2009...

This year has been good, but the last months have been so strange. I think it has been strange because I had a lot of vacation, so I spent my time dancing and having fun, but I didn’t remember that I had to study. Anyway, these last days I’ve had to study so much, everything I didn’t study in these month, so I am really tired. But I know that all the time and the energy that I’ve spent in these days will bring positive consequences for me. I am sure I will be happy when this nightmare finish.

When I started this year, I was so happy because it was the second one in University, so I had a lot of experience to face this new year. I had a lot of subjects that I had never seen, as psychopathology and neurophysiology, so I was so happy, because there were a lot of things to learn. I enjoyed my study so much. Really, I learned everything I wanted, so I felt that everything I wanted was be a great psychologist. When the semester finished, I was so tired, but I was happy with my achievements and the effort I made to achieve them.

After my vacation, I started my classes with a little of energy. I felt that I hadn’t enjoyed my free time; I felt that it had been so short, so my body was tired yet. That’s the reason why I couldn’t wake up every morning, so I missed a lot of classes. When I was feeling better, and I recovered my energies, September holidays arrived, so I lost everything I had achieved. I spend my time sleeping and having fun for two weeks, until I returned to class. Since that day, everything was terrible! I didn’t want to read anything; I didn’t want to see a notebook or a paper and anything. When I went to class, I couldn’t concentrate, so when I had to take a test, I suffered so much, although my marks were good. In conclusion, it was horrible!

Now, I feel I spent my time waiting for a semester that never arrived for me. I am sorry about it, but I think I have to start this new year with all the energy I didn´t use the last semester. Anyway, I feel that I learned some important things that I need to know if I want to be a good psychologist, although I don’t remember others. I know I will have a great 2010!

Psychology's challenges

Hello!

Today, I’ll talk about the challenges of my discipline, psychology.

The use of technology is frecuently in neuroscience area. Psychologists use special technology for researh about brain answer after a stimule, for example. The instruments we use are electroencephalogram, MRI, etc. These instruments measure the electrical impulsos that are generated by a stimuli. We can identify the stimuli that produce a high respons, so we can know what stimuli are more significant for every person.

In social matters, I think psychology has much to say. We can intervene in a lot of areas, as collective memory. In this subject, psychologist have to take the meanings that have been associated to a particular fact. In our case, the meaning that have been associated to military dictatorship. I think this is very important, because we can contribute to heal the wounds that this period left in the Chilean memory, as much as we research the real meaning that these events have for them, and the pain it leads. In this way, we can stop the resentment that lives in many people or at least, we can decrease it. Obviously there’s a lot of topics we can study. Actually, I think sexuality in teenagersis a great subject, because they start their sexual life very young and sometimes, they don’t consider the consequences. We can see worrying figures about pregnancy in teenagers, for example.

Education is one of my favorite areas. When I start to study this career, I didn’t imagine how important is the discipline for mental development. Now, I can see that we can help children who has a mental retardation, because the enviroment is extremely important for children’s achievements in their development. We have to stimulate them, so they will increase their skills and competencies, although the children show a delay in their brain. We have a great responsability with the children who are discriminated because they aren’t at the same level as their classmates.

Another subject that I think is very important is stigmatization that mental sick people suffer from. We have to contribute to remove this stigmatization, and we have to help them to reintegrate to society normally. Schizophrenics are who suffer this discrimination the most, so we have to help them to go out from psychiatric hospitals to the streets.

Bye!