Mood: The Key to Understanding Ourselves and Others - Softcover

Burke, Patrick M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1616148330 ISBN 13: 9781616148331

Verlag: Prometheus Books, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

A reader-friendly yet in-depth overview of the latest research on mood as the way we are tuned to the world.
 
     This book examines the central role that mood plays in determining our outlook on life and our ability to cope with its challenges. The central theme is that mood determines how we are tuned to the world. Tuning emerges over the course of our earliest development as environmental and genetic influences form the neural circuits and set how they function across the lifespan in daily life and under conditions of stress. How each person is tuned becomes the basis for resilience or vulnerability to events. Some will take events in stride; others may become angry, anxious, or sad.

     A child psychiatrist with decades of clinical experience treating patients, the author stresses that relationships play a central role in shaping our mood. Security or insecurity, loss or the fear of loss of key relationships, especially in childhood, can have telling effects on the way we view the world.

     A chapter is devoted to each of the disorders where mood is a central issue: depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and antisocial disruptive disorders. The author then discusses the various "talking therapies" and the main classes of medication often administered to treat emotional disturbances. Burke concludes by summarizing the latest research on preventing mood disorders and discussing the impact that illness can have on emotional well-being and the role of mood in resilience and recovery.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Patrick M. Burke, MB, BCH, PhD (Tucson, AZ), is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona. His previous positions include child and adolescent psychiatrist at La Frontera, Inc. and the Tucson Medical Center, medical director of Pantano Behavioral Health, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona, and clinical and academic positions at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, Seattle Children's Hospital, and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Washington. He has published book chapters and many scientific articles in medical publications.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

MOOD

The Key to Understanding Ourselves and Others

By Patrick M. Burke

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2013 Patrick M. Burke
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61614-833-1

Contents

Acknowledgments, 9, 
Chapter 1. Overview, 11, 
Chapter 2. What Does Mood Do?, 19, 
Chapter 3. Mood and Development, 29, 
Chapter 4. Mood and Neural Circuits, 45, 
Chapter 5. Genes, Environments, and Neural Circuits, 59, 
Chapter 6. When Events Threaten Stability—The Stress Response, 67, 
Chapter 7. Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis, 81, 
Chapter 8. When Moods Are Worried and Fearful—Anxiety Disorders, 87, 
Chapter 9. When Moods Are Low—Depression, 103, 
Chapter 10. When Moods Are High and Low—Bipolar Disorder, 117, 
Chapter 11. When Mood Is Indifferent—Disruptive and Antisocial Behavior, 133, 
Chapter 12. Getting Back on Track—Psychological and Behavioral Therapy, 145, 
Chapter 13. Getting Back on Track—Medication, 169, 
Chapter 14. The Challenge of Medical Illness, 179, 
Notes, 193, 
Index, 229, 

CHAPTER 1

OVERVIEW

We are told that nothing in the world is certain except death and taxes. Butwe can add a third certainty. We are always in a mood. What is more, weare constantly faced with references to mood: popular tunes of happinessor sadness; pundits opining that the economic mood of the country will determinethe outcome of an election or that the mood in the locker room will determinewhich team wins the game; advertisements telling us a product will change ourmood and our lives. Mood is everywhere and somehow is linked to what we findimportant and meaningful. Emerson described life as a train of moods strung likebeads, which, as we pass through them, prescribe what we see. For the poet W. B.Yeats, literature is wrought about a mood or a community of moods.

But our moods change, and we seem to have little control over when andhow the change occurs. It seems we can neither command nor will our mood tochange. Rather, our mood changes, and it is only after the change that we realizewe are in a different mood. Most of the time, we pay little attention to changesin our mood or how the changes occur. But the change can be disturbing. Wefind we are sad, anxious, uneasy, or feel threatened. If the new mood interfereswith our ability to function, the change may amount to a mood disorder. Formany, these disorders can be destructive to their lives and can warrant professionalattention. How does this happen?

We have good reason to suspect that difficulties with mood originate indevelopmental events. Changeable moods are accepted as part of childhood andadolescence. Take, for example, the irritable colicky infant, the temper-pronetoddler and preschooler, or the moody adolescent. There is abundant evidencethat most psychiatric disorders among adults that involve significant changes inmood first become evident in youth. At a clinical level, the annual rate of depressionin adolescents is estimated to be 5–9 percent, and in prepubertal childrenthe rate is estimated to be 1–2.5 percent. Between 2–5 percent of youth arediagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

How do these disorders come about? And what can be done about them?Perhaps the most common view is that dysfunction in brain chemicals is theunderlying issue. Stress is implicated, whether due to conflicts or loss in relationships,or other life events. Genetic influences are also thought to play a role, andmuch research is geared toward understanding how genes and environmentsinteract to produce disorders. Similarly, research in personality developmentshows the importance of individual temperament. Advances in the neuroscienceshave implicated brain circuits and other bodily systems, and these arealso subject to genetic and environmental influence. Moreover, there has beenmassive growth in pharmacological treatments, as well as in psychosocial treatmentseach with its own school of thought and practitioners. Complicatingmatters further, diagnosis and treatment, especially in youth, have become controversialissues. Advances in all these areas have been rapid and have originatedfrom a range of disciplines. As a result, the available information is widely distributedin literature and is so complex that, unless you have some expertise inthe field, the general reader is likely to have difficulty integrating the findings.

Beyond questions of causation and techniques to remedy problem behavior,how do mood and the disorders involving mood fit with how we see ourselvesas agents in the world? Are we passive and simply subject to our genes and ourenvironments? What role do we play or can we play? Can mood be linked toresponsibility? Is there a way to address these questions and unify the abovethemes to guide the nonexpert?

Despite the breadth and depth of current studies, surprisingly little attentionhas been paid to the subject of mood itself and mood disorder. Most often, the focusis on emotion and mood is simply subsumed, used interchangeably with emotion,or is subordinated to cognitive activities. This book takes a unique approach bytreating mood as a central controlling factor that from childhood becomes thebasis upon which we choose and act, and sets the stage for how we are throughoutlife. The basic idea is that mood connects the person and the world, and this connectionis built and shaped over the course of development. How might this work?If we think of mood as a phase of the activity of neural circuits and bodily systemsthat continually process information about the world, then the feelings of moodand the associated bodily systems provide the mechanism for the connection. Theyenable the assessment of possibilities and become the basis for action.

Development comes into the picture because genetic and environmentalinfluences starting with the fetus create the underlying systems. The stressresponse system, which is active when destabilizing events occur, is especiallyrelevant because it has profound influence on developing neural circuits. Howthis system functions influences the degree to which someone is vulnerable orresilient when something challenging happens. Disorders involving changes inmood emerge as breakdowns in the connections occur, and resilience comesfrom the connections being able to surmount challenge.

The book is organized as one possible roadmap that ties together the manybiological and social factors that not only shape development and functioningbut also underlie the emergence of disorders and are key to prevention and treatment.There are four key themes set around two core notions, the importance ofthe individual and the importance of developmental processes.

The central theme is that mood reflects the way we are tuned into the world,reveals our possible options in a particular situation, and thereby becomes thebasis of action. The basic idea derives from Martin Heidegger, primarily hismajor work Being and Time. Although Heidegger did not write about children,we have adopted some of his central insights and placed them within adevelopmental context. The first theme is nested in a second theme—we areself-constituting. If we consider the self as a way of being, then who we are asagents is realized only by what we do and by what we make of ourselves as welive an active life. Relationships with others are at the core of these processes.Complex interactions between the child, other people, and the world underliethe child's struggles with becoming autonomous and responsible for himself.Mood, by revealing our...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Prometheus Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1616148330
• ISBN 13: 9781616148331
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 253
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande