thought process

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY “WHERE MEDICINE AND CRIMINAL LAW IS GOING”

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OUR DAILY WISDOM WORD IS NEUROPSYCHOLOGY.  IF YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND NEUROPSYCHIATRY, I AN GLAD YOU ARE READING THIS.  IRONICALLY, I PUBLISHED A BLOG ON NEUROLAW/NEUROSCIENCE MANY YEARS AGO WHERE I SPECULATED ON SOMETHING THAT ENDED UP BECOMING TRUTH. I HAD PREDICTIONS BUT I DID EXACTLY THIS IN 2015 AROUND THE TIME MY SON WAS GRADUATING FROM LAW SCHOOL.  DOUBTS?  READ THIS:  https://dailywisdomwords.blogspot.com/2015/04/neuroscience-daily-wisdom-words.html?spref=pi

IT WAS SUMMERTIME WHEN MY SON GOT HOME FROM UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA HAVING GRADUATED.  HE BEGAN STUDYING IMMEDIATELY FOR THE BARR EXAM.  I ENJOYED HAVING HIM HOME AGAIN AND ENCOURAGED HIM TO DELAY GETTING A PLACE OF HIS OWN. I LOVED THAT SUMMER WITH HIM HOME, STUDYING FOR THE BARR EXAM.  I WANTED HIM TO RELAX.  HE WAS ONLY 22 YEARS OLD AND VERY FOCUSED ON PASSING THE BARR EXAM FIRST TIME AROUND.   STERLING STUDIED SO HARD, TAKING A TEN MINUTE BREAK EVERY HOUR JUST TO STRETCH HIS LEGS. 

HE HAD LANDED A JOB WITH A TOP LITIGATION FIRM HIS SECOND YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL WHEN SCOUTS CAME FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY LOOKING FOR NEW LEGAL INTERNS SHOWED UP TO  INTERVIEW NEW POTENTIALS AT UVA.  HE INTERVIEWED WITH A TOP LEGAL FIRM IN DENVER AND FORTUNATELY, THEY HIRED HIM. HE WAS DRIVEN AND MOTIVATED TO START WORK A YEAR AND A HALF LATER.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE TOOK THE BARR EXAM AND PASSED HIS FIRST TIME TAKING IT.  HE WAS AT THIS POINT VERY INDEPENDENT AND SAID, “MOM, SHOULD I GET AN APARTMENT?”  I ASKED HIM TO STAY UNTIL HE REALLY NEEDED SPACE, AS I LOVED HAVING HIM.  I KNEW THIS TIME WITH HIM WAS VERY PRECIOUS.  I ALSO KNEW INSIDE, IT WOULD BE THE LAST TIME WE WOULD SHARE THIS KIND OF QUALITY TIME TOGETHER. BECAUSE HE STUDIED THE WHOLE SUMMER AT HOME, I FOUND MYSELF TAKING AN INTEREST IN LAW.  I STARTED WONDERING ABOUT LAW IN GENERAL.  I HAD WATCHED MANY DOCUMENTARIES THAT SUMMER, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE BRAIN.  IT HAS ALWAYS FASCINATED ME HOW ANTIDEPRESSANTS WORKED  IN THE BRAIN INCREASING SEROTONIN AND DOPAMINE LEVELS TO HELP BALANCE THE BRAIN, ALONG WITH ANYTHING MENTAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL WE SEEMED TO HAVE AN ORGANIC RELATIONSHIP TO THE BRAIN.  I WONDERED HOW THIS WORKED IN RELATION TO DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE BRAIN.

THESE SHOWS TALKED ABOUT HOW WE COULD UTILIZE BRAIN SCANS DONE ON THE BRAIN SUCH AS THE SPECIALIZED MRI, CALLED AN Electroencephalography (EEG) TO DETECT ACTIVITY IN THE BRAIN OR LACK OF IT IN RELATION TO THE AREA AND MENTAL CONDITION OR ILLNESS. FOR EXAMPLE, SOCIOPATHS AND PSYCHOPATHS SHOW A LACK OF ACTIVITY IN THE FRONTAL LOBE AND PREFRONTAL CORTEX, AND SCIENCE THOUGHT THAT A BRAIN SCAN COULD PROVE THIS. PSYCHIATRISTS AND NEUROSURGEIONS FELT THAT THE BASIC MRI WOULD BECOME MORE SOPHISTICATED AND ALLOW US TO USE MRI’S (MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING) SOON BE ABLE TO BE SHOWN WITH COLOR BEING INDICATIVE OF SPECIFIC DISORDERS PERTAINING TO WHAT AREA OF THE BRAIN WHAT SPECIFIC AREA THE PROBLEM STEMMED FROM. I FOUND IT INTERESTING, TO SAY THE LEAST NOT ONLY FROM A MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE BUT A POTENTIAL LEGAL PERSPECTIVE.  I COULD SEE DEFENSE ATTORNEY’S USING THIS AS A LEGAL STRATEGY AS WELL. 

THE Electroencephalography (EEG) SHOWING EVEN MORE DETAIL AND IS BEING USED NOW BY A HANDFUL OF DEFENSE ATTORNEY’S DEFENDING MURDER.  OTHERS MUST HAVE THOUGHT THE SAME WAY BECAUSE THE WORD NEUROLAW ALREADY HAD A DEFINITION ATTACHED TO IT ON GOOGLE IN 2015. GOING FORWARD, I BELIEVE IT WILL BECOME THE CENTER FOR A CRIMINAL ATTORNEY’S LEGAL DEFENSE WITH MURDER AS PART OF THEIR  DEFENSE STRATEGY.  THIS WAS OVER A DECADE AGO.  IRONICALLY, I WROTE A POST ON THE DAILY WISDOM WORDS BLOG WHICH WAS AT THAT TIME PUBLISHED ON BLOGSPOT.  I  CALLED IT “NEUROLAW” WONDERING IF THIS WOULD EVER BE A REAL LEGAL STRATEGY.  WE ARE NOW IN 2018-TO PRESENT DAY. 

WE SEE CASES JUST STARTING TO HAPPEN WITH THE MORE COLORFUL MRI SHOWING SPECIFIC ACTIVITY IN CERTAIN AREAS OF THE BRAIN OR A LACK OF IT FOR VARIOUS MENTAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSES AND EVEN THE YOUNG JUST GRADUATING FROM MEDICAL SCHOOL DOING RESEARCH STUDIES ON THIS THEORY.  NEUROSURGEONS ARE NOW USING THE LATEST MRI OR Electroencephalography (EEG) TO STUDY THE BRAIN. WE’RE ALSO USING THESE NEW COLORFUL MRI’S TO DO RESEARCH PAPERS ON AND USE AS A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL FOR VARIOUS MENTAL CONDITIONS.

I WROTE ABOUT THIS IS 2015, AND NOW IT IS COMING TO FRUITION.  I HEARD IN ALL FAIRNESS IN A FEW DOCUMENTARIES THIS COULD BE THE CASE WITH THE STUDY OF BRAIN IMAGING.  I HOPE NOW WE ALL SEE HOW IMPORTANT TO OUR PRESENT AND OUR FUTURE THIS WILL BE AND IS ALREADY BECOMING!  LAST BUT NOT LEAST, YOU MAY WONDER WHY THIS IS ULTIMATELY RELATED AS WELL TO CREATIVE WRITING AND POETRY!  IT TURNS OUT DUE TO DETAILED IMAGING WITH THIS SPECIALIZED MRI WE HAVE FOUND THAT POETRY AND CREATIVE WRITING ARE ONE OF THE FEW THINGS WE CAN DO UTILIZING BOTH THE RIGHT AND LEFT SIDES OF THE BRAIN.  THE FASCINATION NEVER ENDS.   THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING!  SAMANTHA

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INTELLIGENCE-WHAT MAKES A PERSON INTELLIGENT? (INTERVIEW INCLUDED)

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Some people are simply born bright.  Have you noticed these individuals?  Their minds, memory, and thoughts when verbalized, are way ahead of yours.  Intelligence, however has many different forms it may take.  This article will discuss intelligence and the different types we have.  

Innate/Cognithive skill intelligence is the type of intelligence I will mention first.  I have seen or met very few people who have this type of intelligence.  Let’s pretend you are looking for a solution for anything, myself for example.  These highly intelligent thinkers come up with an answer before I am able to process the full issue.. 

One person who I have gotten to know personally would be our IT hosting specialist.  Before I can even organize my thoughts, Matthew has come up with a sensible solution and does it so fast.  He seems to be two steps ahead of me at all times.  It is not just because he works in a field I don’t know as much about.  It has to do with his agile thinking from any perspective, even outside the box thinking.  Did Matthew learn this in college?  I don’t believe so.  I think he was born with it.  I asked Matthew some questions I think are pertinent to cognitive ability and thinking process.  I found his answers fascinating. Next, are the questions I asked, and Matthew’s answers.

When you were a child, did you exhibit boredom easily? Yes; at a young age this was addressed by simply learning more about everything i could get my hands on. Soon, my school began letting me take classes for grades above me simultaneously with my onlevel work as a way to “keep me busy”. It’s a safe assumption that when I wasn’t kept busy, I was a problem child to my teachers who were focused on the other 30 students.  
How old were you when you walked? I was walking and talking around 18 months old. Somehow needed to move so badly that I skipped crawling all together. Schools and parents were not happy with the number of bruises that this faulty progression left me with. 
How were you grades?  I did really well in school until sophomore year of highschool. Until that point I was a straight A honor-roll kinda student. After that my lack of focus shifted my interests into more, harmful directions.
Are you a perfectionist? This is a tricky one. The truth is it relates to my interest and ego levels at any given point of time. If something is unlikely to be seen by others (family, friends, employer) then is much more likely to just do an ok job at a task, and be content with “just fixing the rest later” if i think there was more effort i could have given. On the contrary, if there is a high level of interest in a significant ego component to a particular task, then it will get my undivided attention. To be frank, it will get so much attention that it will be to the detriment of other tasks that I should be prioritizing, but can’t bother to focus on yet.  
You appear to hear, and receive, process information quickly.  Why do you think this is? I don’t listen well. That’s the honest truth. I am working really hard to be a better listener, but it’s a work in progress. The biggest reason for this is my need to find the answer. In doing so, I take each work I hear and filter them trying to find the fastest route to the solution a person may be asking about. This leads me to “jump” to conclusions very rapidly in a conversation. Time and repetition has honed the skill and for most scenarios I actually know the answer before a person finishes asking the question. The skill I do not possess is the ability to filter myself and not cut people off with my perceived answers before they finish because there are times when I guess the wrong questions to answer. 
Do you feel you talk or listen to others or both?  Talk, I am a terrible listener. My mind moves a million miles a minute and my mouth is not far off of that. I actually prefer to think aloud, thus rarely to I take time to listen to others.
What do you excel most with?  mathematics? or english or art? When I was younger it was math. Now problem solving and solution generation is more of what I can do. I have never been good at the fundamentals of English or language. Art is something I am jealous of, because I possess absolutely zero artistic creativity.   

Fluid intelligence-this is the basic reasoning and other mental activities which excel despite one’s education level.  In other words, it appears they are born with it.. It involves the portion of the brain which has to do with short term memory.  It also has to do with the ability to easily fall into any environment and fit in, learning the skill set necessary quickly to be successful

Another type of intelligence is called Crystallized intelligence.  It refers to learned procedures and knowledge a person gains with experiences.  This type of intelligence refers to Algebra learned in school, vocabulary and spelling.  This means although the person had to learn what they know, they were especially wired to absorb whatever it is they are taught as well as what the learn  in school and from others.

Emotional intelligence refers to one being able to. identify their own emotions correctly and other’s emotions.  Empathy plays a very important part of emotional intelligence.  Emotional intelligence has been described by leading psychologists in the field of E.I. and is described as the array of skills such as leadership, compatibility,  Currently, a debate exists as to whether emotional intelligence is an intelligence that should be taken seriously. These individuals have the ability to perceive emotions, access and generate emotion, Perceiving emotions, Understanding emotions, and managing emotions.  It is said that leadership skills are higher with one who has E. I.  They tend to have self-regulations, social skills, empathy and motivation. Although there are tests to measure E.I., Scientists are in doubt for counting this as a measurably scientifically.  According to a recent article by the journalist, Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence accounts for more career success than I.Q.  

There is much more to cover, but this is enough for today!  As always, thanks for reading.  Beneath the “ten reasons you should join daily wisdom words” please share your thoughts, or anything you wish in the “join the discussion” area of this post.  

Samantha LeBoeuf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MINDFULNESS

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I decided to write on the word, “mindfulness”, after seeing my partner, Neels post on it.  I have spent much time in my past, and much time in my future.  The first key to mindfulness is to live and think in the present.  This is a lot easier said, than done.  It requires you being very focused on your thoughts and training your thought patterns to be focused on the “now”.  It is a form of meditation if EXERCISED to its fullest.  Mindfulness means not reacting, but responding to situations, feelings and others.  There is a big difference between reacting to a situation and responding.  When we react to a situation, we are not being mindful.  When we respond to a situation, we literally start training our minds to be mindful.  When we are responsive, we give thought to our response or statements by counting to seven before doing so.  This gives us the time to think through our response, and be “mindful” of what we say.  Let us take a look at the definition of mindfulness in our Webster Dictionary and our Daily Wisdom Words definition.

Webster Definition of Mindfulness-1.  The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.  2.  A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.  

Daily Wisdom Words Definition of Mindfulness-1.  A thought process which requires us to focus on living in the present.

Mindfulness, when used to its fullest extent is a form of therapy.  In its fullest extent, mindfulness is the psychological process of purposely bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgement.  Practicing Mindfulness has been used in clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970’s and is used as a part of therapeutic applications based on it, for helping people experiencing a variety of psychological conditions including depression, reduction of stress, anxiety, and the treatment of drug addiction.  Clinical studies have documented both physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in different patient categories.  It is also proven that worry and rumination contribute to mental disorders.  and mindfulness based therapies can reduce both.  You do, after mastering staying in the present, we learn to focus on our breathing, taking slow and deep breaths.  

There are different. techniques of mindfulness including focusing on the the way we sit and our posture, to learning how to breathe from our abdomen.  I have recently written on rumination and worry.  Mindfulness Meditation is a very positive way to cope and deal with both of these issues effectively.  Mindfulness originates from the Buddhists, and is worth further investigation as a solution to one who worries or suffers with rumination.

Thank you for reading this post today.  Was this a helpful post for you?  Is this a legitimate coping mechanism that you personally have had success with.  Remember, just like worry, it is a state of mind and a deeper level of consciousness.  If the end result is a calmer life, why not incorporate it as a tool in our toolbox for mental healthiness.  

Daily Wisdom Words is a writing community offering different articles focusing on the mental and positive way to become a healthier self, ultimately becoming a better writer.  Why not give it a chance?  Costing only $10 for a lifetime, it is a priceless investment. Sign up today!  We promise you will have fun while learning how to be a better writer!

Samantha LeBoeuf/DWW

 

 

 

REASONS OR EXCUSES?

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What is the difference between a reason and an excuse?  The words may sound similar, but there is actually a big difference between the two.  A reason has sound factual evidence behind it.  Reasoning is based on logic.  Reasons aren’t hard to understand.  Have you ever noticed when someone is half lying, they talk more than necessary?  They go into great detail to explain for example why they can’t accompany you to the cinema.  If you hear this type of detail, it might behoove you to listen very hard to what they are actually saying.  Using this example, I will explain the difference between reasons and excuses.  I ask Sally to go to the cinema with me.  I begin to get a long, drawn out explanation of why Sally cannot go.  She has to clean her house.  She has promised her mother she will call that evening.  She told the neighbor also that she would stop over.  What I just wrote, was a series of excuses.  The “reason” Sally doesn’t want to go to the cinema, is because she dislikes classical music.  Sally’s excuses are she must clean her house, call her mother and visit the neighbor.  

Let us take a look at the definition of reasons from the Webster Dictionary:  1.  a cause, explanation or justification for an action or event.  2.  Good or obvious cause to do something.  3.  find an answer to a problem considering various, possible solutions.  4.  Persuade with rational argument.  

Daily Wisdom Words definition of reasons:  Sound, just, motives with factual backing based on logistics of the problem one can’t follow through with something.  

I am going to help you differentiate the difference between an excuse and a reason today.  Much of your answer will be shown through the following:

1.  for you to determine if someone is giving you an excuse or they have a sound, just reason for their answer to your search for the truth, you must do what is called, “active listening”.   Let Sally finish with portions of her excuse, and as you listen, she will give too many justifications as to why she can’t follow through with something.

2.  Drama.  excuses tend to have much more excitement and issues than reasons.  Reasons are just the simple, facts.  Excuses, like being late for work, involve things like, “my dog Jasper got sick all over my carpet just as I was leaving.”  “My car would not start.” I don’t know what I am going to do with this old car of mine.  Last week I lost my keys”.  The reason in this case is unknown but it is very simple if I had to guess.  Sally simply slept in a few minutes longer than she should have

3.  The blame game-This is a good one that shifts responsibility from the person offering the excuse providing an extra layer of protection for their excuse by blaming why they can’t be a part of your request on another person.  You will hear these types of excuses when a person is concerned they may be hurting your feelings.  

I find it fascinating that by actively listening and watching out for the above, you truly can tell the difference between an excuse verses a sound, logical reason.  This is of course not 100 percent accurate.  If I were a betting person, however, I would go with these examples and feel pretty comfortable that I can figure out the difference between a reason and an excuse. 

Thanks so much for reading today.  Have a beautiful and blessed day…Want to read more of these articles?  I do not have the only blog on our community website.  Join our writing community today for half off or $5.  WE WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER WRITER WHETHER YOU ARE AN #AUTHOR, #POET, #SONGWRITER, OR #BLOGGER!  ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PARTICIPATE!!  Speaking of this, how do you feel about what you just read?  Do you think you will have better luck telling the difference between a reason or an excuse?  Just beneath this article, you will see the “join the discussion” area!!  Please, let me know what you think.  Do you agree or disagree with what I have written?  Leave a comment, poem or quote about reasons or excuses.