PART -A

Lecture 1 – Memory and Cognition

The lecture mainly focused on memory and our dealings them. Memory are of a certain event and can
be real or fantasy our brain cannot distinguish between them. We had done an exercise where we cut
an imaginary lime and cut it and drank the juice, the volunteers found that they had a slight sour taste in
their mouth. Depression is similar to that imaginary lime’s taste , our body is not in physical pain, but
rather mental. Die to this mental process our mind keeps bringing up painful memories. Boxes are kept
in memory, and it has link/Address. We as therapist need to change that link’s process. The process is
how she is accessing the data. therapy can change the process trigger. Happiness is bad for economics.
Experience is non-interpretive space, it has no meaning and attempting to attach meaning to it will be
futile.

The lecture was very eye opening as it was the first lecture, and personally the first time I had been
formally been introduced to the topic in a proper manner from professionals in the field. The lecture
had an emphasis on practical knowledge that could be applied to day to day.

Lecture 2 - REBT
This lecture was about REBT – Rational Emotional Behavior Therapy, this phrase was coined by the
grandfather of cognitive behavior therapy Albert Elis in 1955. REBT is an approach that helps one
distinguish their rational thoughts and their irrational thoughts. In this therapy rational thoughts are
viewed as positive, encouraging and productive thoughts whereas irrational thoughts are seen as
negative, discouraging and unproductive. There is A-B-C model founded by Ellis that shows us how these
irrational thoughts are made , A stands for adversity , this can be any negative or discouraging event or
circumstance that has occurred in one’s life , B stands for belief that the event prompted them to form ,
these beliefs are usually rooted in their mind before the adversity and become reinforced once the
event comes to light, C stands for consequence, after the belief has been established and reinforced the
consequence on their brain is what follows, they might start feeling sad and because of this feeling they
might give into their insecurities and stop pursuing their goals. Albert Ellis created a therapy model
based on the previous model which extends it to A-B-C-D-E . D stands for disputing the belief that they
hold and challenging it , so we can form new consequences. E stands for effect of the challenging or
disputing the belief you hold and hence converting their irrational belief into a rational one. This session
really opened my eyes about the magnitude of change we can do about our belief system by just
challenging and questioning it, it was a very introspective session.

Lecture 3- Modeling and Anchoring

This lecture had put a great emphasis on the power of the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is 1
million times more powerful than our conscious mind. Our unconscious mind runs on beliefs and
changing that can change a great deal about of our life. We have a lot of experiences- even small day to
day events can be added to our experiences. As we grow up we gain more and more experiences and
the feedback we get from these experiences impacts us greatly. The feedback turns into belief, these
beliefs may not be reality always can be fantasy, but despite that fact they still have the power to even
affect us physically and therefore they limit us. we need to find our genius ( role model)- start small-
someone you know in real life – see some qualities in them you would wanted- there qualities should
EMPOWER you- how do they add value to your life-set small tangible goals Unconscious assimilation -
Current state to desired state- be aware of it – be practical about it – Modelling – is self-paced – don’t
have to depend on others- learn like a child-don’t care if someone is watching- have that little curiosity

Story of Pablo Casalli – he was a great piano player of his time and when he aged , he had nerve damage
and couldn’t move beyond his neck , despite these conditions , when he was asked to play the piano his
fingers seemed to move seamlessly.

Lecture 4- ‘Psycho’ logy in Corporates

This lecture started with Trupti ma’am displaying a riddle on the screen and asked us to try to solve it
and get the answer- the reason for this activity was to draw our attention to the fact that there are so
many times we ignore key aspects of situations and because of that things can turn from bad to worse.
The lecture gave us into the interpersonal relationships present in the workplace. One of the tools that
ma’am introduced us to is FIRO-B , The FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation) tool
helps to repair broken relationships and take positive, effective relationships to a higher level. It is the
key to unlocking the power of collaboration in the workplace. Ma’am gave a great emphasis on the
importance of interpretation when using tools such as FIRO-B, they are just a report and should be
looked from neutral perspective. This advice can be taken forward in all aspects of the work
psychologists do.

Lecture 5- Body Intelligence

In this session we leant the connection our body shares with our mind, and that all the answers we are
looking for lie in our body. Our body listens to every comment we make and therefore we need to build
a repo with our body which will allow our body to communicate with us openly. The biggest reasons we
have health issues is the reason we are not ready to notice the sign our body is throwing at us. When
we ignore our body, we get cruel to our body. Our body listens to every word we say, so we need to be
mindful of our statements to ourselves. When we say things like “my body is difficult” our body listens
to that and we become a bully to our own body. The constant bullying and bad-mouthing close the
channel of communication between our body. The power of thinking is very powerful and hence
whatever we think can come true in our body, use this power for positive changes you want to see in
your body. We must never get stuck on ‘ either or’ words, these words are limiting. Regarding an illness,
when start defining our illness rather than our symptoms, we start feeling pseudo symptoms. It is
important to know , and not to conclude.

Lecture 6- Emotional fitness

At the start of the lecture we did a meditation technique where we did a breathing cycle known as 5-2-7
cycle. This 5-2-7 breathing cycle is widely used as way to center one’s self and to transport us back into
the present. 7 hours of the 5-2-7 cycle can equate to 3-hour power nap. The trick with techniques like
these is practice and frequency. The more we practice and the frequently we practice the easier it is to
use this tool as a reset button. This tool and similar practices are extremely useful for persons in high
demanding jobs. One of the exercises we did were ‘name the feeling’ , where we name out loud what
we are feeling , for example is we are stuck in traffic and have road rage instead of lashing out onto
oncoming traffic try saying “ I am frustrated, it is not anybody’s fault. Our mind is a meaning making
machine and looks for unnecessary meaning and attaches itself to that feeling. One of the prominent
techniques were ‘eyes of love’ where we describe ourselves through the people that love us , this
technique worked wonders for my self-esteem.

Lecture 7- The science of Affirmations

The session started with ma’am telling us three fundamental things that we needed to keep in mind ,
firstly that we become the thoughts we think, second wad that we are all meaning making machine, and
lastly that we are vibrational beings. An exercise was conducted where we were asked to remember our
daily shower and we noticed that we only noticed the only interrupting aspects- for example the
shampoo getting over etc. this told us that when we remember any activity we only remember the
interruptions. We also did a negative vs positive affirmation experiment to see the true power
affirmations hold on us mentally and physically, first we did negative affirmations and we saw that
volunteer’s whole form slouch and we saw them unconsciously frowning , after that we did positive
affirmations and we saw them straighten up and have a confident body stance. This all only took less
than five minutes. We were also informed about the worry cycle , and how once our brain enters this
cycle, the cycle releases hormones which make us panic and therefore the brain is hijacked by the cycle
and its chaos. When we have a negative thought and our body realizes and acknowledges and asks for
more information about this thought and our brains fills it with more negative thoughts.

Lecture 8- Language creates experience

The lecture was particularly eye-opening as the subject matter and content was something I have
observed for a long time ,even prior to learning psychology. The session was about the power of
language and how it can be wielded into a very useful tool in therapy. I have always observed that
humans have a tendency to get stuck on words and tend to end up getting caught in them and forget
the meaning and aim behind such words. The hold language has on people has been seen throughout
history , for example when the Vietnamese were under the French rule- French as language was
compulsory in all the schools. Sir also gave us an insight on client’s behaviors, they will also fray us from
the topic and aim of the session. As a therapist we need to be mindful of the statements we make ,as all
these statements have an impact on the client. We were also introduced to the concept of how we can
find out if people seek internal validation(IV) or external validation(EV), people who are self-suggestive
or seek internal validation will go for ‘would,could,should’ type statement , and people are external
suggestive or seek external validation will prefer statements like ‘will,can’ type statements.

Lecture 9- Gestalt with regression

In this session we leant about the influence of the subconscious on the conscious. Our personality is
made up from our past experience, and that we are sum total of our environment and experience – our
fetal, childhood and teenage era. The concept of brain waves was also introduced , how they are
emitted by our brain at different times- they are namely Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. The law of cause
of effect founded by Sir Isaac Newton , not applies to physics but also to the world of psychology and
more importantly to our mind. Every time we feel or do something , we create a cause , this cause
continues to stay with us even if it is in the past and in time it will bear its effects. Our issues are the
effects of something we felt , for example like a coping mechanism. Bearing this in mind, we need to
know that sometimes just awareness is not enough because problems lie in muscle memory. Ma’am
also told us about what qualities the unconscious and conscious brain have. The conscious brain has the
ability to be objective, is very critical and analytical of situations, it also holds the logical reasoning and
judgments. The unconscious brain is very subjective and is the creative and innovation center of the
brain, unlike its counterpart the unconscious brain has a tendency of being impersonal and irrational.it is
also the part of the brain which controls your habits and automatic body functions.

Lecture 10- Allergies

The lecture focused on the impact that NLP can cause on our health. Health is a very prevalent topic in
the current environment, media and the world’s attention was forced to focus in the health, and it is a
constant concern for us. Allergies can escalate into major changes such as puberty, marriage, ill health,
and even parenthood. These changes can affect us both externally and internally at the cellular level.
With this change in mind, NLP aims to help a person see how and when an allergy develops, and also
educates the body about how it might react differently. In mind training, NLP teaches the body what it
needs to be able to deal with the allergen at that critical time of development, giving us a new reliable
point for future interactions with allergens. Allergies is just one famous aspect of the way NLP is able to
impact our body’s working. NLP has many tools that can be employed for our body.

Lecture 11- The state of being

This session was the importance of psychology in the corporate sector what role it takes. The session
was rather introspective and gave us a great amount of insight into not only the corporate world but
also the future of psychology. Sir predicted that psychology will become a prerequisite in the corporate
sector , like what happened with typing classes and with what is happening with coding. The world is
always changing, and we need to change with it , psychology helps us peek behind that curtain and
understand the world we are a part of. The top skills for the near future will all be intangible and will
human related , where psychology’s base is. With the growth rate of technology , and the rise of
Artificial intelligence, traditional jobs will soon be completely replaced by modern technology. This is a
trend we see in history as well; old job profiles are always replaced by the new. Ethics as a topic was also
brought up , ethics will be vey important as the world is no longer under one power, it’s not a science
subject but rather an art subject- relating to psychology. Legislator, in order to make laws to protect
people will take help of psychiatrists. This will help in creating laws that can actually understand human
behavior. The purpose of your life above all should be growth, and in order to grown you only need 3
skills- listening, questioning and experimenting.
Lecture 12- My future My creation
The lecture commenced by ma’am asking us questions, these questions were pertaining to the purpose
of life , this was to bring our attention to how important living life in the present is , and how making it
significant can impact us momentously. NLP shows us that our brain’s functioning is very similar to the
functioning to a brain’s in the sense we have been programmed and we have a system. With this
knowledge we can apply the same techniques we apply on the computer on the brain. We can
essentially program an rewire our brain to follow new instructions and systems of procedures. NLP
specifically and objectively measures and identifies the physiological state and mental strategies people
use at any point in time and provides specific means to change and improve them decisively. We can
achieve the future we dream of through the addition of resources we achieve from NLP and subtracting
the interferences our brain throws at us, Congruence, Alignment and Ecology play a magnanimous role
in this process. Goals most importantly need to be SMART- which stands for specific, measurable, action
oriented, realistic and time-bound.

Lecture 13- Metaphors in therapy

This lecture was very innovative and was very action oriented rather than a traditional lecture. Ma’am
put us groups of four had us do various exercises. This lecture forced you to think outside the box, and
actually apply the techniques and methods taught to us. I felt like it was a great way of practicing these
techniques and getting a flavor of how these techniques fair out for us in the real world. This kind of
exercise had never been done with us in the course previously and took me completely by surprise. As a
student who is just in their bachelor’s degree , I don’t get to practice the methods I learn about , so
while were conducting the practices it felt like a very unique event – one that I would not have been
given the chance to participate in generally. An exercise that really took me amazement was to make a
drawing , have your batchmate psych-analyze it, it took me by utter surprise that my batchmates had
seen so many aspects about my own drawing that I myself had overlooked, as an artist you always
believe that because you are the creator the art you would know the most about it, but is proven wrong.

Lecture 14- Storytelling – experiencing the experience

The last lecture felt like a perfect end, as it was about storytelling and about how stories can transform
and transport us. Stories are cathartic. Ma’am shared that she was shy as a child and had a fear of public
speaking. During her childhood, her grandmother used to tell her stories and through the art of
storytelling she was able to overcome her fear of public speaking. Moreover, she has come forward to
talk about her issues now, due to her practice of storytelling. the more we practice the more our mind
overcomes the adversity we are facing just like ma’am was able to. Stories have the ability to be
therapeutic and are used in therapy as way to soothe the client and to communicate a difficult topic that
they may be troubling for them. Storytelling was used by Ma’am to soother her and her son’s Separation
Anxiety - When a child goes to school for the first time, they have a difficulty adjusting to the new
environment, and are scared of the new unknown world and due to this pressure they develop
separation anxiety. One of the key aspects of storytelling is retaining , because only if you retain you can
recall and then retell. In order to be good storyteller we need to be attentive listener, because the more
aware you are the creative your story will be.

PART-B
1.Has the course in any way facilitated your coping with the
implications of the corona pandemic /life in general ?
The pandemic affected people differently all over the world , a shared experience but unique degrees.
No one can say after this pandemic that the virus hasn’t personally affected them adversely. The times
are so uncertain due to the pandemic that thinking about any time period in the future , no matter how
small has become nerve wracking and thus having to know the various techniques that are taught in
psychology has been incredibly helpful. Before the course I had also been affected by the pandemic
and was dealing with it the way I could without the proper resources. This course gave me the tools do
deal with the pandemic and its aftermath. With sessions teaching us with how to respond to troubling
thoughts, memories and exercises to center ourselves and bring us to the present. I have personally
struggled with the latter part – and learning breathing exercises and meditation methods have helped
greatly to stay in focused and not spiral in possibilities of the future. Even outside the pandemic – as a
student my career and future has been a source of anxiety and worry for me ,and with added pressure
of a pandemic the worry has only increased. Lectures focusing on the psychology in corporate and
inputs and valuable insights from people who have been in the industry has eased a lot of that worry as
a peak behind the curtains has made me more knowledgeable and informed about my decisions about
the future.

2. What has the learning process been like for you personally, over the
duration of the one credit course? Reflect
This course was not like the ones I have taken before and so my learning process has been different. In
each traditional course I have participated before there was a set syllabus – a set questions paper to
match it and this structure was followed even outside the realm of academics. So, it was refreshing for
this course to not follow that direction, the content available in these lectures was practical and I
tangible knowledge that can be wielded in day to day. the first lecture took away all my preconceived
notions about this course and this led to be a pattern for every following lecture. Due to this my learning
process went through a learning curve itself, My learning process used to be to write running notes
while the lecture is going on and look through them later once the lecture has ended- throughout the
duration of this course I was encouraged to participate in the exercise , and be present during the
lecture and collect my thoughts on the topic after the session has ended, this created a very mindful
learning experience.
3. What are some of the ways you can apply what you have learned in
these sessions going forward? Some examples could be…….
All the classes had the kind of knowledge that could be applied in real life and was taught with that
intention. the classes with the topics of affirmation, memories and body intelligence were very relevant
to my personal life and few of the techniques that were taught in these lectures stayed with me and I
will be practicing them in my day to day. the science of affirmations I have applied while I was painting
with my sister – we did a couple of affirmations to see if our paintings came out of better, not only were
they better ,during the whole process, a regular painting that usually takes upwards of 5 to 7 hours took
around 3.we were more confident and it was a rather stress free process. This experience solidified that
affirmations not only work in the clinical world but can also be taken to the daily, personal life. The body
intelligence class really opened my eyes about the connections your mind has with your body, as a
student during exam times or a busy schedule I tend to ignore my body’s needs in order to get more
work done , since the lecture I have noticed that I have been more productive, when I have listened to
my body and its needs.

4. In what way (if at all) has your perspective on

psychotherapy/psychological concepts changed after attending the
session?
I am a psychology student, but even with my informed background, I did not have a great amount of
insight in the topic of NLP, so I was pleasantly surprised. The society shapes the way an individual act
towards any other individual, but I was not aware of the huge effect our own conscious, thoughts and
feelings had on ourselves. I had always assumed that topic like gestalt therapy, affirmations, storytelling,
were not a method for small or not that serious problems, I was also of the thinking that it did not have
a wide reach and was narrow. All of the aforementioned conceptions were continuously proved wrong
as with each lecture I saw the intense and permanent impact it can have people’s lives. NLP has many
myths and has been misinterpreted by many, I was one of them. I would like to put it as that NLP, and I
got off in the wrong foot as the people or media that did introduce me to this science did not depict an
accurate picture of what this subject is actually about. I had misconstrued NLP, Gestalt, Affirmations and
other topics to be very narrow and constricting. I had thought they only work in very rare cases and
even when they do, it has a lot of other supportive conditions actually running the show. All of these
misconceptions were washed away after each lecture, and it forced me to look at people and situations
with an open mind and heart.