Daily Battle Research Articles

'You've got your own demons that you've got to fight every day': A qualitative exploration of how people respond to the experience of psychosis.

Cognitive models of psychosis implicate how people respond to their distressing experiences in the maintenance of such experiences. Safety-seeking behaviours, which are employed in response to a catastrophic misinterpretation of threat, are viewed as unhelpful maintenance factors. However, the concept of safety seeking was developed in relation to anxiety disorders, and there may be additional complexities that apply in relation to the experience of psychosis. The ways in which people respond to their distressing experiences of psychosis are complex, multifaceted, and changeable, and qualitative research is needed to further the understanding of this process. A qualitative study was conducted using grounded theory methodology. In-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen participants who had experience of psychosis. A core category of fighting a daily battle to maintain functioning was identified. Related to this, three main themes also emerged. These were the perceived importance of responses, appraisal of threat, and perceived ability to control experiences. These categories are interrelated in that an increase in one is likely to result in increases in the others. Although these results provide partial support for the traditional view of safety-seeking behaviours, they also demonstrate further complexities in the way that distressing psychotic experiences are responded to. This has implications for cognitive behavioural therapy where emphasis is often placed on dropping safety-seeking behaviours. The traditional emphasis in cognitive behavioural therapy on dropping safety-seeking behaviours may not always be appropriate. This approach could have an impact on engagement in therapy and have the effect of reducing the client's feelings of choice and control. A detailed assessment of strategies used historically and how these may have been helpful previously, for example, suspiciousness, and withdrawal as a survival strategy should be conducted. The therapist should support the client to evaluate the importance of their responses alongside the accuracy of both threat appraisals and perceptions of ability to control experiences.

Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression

Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression

Being open in academia: A personal narrative of mental illness and disclosure

Key Messages Personal narratives offer insight into daily battles of those with mental health issues. Those with mental health issues often struggle with productivity. Some recommended strategies could help with life in academia.

LIVING WITH MENTAL DISORDER IN CHILDHOOD: FEELINGS AND REACTIONS OF THE FAMILY

Descriptive study with a qualitative approach, involving 14 families of children with mental disorders assisted at the Psychosocial Child Care Center of Maringá, Paraná, Brazil. The objective was to understand the experiences, feelings and reactions of families of child with mental disorder. Data were collected from January till April 2013 through open interviews and then analyzed using thematic Content Analysis. Two categories emerged "Living with mental disorder in childhood: a daily battle" and "Feeling and reacting: experiencing the mental disorder in childhood". It is concluded that the family needs to understand the disease to accept it and thus learn how to live with it, and it is up to the nurse to provide support in order to face the difficulties.

What I am learning about You, Jesus.

What I am learning about You, Jesus.

The Dichotomy of the Legal Status of Sexual Minorities: A Critical Analysis of Judicial Trends across the Globe and India

The ever-controversial issue of sexual minorities and homosexuality has remained contentious since the very term was introduced, primarily because it has been seen as unnatural and does not correspond with what society as well as the legal norms prevailing in the society, define as ‘normal’. It becomes imperative to briefly examine the development of the laws governing these populations and their impact on the societies’ evolving attitudes towards homosexual relationships and transgender, to show the progress of the gay liberation movement and its effects on formulation of the laws in the society. Aside from the judgment of the heterosexual world, many myths about homosexuality have been imagined. Thus, with this backdrop on the issue at hand, the authors aspire to analyze and attempt to unveil these myths, arguing about the welfare and protection of these classes of individuals who fight a daily battle to secure their identities in the society we dwell in. The authors strive to comprehend the legal status of the LGBT communities across the globe and compare their plight to that in India, to critically analyze their legal rights and interests and ensure the level of implementation in the various regimes, to comprehend the various judicial measures that have been undertaken to safeguard the very existence of such communities, and conclusively enunciate the various lessons that could be learnt from the ongoing judicial trend and how the same may be put in application considering the Indian modus operandi. The authors aim to dig deep into the concerns where these aversions in relation to homosexuality can be reversed and the society could evolve as broad-minded, understanding the concerns of such persons who live under the constant apprehension of being ‘found out’ and the various forms of discrimination and atrocities that they have faced and are still facing under the present Indian legal regime. Keywords: sexual minorities; homosexuality; legal status; judicial trends; India

Sex, gender and money in African teenage conceptions of love in HIV contexts

In much of Africa, teenage sexualities are often understood through the optic of danger, violence and disease without much attention to love within relationship dynamics. There is a strong case to be made for the continued focus on African teenage sexualities within unequal relations of power. However, whilst focusing on the structural factors that expand sexually aggressive masculinities and limit teenage women's sexual agency, the expression of teenage love in the daily battle for power remains neglected. Drawing on an interview study of teenage Africans, aged 16–17 years, in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, the paper focuses on the micro-dynamics of love, sex and gender. Teenagers account of love highlights changing discourses and include relationships based on care, negotiation and agency showing potential for equality. Such constructions however sit in tension with teenage women's vulnerability in relation to the sexual economy and money, masculine power and gender hierarchies. Intervention programmes that address teenage sexuality must pay careful attention to how love matters in their conceptualisation of relationships and requires consideration of the social and economic context within which they are located. The challenge is to build on equality, address gender hierarchies and ideologies within relationships which create vulnerability.

Back From the Brink

Back From the Brink

Editorial

Let’s be honest – the past few months have been tough for anyone working at the hospital coalface. Even the most optimistic masters of NHS spin will have had difficulty denying some of the harsh realities which have faced staff, and patients; often on a daily basis. The Royal College of Physicians’ report Hospitals on the Edge, published last September, presented a gloomy picture of a system on the brink of collapse, becoming overwhelmed by year-round demands which continue to grow inexorably. Then came winter, Norovirus – and Robert Francis. His much anticipated, and long-delayed, report with its 293 recommendations, should be seen as a wake-up call to those in the position to effect change. The political, and media focus so far has been on the failures to recognise what went wrong – target culture, whistleblowing and regulation, as well as individual failings. All of these need to change, but the root causes of the problem should also not be forgotten. I have no doubt that many healthcare workers and patients reading the report from across the UK will have had days, and experiences which were not dissimilar to many of those described in Mid Staffs. The demands on our service, and the expectations of its users is rising; and yet we cannot expand our capacity to meet these demands. The past decade has seen countless efforts to improve efficiency and flow at the hospital front door: admission prevention schemes, ambulatory care, community geriatric services, chest pain pathways and rapid access clinics, to name but a few, have squeezed down the length of hospital stay for many patients. Undoubtedly there is more that can be done; systems can still be improved, but the hamster wheel needs to turn faster and faster each year – and the hamster is getting tired. Underlying the daily battle to maintain flow through our emergency departments and acute medical units is the issue of capacity. The sight of an empty bed on our AMUs is a rarity on most mornings, despite good evidence that systems work better with lower occupancy. But it’s not just about hospital capacity – our entire health and social care system is bulging at the seams. We often blame ‘delayed discharges’ – patients whose medical treatment has been completed and whose care could be provided in a different setting – for all of our bed pressures. In reality this is just another symptom of the strain on our service. Integration of health and social care budgets is being explored in some areas and has real promise to reduce delays, but any savings need to be re-invested to maintain, or expand capacity. Of course the solutions are not straightforward – were that true we would have found them by now, but change is needed, and it needs to happen quickly if we are going to prevent a recurrence of the disasters of Mid Staffs. Headache and hemiparesis is the theme of three of the case reports in this spring edition. James Schmidley and his team from Virginia highlights the importance of a careful history and examination before presuming that stroke is the cause of unilateral weakness in a patient with a normal cerebral CT. The consequences of administering thrombolysis to a patient with a spinal bleed would be disastrous; recognition of the importance of neck pain in one case and the identification of a Brown Sequard syndrome in the other ensured that the appropriate imaging was undertaken to enable a diagnosis. Nelatur and colleagues have included a useful table demonstrating the differential diagnoses which need to be considered when a patient with HIV presents with a neurological deficit. The targeted use of cerebral imaging and cerebrospinal fluid analysis will usually enable the cause to be identified so that prompt appropriate treatment can be initiated. I make no excuse for including another article on sepsis – in fact this is the second in a series of 3 papers which will appear over the coming editions. By the time this edition is published the Health Ombudsman’s report on this subject is likely to have been released; Joel Meyer’s article on p5 provides further evidence of the scale of the problem which faces acute medical units and the importance of designing systems to provide rapid recognition and prompt treatment. Some of the solutions will be discussed in the next edition of this journal, and also in a symposium at the SAM meeting in Coventry: I hope many readers will be able to attend this meeting on the 9th May and look forward to meeting some of you there.

The Struggle of Girl Soldiers Returning Home

For a girl returning home from an armed group there is a daily battle for survival, dignity, and basic human rights. Her struggle could include protection from human trafficking, sexual violence, a...

PPARs and Gastrointestinal Cancer

PPARs and Gastrointestinal Cancer

Humanity in Tagore’s Short Stories

This paper attempts to illustrate the magnanimity with which Tagore portrays some of the great characters of his short stories. It highlights the deep love and affection that brought him closer to his fellow men and women and how he assessed the people of different races and social status and those steeped in pains and poverty. The paper throws light on Tagore’s art of characterization by referring to some of his universally appealing characters who are found facing and fighting many social and existential battles. The paper further explores Tagore’s deep insight into their daily battles as the cornerstone of his art, which paints fictional characters with profound touches of humanity. The paper finally provides an assessment of Tagore’s persistent feeling of sympathy and his anti-racist stand which make him a revolutionary humanist. His in-depth observation of human sufferings and concern for mankind produce such characters as Hoimonti, Kabuliwala, Ratan and many more moving characters who will continue to resonate for generations in human minds.

The Quest for "Just and Pure Law": Rocky Mountain Workers and American Social Democracy, 1870-1924 (review)

Reviewed by: The Quest for "Just and Pure Law": Rocky Mountain Workers and American Social Democracy, 1870-1924 David M. Emmons Enyeart, John — The Quest for "Just and Pure Law": Rocky Mountain Workers and American Social Democracy, 1870-1924. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv, 311. Of all of the fields and sub-fields of American history, U.S. labour history might be the most tangled and contentious. One reason for this is America's self-congratulatory claims of exceptionalism, and of being a society of haves and soon-will-haves. Another reason is the confusion over the meaning of terms-socialism, radicalism, syndicalism, social democracy, cooperative commonwealth, and so on. Ideological predispositions of many labour historians also contribute to the tensions and complexities of the field. Scholars often presuppose the existence of a worker class consciousness-even a revolutionary class-consciousness-and as a result assign preconceived historical roles and lines to be read in the acting out of those roles. There is great mischief in the belief that working people should have wanted to take over the means of production-preferably violently- and that when they did not, it was because something artificial, almost contrary to nature, had interfered with their natural instincts. In sum, the ghosts of Marx and Sombart still stalk the land of the labour historians. One of the strengths of John Enyeart's book is that he avoids these traps; he does not overly concern himself with theories of working-class history. In a revealing sentence more than two-thirds of the way through his book he writes that his primary purpose was to discover "what workers actually wanted" (p. 200), not to frame an interpretation around what he and other historians may have wanted them to want. For the most part, he was true to his word. There are a few times when Enyeart seems really to want his Rocky Mountain workers to be "socialists." How else might one explain the author's definitions of both "social democracy" and socialism—definitions so broad that even the purely ameliorative aspects of [End Page 415] worker demands become at least a prerequisite to one or the other? But this is a minor point arising in large part from definitional imprecision and overload. Contemporaries were no more precise in their efforts to make sense of social democracy and socialism, and both had multiple and conflicting definitions, meaning barely any definition at all. As Enyeart makes clear, what Rocky Mountain workers wanted was a living wage, safe work places, an eight hour day, education for their children, sewers on their streets, and a measure of respect. In Enyeart's apt phrase, they were "pragmatic radicals." By "pragmatic" Enyeart means that they were committed to working within the existing political and partisan structure of their states and localities. Rocky Mountain workers in Utah, Montana, and Colorado presented labour's demands, organized the labour vote, and kept a close eye on the politicians they had helped to elect. They understood that markets, including labour markets, were not self-regulating and did not arise out of some "natural order." Instead, they were the result of laws passed by legislatures. Workers reasoned that changing the law-makers would change the laws, which would in turn change the markets and improve workers' lives. Call that what you will-including "social democracy." It would be hard-and meaningless-to argue against this central thesis of Enyeart's book, particularly given his assiduous research which resulted in numerous examples of the political potency of the "labour vote." Unionists had "faith that they could find justice within the confines of America's constitutional government" (p. 179); that faith, he insists, was not misguided, and "political action was working" (p. 203). "To most Rocky Mountain workers the class struggle occurred as a series of daily battles on multiple fronts" (p. 205). Enyeart's next argument, that these Rocky Mountain workers were better situated politically and more determined to use their political leverage than workers in other regions, is less convincing. It is also less important to his book. Indeed, the significant issue- and here might have been a place for Sombart and American exceptionalism-is...

Deep brain stimulation for Tourette syndrome

To discuss Tourette syndrome, one has to know what doctors mean by “tics.” A tic is a brief, unwanted movement or noise that someone performs repeatedly, usually many times a day. Tics can be held back for a period of time, but this often brings a sense of building pressure to repeat the tic. Blinking, head shaking, and loud sniffing are common simple tics. More complex actions such as touching the floor or saying words can also be tics. Tics are very common: about a quarter of young children will have a tic for a short period of time, and about 1 child in each elementary school classroom has tics that last for a year or more. If a patient has both motor and vocal tics that started in childhood or teens, have lasted for at least a year, and do not have an identifiable specific cause, the patient receives a diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS). By this accepted definition, TS is relatively common. Studies in which a large number of children are examined carefully for tics find that about 1 in 200 (0.5%) have TS. However, only about half that number (0.3%) have ever received the TS diagnosis. Only about a quarter of patients with TS describe their symptoms as moderate or severe.1 Thus most people with TS have fairly mild symptoms and are best managed with education and nonspecific supportive treatment.2 For others, however, TS is a daily battle. The problems can be many. There may be social problems like bullying in school or unfair treatment in job interviews. Children may have trouble concentrating in school because of tics or from focusing on holding tics back. Some patients have tics that are violent enough to cause injuries. It is appropriate to provide treatment for patients with …

Can't I Love What I Criticize?: The Masculine and Morrison (review)

Reviewed by: Can't I Love What I Criticize?: The Masculine and Morrison Lucille P. Fultz Susan Neal Mayberry . Can't I Love What I Criticize?: The Masculine and Morrison. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2007. 340 pp. $34.95. At a time when it is commonplace to read that black males and black masculinity are under siege, Susan Neal Mayberry's Can't I Love What I Criticize?: The Masculine and Morrison is a refresher course on black men's long struggle against racial discrimination and oppression. To the ever-present lament for the growing number of African American men imprisoned, maimed, or killed by drugs, and violence, Can't I Love offers a sobering reminder of what is often at the root of black male violence and self-destructive tendencies. The book takes its title from Guitar Bains's response to Milkman, who in Song of Solomon accuses him of contradicting himself when Guitar says he "loves Negroes" while bitterly attacking them. Mayberry maintains that Toni Morrison's fictional portrayal of black men is engendered by love and understanding of these men's daily battles that have less to do with the men themselves and more to do with forces contributable to Western values and racial oppression. Those searching for a comprehensive, sustained, nuanced examination of masculinity in Toni Morrison's novels will welcome Mayberry's Can't I Love. The book is a brilliant and delightful engagement with masculinity in Morrison's first eight novels. It is, to borrow one reader's adjective, a "fresh" look at a recurring theme and an important issue in Morrison's canon. Mayberry looks at Morrison's black men not just in the context of their daily lives but in the wider context of racism, gender and oppression. Beginning with the view that "all of Morrison's books explore masculinity and masculine types" (4), Mayberry proceeds to buttress her claim with cogency and clarity. In delineating the parameters of her study, Mayberry acknowledges Morrison's "even-handed approach to gender" (5), but reminds readers of Can't I Love that her [End Page 535] project "confronts the limitations and celebrates the power of authentic, multifaceted, African American masculinity" (14). At the end of this project, Mayberry writes: "While the tales Toni Morrison tells on black men are too painful to pass on, they are equally too important to pass on" (298). But Mayberry could just as well have begun her book with that assertion since that is precisely what she does—"pass on" the complicated, conflicted, violent lives of Morrison's black men. Examining the black men in The Bluest Eye and Sula, for example, Mayberry explores at least three representative masculine types in characters such as Cholly Breedlove, Soaphead Church, and Mr. Henry in The Bluest Eye, and Jude Green, Ajax, and BoyBoy in Sula. She also notes that in Jazz Morrison "converts black-and-bluesmen into jazzmen" (193). Mayberry stakes out the grounds for her argument with this statement: "Morrison deliberately places her black male characters into situations where their behavior becomes virtually unredeemable, yet she simultaneously urges us to forgive them" (13). While many readers may have difficulty forgiving the Cholly Breedloves, Soaphead Churches, Macon Deads, and Bill Coseys, among others, Mayberry persuasively argues that negative black masculinity in Morrison's novels "represent[s] as much a tribute to the marvelous coping strategies of black men as a lament for their bouts of self-destruction" (8). With specific references to Jazz, Mayberry also reminds us that African American men "learned long ago . . . how to transform what eats at them inside into blues songs" (155). At the center of Mayberry's argument about the eruptions of misconduct and violence by black men is her contention that such behavior is rooted in Western values that black men seek to emulate but are never able to assimilate successfully. Mayberry repeatedly demonstrates that "often what keeps [Morrison's black men] off kilter is the intrusion of sterile, white, middle-class notions of property, propriety, and competition" and that often when black men leave their families it is because they "succumb to or spin their wheels against prestige and power" (73). Or, as...

‘Luctor et Emergo’

IFSCC Magazine, 11 (2008) (1) 5–9‘Luctor et emergo’ means to struggle, fight or wrestle in order to come up, win or just emerge and survive. It was adopted as a national motto by the Zeeland region in Holland to underline their daily battle with high tides. Indeed, this Latin motto effectively illustrates the struggle to make things work, that is to overcome all difficulties and hurdles and make everything flow smoothly at the end. Therefore, it applies appropriately to our subheading: ‘all battles and bridges between the language of marketing and product formulation’. What are the main causes of misunderstanding or hindrances between marketing and the formulator? Could common objectives overcome such gaps? How can we establish bridges with a view to enhancing creative cooperation? Finally, would it be possible to find solutions which can provide a mutual cross‐fertilization? The following humorous example will make the problem clear. The scene is a kitchen where we see an old and ugly couple. The husband asks his wife, who is holding a tin can: »Would you like some tuna fish?« She answers: »No, I would like to be naked in bed with Kevin Costner in Jamaica«. This is obviously a dialogue of the deaf, where both speak only apparently the same language. In fact, they fail to convey what they really mean. This signifies that they are not on the same wavelength, they do not refer to the same code of speech to communicate and it seems impossible for them to understand each other. How can we make ourselves understood when communication is sometimes so difficult and work out appropriate solutions when we put R&D and Marketing at two poles of a communication scheme?

From Equality to Opportunity

Brazil’s 2002 presidential elections brought to power Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leader of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s party—PT) and a former union leader with a markedly leftist political trajectory. An examination of the PT’s discourse throughout the 2002 campaign, as evidenced in the free political advertising programs that represent the main form of contact between candidates and voters in Brazil, reveals the “professionalization” of Lula’s communication. An integral part of the “practical” shift of his political strategy, this professionalization punctuated a long process of accommodating the political establishment, in effect burying the radical novelty that the PT had stood for. In its origins, the party discourse fed on the lived experience of workers and the daily battles of social movements. This is the feature that was lost in 2002, when the discourse of Lula and the PT was molded to the dominant political discourse in both form and content.

Lessons From the SARS Crisis – More Relevant Than Ever

Lessons From the SARS Crisis – More Relevant Than Ever

The Distant Drumbeat: Why the Law Still Matters in the Information Era

Founded in 1981, the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal is one of the first student-edited entertainment law journals in the United States. Over the course of the years, it has grown to be a leading journal in the field. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Journal, the Cardozo Intellectual Property Law Program, in conjunction with Kluwer Law International, published The Marketplace of Ideas: Twenty Years of Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. As an introduction to this volume, Professor Marci Hamilton discusses why information, like technology, is nothing more than a tool that can be used by humans for good and for evil. It also explains why intellectual property laws are just as relevant in the information age as they were in the past. As the essay pointed out, the hackers' utopia is a seductive but dangerous dream. The daily battle for liberty from tyrants continues, and the legal tools of the past should be ready to hand, even if they are in need of fine-tuning. In addition to this introductory essay, the anniversary volume collects some of the most widely-cited articles published in the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal in the past 20 years, as well as distinguished intellectual property lectures sponsored by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. Contributors to this volume include leading commentators in the field of intellectual property, art, and communications law, as well as eminent jurists and former government officials from the U.S. Copyright Office.

Slow Dancing with Skeletons: Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

The Spokane Indian characters in Sherman Alexie's short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven wage daily battle against small humiliations and perennial hurts. Situated on a reservation where the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) houses, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) trucks, and commodity foods continually mirror paternalism and dependency, and where “tribal ties” and a cohesive “sense of community” (74) have waned, Alexie's characters confront the dilemma of how to be “real Indians,” of how to find “their true names, their adult names” (20), of how to find a warrior dignity and courage when it is “too late to be warriors in the old way” (63), of how to ameliorate what Adrian C. Louis has termed “the ghost-pain of history” (35)—that haunting sense of personal and cultural loss that generates a paralyzing sense of ineffectuality. They struggle to cope with passivity, cynicism, and despair to find healing for the pain that turns into self-pity and the anger that turns into self-loathing.