Sehrish I.

There is a difference between shame and guilt. Shame is how others make you feel about your actions or thoughts. Guilt is how your actions or thoughts make you feel from inside in the form of repentance. Social pressure can make you feel shameful but not necessarily guilty.

It is a term coined in psychology that means thinking about our thinking. It is a skill that forms foundation for self-awareness and regulation. One tool that can help in the journey of self-awareness and regulation is writing down our thoughts/ journaling. It doesn't mean that tou have to write beautiful narrative or become a writer. It simply means you spend some time writing your own thoughts. It could be phrases, broken sentences, or just words. Thus exercise helps give words to your thoughts and the process leads to awareness. Our hidden thoughts become more obvious and we become more aware of our biases, beliefs and we get closer to making the positive changes. Hope it helps.

Let's talk about our awareness about ourselves. What Cognitive distortions do you recogniz in your own thinking?

Anger isn't an emotion. It's a behavioral expression of unresolved feelings. It may stem from underlying feelings of guilt, fear, hurt or rejection. It's It's reaction when person feels vulnerable and insecure. Anger keeps simmering and surfacing, if the real emotion is unaddressed. You are welcome to add your thoughts.

Opposite action is a skill used in therapy to help manage overwhelming emotions in short term. This skill is used to help reduce intensity of overwhelming emotions (preventing harmful/ negative behavior). When your emotions are pushing you towards negative behaviors, you need to take an action opposite to it. For Example: if feeling sadness/ hopelessness, try to recognise these emotions might tell you to "isolate yourself, there is no point in trying" etc. Now what you need to do is to take exact opposite action like trying to socialize with others, push yourself to go out, talk to people, to move your body and change your environment. This way by taking opposite action, the intensity of that overwhelming emotion lessens and you start to feel better.

Does the change in chemical levels in the brain causes any structural changes in the brain ?

People with BPD have the tendency for self harm. They are emotionally unstable and this instability is very frequent. They have the black and white thinking. There is no scope for grey in them. They can be either the most well-behaved or civilised people and can be the most dangerous in not time. They have fears and are insecure about their relationships. They make close attachments that are very intense and unstable. Traits include Emotional instability Poor self image /self-esteem Impulsive decisions Inability to deal with stress Inability to control anger Intense and unstable relationships Fear of rejection and abandonment Self harm (drug over dose, self cutting, burning)

What are the most commonly used defense mechanisms by criminals?

Empathy is an ability to understand other person's situation by stepping into their shoes. Daniel Goleman has described 3 stages of empathy 1) Cognitive Empathy (Brain) Logically and cognitively claiming to be understanding other's situation. 2) Emotional Empathy Here you connect emotionally with the other person, understanding their feelings, emotions as they are experiencing them. 3) Compassionate Empathy Here you not only try to understand the emotions of other person but also help them find ways to get relief and lower their pain. Thank you :)

Which factors you think play important role in individual's personality development?

A person who suffers from anxiety continuously fears about future. That person cannot be blamed for the thoughts. They are not in their control. It is similar to physical condition, just as vomiting due to gut infection can not be controlled by putting hand over the mouth, similarly anxious thoughts can't be shed off by telling a person nit to think like this. Therefore it is important NOT to ° Blame that person for their thoughts ° Judge the person for thier thoughts ° Abandon their concerns and fears ° Dismiss their personal distress Be kind be empathetic.

Being a psychologist, I have seen multiple cases where parenting acfsas on eof the factors behind the disturbed mental state of the clients. So, I would like to here your opinions and experience about it.

Most of the people suffering with mental illnesses do not commit any crimes but there occur some cases where the criminals have certain mental conditions that are a reason behind the crimes they commit. Most common mental conditions are 1) Schizophrenia 2) Borderline Personality Disorder 3) Antisocial Personality Disorder Here are some cases of the criminals who have been diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. But this doesn't mean that behind every crime there is a mental condition. This should be deeply assessed by a competent forensic psychologist.

There are mamy misconceptions regarding sleep problems. Majority of the people deal with it In a poor manner. Some people may sleep for 8 9 hours but don't feel fresh, some may have interrupted sleep, some are nof able to sleep. There can be some physiological causes behind sleep disturbance but In a Clinical practice majority of the people who come with sleep disturbance have some mental health issues associated with it, with depression being the most common one. People don't realize this and they see general practitioners solely for the problems of sleep and may take laxatives or sleeping pills to improve sleep without realizing that it can be so addictive. Sleep ddisturbance don't occur in isolation thier is definitely a hidden cause behind it, mostly mental illnesses. How to improve sleep 1) maintain your sleeping routine 2) make your sleeping place comfortable 3) try to balance your screen time, if necessary use laptops and mobiles 3 hours before sleeping. 4) reduce use of coffee and tea 5) take out atleast 30 minutes for exercise. 6) don't take day time naps till your night sleep is improved. 7) don't just keep lying in bed if not asleep. Make yourself busy and once you feel sleepy then go toto bed. All these steps are for the mild sleep disturbance, try them for atleast 1 or 1&half month if it does not work for ypu then see a psychiatrist or ajab psychologist becauae there are chances of any mental illness behind it. Don't try to do treatment by your own, don't use seelping pills with out being prescribed by athe psychiatrist as they are aaddictive and can create further problems and lead to more harm. 77

What psycho therapies would you recommend for someone who has juat recovered from Coma?

There are different ways to treat phobias but the 2 most commonly used techniques are 1) Medicine SSRI's are usually prescribed for the treatment of phobias 2) Therapy Systematic Desensitization is a technique effective to treat phobias . It involves gradual exposure of a person to anxiety causing stimulus. It occurs in a hierarchy. I) anxiety causing stimuli are short listed II) relaxation technique (e.g deep breathing) is taught to awork person to calm down anxiety response. III) process begins by exposing person to least anxiety causing stimuli to highest anxiety causing stimulus. 2 Steps of systematic desensitization 1) Imaginary exposure ( person is exposed toto anxiety causing stimulus through imagination and anxiety ia reduced through relaxation technique) 2) In vivo exposure ( person is exposed the anxiety causing stimulus in real life. The process is gradual moving from clips, pictures, objects to real life)

Stress whether mental or physical both is detrimental for human body. We focus alot on our physical symptoms but no one bothers abput what's going inside the human mind or how the stress is impacting their lives. Think of an example, if you are told to hold a book in your hand for an sometime, a point comes when your hand won't be able to hold it and book will fall. You will start feeling pain in your arm, hand, shoulder. The same happens when there is a mental stress. Mental stress impacts our body in the same way as physical stress. Impact on body Mental stress can cause 1) head/body ache 2) muscle tension/ cramps 3) gastric problems 4) sleep disturbance 5) sexual problems 6) menstrual problems 7) forgetfulness People go and see doctors for the physical symptoms take different medications for the physical symptoms neglecting their mental wellbeing that causes further problems Dealing with Stress There are different ways to deal with stress depending upon the nature and cause of stress. But some of them include 1) writing journal/ diary 2) maintaining a routine 3) exercise (if not, a simple walk for 20 mim every day) 4) sharing with someone ( not every problem in this world has a solution but sharing sometimes eases the process for us, it makes person able to experience his/her emotions, get a clarity of thoughts) 5) sports/ playing (it can help take out inner aggression in a non harmful way) All these are the healthy ways by which you can deal with things going on in your life. If not released properly, stress will start building inside you and can come out in a wrong way at a wrong time. It can lead to many medical issues like diabeter, hypertension, cardiac problems. Poor stress management is the cause of substance abuse in many people. So it's better to deal with it in a healthy and non injurious way. I hope this will be useful.

Psychotic disorders are characterized by severe diaturbance in cognition, emotion, perception and volition that result in severe psychosocial dysfunction and inability to meet daily life needs and impaired reality testing. Psychosis and forensic relevance According to law, an Individual's ability to make decisions requires that individual accurately perceives the environment, rationally manipulate the information about environment, ability to communicate desires and intentions. These decision making capacity is impaired in the individuals with psychotic disorders( especially those having positive symptoms). Because of this, psychotic disorders are particularly important in psychological evaluations of adjudicative competencies (e.g., stand trial, right to counsel, confess) and culpability in criminal settings and evaluations of other competencies (e.g., consent to treatment, testify, make wills, sign contracts) in civil settings. Psychotic symptoms are directly linked with violence. For example, a person with persecutory delusions may assault someone whom he thinks is trying to poison him. Psychotic disorders increase the risk of violence 2 times more as indicated by research. Therefore, it is important to assess the individual properly so the proper justice can be ensured.