Final Learning Reflection

I’ve always been intrigued by psychology. It is all around us in our everyday lives whether we realize it or not, or ever really think about it. Most people tend to think of psychology as being a therapist, or having to go to therapy, or as someone who has a mental illness and need to go see someone to help with it. Therapy is only a small percentage of what psychology really is, and therapy is only a subcategory under an extensive list of several types of psychology. We even did an entire blog on the different subfields of psychology that we as individuals thought we would most like to have a career in. This was a fun assignment because we really had to think about ourselves and what aspects of ourselves could we use in the field of psychology. I kept going back and forth between a few, but the more I assessed myself, which is another part of psychology is self-assessment, the more I realized what I would love to do if I was in the psychology field, and what I thought I would be able to achieve and be the most successful at. I learned about so many different types of psychology that I didn’t even knew existed. The field I chose for myself was one I had never even heard about or considered, it was a Juvenile Forensics Psychologist, I had no idea what this was, or that it even existed, but it takes a lot of the things I love in life and put them together; children, forensics, psychology, helping people, and just being a voice for others.

    Previously I mentioned that studying psychology is also a huge assessment of yourself, and it really is. You start to evaluate everything in your life differently, some things are for the better because of this, but sometimes you can become more critical of yourself. It is good to have a sense of who you really are though and with the use of psychology you can really do this. We did a personal assessment on ourselves and I learned way more about myself than I ever thought I would have from an assignment. It made me look at things about my past and present that I would have never looked at and also compare them and see how they are linked together. I had always thought of myself as being introverted, but I found out that was highly wrong, there are aspects of my personality that are introverted, but I am actually extroverted, and after I saw what made me introvert and extroverted I knew how to better assess situations. I learned other things about myself in the personality assessment that I didn’t realize about myself, but it also cemented things I had thought were true about myself. We also learned about parenting styles and techniques, and it opened my eyes up to how what big of an influence of how you are raised has such an impact on who you are, and the experiences you have growing up can change you. We also did a project about our life, which included past, present, and what we hope our future will be like, and it honestly opened my eyes to how much I've changed not only since I was a child, or since I've been in college, but the changes that have only taken place in a year, and how much of a change my future plans have taken because of those changes, and they are all for the better. We also did a “What’s your Story?” assignment which is just another examination of ourselves and what we believe. This assignment was more geared towards multiculturalism, and I chose the word coexist as the way I see multiculturalism. I also went with the organization Coexist which exist to bring all religions, races, cultures, genders and sexual orientations together to be able to live amongst each other in harmony, accept each other for their differences and not use their differences against them. I'm a big believer in accepting everyone as they are, because I want to be accepted for who I am even with all my flaws. Psychology helps us not only be able to look at ourselves in a more open way but it also allows us to see others in this way as well ,and that’s not saying we are critique others, but we are able to get a clearer understanding of those around us and it makes sense why certain people do certain things, and I find it really fascinating.

    Psychology also has a lot to do with physical things you do. Eat, sleep, hear, speak, see, and experience. We would never think that what we see could be a type of psychology but it is. Psychologist regularly use ink blots to try to assess what is one someone’s mind. That is a form of using sight to get psychological reading. We did a similar thing with optical illusions, not everyone sees the same thing when they see an optical illusion, and some people don’t even see an illusion at all. It is how our brain processes things, and through these processes psychologist can determine how are brains are working and functioning, and whether or not it is functioning properly or not. This can also be seen with how we process what we hear and say. I did an assignment on how music affects the brain, and it’s a really interesting topic. We all know that music makes us feel a certain way, but why? Why do we feel one way when listening to a song but a completely different way when listening to another? It is how our brain processes, the sound waves along with the lyrics that accompany it, if there are lyrics. During my assignment I interviewed someone on this, and she had actually had brain damage that affected her hearing, and as a therapy to recover from the brain damage she went through music therapy, and also just used music to grow herself. She had to retrain herself to hear music correctly because she is a singer and if you can’t hear yourself or the accompanist then it’s just not going to sound right. She even said music was not only there to comfort her after the accident, but it grew her, and made her appreciate music more. Sleep also has a very vital impact on our brains. If we don’t get enough sleep it actually starts to make your brain deteriorate. Sleep is healthy part of life, even though the majority of the world has some type a sleep disorder. Getting enough sleep nightly can also help you live longer. Many sleep disorders are very minor and don’t require medical help, but are still disorders, twitching, snoring are a few common ones that are harmless, talking in your sleep, is another one and it is still harmless to a degree, and then you get into night terrors and sleep apnea which you should seek medical attention for. Sleep has all to do with the brain that’s why it can be studied by psychologist. Dreams are probably the best for them though because they can analyze them and see what their true meanings are and give the person answers to some of their questions. The fact of us not dreaming, or not remembering our dreams are also researched by psychologist.

    You can learn a lot from psychology, not just how the brain works, or why or how we do things, why we react to things the way we do, why we need sleep, what causes disorders, different disorders, cures to disorders, therapies, research, and clinical trials, these are just a few of the thing we can and have learned about psychology. I knew coming into this class that psychology was a study of the brain and its workings and there was a lot involved in it, but I didn’t actually realize all the does go into psychology and what is seen as psychology.

I have really loved this class, not only from the content that was presented in the class, but what I learned from the content that I was able to use in everyday life. I enjoyed learning more things about myself that I probably never would have before this. This class also took me out of my comfort zone into writing things and presenting them for others to see, but I found out I really enjoyed it because I could use my voice in it and I didn’t have to hide behind a format, or be super educational about what I was say, yes I stuck to the content, but I didn’t have to always keep it scientific and keep my opinions out. This class didn’t just grow me in my knowledge of psychology, but it grew me as a person as well.