Danielle Borie

Hello.

They call me Danielle Borie, sometimes Dani.

I am a senior at BASIS Scottsdale, a charter school in Arizona. At BASIS, during the third trimester of school, rather than attend classes, the senior class is given time off to get an internship or a job. I have an internship at the Mayo Clinic with Dr. Geda where I will spend time making a systematic review of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

ACT is a behavioral therapy which promotes acceptance and mindfulness so as to lessen the harsh effects of various disorders. It has been shown to be particularly successful in improving the quality of life of individuals with depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. This project greatly interests me due to the nature of ACT, which focuses on not letting the negatives in your life define who you are. It is important to embrace yourself as you are and not allow an "imperfect" life to keep you down indefinitely. If you want to read a more in-depth summary of my project, here is my Project Proposal.

During the next ten weeks, I will be blogging about my experience at the Mayo Clinic and what I learn. Then, in May, I will do a presentation. If you would like to see the blogs of others who are doing a Senior Research Project or who are in AP Research, check out this link!

As for who I am...well I like books, music, movies, and more. I primarily read Young Adult Fiction: Paranormal, Romance, Fantasy, Contemporary, and Historical. Some of my favorite books are Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. I have diverse music interests, including indie (Lana de Rey, MØ, and Zella Day), EDM (Martin Garrix, Skrillex, and Diplo), alternative (Findlay, Franz Ferdinand, and Cage the Elephant), metal (Rob Zombie, Megadeath, and Marilyn Manson), rock (Nirvana, the Doors, and Led Zeppelin), and foreign pop (Fedez, Elliphant, and Nicky Jam). Also, I enjoy listening to bands such as Die Antwoord, K.Flay, and Cherry Glazerr, however I am unsure as to which categories they fit in. Two of my favorite TV shows are Teen Wolf and True Blood, and two of my favorite movies are Donnie Darko and The Longest Day. Earlier, I mentioned that I like "more," this "more" refers primarily to my tendency to dye my hair blue and sometimes wear different-colored contacts. Also, I hold two sports dear to my heart: track and rugby. Additionally, this introduction would seem incomplete if I did not mention at least once that I am French and love all things related to France.

One of my all time favorite quotes, said by Oscar Wilde, is "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." I also love Megadeth's "A Tout le monde. A tous mes amis. Je vous aime. Je dois partir." I plan to put the latter, lyrics from the song "A Tout le Monde," on my tombstone (To everybody. To all my friends. I love you. I have to leave.)

Have a fantabulous day!

P.S. If anyone is interested, this is my name in cyrillic: Дэниэль (or so my Russian friend told me)

Presentation

Hello all and welcome to Week 10 of the SRP through my eyes! Also quotes and gifs this week wowowow...

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." 

- Carl Jung

This week, while I did do a lot of writing and editing, I also worked on my presentation. For those of you who do not know, in May (the 6th to be exact), those of us who are doing Senior Research Projects will have to do a presentation. A draft of our presentations were due to our faculty advisors (Mr. Campbell in my case) this Thursday.

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."

- Thomas Merton

The presentations aren't too complicated, mainly explaining what we did throughout our internships and how we learned more about a topic which we are not only passionate about, but which is also important. We show our understanding of the topic we chose by telling a bit of the background and identify some possible sources of error. We find an answer for our research question.

"The only way out is through." 

- Robert Frost

If in a couple of years any of you decide to do a Senior Research Project, here are some tips:
-make sure your project is something you are truly interested in
-make sure your internship site is somewhere you will enjoy working
-make sure to not procrastinate writing your blog posts/comments and your PowerPoint
-make sure you have a clear idea of what your research question is before you start working on your presentation
-make sure you have an idea of what your "final product" will be before your presentation
     -I have found that some of my classmates found this to be particularly difficult; my final product will be a physical copy of my systematic review

"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."

- Joseph Goldstein

If I learned one thing from this project it is that one should strive to live for themselves. Don't focus on the negatives in life, don't fight them and don't ignore them. Instead, accept them and continue to chase your dreams. To put it more concisely:

"To accept that pain is inherent and to live our lives from this understanding is to create the causes and conditions for happiness."

- Suzuki Roshi

Also, as the Senior Projects are coming to a close, I would like to say a couple thanks:

Thank you Patherica, you have been so helpful these past weeks. Without your help, I would have gotten lost writing this paper and not found my way back out. I can only hope to be as kind, patient, and intelligent as you some day.

Thank you Dr. Geda for giving me this wonderful opportunity. Writing this systematic review has taught me so much about psychotherapy. This internship has given me a glimpse at what I will learn in college. I am incredibly excited and motivated to learn everything I can about the colossal field known as Psychology.

Thank you Mr. Campbell for reviewing my PowerPoint and helping me develop those early ideas for my SRP. You helped me create my project proposal and saved it from making sense to only me. Your guidance has been so wonderful.

Thank you Ms. Conner and Ms. Mitrovich, your weekly emails have kept me on track. I know I sent my timesheet in late more than a couple times so I hope I wasn't too much of a nuisance. The two of you have gone above and beyond to keep us absentminded seniors on track. Also, thanks for the pizza...it was delicious :P.

Thank you to my followers (Kayvon, Frida, Gillian, Sruthi, Ritika, Kailee, Dylan, Bella, Dhanya, Nash, Layla, and Josh). Your comments have brought a smile to my face and kept me going every week. I hope you enjoyed sharing this journey with me just as much as I did.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

- Wayne Dyer

P.S. I seem to be running out of places to put quotes

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

- Lena Horne

P.P.S. No, the quotes and gifs are not connected

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Methods

Hello all and welcome to Week 9 of the Senior Research Project through my eyes!

This week, as the title of this post suggests, I worked on writing my Methodology. It is quite uninteresting so rather that including the entire section, I will instead post a couple steps (I had 8 steps and wrote a paragraph per step).

Step 1: Review Question, Inclusion Criteria, and Protocol

A broad review question, “How does Acceptance and Commitment Therapy cause physical change in the brain?”, was chosen so that the systematic review would neither be so limited as to provide no answers nor so broad that any answers are viewed as common knowledge. Next, a basic protocol was written to establish a general understanding of the format of the paper. The expected inclusion criteria was included in the protocol (further discourse on the inclusion criteria can be found in Step 5).

Step 2: Literature Searching

Step 3: Screening Titles and Abstracts

The papers identified by the search results were sorted into one of four categories based off of their titles and abstracts: neurobiological, psychological, transition, or rejected. The papers sorted into the “neurobiological” category focused on the physical aspects of brains affected by various disorders or conditions. The papers sorted into the “psychological” category focused on the conception of ACT, on the philosophy inspiring the therapy. The papers sorted into the “transition” category focused on the re-molding of neural pathways. The papers which were rejected were not centered enough on the subject at hand.

Step 4: Obtaining Papers

Step 5: Selecting Full-Text Papers and Inclusion Criteria

All papers set forth for plausible inclusion were read in full and content quality was appraised. There were three reasons for non-inclusion 1) a lack of sufficient information 2) a lack of

original information and 3) a lack of information sufficiently focused on the desired material.

Step 6: Data Extraction

The remaining papers were dissected, unedited content placed in a spreadsheet. The Neurological Underpinnings spreadsheet concentrated on data about neuroimaging, alternate treatments, receptors, and pathways associated with disorders and conditions such as chronic stress, anorexia nervosa, anxiety, trichotillomania, chronic pain (and fibromyalgia), self-harm, substance abuse (including opioid and methamphetamine dependence), and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. The Psychological Underpinnings spreadsheet concentrated on data about peaceful teachings, mindfulness, and relation to ACT. In addition to the information found in the aforementioned literature searches, information was drawn from [textbook] and a variety of web pages so as to further explain the origins of ACT. The Transitional Stages spreadsheet concentrated on data about how the psychology behind ACT causes change in the neurobiology.

Step 7: Analysis and Synthesis

Step 8: Writing Up and Editing

Also, I updated the introduction to my "Transitional Stages" subsection:

The root of ACT’s success lays in its emphasis on peaceful teachings and smooth training. Rather than forcefully attempting to enact physical neural change, the therapy allows for the brain to be taught a familiar, or an entirely new way of functioning. Neural pathways are remolded not through trickery or submission, but are instead led towards change through the impact of the six pillars of ACT: acceptance, self-as-context, defusion, values, contact with the present moment, and committed action. Both the patient and the therapist are involved in the transitional stages of therapy, empowering the patient to come to their own conclusions and improve their own quality of life. Therefore the therapist acts as a “guiding hand”, inspiring the will to change, rather than a “strict enforcer” who imposes this will upon the patient. The psychological aspects of ACT affect the neurobiological aspects, leading to changes in neural pathways; the philosophy behind the therapy enables the physical change seen in patients before and after implementing ACT.

Transition Stage

Hello all and welcome to week 8 of the Senior Research Projects through my eyes...

As the title of this blog suggests, I did indeed read about the "transition stage" of ACT. If this phrasing confuses you, by transition stage, I mean the stage during which someone undergoing ACT would have their neural pathways remolded - technically this isn't a "stage" as this period of time is supposed to last throughout the entire treatment process and beyond. To explain it further and connect this subsection of my paper to the other subsections of my paper (the results section will contain three subsections: Psychological Underpinnings, Neurobiological Underpinnings, and Transition Stage), the "transition stage" will talk about the effects of the psychological underpinnings on the neurobiological underpinnings. For the sake of clarity, I will state the purpose of this subsection another time: the "transition phase" will discuss how the brain changed before and after/during ACT.

Like last week, I will include the introductory paragraph to the mentioned subsection:

The root of ACT's success lays in its emphasis on peaceful teachings and smooth training. Rather than forcefully attempting to enact physical neural change, the therapy allows for the brain to be taught an old way which has been forgotten, or an entirely new way of functioning. Neural pathways are remolded not through trickery or submission, but are instead led towards change through the impact of the six pillars of ACT: acceptance, self-as-context, defusion, values, contact with the present moment, and committed action. Both the patient and the therapist are involved in the transitional stages of therapy, enabling the patient to come to their own conclusions and improve their own quality of life. The therapist acts as a guiding hand rather than a strict enforcer of principles. The psychological aspects of ACT affect the neurobiological aspects, leading to changes in neural pathways; the philosophy behind the therapy causes the physical change seen in patients before and after implementing ACT.

This paragraph is actually unedited so I hope you can forgive any terrible mistakes I may have made...but please do tell me in the comments below if you have any suggestions!

P.S. Gillian (a member of my blog group) turned 18 today so if you want to read about PTSD and mice experiments or even just wish her luck in adulthood you can check out her blog.

P.P.S. Good luck to everyone taking mocks (I hear the AP Psychology mock was today so if any of you took that I hope my blog mentioned something at some point which you found useful)!

Psychological Underpinnings

Hello all and welcome to week 7 of my Senior Research Project!

This week, I read a multitude of papers on the psychological underpinnings of ACT. After dissecting dozens of papers, I realized that I had little information about the waves of psychotherapy to draw from as the papers tended to focus on peaceful teachings. In order to include the three waves of psychotherapy, I consulted my old AP Psych textbook from 10th grade *ah the memories*.

Here is the introductory paragraph for the Psychological Underpinnings section of my systematic review:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has roots in both peaceful teachings - such as Buddhism, yoga, meditation, Sufism, and Mindfulness Meditation (MM) - and other psychological theories - such as Sigmund Freud’s theories, B.F. Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Relational Frame Therapy (RFT), and Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT). This vast collection of influencers has put it at the forefront of third wave psychotherapy. The combined effective elements of each teaching and therapy has promoted success in improving the quality of life of individuals with a large variety of conditions or disorders. In order for ACT to be improved and for its success to be replicated in alternate therapies, its psychological underpinnings must be fully comprehended. Understanding the philosophy behind the therapy enables a better understanding of the change fostered by the therapy, and knowledge of both is paramount for a complete appreciation of ACT.

Next in the psychological underpinnings section comes the subsections: peaceful teachings, first and second waves of psychotherapy, and last but definitively not least...third wave of psychotherapy. The first mentioned subsections draws primarily from the papers I dissected this week. The second subsection mostly references my old AP Psych textbook: Myers' Psychology for AP. The third subsection principally alludes to websites and books.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask them!

Anywho I spent my week reading papers, books, and websites in order to better understand the psychological underpinnings of ACT and to refresh my mind a bit so that I could better remember what I learned all those years ago in AP Psych.

P.S. I do not actually "vaguely remember someone crying"...I just liked the gif :)

P.P.S. If any of you are interested in buying a Psych textbook for fun, I would recommend Myers' Psychology for AP as the authors occasionally made puns and bad jokes which I enjoyed

Neurobiological Underpinnings

Hello all and welcome to Week 6 of the weekly Danielle blog!

This week I focused on reading and dissecting the papers chosen for the neurological underpinnings section of my systematic review. By the end of this process, I was left with more of the chosen papers excluded than included, and oftentimes I would decide to not use a paper after I had already read and taken notes on the entire paper, which was a little frustrating. However, by the last couple papers, I had developed a more effective method of dissection, which should make the coming weeks a little simpler and more exciting. Some of the reasons for why I decided to not include chosen papers were: a lack of original material, a lack of neurological focus, or a lack of large quantities of information. There was a particular disorder, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), which I was particularly dismayed upon realizing that none of the chosen papers from my original search which focused on it would be included. In the case of papers on PTSD, I found that papers tended to emphasize the behavioral aspects of the disorder rather than the physical aspects, eliminating it from my paper. I was excited to learn more about this disorder due to its complexity (after this week I realized that finding a psychological condition which can be described as "simple" would be a Herculean task), similarity with other conditions, and comorbidity with other conditions. I hope I didn't geek out too much right there but if you weren't able to tell...I just really want to know how the brain works.

After organizing my notes a bit and outlining the section, Patherica and I met to discuss how to order the section and to clear up some of my confusion. We decided that since some of the conditions my paper will talk about are specific disorders and others are conditions which include different aspects of other disorders but are not part of a specific umbrella group of psychiatric taxonomy, the conditions should be ordered as such: chronic stress, anorexia nervosa, anxiety, trichotillomania, chronic pain (and fibromyalgia), self-harm (suicidal and non-suicidal), substance abuse (including opioid and methamphetamine dependence), then attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We decided that chronic stress should be the first because it can lead to the development of almost any other disorder or condition. Anorexia nervosa was put next due to its similarity to anxiety, which is very closely related to trichotillomania due to the two's similarities with OCD, which I did not find any suitable papers on. Also, if any oh you are not aware (which I imagine must be many of you), trichotillomania is a disorder which is characterized by compulsive hair pulling. Next, we put chronic pain and fibromyalgia - which is a type of chronic pain (Patherica reminded me to emphasize that while not all chronic pain is fibromyalgia, all fibromyalgia is chronic pain). Since chronic pain has a high comorbidity with self-harm and substance abuse, both often serving as coping mechanisms, we decided that they should follow chronic pain. Last but not least came ADHD. While this disorder is not specifically similar to any of the previously mentioned disorders and conditions, we thought it should be mentioned last, serving as a way to show that ACT is effective as a treatment for non-stress-related disorders as well as stress-related ones.

I hope this post was as exciting for you all as it was for me :)

I can't wait to give you all another update next week. Godspeed in your adventures my followers.

Spring Break

Hello all,

As the title of this post suggests, I did indeed take my spring break this week. Instead of posting about my week I will insert some gifs about what I did this week.

Friday (3/3):

Saturday (3/4):

Sunday (3/5):

Monday (3/6):

Tuesday (3/7):

Wednesday (3/8):

Thursday (3/9):

Friday (3/10):

Introduction

Hello my lovelies (ooh changed up the intro...I'm sure you all noticed).

Anywho, this week I took a small break from researching and focused on writing the introduction for my systematic review (although I must admit that I did do a bit of researching to fact check my words mostly)

I will include my introduction between some gifs so please comment any suggestions which you might have on how I could make it better (even if your advice has to do with sentence placement or word choice please include any criticisms!)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a Cognitive-Behavior Therapy focusing on acceptance and mindfulness so as to improve the quality of life of individuals suffering from various conditions. While it can be implemented in treatments for many conditions, it has been particularly successful in the improving quality of life of people with depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. The therapy has roots in peaceful teachings such as buddhism, yoga, and meditation as well as taking part in the third wave of cognitive-behavior therapies. Commonly seen as being based in Relational Frame Theory (RFT) - a contextual theory linking language to cognition, naming both pillars of society - ACT emphasizes the importance of psychological flexibility and the dangers of experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion. Through ACT, facing difficult subjects and overcoming obstacles is possible, paving the way toward manageable physical and emotional pain. ACT does not promise to serve as a cure for all pains but instead serves as a means to continue living a life worth living, one where personal values and dreams are sought and cherished rather than shunned, overshadowed by existing negatives.

ACT along with RFT and Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT) leads the third wave of psychotherapy. This wave incorporates aspects of the two prior waves; in the case of ACT, this primarily means the theories of Sigmund Freud (first wave), Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) (second wave), and B.F. Skinner (second wave). Freud’s theories place much value on acceptance and insight. CBT attempts to change external responses through internal change. Skinner’s theory of Radical Behaviorism emphasizes the impact of experience in the nature vs. nurture conflict. As a whole, ACT is differentiated from the first wave of psychotherapy due to its reliance on the clinician’s lead and from the second wave due to its reliance on the patient’s insight. In order for counseling to function, neither participant must take complete control. Instead, both must participate, the patient telling his/her truthful thoughts and emotions while the clinician leads the patient towards realizations and useful insight.

This paper will discuss the neurological underpinnings of ACT and how the therapy allows for neural pathways to be remolded. In order for this to be properly understood, knowing the psychological underpinnings of the therapy is paramount. Fully knowing and understanding the therapy may enable its successful attributes to be replicated and integrated into other therapies. Through an in-depth analysis of ACT, the therapy may be bettered and utilized to its fullest potential. It already has the potential to help millions of people; now, what must be done is to unlock this potential to the extent where any number of variations would aid any number of conditions and any number of people.

The results section will include three subsections: psychological underpinnings, neurobiological underpinnings, and transition phase. The psychological underpinnings subsection will discuss the peaceful teachings which inspired ACT and relational frame therapy. This will serve as an explanation for how ACT was conceived. The neurobiological underpinnings subsection will discuss neural receptors, neural patterns, genetics, and specific disorders. This will serve as an explanation for the brain before it is reshaped. The transition phase will discuss how the psychological aspects of ACT affect the neurobiological aspects, leading to changes in neural pathways. This will serve as a link between the two aforementioned subsections, as an explanation for how the philosophy behind the therapy caused physical change.

I hope you all appreciated this masterpiece of words...yes yes it is a masterpiece I assure you. Also, have a lovely time until my next post! AND I'm sorry I didn't have a third gif (I don't know about you but I love a good triad) but I hope you all forgive me.

P.S. I am aware that some spacing and sizing is off but I have no idea how to fix it (when I copy and pasted my intro from a google doc to here the formatting got a little off)

I have decided to fix the lack of a triad:

Pictures Included!

Hello all and welcome to week 3 of my SRP (this time including pictures)! 😏

Fun Fact: These lovelies are actually called Schtroumpfs not Smurfs!

The direction of my project has stayed pretty constant so far (hopefully this will not change) and I am still doing a lot of reading and sorting. I have not faced any significant challenged, although it is often said that "the pen is mightier than the sword," something which I can attest to after combing through countless papers to see whether they contain enough relevant material to contribute to my systematic review. Also, that last sentence was really long and might be a run-on (but I don't think so?) so sorry about that!

As promised, I took pictures this week:

This is the front of the Mayo Clinic Collaborative Research Building

This is the beautiful and comfortable lobby

This is me using my badge to use the elevator (it also allows me to open the stairwell doors)

This is another angle of the front of the Mayo Clinic Collaborative Research Building

Furthermore, I am almost done with gathering papers so if my posts so far have seemed somewhat redundant, I hope you enjoy the changes to be seen in my post for Week 4. However, for this week's post, I will discuss my time spent assembling studies a wee bit further. [Insert smooth transition] On Monday, Patherica and I discussed my project, surrounded by silence and nothingness (all the other desks were empty because of President's Day), making sure that we were on the same page. I then proceeded to scour the Mayo server for more studies to possibly include. I was expecting to find a plethora of appropriate studies so was surprised when I realized that most of the ones identified by my search terms* were not adequate. Although it must be noted that while many of the texts found did speak plenty about ACT, many of the texts were manuals or books and did not focus specifically on ACT but rather on a variety of therapies, briefly outlining them and explaining different aspects of each. Instead of this, I am looking for papers which discuss specific aspects of ACT such as its origins, its ability to remold neural pathways, and the neural pathways of brains pre-treatment. Also that last sentence was not even close to being parallel so I'm sorry.

P.S. Sorry for the quality of the pictures...and for the gif included below



*If anyone is interested, I have been primarily using two searches:
"acceptance and commitment therapy" "neurobiology" "pathways"
AND
"acceptance and commitment therapy" "mindfulness training"

Abstract

Hello all and welcome to my week 2 of the SRP! (I’ll try to keep it shorter than last week)

Like last week, I did a lot of research. After doing hours of research, I have a tip for you: don't make your search terms too broad because after realizing half the papers I looked through were not suitable for the systematic review, I regretted not adding a search term to cut down the number of irrelevant search results.

Also, as I mentioned last week, I wrote my abstract:

Every country has citizens suffering from various disorders, in the US, 19 Million* suffer from depression, 100 Million** from chronic pain, and 40 Million*** adults from anxiety. In a country of roughly 320 Million, most of them living in more favorable conditions than those elsewhere, this is evidently a tremendous problem. For hundreds of millions of people to be subjected to the struggle of mental disorders - not only those who themselves have a disorder, but also their families, friends, and dependents - it is evident that finding a treatment or therapy which would augment the quality of life of those affected is paramount. A therapy which has had success in improving the quality of life of individuals enduring these particular disorders (and others with varying levels of success) is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). However, identifying a conductive therapy is not enough; analyzing it and understanding it is key to improving other therapies and the therapy itself. In order to do this, I will write a systematic review on the neurobiological underpinnings of ACT. This means that I will compile papers relating to the psychological underpinnings of ACT, the physiological aspects of ACT, and changes in neural pathways. The paper will explain how through ACT, neural pathways may be altered, enabling a life with less pain. I expect to find that ACT has roots in peaceful teachings and that it fosters physiological neural change.

I hope this helped clear up things a bit for those of you who were still a little confused about my project. If not, please comment specific things which are still confusing so that I can concentrate on better explaining those specific aspects.

Additionally if you are wondering about my experience as an intern at the Mayo Clinic, I have to say it is a really nice environment full of very friendly people. Everyone there is extremely kind and helpful.

*All About Depression: Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2017, from http://www.allaboutdepression.com/gen_01.html
**The American Academy Of Pain Medicine. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2017, from http://www.painmed.org/patientcenter/facts_on_pain.aspx
***Facts & Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2017, from
https://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics

PS: Last week, I gave a shoutout to my friend Saleena's blog because it explained misconceptions about anxiety. This week, she discussed depression, which is another disorder which ACT has had success in improving quality of life so click on her name if you want to check out her blog!

Research!

Hello all, welcome to a summarization of my first week at the Mayo Clinic.

Monday:

After some minor confusion about how to log into the Mayo server, I took a Human Subject Training course. I learned some of the history behind different ethics organizations such as the HHS (US Department of Health and Human Services) and the NIH (National Institute of Health) as well as the meaning and significance of terms such as equity, equality, beneficence, justice, and more. Following the test was some more confusion as apparently I do not know how to print off computers other than my own!

Scattered:

Throughout the week, I searched databases such as JSTOR and PubMed for papers relating to ACT. Search terms such as "acceptance and commitment therapy," "mindfulness training," and "neurological pathways" were used. Dr. Geda's ASU student, Patherica Charoenmins, helped me better understand the topic of my systematic review, sharing some papers with me which related to the subject at hand: the neurobiological underpinnings of ACT.

If you are a bit confused by what I mean when I say that I will be writing a systematic review on the neurobiological underpinnings of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, I assure you that you are not the only one. This can be broken down into three sections: "systematic review," "neurobiological underpinnings," and "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy." I will briefly explain all three parts for the sake of clarity and if you have further questions please feel free to ask them!
     -systematic review: a literary review ideally compiling all studies on a specific subject, summarizing and analyzing each study
     -neurobiological underpinnings: the genetic or neurophysical aspects
     -ACT: a behavioral therapy promoting compassion and acceptance
     -also, I will include:
            -psychological underpinnings of ACT: the philosophy behind the therapy
            -mindfulness training: "intentionally alter[ing] the direction of information flow—to use the skilled focus of attention to change the mind—[enabling amplifying] activity of certain pathways and inhibit[ing] others"*

So, simply put, I will write a literary review about how through ACT, one can train their brain's

pathways to function in an alternate manner, leading to a heightened quality of life. These alterations in one’s neurophysiology relate to the psychological underpinnings of ACT due to the achievement of a different physiology not through forceful or aggressive techniques but through peaceful and smooth means. In order for the physiological changes to be best understood, the philosophical aspects of ACT must also be understood.

Also Monday/Partly Thursday:

I started working on a rough draft for my abstract (the final abstract will be featured in next week's post). However, I will tell you the gist because it might make the whole "neurobiological underpinnings" thing a bit more clear. Many of the papers which I identified this week for possible use in my systematic review related to Buddhism, meditation, and yoga. I found this a bit curious at first but after some contemplation, realized that the principles of these somewhat spiritual orders are very similar to those of ACT (although I must admit that my knowledge of Buddhism, meditation, and yoga is very limited and that I am by no means an expert on ACT). Despite my self-proclaimed limited knowledge on these subjects, I know that these orders prioritize peace and reflection. That, like ACT, they promote acceptance. Another link is the emphasis on purging negatives not through aggression or ill-intent but through resolution and tranquility.

(If anyone can confidently correct any statements which I have made please do so in the comments.)

Final Thoughts:

Overall, this week comprised mostly of sorting through abstracts to find which papers might have information relevant to the neurobiological underpinnings of ACT - how many times have I said that in this post? Probably too many - and figuring out what exactly the phrase means. I would like to thank Patherica for being so helpful by answering my many questions and letting me into the building as I did not have my badge until Friday (today!).

Also, I would like to share the blog of a dear friend of mine: Saleena. Her SRP is a sort of mythbusters for different psychological disorders, featuring a different disorder every week. This week, she talked about anxiety, a condition which behavioral therapies such as ACT have had success in treating.

*: A systematic review of the neurobiological underpinnings of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in childhood and adolescence.