Is Charlie Sheen Mentally Ill? You be the judge.

Tim — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:53:06 +0000

Charlie Sheen’s demise

There is nothing like a psychotic train-wreck to awake Laymanpsych out of its winter hibernation. Charlie Sheen, as we’re sure you’re well aware, has been making headlines for the past couple of months because of hospitalization-leading porn-star-laden coke binges. Most recently the news has centered around the highest paid television actor’s feuds with his employers at CBS who have halted production of Two and Half Men as a result of these off-the-set troubles.

Sheen, no stranger to controversy, has been making the rounds on radio and TV shows with a ferocity that rivals the Tea Party Express in November. The defensiveness of his appearances (which seem to serve no purpose but call out his employers who have essentially fired him) is overshadowed by his behavior which can only be labeled as bizarre.

Many have been left wondering if he is, in fact, mentally ill. Famous celebrity mental health specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky stated that he feels Sheen “is clearly manic“.

What’s going on with the man?

Having watched the interviews on The Today Show and Good Morning America, LaymanPsych wanted to bring these labels to the masses with some better understanding.

Aside from falling back on decades of experience (and wads of student loan debt), psychologists and psychiatrists rely on a bible of sorts; the DSM-IV. So what does the DSM-IV say about manic episodes?

Manic Episode

During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have persisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:
1.) inflated self-esteem or grandiosity
2.) decreased need for sleep (e.g., feels rested after only 3 hours of sleep)
3.) more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking
4.) flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing
5.) distractibility (i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)
6.) increase in goal-directed activity (at work, at school, or sexually) or psychomotor agitation
7.) excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)

Having seen all of the interviews to date (and if you haven’t, they are worth watching in much the same way that a wreck at a race track is), LaymanPsych is also left to wonder if Sheen is also suffering from a mood disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

1.) Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2.) Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3.)Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4.) Requires excessive admiration
5.) Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6.) Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7.)Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8.)Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9.)Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

These are just lists of required symptoms of the disorders and it’s not our place to state what’s going on with Charlie. Clearly something is wrong though. Is Charlie Sheen dealing with a mental illness? We’ll let you be the judge, and hope that Charlie gets some help from medical professionals to judge for themselves.

The Psychology of Weight Loss: The Biggest Loser isn’t the only one losing weight for money

Tim — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:28:08 +0000

Danny from the Biggest Loser lost an incredible 239 pounds

The Real Life Example

Here is a task for you: Go to Wal-Mart and look around. America. Is. Fat. In fact, America is only getting fatter. There are, of course, many reasons for this and you’ve heard them all before so we shall spare you that story. As America gets fatter, nighttime television is consumed by the latest ~~and greatest~~ weight loss schemes. They do not work of course, which is (perhaps) one of the reasons the industry continues to grow.

The reality is that obesity is costing America a fortune while at the same time Washington debates healthcare reform. An easy solution to both the obesity and health-care problem would be to lose weight. Simple as it sounds, most know that losing weight is far from it. But why? As you might imagine, psychologists are on the front lines in trying to find out why. Recently the winner of a popular reality show lost 239 pounds in less than a year. Turns out he also won $250,000. As you might expect, it seems money is one of the best motivators to for weight loss.

Who Are They

Kevin G. Volpp, MD, PhD; Leslie K. John, MS; Andrea B. Troxel, ScD; Laurie Norton, MA; Jennifer Fassbender, MS; George Loewenstein, PhD

What They Did

Volpp et. al. gathered 57 overweight (though otherwise healthy) individuals between the ages of 30 and 70 years old. The participants were then randomly placed in one of three different groups. The first group was placed in a lottery system where those who met or exceeded weight-loss goals would have a chance at winning money. The second group was part of a “deposit-contract arrangement” in which they pooled together their own money. The money in this group was then split up among the top weight losers within the group. The final group was given no cash incentive to lose weight.
The groups were all given 16 weeks to lose weight with a goal of losing one pound per week.

What They Found

Volp et al. discovered that those individuals who were given a cash incentive to lose weight performed significantly better than those given no incentive other than their good health. By the numbers: 53% of the “lotto” group met or exceeded the 16 pound weight-loss goal, 47% of the deposit-contract group met or exceeded the 16 pound goal, and only 11% of the group with no cash incentive met or exceeded the 16 pound goal. A follow up study revealed that not only did the weight loss end as soon as the cash incentives did for most of the participants, but the weight actually begin to come back.

What it Means

Unfortunately it looks like a random group of American’s isn’t very intrinsically motivated to be healthy. In fact, by and large it required cold hard cash for individuals to lose weight. Sadly, once that extrinsic incentive was taken away, so was the motivation to lose weight. What’s scary is that other findings about financial based incentives may mean that those who once lost weight as a result of a cash incentive, may now have even less motivation to be healthier on their own accord.

So is money the answer to a healthier America? Early indications suggest not, at least not for the long term. There is some hope, however, in that it is possible to motivate otherwise unmotivated people to do something with a little bit of money. But for those of us who work every day, this isn’t news at all. Volpp et. al. do wonder if a longer-term incentive program would begin to actually change the way the participants think by suggesting that a 12-18 month program would result in such drastic weight loss that the extrinsic motivation of cash would begin subside to an intrinsic desire to remain healthy. Perhaps we should follow up with Danny in a few months to see how he’s doing…

Layman Psych Definitions

Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation can be thought of as the internal desire to accomplish something for the sake of accomplishing it. Intrinsically motivated tasks are still accomplished due to a reward but the reward exists within the task itself. An example is listening to a song because an individual likes how the song sounds.

Extrinsic Motivation: Extrinsic motivation refers to “external” motivation to drive us to finishing something. With extrinsically motivated tasks, the desire to complete the task has less to do with the rewards within the task itself and more to do with the rewards that come as a result of the completion of the task. For example, you go to work to get paid. The work is the task, the motivation is the money you get from the job (this is, of course, unless you love your work).

Further Reading

Financial Incentive–Based Approaches for Weight Loss (link to study)