Case Study: The Rough Hand Dealt

The Rough Hand Dealt
There are multiple situations where it doesn’t help our mental state. Poverty, negative environments, the whole set of whammies. Life is in a forever cycle of highs and lows-one minute we have a booming economy, next we have a recession. You can say life is just one massive bipolar habitat. There are nations in war, millions in poverty, hundreds of millions unemployed, so be surprised once there are millions who are depressed. There are some events that deserve nothing but a slight nod, and then some deserve our utter attention. The study Learning To Be Depressed (M.E.P Seligman) was a study looking into the eyes of criminals of war. The study was done with dogs, having three groups: the one that can escape, one that can stop the

Now imagine the polar opposite; living a life where lack power or basic control of decisions in your life. This aspect of life develops a helplessness, victimization, and a dependability. You find most of these symptoms from drug users and psych ward patients. There are many things unfortunately in this life you just can’t control. Many children can’t make life altering decisions and have to rely on an adult to do it for them. Children all around the world don’t ask to be orphaned, bullied, or have a disability, but this lack of control is increasing chances of depression related self harm. Chorpita and Barlow (1998) explained how early experiences with a very limited amount of control may foster a cognitive habit that relates many events to being out of control- if I was bullied as a child I would link many factors of that negative event (the scenery, the attitude perceived, what my behaviour was). Plus a study by Hersch and Ford (1996) showed that children with reading and learning disabilities were more likely to develop lower motivation and an increase in depressive symptoms. Those kids with the reading disability would get frustrated after reviewing a passage, then have a hard time