Tag: psychology

‘Big Brother’ isn’t just watching — He’s changing how your brain works

Every time you walk down a city street, electronic eyes are watching. From security systems to traffic cameras, surveillance is ubiquitous in modern society. Yet these cameras might be doing more than just recording our movements: according to a new study that peers into the psychology of surveillance, they could be fundamentally altering how our brains process visual information.

While previous research has shown that surveillance cameras can modify our conscious behavior – making us less likely to steal or more inclined to follow rules – a new study published in Neuroscience of Consciousness suggests that being watched affects something far more fundamental: the unconscious way our brains perceive the world around us.

“We found direct evidence that being conspicuously monitored via CCTV markedly impacts a hardwired and involuntary function of human sensory perception – the ability to consciously detect a face,” explains Associate Professor Kiley Seymour, lead author of the study, in a statement.

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15.5 Million Adult Americans Think They Have ADHD

Like most alleged psychiatric disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a fraud diagnosis. Put simply, and honestly, there is no abnormality in the brain that is ADHD.

The mental health and pharmaceutical industries can say it exists…that it’s a real brain disorder, but it just isn’t true. This doesn’t stop such august institutions like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from reporting that fifteen and a half million American adults suffer from ADHD. Of course, this is the same federal agency that said the covid vaccine was effective, would stop people from getting covid and stop them from spreading covid. Oops!

Nevertheless, the recent report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) claims that 15.5 million US adults are living with the condition and explain that “many are being let down by poor access to treatment.”

First let’s review what the American Psychiatric Association says about ADHD in its billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5. According to the nation’s top psychiatric doctors, ADHD in adults consists of the following:

An ADHD presentation that’s predominantly hyperactive/impulsive can be diagnosed if five or more symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity have persisted for at least six months. The person should also have less than five symptoms of inattention.[3]

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The American Psychological Association Wants (More) Federal Funding To Curb Online “Misinformation”

The American Psychological Association (APA) is among those organizations enlisted to join the “war on misinformation” back in 2021, when APA took a $2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help push the Covid narratives of the time.

APA’s particular task there was to come up with “a scientific consensus statement on the science of misinformation.”

Now, APA is clamoring for even more federal money as it declares psychology to be “leading the way on fighting misinformation” and advertises psychologists as the right people to research the problem (as it has been presented over the last years), and also be “part of the solution.”

An article on APA’s site doesn’t shy away from using terminology that spreads a sense of alarm, such as “the scourge of misinformation” and asserting that clinicians now have to treat patients “subsumed” by conspiracy theories, while institutions and communities are all allegedly suffering unspecified “harm.”

And APA also doesn’t shy away from mentioning the US presidential election, or from positioning that event as something that makes combating misinformation “messier and more important than ever.”

Messy it is, alright. To position itself properly among all those vying for funding/influence by exaggerating the threat posed by misinformation as a new phenomenon, APA actually states that, with the election in mind, fighting misinformation is “one of the top trends facing the field (physiology) in 2024.”

Really, APA? Maybe the author meant – a top trend faced by the organization itself, since it has had to show something in return for the $2 million 2021 CDC grant given to it to research “the science of stopping misinformation.”

(Spoiler: that “science” is already well-developed and applied; it’s called censorship.)

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‘Disturbing Gibberish’: New Trans Textbook For Psychiatrists Could Harm Millions Of Kids, Critics Say

A new “cutting-edge” textbook on transgenderism written with the help of activists will be used to train psychiatrists and could harm millions of children in the future, some experts have warned.

“Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care,” just released on Amazon at $58, is a textbook printed by American Psychiatric Association (APA) Publishing.

The textbook signals early on that it’s more subjective than objective, quoting a feminist studies professor saying, “Scientific neutrality is a fallacy.”

The content has prompted some critics to question the textbook’s reliance on a mix of transgender-identifying professionals writing about their experiences, limited scientific studies, and neo-Marxist critical theories.

“This is a huge issue; millions more kids will be harmed,” said Dr. Lauren Schwartz, a psychiatrist in Oklahoma speaking out against the rush to “transition” children.

The textbook’s introduction says the book is based on an “evidence-informed approach” instead of an evidence-based approach, which is more scientific, she told The Epoch Times.

The 26 chapters are written by 56 authors, 50 of whom are in the transgender community, according to the textbook’s foreword.

Chapters include affirming “two-spirit people,” a term used to refer to someone who believes he or she is both sexes, and one about “double queer” people—or people who identify as transgender and have a mental disability.

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Jordan Peterson forced to undergo reeducation from Ontario College of Psychologists to retain his license

Psychologist and former University of Toronto professor Dr. Jordan Peterson was ordered by the Ontario College of Psychologists to undergo a reeducation training program over his social media posts that uphold free speech and speak out against gender ideology and medical mistreatment of minors in service to the lie that humans can change sex.

He received a great deal of support in his quest to not have to undergo reeducation to retain his license, and hundreds rallied on his behalf. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre also backed Peterson against the authoritarian overreach of the Ontario College of Psychologists, who took the word of people who claimed they where “harmed” by simply seeing Peterson’s remarks online as proof of “harm.”

Peterson spoke about the upcoming verdict a day before it was levied, saying “The decision of an Ontario court re the allegations levied against me by @CPOntario is due tomorrow. I stand by what I have said and done and wish them luck in their continued prosecution. They’re going to need it. I tweeted and otherwise expressed my opposition to trans surgery butchery, @JustinTrudeau and his minions, and the lying climate apocalypse-mongers. All that’s looking pretty good from my end. And if I can’t express such opinions in Canada, I will let the world know.”

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Psychedelic drugs like LSD could enhance the effects of brain simulation

New research provides evidence that LSD alters the effects of brain stimulation and produces different and potentially larger changes in brain activity. The preliminary findings suggest that psychedelic drugs and brain stimulation may have a synergistic effect that could be used in innovative ways for treating various conditions. The proof-of-concept study has been published in the journal Psychedelic Medicine.

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has shown promising potential as a therapeutic approach for various mental health conditions. This treatment combines the use of psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin or LSD, with psychotherapy sessions to enhance the therapeutic process.

The psychedelic substances used in this type of therapy are known to induce altered states of consciousness, leading to profound experiences that can have therapeutic benefits. These substances are thought to work by affecting brain receptors, particularly the serotonin 2A receptor, which influences perception, mood, and cognition.

These drugs have also been found to enhance neural plasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new connections. This may contribute to their long-term therapeutic effects. It is believed that combining psychedelic drugs with therapies like psychotherapy or brain stimulation could help direct these neuroplastic changes and lead to lasting behavioral changes.

“Current treatments like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have a large potential to help people with a variety of psychiatry disorders, however, these neuromodulatory treatments tend to have relatively short-lived effects,” explained study author Lucas Dwiel, a postdoctoral fellow at The Doucette Lab at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “So if we could prolong the effects of these treatments by first using drugs like LSD to make the brain more malleable or susceptible to change, we could help a large number of patients achieve their therapeutic goals.”

The researchers conducted experiments using rats to eliminate the biases inherent in human studies. The study focused on the effects of LSD and involved two main components: measuring brain activity changes after LSD administration and assessing the effects of brain stimulation combined with LSD.

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Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy Tried to ‘Manipulate’ Criminal Profiler in Newly Disclosed Death Row Letter

A psychoanalyst who wanted to interview serial killer John Wayne Gacy while he was imprisoned ended discussions after Gacy required completion of a questionnaire.

John Kelly said he gave up trying to interview the convicted killer one year before his 1994 execution in an Illinois prison.

Fox News further reported:

Illinois serial killer John Wayne Gacy made such creepy demands to a criminal profiler that the psychoanalyst gave up on his attempts to interview him a year before he faced the death penalty at the Stateville prison.

The “Killer Clown” sent a pamphlet maintaining his innocence and demanded the profiler fill out a questionnaire full of personal questions and send it back with a photo.

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Was Freud Afraid of the Occult?

During a visit to Vienna in 1909, Jung had a conversation with Freud about the new study of parapsychology. Freud dismissed the whole subject as nonsense, something Jung, who had had ample experience of it, could not accept. As the conversation grew heated, Jung, who wanted to keep relations with Freud cordial, found it difficult to hold back his feelings. After all, he had been chosen by Freud to inherit his throne, and he had great respect, even love for his mentor. But Jung also had his own genius and ambitions and found it difficult to toe the party line. Now, as he looked at Freud he felt his diaphragm glow, as if it was becoming red-hot. Suddenly a loud bang exploded in Freud’s bookcase, and both men jumped up, afraid it would fall on them. Jung said to Freud “There, that is an example of a so-called catalytic exteriorisation phenomenon,” Jung’s long-winded circumlocution for a poltergeist or “noisy spirit.” Freud retorted “Bosh!” Jung shook his head and predicted that another bang would soon follow. When it did, Freud looked at Jung “aghast,” and from that moment on was mistrustful of him. Jung said the way Freud looked at him it was “as if I had done something against him.”

Not long after this, again in Vienna, Jung again visited Freud, and he later recalled a peculiar conversation they had, during which Freud asked Jung to promise that he would never abandon the sexual theory of the origin of neurosis. Freud told Jung that they must make “a dogma of it, an unshakeable bulwark.” Jung said that Freud spoke in the tones in which a father would ask his son to promise that he would go to church every Sunday. When Jung asked Freud why they had to affirm the sexual theory so vigorously, and against what they had to make it a bulwark, Freud replied “against the black tide of mud of occultism.” By this time Jung knew that he could never assert the sexual theory with the same finality as Freud did. He already had reservations about it but had kept them to himself. This request to collaborate with him on erecting a dogma was a sign that these reservations would soon have to come out. As we know, they did.

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The Left’s ‘Psychological Strategy’ for Cultural Dominance

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was teetering on the edge of the dustbin of history, and freedom was on the march – but not on American campuses.  There, to escape the subtle and not-so-subtle coercion of their would-be Leftist indoctrinators, students were compelled to act as Vaclav Havel’s “greengrocers,” even as the Berlin Wall was poised to topple. 

While at the time the irony may have escaped these students’ notice, they were acutely aware of Left-wing faculty and administrators’ efforts to impose “political correctness.”  Some on the Left embraced it; some on the Right resisted it; most just regurgitated what was necessary to avoid a spiteful Leftist professor saddling your GPA with a low grade for expressing an opinion politically to the right of Lenin. 

In hindsight, did Gen X’s capacity to faithlessly echo political correctness to earn degrees fool the Left into presuming the indoctrination had been successful and, emboldened, led them to ratchet up their insanity to the extremist level of today’s DIE cult (“diversity, inclusion, and equity”)?  Or did the Left realize they had been outfoxed by Gen X; and, consequently, deem more intensive and coercive methods of indoctrination and cultural control necessary? Perhaps, it was neither; and the current situation is the latest manifestation of the Left’s long-term psychological assault on American culture.

The most lucid prism in which to view the Left’s current assaults on American culture is provided by Mr. Greg Copley, who wrote in his August, 2022, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy:

“We have come to use the term ‘information dominance’ to identify the process, but it is far less adequate as a framework than the earlier phrase, ‘psychological strategy.’

“Information dominance is not merely about controlling the narrative by volume (although that is a part of it); it is about defining the meaning of words, thoughts, and, therefore, options.  It is about the imposition of one’s will on another, often co-opting and distorting words and meanings to suit the initiator.  This requires ‘concept dominance’ [emphasis mine]; it is far broader than ‘information dominance.’

“Information, in essence, is tactical; concepts can be strategic.  They form an underpinning of psychological strategy.

Using Mr. Copley’s prism, we can glean the Left’s psychological strategy.  Their initial politically correct movement was an attempt at information dominance, whereby they flooded the universities and, later, the society at large, with their PC narrative.  Today, the Left is aiming to attain concept dominance, whereby words that were once universally understood have now been radically revised or censored altogether – such as when a Leftist Supreme Court nominee professes how she cannot define the term “woman.” 

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5 Psychological Experiments That Explain The Modern World

The world is a confusing place. People do things that don’t make any sense, think things that aren’t supported by facts, endure things they do not need to endure, and viciously attack those who try to bring these things to their attention.

If you’ve ever wondered why, you’ve come to the right place.

Any casual reader of the alternate media landscape will eventually come up with a reference to Stanley Milgram, or Philip Zimbardo, the “Asch Experiment” or maybe all three.

“Cognitive Dissonance”, “Diffusion of Responsibility”, and “learned helplessness” are phrases that regularly do the rounds, but where do they come from and what they mean?

Well, here are the important psycho-social experiments that teach us about the way people think, but more than that they actually explain how our modern world works, and just how we got into this mess.

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