My first little research: Psychology of Comm
11:11
PSYCHOLOGY OF
COMMUNICATION
RESEARCH PROJECT 1
Name : Agatha Gabriele Indrajaya
ID :
009201100094
Major : PR
Class 1
2012
PRESIDENT UNIVERSITY
Jl. Ki Hajar Dewantara,
Kota Jababeka,
Cikarang Baru, Bekasi
17550 – Indonesia
I.
Introduction
1.1
Case
Study
Battled with Bulimia
Mary Black, 48 years
old, battled with bulimia for several years, but finally she can found the way
to recovery. She thought her bulimia may have had its roots in her
claustrophobic upbringing. Her mother had her when she was very young and was
very strict. Mary never thought it was right to express her feelings and kept
them to herself. As a result, she grew up thinking she was never good enough.
Even at school she felt like an outsider.
She was a normal size
when she was 12 years old, but by the time she was 17 she was convinced that I
was fat and unglamorous. She started to diet but she just ended up getting
larger. She used to starve herself for three or four days, then she would binge
on anything she could lay her hands on. This was usually bread, biscuits and
cereals. Then she felt so disgusted with herself that she would make herself
sick as fast as she could in the hope that she would get rid of the food before
she had time to digest it.
"I was still
living at home and this was my secret. My parents had no idea what was going
on. Even when I went into hospital with a ruptured bile duct from vomiting so
much, I managed to explain it away as appendicitis.” said her.
By the time she was 22
she decided to go on a healthy eating regime, which I managed to stick to
for two or three years, but then the bulimia started again. She had just come
out of a relationship and was feeling pretty low generally. She also felt her
life was running away and there was no purpose to it.
She existed like this
until she was about 28 but then she met someone who was a recovering alcoholic who
suggested that she had an eating disorder. “It suddenly dawned on me that my
problems weren’t about food, but about my whole attitude to life.”
She decided to look
for help and started going to an Overeaters Anonymous (OA) Wednesday-night
meeting, which took place about 50 miles from where she lived. “It was very
helpful and provided a framework for my recovery. But I quickly realized that
if I wanted to recover I had to do it myself.” said Mary.
"I was sick and
tired of feeling sick and tired so I decided to keep a diary. At the end of
each day I wrote down what had made me feel uncomfortable and the things that
had happened that I had tried to soothe with food. As soon as I
looked back at what I had written, I realized things weren’t nearly as bad as
they seemed. Gradually I stopped whining about things in my diary and started
to write about my achievements.”
Slowly she started to
eat normally again and lose weight. She also set up a local OA meeting and has
a massive attendance each week. She now feels that she is 99% free of her compulsive
eating and she would not dream of vomiting.
She is healthier now
than she has ever been and just so grateful that her bulimia didn’t destroy her
looks. She thinks than the body does heal itself and it's never too late to
start on the road to recovery. “Nothing is permanent and my recovery process is
ongoing every day."
II.
Theoretical Framework
According to DeVito
(2007), self concept is
the way a person see him/herself. People self-concept develops from at least
four sources: the image of people that others have and others reveal to them,
the social comparisons people make between themselves and others, the teachings
of people culture, and the way people interpret and evaluate their own thoughts
and behaviors.
Besides that, according to Beebe and
Ivy (2010), self concept is people interior identity or subjective description
of who people think they are. People can learn who they are through four basic
means, which are their communication with other individuals, their association
with groups, roles they assume, and their self-label.
Beebe and Ivy (2010) also explain the
material self, a total of all of the tangible things people own: their body.
Research has determined that in the United States, women experience more
negative feelings about their bodies than men and experience significant
self-esteem loss as a result. Many women hold images of very thin women, such
as supermodels and other media personalities, as ideals and develop
dissatisfaction with their own bodies in comparison.
According to Pearson,
Nelson, Titsworth, and Harter (2011), what people know about
themselves includes their past, present, and future. Their past goes all the
way back to how people were reared, or
how their family taught people to think,
believe, and behave. They also tell about listening. Listening is the active
process of receiving, constructing meaning form, and responding to spoken and
or nonverbal messages. It involves the ability to retain information, as well
as to react emphatically and or appreciatively to spoken and or nonverbal
messages.
DeVito (2007) also
tell about listening that enables people to learn, to acquire knowledge of
others, the world, and themselves, so as to avoid problems and make more
reasonable decisions. Listening also change the attitude and behavior of others
(influence) and help others in some way.
Self-esteem is the value people place
on them. To increase self-esteem, people should try attacking their self-destructive
beliefs, seeking information, seeking nourishing people, and working on
projects that will result in success. Nourishing people are positive and
optimist. They make people feel good about themselves. (DeVito, 2007)
Self-esteem can be enhanced by engage
in positive self-talk. If people want positive result, they should talk
positively to themselves. Also try to look at experiences and events,
especially those that can cause to lose self-esteem, from a different point of
view. Keep the larger picture in mind, rather than focusing on one isolated,
negative incident. Enhancing self-esteem also by surround selves with positive
people and lose the baggage, means that work to move beyond the negatives of the
past, so that people focus on the present and relieve their self-esteem of the
burden of things they cannot change. (Beebe and Ivy, 2010)
People self-concept is shaped by their
environment and by the people around them, including their parents, relatives,
teachers, supervisors, friends, and co-workers. If people who are important
have a good image of them, they probably make them feel accepted, valued, worth-while,
lovable, and significant, and they are likely to develop a positive
self-concept as a result. On the other hand, if people who are important have a
poor image of them, they make them feel left out, small, worthless, unloved, or
insignificant, and they probably develop a negative self-concept as a result.
(Gamble, 2010)
III.
Analysis
Mary Black may have the bulimia
because of her negative concept of herself. According to DeVito (2007),
self-concepts of people are developed from four sources. The first is the image
of them that others have and reveal to them, in this case, Mary Black did not
feel respected by her family then she never feels herself good enough. She also
did not have a good relationship with their parents, when she went to hospital,
her parents did not know what was going on.
The second is the social comparisons
people make between themselves and others, Mary Black always felt like an
outsider at her school. The third is the teachings of their culture, Mary Black
was born in strict family; she did not have any right to express her feelings
and always kept to herself. And the last is the way they interpret and evaluate
their own thoughts and behaviors, when she was 17 and
convinced that she was fat and unglamorous, and then she started to diet.
Mary Black has the negative feeling
about her body. Based on Beebe and Ivy (2010), it was a normal happen to women,
because women like to compare themselves to the others. And the result is
losing the self-esteem.
She has the low self-esteem. But she
met someone who has already recovered from drink. This person suggested that
Mary has an eating disorder. Mary listened to him. It made she realized what
happened to her. Based on the theory from DeVito (2007), listening enables
people to learn, change the attitude and behaviors, and also help others in
some way.
Mary started to
change her life. To enhance the self-esteem, people should talk positively to
themselves, surround themselves with positive people, lose the baggage, and
focusing on present. In this case, Mary finally stop write in diary about the
negative things and she started to write her goals or achievements (Beebe and Ivy, 2010). She also
joined the Overeaters Anonymous (OA) to help her in recovering.
According to Gamble (2010), people will develop a positive self-concept as a
result if they interact with people who have a good image of them.
IV.
Conclusion and
Discussion
4.1 Conclusion
Based on the life story of Mary Black
in battling with Bulimia, we can conclude that self-concept is the way people
see themselves and it was important which influences our self-perception. Self
concept can develop from the image of people that others have, the social
comparison, the culture, and the way people interpret their behaviors.
People with the low self-esteem will
less-confident. They should enhance their self-esteem by do positive self-talk,
interact with nourishing people, listen to other, lose their baggage and focus
on present, like Mary did, until finally she could recover from Bulimia.
4.2
Discussion
During
this case research, the writer reflected that people should be grateful in
every condition whether good or not. People should accept their conditions;
include their family, environment and their physical appearance. God never
create the perfect things in this life. But He always give the way for every
problem, like the case of Mary Black, although she has already had an eating disorder
(bulimia), still there was someone who helped her. Besides that, as a human
being, people should accept and change their weaknesses to become strengths,
should focus on present and try to lose the baggage. The writer hope this
research can be helpful to others in the future if face the similar problems.
References
DeVito, J.A. (2007). The Interpersonal Communication Book (11th
ed.). USA: Pearson.
Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., & Ivy,
D.K. (2010). Communication Principles for
a Lifetime (4th ed.). USA: Pearson.
Gamble, T.K., & Gamble, M. (2010).
Communication Works (10th
ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pearson, J.C., Nelson, P.E.,
Titsworth, S., & Harter, L. (2011). Human
Communication (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Real Story about Someone who has had Bulimia.
(n.d.) Retrieved January 19th, 2012, from http://www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/men-in-white-coats/bulimia/real-story-about-someone-who-has-had-bulimia/
Lihat profil Agatha Gabriele
0 comments