Car Crashes and Cognition: How do Car Crashes Affect Us Mentally?
Advisor: Robert Biemesderfer
Internship Location: Equibliss
Car crashes are often addressed in terms of fatalities, but psychological effects are just as important, if not more important, to consider. These psychological effects impact the daily lives of many car crash survivors, yet people’s knowledge of these effects is usually limited to a loose understanding of PTSD. My project addresses this problem by working towards a broader general understanding of the effects of car crashes, along with developing a working theory that can add to the discussion and provide a new lens with which to view urgent care and therapeutic tactics. By working in tandem with a therapy service known as Equibliss, I will gain insight on new ideas that I can incorporate into my research. Equibliss uses a specialized form of therapy that works with horses to help people cope with traumatic events and mental issues, which will expand my horizons and allow me to think outside the box when tackling this project. The end goal is filling a gap in knowledge so we can provide effective and efficient care for post-crash life, along with spreading awareness and fostering a greater understanding of mental health.
Project Blog
Post 1: Introduction
Hello.
My name is Robert Aubrey Webb, and my senior project involves an analysis and response to the psychological effects of car crashes. Car crashes are well known to cause various physical injuries, but the mental effects are far more subtle and less considered in the general public sphere. The purpose of this project is to undergo research that involves identifying these effects, bringing them together in a complete analysis, and potentially proposing a new solution or insight related towards treatment of survivors after a crash. I was inspired to pursue this project primarily because I was actually in a car accident last summer, and while I wasn’t severely hurt, I noticed several subtle changes in my mannerisms when riding in a car. I noticed an urge for more leg space, straighter posture, and a greater awareness of my surroundings, especially for a few weeks after the accident. Additionally, I continued to relive the events in my mind during those first weeks.
To facilitate this, I will be participating in an internship that involves horse therapy at a business called Equibliss. Their procedure involves working with horses to help patients deal with trauma or other psychological conditions to better their lives. With this internship, I plan on learning more about the field of therapy while coupling it with my research to complete my analysis of the psychological effects of car crashes.
Post 2: Week One: Getting Started
Hello, this is Robert Aubrey Webb here.
This week, I got started with my research and my internship. I’ll talk about my initial experience with both of them here.
The research has been pretty smooth as of late. I’ve done a thorough analysis of ten of my initial sources that were part of my Senior Project Proposal. Currently, I’m working on expanding my knowledge of the simpler sides of MVA related psychological issues. PTSD is one of the most common effects of accidents, but that’s not necessarily what I wanted to take away from this initial research. A deeper dive into these sources revealed a lot of information about PTSD and the complexities that come with it. These complexities include varying amounts of “decay” (meaning that PTSD can start out intense but becomes less and less intense as time goes on for some people), rates of developing PTSD after accidents, and the linking of PTSD to physiological effects like brain trauma.
My internship at Equibliss has now begun, and I plan on attending in person on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to help out with maintenance and the horses. I got a rundown of how conventional sessions would go there, which would include having the horses interact with patients to help them work through trauma. It’s a remarkably fascinating procedure and I’m excited to learn more about it as the weeks go by. My plan going forward will be to further my research, expanding my source list and delving deeper into more effects of MVAs. Stay tuned for next week, when I plan to elaborate more on my findings.
Week 2: Developments
Hello, this is Robert Aubrey Webb here.
This week was a little all over the place, but not in a bad way. On the research front, I’ve found multiple sources that serve as great milestones for what I want to be accomplishing. One source has details on over diagnosing of PTSD in MVA survivors, which is a massive part of why I thought of doing this project in the first place. By reducing the over diagnosis of PTSD, we can more easily develop methods of aiding survivors. However, I found more sources that made me take a step back and rethink my approach. Until now, I’ve wanted the project to have a focus on developing new methods to aid survivors, and I still want to go about that. However, through analysis of resilience, my perspective has shifted towards a more “aid” centric analysis rather than trying to make a method to “fix” those who survived a car crash. Resilience is the concept of being able to endure difficult situations, and while I don’t have concrete numbers yet, the sources I’ve seen suggest a surprising amount of patients do not qualify for a PTSD diagnosis after a few months to a year, which lines up moderately with my experience with a car crash myself.
My internship had a lot of interesting developments as well. The main topic of this week involved getting me to understand what goes into the equine therapy. It was surprisingly effective and actually helped me make some realizations about myself that I’d never had before due to the unique method my advisor used. By working with the horses in a sort of metaphoric fashion, I was able to reason though my own thoughts and understand more about myself. However, this presented a new challenge that I discovered while thinking about this after the session was finished. Not every patient is going to want to go to therapy, much less actively participate. I was told this wasn’t necessarily a fault with the patients, as certain conditions can make it very difficult to be more outspoken about getting aid. But this concept is perhaps one of the most fascinating parts about what I learned this week: in order for a method to be effective, it needs to work in the face of passive, or even active, resistance on the patient’s end.
Tune in next week to see how these problems, and solutions, expand.
Week 3: Equine Exploration
Hello, this is Robert Aubrey Webb here.
Week 3 of my senior project has taken an interesting turn. It started with the creation of what I like to call a “mini-draft”. This is a small framework of how I want to go about writing my paper, including the style I’d want to use, etc. This turned out to be not as effective as I’d hoped, but it was still a helpful exercise that I’ll be referencing once I head into the drafting phase. Along with this mini-draft, I’ve also begun forming an outline that I plan to follow when writing my final paper. I didn’t get in a lot of research this week, as it was mainly focused on planning for the future and continuing to work on the internship. Speaking of the internship…
This week had some additional research to help out with the website that my advisor was running, but it also involved me taking part in another equine therapy session as a mock patient. This was a more hands-on experience that had me moving hay to different parts of the field to sort of “move” the horses around, with the horses acting as metaphors and the hay layering onto the metaphor. It was pretty surreal to feel as though the horses were actually acting out how I felt inside, and I’m unsure if that’s just confirmation bias or if the training the horses went through helped them react in a manner that could help patients. I’ll have to inquire about that later when I meet with my advisor next week.
That’s all for today, though. See you next week.
Week 4: Outline And Preparations
Hey all, Robert Aubrey Webb here.
As I near the halfway point of the senior project, I’ve begun to take measures to ensure that I’m able to transition from the planning phase to the writing phase. I’ve read a handful of research papers and collected more information about MVAs and the various disorders that can arise from them, and my goal is to have a complete, detailed outline by the end of Week 5. Once that’s done, I’ll be on a good pace to have plenty to talk about in my final presentation.
Research isn’t the only thing that’s been going well. The internship has continued to go smoothly, as I’ve finally settled into my role as “mock patient” and general helper at the facility. From virtual research to painting the fences, I’ve done a handful of different jobs for my advisor, and I’m surprised at how engaging it all is. The “mock patient” experience has been especially enlightening, as you may have picked up from my week 3 post, but things have continued going swimmingly. Acting as a mock patient and talking with a therapist has given me plenty of insights as to potential hypotheses I could make regarding post-MVA treatment. I haven’t settled on anything specific yet, but I’ll let you know once I’ve got a working hypothesis to go off of. In the meantime, I’ll be continuing my research for the rest of my project.
See you next week.
Week 5: Websites And Outlines
Hey, Robert Aubrey Webb here.
This week, I’ve gotten to work on my main detailed outline for my final paper. Things are continuing to go smoothly as I work on reading more academic sources, which have helped me revise my existing framework multiple times to better fit into a good format for a formal paper. With the outline nearing completion, I’m almost ready to write my first proper rough draft. Once that’s done, I’ll keep making edits and changes until its as good as it can be. My internship has had some interesting developments related to a website.
My internship actually has a business website that they wanted to improve for SEO purposes, but as we looked through the website, my advisor and I noticed many errors that were present throughout the site. What was most interesting was that this website is also run by WordPress, the same site used to write these Basis blogs. So, I’ve devoted some time to learning more about WordPress as a whole and the many functionalities it has, leading to a greater appreciation for the power this website builder has.
I’ll see you next week, where I hope I’ll be able to show you some of the progress I’ve made with the new website.
Week 6: Connections
Hey, Robert Aubrey Webb here, back from my spring break in Tennessee.
This week was a particularly special week in terms of my senior project, as it ended up leading to me coming to terms with some of my own trauma from when I was younger. I had always felt anxious around horses due to an incident that happened when I was about four years old. I ended up startling a horse and nearly got trampled, and while I can’t remember a lot of specifics about the event, the anxiety around some of the horses I’ve worked with was still very much present.
That’s when my mentor made an unusual request: she wanted me to connect with the horses. I expected to be acting as a mock patient, but she was busy with clients, so after I finished tidying up the barn, I decided to go with her request to connect with one of the horses, Snuggles. He tended to be the feisty one whenever I was acting as a mock patient, being playful and full of energy, so I was anxious that he was going to perhaps get too excited and step on me. So, we started this connection with me standing on the other side of the stall, looking inside at Snuggles. However, this didn’t work. It felt like we were getting nowhere and weren’t fully getting connected. But that’s when something strange happened; I had the sudden urge to head into the stall, thinking that perhaps the stall door was getting in the way of us trying to connect. So, I went inside to meet Snuggles in his stall.
That’s when something special happened. It really felt like Snuggles was understanding my anxiety, but instead of being more reserved, he instead wanted to play around and hang out. I couldn’t really understand it at first; it was clear from his demeanor that he understood something, but he was still going ahead and being his usual self. But, then it hit me. I had only really thought of trust being built passively, slowly accruing it by not breaking it. Snuggles ended up teaching me what felt like an “active trust”, which was a massive revelation for me. He felt like he was breaking down my anxiety not by letting it sit, but by instead confronting it firsthand, going about his usual self in a manner that made me feel like I could trust him because he was taking an active role in proving that he wasn’t out to get me. It was probably the greatest breakthrough I’ve had in terms of my final hypothesis, to the point where next week, I expect to have my full hypothesis completely ready to share in this blog. Look forward to next week for that (and for more pictures of me with the horses).
Week 7: Comfortably Confront
Hey, Robert Aubrey Webb here.
This week served as me making strides to finish up my project and begin the drafting phase of both my final paper and my final ideas about the project as a whole. My internship is continuing to go strong, especially thanks to the help my mentor gave me with sourcing a good book to use for my paper. The final revised outline is almost entirely complete, so I’ve started making progress drafting on the sections of my outline that I’ve completed.
As for the main part of this week, it was coming up with the main idea I plan to bring to my final project: Comfortably Confront. It’s the concept that psychological problems and disorders can fester and be very detrimental to daily life if ignored, but can be painful and anxiety inducing to confront. As such, the idea is to reach a middle ground, focusing on accommodations and understandings to confront problems in a comfortable manner, hence the name. An example of this relates back to last week, with my experience with Snuggles. He challenged my underlying trauma and confronted it in a manner that I didn’t expect, but due to how it was handled, it helped me cope with my anxiety around horses. The idea of active trust plays a big role here; passive trust and ignoring/blocking out things tends to not be as helpful due to the fact that the problem at its core isn’t being addressed.
Now, this idea is addressed more towards motor vehicle accident victims and their friends/family, with a focus on helping them take the correct actions to address their concerns and problems. A common problem with many forms of effective therapy, including the well known cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), is that it requires the cooperation of the patient and the therapist in order to make good progress. Even equine facilitated psychotherapy suffers from this problem as well, relying on a deep bond to really tackle the issues that underlie a person’s mental state. However, it is precisely due to these mental concerns that some patients, whether they intend to or not, can end up not taking an active role in their own improvement. While this isn’t a magic pill designed to fix the problem, it’s still an effective mindset that I hope to discuss in greater detail once I finish my final paper. See you next week.
Week 8: Wrapping Things Up
Hey, Robert Aubrey Webb here.
This week is where I got to see some of the fruits of my labor. My first draft is complete, and my second draft is nearing completion as I begin my trek towards my final product. My work has been pretty intensive over the past week as I get my outline together and put down everything into a comprehensive paper. But that doesn’t mean my research is over. My advisor let me borrow a pretty important book to help me out. The title of the book is Harnessing the Power of Equine Assisted Counseling: Adding Animal Assisted Therapy to Your Practice, and its a fascinating read. It contains a lot of details about what makes equine facilitated psychotherapy effective, along with detailing the parts that horses play in helping out clients. Its got a lot to dig into, and I plan on detailing all of my findings in my next blog post.
The internship has also been working towards a project that I’ve been helping out with over the past month: the HEART Space Fund. It’s a fundraiser run by my advisor and it aims to provide the funding for equine facilitated psychotherapy to refugees, foster care families, and more. It’s been a blast to be a part of the campaign, as I’ve been doing some pretty interesting tech support on the back end, such as incorporating some links to my advisor’s website and managing a Classy page as part of a collaboration with the Seen Through Horses campaign. It’s been really interesting to explore the technological side of my internship just as much as the psychological side. If you’re interested, feel free to check it out here: https://www.classy.org/fundraiser/4559740. It’s still a little bit of a work in progress, though. I’m continuing to try and improve on it when I can.
See you next week where I talk about my findings and my final steps toward completing my draft.
The book I plan on reviewing over this coming week.
Post 10: Final Post: It’s Not Over Yet!
Hey, Robert Aubrey Webb here, with my final post for this blog.
I’ve been hard at work making sure my project was as good as it could be, so I unfortunately didn’t have a chance to make a few of my past weekly blog posts. As such, this will cover the really important parts from the last few weeks.
First of all, my internship has been great and I’m super glad I was able to take a part in it. I said my goodbyes to my mentor and her team as I prepared to move to summer break… but it turns out that there was an opportunity for me to continue helping out into the summer. Considering how insightful and fun my time was, I accepted, keeping in touch with my mentor as we move into the summer.
Second of all, my presentation finished a few days ago. It was a lot more nerve wracking than I was expecting, but it seemed to go pretty well. Its focal point revolved around my paper for the most part, discussing the main ideas I went over while also making sure to detail some of my time at the internship. Third of all, I wanted to take this time to discuss the research process. Over the time that I wrote my paper, I ended up needing to fill plenty of holes in the text with sources, which made a deep analysis of my sources crucial to my paper. A lot of the studies were pretty interesting and led to a lot of what my paper ended up being. Prior to this project, I had never written a paper of this scale before, neither in length nor source density, so it was definitely a challenge to get it all done to where I was happy with my final product.
And finishing off with my experience as a whole… I’m glad I was able to take part in this experience. It was very helpful to be able to get a showcase of how more independent research would feel. Most of my time prior was spent having schools taking a big part in my daily life, with homework and the like keeping me on track. But this experience gave me a lot of lessons as to how life might be like in the future.
Overall, this was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see what college has to offer.
