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):