Behavioral Science – Epilogue

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OK, so the final is behind me, and my path is cleared of the insanity. The exam was 80% giveaway easy, 5% questions that actually made you think in a real way, and 10% questions that were impossibly ambiguous or written so badly you had to wonder what the hell was being asked. I mean a baboon with a set of sentence fragments in a magnetic poetry kit could have constructed some of those questions. To be fair, MANY of our tests are like that, but it’s way too long a post do describe the pathetic reasons why. Now before you wonder where that other 5% went, it refers to the questions that were almost certainly dead wrong. MAOIs as a first line treatment for acute panic disorder? Give me a break. It’s either choose that (as part of “all of the above”) or deal with two right answers (SSRIs and benzodiazepenes)–either way, it’s wrong wrong wrong.

Anyway, enough bitching and on to funny stuff. While reviewing the other day, I came across this in a Kaplan review book regarding defense mechanisms:

Intellectualization: affect is stripped away and replaced by an excessive use of intellectual processes. The intellectual process is academically, but not humanly, relevant.
Example: A boy who is about to ask a girl on a date for the first time talks with this friend about the importance of mating rituals for the long-term survival of the species and the mechanisms by which societies arrange for these rituals.

That’s funny (in a pathetic kind of way), but what would be even better is if the guy had told the girl while actually on the date the above as a justification for “mating” — that’s good reading! I’m sure that isn’t just intellectualization anymore.

My final little ditty on the subject comes once again from the not-worth-the-paper-it’s-printed-on BRS, which I am very happy to say I got used. Like many used books that I didn’t choose at a bookstore and bought sight-unseen it was so cheap, it’s highlighted and annotated to all hell, but for the class and the price it was fine. I also get entertainment value from some of the margin comments and “reduxes” that the previous owner made and wonder why on earth she (her name/address is on the front cover, which is silly for a review book used for a few weeks, but I digress) felt compelled to summarize yet again in even more succinct terms what was already pretty condensed.

For example, regarding anxiety and phobias, one needs to make the distinction between true and appropriate fear as a result of true danger, present or impending, and irrational fear caused by oneself. The student wrote the following in the margin–why, I have no idea:

Fear is the tiger; anxiety is being in the jungle

And speaking of tigers, when Tony the Tiger on the box of Frosted Flakes tells you there is a chip in the back of your neck implanted by the NSA and that you have to dig it out with a spork before the black helicopters come and take you away for more testing, that, boys and girls, is schizophrenia.

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  By Punchberry, April 30, 2006 @ 4:09 am

  I have a bunch of used BRSs. They are highlighted, underlined in two different colors, and have notes in the margins. makes me feel like I should study more.

  Congrats on being done with the BS!!!

Other Links to this Post

1. Mental Health Update — April 30, 2006 @ 6:51 pm