Phobias

Phobia is a persistent irrational fear of an object, situation, or activity that the person feels compelled to avoid. There are many different phobias, such as claustrophobia, scotophobia, dentophobia and others. People who suffer from phobias feel panic, horror, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling and can take extreme measures to avoid the feared situation or an object.

Coulrophobia (Fear of clowns)

Despite the fact, that clowns are believed to be the reason of laughter, sometimes they might be very frightening, especially for those who have coulrophobia. Symptoms can range from high anxiety to outright panic attacks around people in clown outfits. The cause of this fear is usually psychological – it can be a traumatic event I the childhood, a very scary movie about clowns, etc. It is known that a movie star, actor Johnny Depp has this fear of clowns – coulrophobia.

Siderodromophobia (Fear of trains, railroads or train travel)

People who have this fear may feel panic only if they think about traveling by train or just imagine it in their minds. The view of the coming train may raise their blood pressure, make heart beat faster and cause other symptoms of the real fear. Austrian Physician Sigmund Freud had siderodromophobia, despite the fact that he had been traveling by train very often.

Why?

The first reason, why people have phobias, is traumatic events. It is obvious that negative experiences can influence the latest fear.
The second reason may be cultural influence. F. ex, there is a kind phobia called taijin kyofusho, which occurs only in Japan. It is the fear of offending other persons by an excess of modesty or showing respect.
Many psychologists believe the cause lies in a combination of genetic predisposition mixed with environmental and social causes. It has been demonstrated that identical twins may develop the same type of phobia, even when they were reared separately soon after birth, and educated in different places.

Treatment

One of the most successful treatments is behavior therapy. In this therapy, a person who suffers a phobia meets with a trained therapist, confronts the feared object or situation in a carefully planned way, and learns to control physical reactions of fear.
Hypnosis can also set a person free of phobias. Posthypnotic suggestions can help him control his reaction – breathing, slow his heart rate, and achieve a relaxed state of mind.
Medications may also be used to control the panic. Drugs such as Xanax, Valium, Prozac or Zoloft may be prescribed for people who suffer agoraphobia or other social phobias. However, it helps to control only physical aspects but do not remove the fear.






http://www.way2hope.org/Illnesses/coulrophobia-fear-clowns.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/siderodromophobia-1
http://allpsych.com/journal/phobias.html
http://www.leinsterhypnotherapyclinic.ie/phobias-anxiety.html
http://www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/phobias.htm
http://www.nvdaily.com/lifestyle/2009/03/overcoming-fear.html

END-OF-TERM SELF-ASSESSMENT

Learning is a process that never stops. It is easier to notice your progress when you separate your learning time into some parts. I’ve already written about my self-assessment some time earlier where I was talking about my progress during the first term. Now, when the second term is already finished, I’m going to write about my progress during it.


• Writing (a summary)

In this term, we didn’t write as many summaries as in the first one. More than that, this term we have been writing the other type of summary, called restatement summary. At first, I found it difficult to write because I was got used to analytical summaries. Nevertheless, after getting some practice now I don’t have any problems in writing both types of summary.

• Performance in ESP vocabulary tests

In the previous term, this aspect was the least pleasant for me. I understood that I have to change my learning strategy and I did it. I was trying to rewrite definitions just right after reading the module. It helped me to think about the most important words and learn using them during my English-classes. Therefore, now I find ESP vocabulary tests easier than before.

• Performance in class dictations

This task was new for me. After the first dictation I was little bit confused because my results were awful. I made many grammar and punctuation mistakes. However, the second dictation was easier because I’ve already knew what to expect and what kind of mistakes I should avoid. More than tat, the first dictation was about the law, thus specific words were unknown for me. The second one was about suicides, this topic is more familiar to my specialty. The results had shown that the second performance was really better.

• Listening practice in class

In the first term, I felt lack of this task. In this term was enough listening practice. However, I still make mistakes. Nevertheless, now I know when and how I should pay attention while listening. I believe, that during the third term I’ll reach results that I want to.

• Listening to peers’ Power Point presentations

Watch and listen to Power Point presentations that are made by others is important because then we get a lot of new information, improve our knowledge and may help presenter by giving some comments after his presentation. However, this task isn’t very interesting for me, thus I have to try very hard not to pay my attention to other things.


• Making Power Point presentation

This task is still the best for me. It is the most creative and sometimes I think I would rather do presentations every week than writing summaries. Of course, it depends on the topic. This term the topic of my Power Point presentation was very interesting for me and I enjoyed preparing for it.

• Short talks on ESP themes in class

This task became so easy for me that I even do not notice it as real task. I think I’ve already remove my fear to talk in foreign language and this is the reason why it is easier for me now.


To sum up, this term was easier for me than the previous one because I’ve finally understood the system of this subject, my mistakes and gain more confidence.




http://www.sterling.edu/content/library-studying-the-stacks
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008_09_21_archive.html

Professor Richard Wiseman and his researches

Richard Wiseman is a professor of the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. He had made many researches in different psychology areas, such as humour, luck, deception and paranormal. Professor Wiseman is well known all over the world for his researches and popular book called “The Luck Factor”.

Despite the fact, that usually people talk about Professor Wiseman while speaking about luck or minds of human kind, the most interesting topic for me is paranormal. I know many psychology students who believe in magic, ghosts and things like that, thus it was very interesting for me to explore what do professionals think about that.

Professor Richard Wiseman investigated many people who had claimed they could do magic things, f.ex, materialize objects in their bare hands. The experiment had shown that no one could do some kind of magical trick under controlled conditions.

Professor Wiseman has examined why do people feel strange feelings in places where ghosts are believed to appear. The professor with his team visited places such as Hampton Court Palace and the Edinburgh Vaults. Some people claim they have experienced apparitions, unusual odours, sudden changes in temperature and a sense of presence there. After the research, Professor Wiseman came to conclusion that people may feel strange in places like these because of magnetic fields, infrasound, and various psychological factors such as prior knowing that you may feel presence and becoming anxious when entering these areas.

In conclusion, it is very good that people from the ‘world of science’, like Professor Wiseman, still care about unusual situations in people lives and try to find answers to questions that interest many of us. This is why we should always try to examine what do professionals say about things we are interested in before making our own decisions.

References: http://www.richardwiseman.com/index.html

Learning Languages

There are from 3,000 to 8,000 different languages all over the world. Some of them are more common, some are less. The popularity depends on how many speakers do they have and how often they are being used in business, cultural work and how easy they are to learn for non-native speakers. However, learning foreign languages have the same strategies. In includes speaking, listening, reading and writing.

The most important aspects, in my opinion, are speaking and listening. Even native speakers start learning their own language not from grammar but from listening, learning how to pronounce different sounds, how to say most common words and then join them into sentences. The same strategies should be used learning foreign language. It is important to find differences in pronunciation of letters and words. F.ex., if someone wants to learn Finnish language, he has to know that unusual sound may the ‘y’, which is a 'front-u', the same as 'u' in French, etc. It is easier to understand language better when you are using it. All people who go abroad and live there for a while can understand language better because they always hear it and have to talk with natives in their language. If there is no opportunity to go into the country where people talk in language you want to learn other possibility is listening to the music with words of that language or find a friend from there you can sometimes talk to even using phone, Skype, MSG and so on.

Reading is other very important aspect of learning language. In this way, you can learn many new words and have their visual images in your mind. It can also help you when you go abroad and have to find streets or buildings, filling some document, etc. Usually reading is being associated with writing. However, it is possible to communicate with people from other countries in their languages even when you do not know the grammar of them.

I always remember one common proverb my first English teacher said to me long time ago - practice makes perfect. No matter how many books do you have or how long you have been dreaming about some language. The most important thing is use it in your life as frequent as possible.



References: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/finnish.html
http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/sprakfrageladan/english/sprakfakta/eng-sprak-i-varlden.html

Studies of Psychology at Mykolas Romeris University in Lithuania and University of Helsinki in Finland

There is possibility to study psychology all over the world. However, that kind of studies are not the same at different universities, therefore I am going to compare them at Mykolas Romeris University (MRU), where I am studying, and at University of Helsinki, where I would like to do that.

At MRU, we study psychology in the faculty of Social policy. This faculty offers three first cycle degrees (Bachelor of Psychology, Bachelor of Social work, Bachelor of Law and Penitentiary Activities) and the same kind of Master’s degree.
At University of Helsinki, in the faculty of Behavioral sciences, it is possible to get also three first cycle degrees (Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Bachelor of Arts (Education), Bachelor of Arts) and the same kind of Master’s degree.

The department of Psychology in the University of Helsinki consists of nine sections: perception and cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, traffic psychology, neuropsychology, personality psychology, psychometrics and methodology, psychology of work, technology, and organizations, plus cognitive science.
The department of psychology in Mykolas Romeris University consists of fewer sections: social psychology, psychology of business and psychology of law. However, in this University psychology as separate studies exists only for three years and I am sure that when MRU will be as old as the University of Helsinki there will be much more sections.

In both universities all students take first a Bachelor’s degree and then have right to continue their studies to a Master’s degree.
The first cycle degree in Finland consists of 180 credits and the second cycle degree an additional 150 credits, thus it takes about five and a half year an average to take Master’s degree.
In Lithuania, we have 160 credits to get first cycle degree and only 80 credits for Master’s degree. However, it takes six years to finish these studies.

To sum, there are many differences between psychology at MRU and University of Helsinki. However, I believe that both of universities prepare good specialists and the best way to compare inner possibilities of these universities is to visit them :)

Average Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. It's not just a sudden emotion. It is knowing that despite some problems in your life you're still happy.

Many people understand happiness very differently. Some of them think that happy is rich, successful and famous person. Other pay more attention to love, family and good relationship with other people. The rest may find happiness in small things.

According to research, accomplished by Ruuth Veenhoven, the more people feel happy, the longer they live. More than that, it is possible to separate out countries according to their states of happiness of their citizens. For example, the research shows us, that the happiest nations are the Switz, Danish and Icelanders. They all live more that 60 years. The unhappiest people live in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. They live 11,5-15,2 year on average. We can see a tendency, that people feel happier in more advanced countries.

It's not very easy to feel happy when there are a lot of problems around you. However, everything depends only on the attitude of your mind. As the one English idiom says, "every cloud has a silver line". It is possible to take every problem as a challenge and learn from it. Remember, life is just a bowl of cherries :)




http://www.copleysociety.org/.librar/Farrell_Sean_Cherries_Bowl_72.U467eceebce6d1.jpg
http://www.theselfhelpschool.com/school/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness
http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl

Self-assessment of Success in Learning ESP

The first term of learning ESP was quite difficult and unexpected by its tasks and tests. At the beginning of studies, I thought that we would be only learning grammar and some words or phrases related to psychology. However, after few weeks I understood that we are learning psychology in English.

• Writing a summary

At first I found it hard, however, “practice makes perfect”, therefore after my second summary it doesn’t seem difficult to write it. In spite of this, I still have to pay attention to points such as formal/informal language and not retelling the texts.

• Writing comprehension tests on modules in psychology

It is one of the hardest tasks for me, because if you want to get good mark you have to learn some definitions by heart, not just understand the main idea of the material. It takes too much time, energy and efforts. I hope that in the future I will be able to explain specific definitions in my own words and comprehension tests wouldn’t be so difficult for me.

• Making Power Point presentations

This task is one of the most attractive because I found it very interesting to go into the details about the only one topic and think how can I represent it to my group. The task was more interesting because of possibility to use creativity by searching and posting nice pictures connected with the topic. It is good to do what you like because then it doesn’t seem very hard, thus this task was quite easy for me.

• Impromptu speaking in class

Speaking in class isn’t very hard task, however, at the first times I was quite nervous about that. Now it doesn’t seem scary to me. Despite this fact, I would like to improve my speaking better. I understand that I have to try to participate more during discussions and I will try to do this next term.

• Performance in listening practice

Listening isn’t very hard, but not easy as well. Sometimes I understand absolutely everything but sometimes I can’t understand even the task. I’m trying to improve it at home, however, in the future I would like to do more listening practice in class.

• Writing contributions to e-portfolio
This task is the most interesting for me. There you can use all your creativity and usually it’s possible to choose the topic you would like to write about. I also like the fact, that you can write it at home, despite the fact, that it requires a lot of time because of searching information and reading articles.

To sum up, learning ESP this term wasn’t easy, however, I found it quite interesting in some ways and I believe that the next term my results might be better and it depends only on my efforts.