This week our class was cancelled so the teacher had created an assignment were students go online and listen to a podcast about the psychobiology of anxiety, which is talked about in an interview between Proffesor Welkowitz and Lazslo Papp, who is the associate proffesor of psychiatry and director of the biological studies department at Columbia University. Proffesor Welkowitz asked about understanding the biological causes of panic disorders and Papp said that relatively little is known about the biology of panic disorders. Papp said that even though they had done a lot of research in the lab about panic and anxiety disorders little was known about the biological influences of these disorders. Proffesor Welkowitz asked what was in store for the future studies of psychobiology and Papp said that genetics with a combination of brain imaging will probably be the next frontier. Papp also went on to say that some scientific findings from around the United States are not really that specific, such as the various seratonin gene studies that he believed have been exaggerated. Proffesor Welkowitz also asked about the studies of another researcher he knew of and studies he conducted himself that have established the role of certain psychological factors in the origins of panic disorders; and Papp responded saying that those psychological factors are not discounted and that panic disorders consist of both biology and psychology. Papp also stated that everything is based on biology, which means that psychology was based on biology on some level if you look at various psychological phenomeneons. Proffesor Welkowitz's final question was drugs or cognitive behavior therapy a better treatment for people suffering from panic disorders and Papp responded saying that it depends because there are benefits from both treatments and when the two approaches of treatment are compared they are found to be equally succesfful. Proffesor Welkowtiz finished the interview with saying that we have a biological view and a balanced view from Papp's disucussion on the nature of panic disorders because he had come from both sides of different scientific views such as treatment and the importance of both psychology and biology. Papp also believes that it is going to be very important for people in the psychology field to work together in the process of discovering new psychological research.
I think that this was an intersting discussion to listen to because it is important to understand what progess has been being made with panic disorders research and to look at biological and psychological connections within the field of psychology.

This week at Keene State College students had Thanksgiving break, so I only had one personality theories class for the whole week. The class was interesting because of the lecture and discussions and because of the in class writing assignment. The in class writing assigment was about whether I thought medicine or therapy was a more effective treatment for a depression or anxiety problem. Like most of the class I said that therapy would probably be the best route, but I also said that if therapy is ineffective then medicine can be an important alternative. I think also that if someone is being treated on a psychiatric medicine that it can be important they see a therapist, who can tell them about how they are doing overcoming there problem. I also began to read through some of chapter eleven, which looks like it will be the last chapter we will be covering this semester. The chapter talks about Raymond Catell's theory, known as the the Big Five Personality Trait Theory. Catell found that the personality contains five primary factors, which are neuroticism, extraversion, openess, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The Big Five Personality Trait theory was established through research on language, which allowed researchers to understand a descriptive model of personality characteristics. This personality theory was also developed through the studying of personality questionnaires, which then led to the development of the Five Factor Model that explains dispositonal inherrited biological traits. I think that like all the theories in the personality textbook this should be an important one because it was created through alot of extensive and interesting research.

In this week's class we had are third exam, which I think went pretty well because the test review was very helpful. The exam covered information mostly about Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, George Kelly and Arnold Lazarus, who are theorist's who have specialized in humanistic, existential and cognitive theories. George Kelly was an interesting theorist to study because I had never heard of him before I took personality theories and once I started studying him I found that his theory makes a lot of sense and could be very important in the field of psychology. Kelly's theory is known as constructive alternativism, which in other words means that any particular event can be interpreted in many different ways and Kelly believed that the world does not automatically make sense to people. Kelly believed that people have to develop their own ways of understanding events that happen to them. Kelly said that " In effect, there is no reality outstide our interpretations of it". Kelly believed that no one construct or pattern is definite and is the best reflection of the world because there is always an alternative construct that might better acknowledge the facts that people perceive in life. I think this was an interesting theory because it seems simple and because I think that it can explain why people can sometimes interpret the same situations differently. I think the reading and class has been interesting and I am looking forward to finally finish reading the rest of the personality theories textbook.

In this week's personality class a lot of information about Rollo May was covered. I know a little bit about Rollo May from a counseling theories class I once took. But it was interesting to hear more about him and to find out that there is a whole chapter in the text about him. I was unaware that May is considered to be the father of Amercian existential psychology, which focuses on the difference of the abstract truth and what is existentially real. I also found it pretty interesting that May believed the conciousness of self is a unique component of a human being. May believed that the self consicousness allows a person to differ from themselves and the rest of the world, to learn from our past, to plan for the future, to see oneself as others do, and to have feelings of empathy towards other people. May also believed that self conciousness is vulnerable to anxiety and inward crisis, which is why it becomes important to develop an indentity apart from our parent's and forebears (Engler, 2005). May believed that a person has to consciously choose to go through the process of self actualization and that selfhood originates in a social context and grows through interpersonal relations. May focused on the concept of the self because he believed it was essential when trying to understand the different experiences that people go through. I think May has an interesting theory about selfhood, which is an interesting concept to talk about because I think it can be interpreted in many ways by different people.

On last Thursday's personality theories class we did a couple of exercises. One exercise I found interesting was when the teacher told the students to pair up in the class and listen to one another talk about how their day was going. To me it seemed like this exercise was an example of how Carl Rogers would conduct his own therapy, because Rogers is famous for person centered therapy. Rogers was influenced by phenomenology and he believed that people exist in the center of a phenomenal field. In the field of psychology the word phenomeon means the study of human awareness and perception. A psychologist who is a phenomenologist believes that it is important to understand how a person interprets a object or event. In psychology the term phenomenal field means the complete sum of experiences. Rogers believed that an individual person is the only one who can completely understand his or her own field of experiences. Rogers also believed that when one is trying to understand another person it is not always easy to undertand the internal feelings of that person; because when people are communicating emotions they are limited to a persons concious perception and communication of experiences. But in any case Rogers believed that an empathic understanding of ones experiences is important in understanding them and their personality processes. I found the in class exercise to be helpful, and I think that Rogerian therapy is key because Rogers understands how to communicate effectively and how to react to and interpret a client's situation in therapy.