I think that in five years, one thing from psychology that will be applied often and remembered will be Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In five years, I will hopefully have by BSN and working as an RN. According to the hierarchy of needs, there is a pyramid shaped classification of needs. The hierarchy from bottom to top classifies: physiological/ biological needs (e.g. water, food, sleep) safety needs (e.g. sense of security, danger prevention) love and belonging needs (e.g. acceptance, giving and receiving of love), self esteem needs (e.g. independence, gaining respect, and doing something worthwhile), and self-actualization. The textbook defines self-actualization as "the drive to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent". The pyramid-shape symbolizes both how the farther up the pyramid you get, the smaller number of people who reach that level (hence the narrowing at the top), and that the lower levels are supposedly needed to be reached before the upper levels can be reached (hence the building upon each other). Here lies a criticism that the book has with Maslow's theory, the authors say that a starving artist can make beautiful art, fulfilling higher up needs without achieving the physiological need of food.
A nurse's role includes what is called whole person care. If your patient is having medical issues, such as high blood pressure, but they don't have a physiological cause for this, it would be a good idea to ask if they are stressed. It is possible that one of their other needs has not met, perhaps they don't feel safe or they feel their family is neglecting them. If this need is found, it can be resolved, by possibly calling up the family to come visit or figuring out the source of the fear.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg/450px-Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png
joh09419: April 2012 Archives
I have watched the show "Lie to Me", and have found it really interesting. The book talked about its basis in Paul Ekman's work and its inaccuracies. The basis is the idea of body language and micro-expressions. I personally am a terrible liar, so pretty much anyone who knew me would be able to tell. According to Ekman's work, most people have certain split second expressions that show what they are feeling. The study of micro-expressions can be valid at times, but others, especially with people on drugs, with certain psychopathic disorders, or those who have had facial surgery, even the best trained readers have trouble. Due to what the book calls, barely better than chance accuracy, I decided to look into a more scientific way of lie detection. After reading in the book about the use of fMRIs to test for lie detectors, I went looking for myself. I saw a video about the use of fMRIs. The speaker said that across the board, there is more mental activation when lying. One of the areas of the brain that is activated is the prefrontal cortex. The speaker said that the technology his company uses is for sure effective for people from 18-50 (older than 50 have not been tested). One of the things that I wondered about was how accurate this test was for people under 25, since we learned in class that 25 is about when the prefrontal cortex of the brain (site of thinking, planning, and decision making) fully develops. Many tests are difficult to judge the validity on due to human ability to manipulate and rehearse what they are going to say.
http://sackler.nasmediaonline.org/2011/uk/laken/laken.html
