Conversations In The Community Review + Key Takeaways (A MIND accredited online course)

Hello all! As the above title states, I will be distributing what I have learned, as well as include some key takeaways/points from an online course that I have managed to complete recently.

A little backstory for you here, I was working at my MIND store one day back in July, and I happen to glace up at a poster which was advertising an online course associated with MIND. Me, being the curious-minded person I am, only decided to scan the QR code on the poster to see what the said course (in the above title) was all about. Then me, also being the scatter-brained (sometimes) person that I am, only managed to get through 1/5 modules the next day, before ending up not getting around to doing it again until a week ago.  

*This was the only convenient picture I could find on the internet*

What was the online course about? Conversations In The Community is purely about educating people about the best ways of beginning, flowing & ending conversations with other people. And this can be having a conversation with anybody at all, regardless if they are struggling with their mental health or not. Moreover, this course goes into fish tank depth about the pros & cons of forming a conversation with somebody in the community. (I'll bullet point them later in this post)

How did the online course provide me with useful information? The online course provided me with a lot of tips of how to make a good & effective conversation. The information had also stated that it is important to bare in mind no conversation ever HAS to be perfect, as there isn't such thing as a 'perfect conversation'. The useful tips had included respecting the person's or your own boundaries, never ask leading questions, always remind the person that your there for them & try to show interest.

Would I feel more confident about starting my own conversations In the community? In a word, definitely! To further extend my reasoning, I will now remind myself to always begin a conversation to anyone by using open questions, like: "Hiya, how has your day been today?" or "Hey, how has life been for you lately?"

What are the pros & cons of forming conversations?

Pros:

• Finding a suitable environment
• Allowing the person to take their time
• Asking open questions
• Reminding the person you'll be always be there for them
• Respecting your person's privacy 
• Giving yourself an appropriate time

Cons:

• Being insulting
• Comparing your person's struggles to everyone else's
• Asking leading questions that will make your person feel uncomfortable 
• Not showing interest
• Violating your person's privacy
• Not going through the flowing & ending process in the conversation

What have I learned? As I have mentioned earlier, I have learned that any form of conversation doesn't NEED to be perfect, as long as I make the effort to actually make any form of conversation at all. And as long as the person I am having a conversation with is satisfied with everything, then I will be more than happy.

I have also learned that conversations are more effective when you allow your person to have their preferences. This is to provide them with empowerment that will make them feel comfortable & secure prior to a conversation. An example of this could be allowing your person to convey the conversation in a wide open green space, where they feel more comfortable by knowing that nobody else is going to invade the private conversation.

Finally, I have learned that you are entitled to setting your own boundaries when it comes to finding the most convenient time to form a conversation with somebody. This is important because you must consider you self-care before thinking about beginning a conversation with somebody. Especially when you know in advance that you are going to be having an emotionally draining conversation with somebody who is fighting depression.

Conclusion: Even though I was inattentive towards the online course when I have first started it back in July, I have found it really interesting & enjoyable throughout when I had eventually got my inattentive self round to getting through the rest of it, and managed to complete it on Wednesday. (The day before my birthday!) After doing the course, I feel more confident about forming conversations with people whenever I go out & about into the community. Although I know in the back of my mind that is easier said than done, as I still consider myself to be a shy person when having a random conversation with anyone out in the community. That being said, I can easily just shrug it off, and just focus on making conversation.

If anybody would like to develop better conversation forming skills when out & about in the community, I definitely recommend doing this course! Direct access link: https://www.conversationsinthecommunity.org.uk/

The psychology of addictive smartphone behaviour

Yes, welcome back to yet another small, but insightful research project of mine! I say small, as this is something which I've only been doing research on for a short period of time. I did ensure to scroll down slowly though, so I could take in every single word of what I was reading to help my head process everything.

What I've chosen to publish for this post, is an inspiration from a picture I had come across on one of my psychology groups on Facebook, and I said to myself that I'll get round to making a post on my blogging website about it at some point. I thought this today would be my ideal time for me to do it! Although I had the picture, I needed to find a piece of research that would link well with the picture. I had typed in "psychology & smartphones" in the Google search bar, which took me to this article that came up 1st in the results page: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.573473/full Here's my evaluation:

*This was the picture I had come across on one of my psychology groups on Facebook*

Overview: It is without any doubt that people like to spend their boredom time on their smartphones. I for 1, can even happily hold my hands up to this as well. We like to use our smartphones for the purpose of connecting with other people around us. That being said, most of our modern social life in this day & age revolves around communicating/connecting with people on social media. While social media can be a good purpose for connecting with other people, it can also become too addictive by constantly having to feel the need to check it all of the time. If you're curious to know more about this, see: The psychology behind social media It's not just social media that can cause smartphone addiction though, using a smartphone to continuously replace basic tasks can even put an enormous strain on our mental health. (Mine included) When I say basic tasks, I'm referring to checking the time, checking emails & doing work on it. It would be definitely safe to say that smartphones are taking over mental health, and that is not good at all.

Evidence: On the subject of communicating to one another, a smartphone may seem like a perfect use to do so, as you could have friends who could be going through a difficult time, and they would love somebody to communicate to them. Unfortunately, they could be too far away to communicate to a friend in person, which is why smartphones can provide the most affective use to communicate with people, regardless of whereabouts they are in the world. Highlighting social media for a few seconds, it can be a good way for anybody looking into the creative industry by creating their own content. Moreover, creating popular content on social media can help you to earn money.

Now for the downsides. It has been proven that teenagers' mental health have typically been effected the most by smartphone addiction, as they feel the need to crave their use of social media for the benefit of socially connecting with others. This can also include craving to seek support from their social media followers in a bid to make them feel valued. Although a smartphone my not seem like much to begin with, but the more that people, especially teenagers, mindlessly play about on their smartphone, the more they are at risk from dysfunctional systems. This is just something else besides poor mental health. 

If excessive smartphone use eventually gets to the point of becoming too addictive, then it causes aggressive behaviour to come out of oneself due to their addictive use of a smartphone interfering with their life in general. Endless use of a smartphone could very well be easily done if repeating its excessive use too often. Doing so can make your mind go numb by not even thinking about doing it. This is where the depression comes into play, as your mind will get bored of doing the same thing every time, but feel like there is no escaping the addiction at the same time.

Conclusion: All smartphone addictions have a different story to tell. Meaning, they are not all the same. In theory, it really all depends on what way people behave addictively on their smartphones. Regardless of what smartphone addictive behaviour, they can all have poor mindset consequences at the end.

Type A Personality VS Type B Personality

Hello my readers! I hope everyone is enjoying their week so far, whatever you're getting up to. As what the title states, I will be discussing the comparisons between to 2 personality types in psychology.

This was another theory which I have learned about in college last academic year, but since then, I have forgotten about it until recently. Hence the main reason I wanted to keep the memory alive by sharing what I've learned about this theory with all of you.

The one thing I have found fascinating from this personality theory was that how contrasting the 2 personalities both were in general, as well as thinking about comparing them with one another by relating to people I know of in real life. This is what makes this theory more worthwhile to keep researching on.

 

Type A Personality: This personality involves oneself being as hard working as possible. Or to be more personality specific, I'm talking aggressively hard working. They feel as though they have to be working against a time limit (even though there isn't one) all of the time to ensure every working target is met. Unlike most people, these people who have this personality trait do not end up feeling accomplished with satisfaction even after they've actually completed any tasks that they needed to do. It is like they need to be constantly working flat out in order to gain themselves real satisfaction. Because of this, there is a high stress level that plays a role in this personality trait. This is due to oneself constantly dreading failure if they were to stop working tirelessly hard the way that they do. Even if it's just a small break.

Away from the personality side of things, oneself will experience certain characteristics that will make up having Type A Personality altogether. This is what is best known as Type A Behaviour Pattern. (TABP) In which, the characteristics consist of: Competitiveness, Time Urgency & Impatience & Hostility.

Type B Personality: This personality involves oneself being laid back as if nothing ever seems to bother them. Going into more detail on that, they are always so relaxed by having to be tolerant to everything around them. It may seem like that oneself is being tolerant on purpose, but in reality, this is their way of getting work done at their pace by steadily achieving what they need to achieve in no time frame whatsoever. Even if oneself chooses to work at a steadily pace by happily taking their time to try and complete a task, without finishing it on time, they still wouldn't be at all bothered about it. Likewise, this results with the less amount of stress & anxiety produced by adopting a non-competitive trait.

Conclusion: Friedman & Rosenman (the theory inventors) both wanted to use this theory to compare both personalities to see which one was more effective when it comes to working at towards something. In my view, there is no right or wrong in terms of which personality trait I prefer, as I see them both as equally fascinating as one another. However, I have taken note that the actual purpose of the study of Type A Personality was to find out if people with this trait are at significant risk of having a heart attack.

For anybody interested to see my research source, you know what to do: https://www.simplypsychology.org/personality-a.html

Understanding Narcissism

Before I even begin, I just want to clarify by saying that this research topic I had mentioned in my previous post was actually found on WebMD. (Not on Psychology Today) *I apologize there*😂

Anyway, I can't exactly remember what I was doing where I came across this article that was published on a website called WebMD. But what I do remember, is I instantly became curious to have a thorough read through the article which contains information about what narcissism is all about.

Before reading through the article, I was already aware of what narcissism is, but at the same time, I wanted to plunge my mind deeper into the subject for the intention to develop a better & wide understanding of the reasons of how narcissism is unknowingly formatted into oneself. Here's what I have gathered...

Discussion/Review:

Narcissism is what is classified as a self-involvement that creates a dark personality trait to a person. Its overall intention is to fill their ego by purposely ignoring the needs of anyone around them. It was at this point during my reading of the article where I read that narcissism may not be a permanent trait to some people who just choose to behave like narcissists. This may well be dependant on how their mental health is coping, by again, choosing to behave this way as their way of trying to block out everything going on around them. Although, you may seem to think they enjoy behaving this way on the outside, but a look into their mental health state must be considered to be able to understand more about their reason for their choice of narcissist behaviour. 

As I then found out, narcissism has a spectrum. People who are going through a temporarily period of narcissism are classified on the lower part of the overall spectrum. 

In terms of the higher end of the spectrum, you have people who have to live with narcissism attached to them day-in, day-out due to a disorder. And that disorder is named as: 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)' There are 2 different types of narcissism that link to the personality disorder just mentioned. The 2 things the types share in common is the fact that different childhood experiences play a role of being officially diagnosed with NPD. Another common thing in the 2 types is the different ways people will behave in relationships. I suppose that does makes sense, given how different childhood experiences are first formatted to shape a person's upbringing.

Going back to narcissism in general, it is important to factor in all of its characteristics before just saying how it is just by looking at it on the outside. You will notice right away with any narcissist behaviour that a person will make themselves look important compared to other people around them by purposely paying zero attention to how these other people will react around them. This could be followed by that person constantly wanting to be admired for every single thing. Even though, there could be hardly anything for that person to be admired for - Just for the sake of not wanting to look like a disappointment. As a warning to any person who criticises a narcissist person, they will just hit you back hard (emotionally) with rudeness & abuse by thinking they are not receiving the support you are giving them. This has to be done by showing compassion & understanding. What I mean, is by not comparing yourself to other people. No judgement, just be there to show support to.

Conclusion: I would say the one thing that really spoke out to me while reading this article, was that narcissism goes way deeper than just its name. Meaning, there are so many psychological factors of how narcissism is made up of by discovering the roots of the trait.

As always, if anyone is interested to see where I got my research from, the source link is here: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissism-symptoms-signs        

From my pictured perspective: #2

I was originally going to make this publish yesterday, but I had other stuff to do which then lead me to being too tired after, therefore I've pushed it back to today. Plus, I'm going away on a short holiday for the weekend, so I might as well get this post out of the way whilst I still can.

Backstory: I went on a 2hr walk around my local area yesterday afternoon. By the time I had finished my walk, I couldn't figure out what to take a picture of and give it an inspirational piece of talk. Fortunately, I thought about taking a picture of some rather long steps, as I know you can give out a psychological message when looking at some steps.

I shall name this picture: "Every big goal has its own steps to take". 

Conclusion: Whilst it is always good to have at least one big goal in mind, it is always important to bare in mind that there will always be little steps to take on that road to achieving that big goal, as no big goal can ever be achieved within just one shot; It has to be broken down into smaller steps to make it more do-able. Gradually going up each step helps you to focus on tackling on one obstacle at a time, as it gives you preparation to go higher which will eventually give you all the advantages to readily tackle the biggest step.