developing world.

The photographs from Cuba are also currently part of an exhibition at London’s Institute of Psychiatry, where they are contrasted with photographs of patients resident in the Bethlem Royal Hospital during Victorian times.

Many of these Victorian-era photographs from the Bethlem are reproduced in a thought-provoking book called Presumed Curable (reviewed here).

Link to issue of Colors on madness.
Link to details of Institute of Psychiatry exhibition.
Link to review of Presumed Curable.