Emotional Communication Research Articles

Effects of Visual Art Therapy on Positive Symptoms, Negative Symptoms, and Emotions in Individuals with Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Schizophrenia is characterized by psychiatric symptoms and emotional issues. While pharmacological treatments have limitations, non-pharmacological interventions are essential. Art therapy has the potential to enhance emotional expression, communication, and health; however, the effectiveness of visual art therapy remains uncertain. This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesizes the findings of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of visual art therapy on positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and emotions in patients with schizophrenia. This study reviews RCTs published prior to February, 2024. The PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CEPS, CNKI, Wanfang, and Yiigle databases were searched, and three independent researchers screened the studies. In this meta-analysis, standardized mean difference (SMD) was employed as a measure to calculate effect sizes for continuous variables using a random effects model, while the meta-regression and subgroup analyses were performed with patient and intervention characteristics. A total of 31 studies revealed visual art therapy had a significant small-to-moderate effect on positive symptoms (SMD = 0.407, 95% CI 0.233 to 0.581), a moderate effect on negative symptoms (SMD = 0.697, 95% CI 0.514 to 0.880), a moderate effect on depression (SMD = 0.610, 95% CI 0.398 to 0.821), and a large effect on anxiety (SMD = 0.909, 95% CI 0.386 to 1.433). The subgroup analysis revealed painting and handcrafts had significant effects on positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and emotions. Combined Chinese calligraphy and painting had significant effects on positive symptoms, depression, and anxiety. Better improvement was noted among the Asian population, and a longer weekly treatment duration was associated with better improvement in positive symptoms. Female participants tended to have more improvements in negative symptoms and anxiety through visual art therapy. The results indicate that visual art therapy has positive effects on the psychiatric symptoms and emotions of individuals with schizophrenia. We recommend future research further investigate art therapy modalities and durations.

Creating Expressive Social Robots That Convey Symbolic and Spontaneous Communication.

Robots are becoming an increasingly important part of our society and have started to be used in tasks that require communicating with humans. Communication can be decoupled in two dimensions: symbolic (information aimed to achieve a particular goal) and spontaneous (displaying the speaker's emotional and motivational state) communication. Thus, to enhance human-robot interactions, the expressions that are used have to convey both dimensions. This paper presents a method for modelling a robot's expressiveness as a combination of these two dimensions, where each of them can be generated independently. This is the first contribution of our work. The second contribution is the development of an expressiveness architecture that uses predefined multimodal expressions to convey the symbolic dimension and integrates a series of modulation strategies for conveying the robot's mood and emotions. In order to validate the performance of the proposed architecture, the last contribution is a series of experiments that aim to study the effect that the addition of the spontaneous dimension of communication and its fusion with the symbolic dimension has on how people perceive a social robot. Our results show that the modulation strategies improve the users' perception and can convey a recognizable affective state.

Effects of conflicting emotional cues on toddlers' emotion perception.

The communication of emotion is dynamic and occurs across multiple channels, such as facial expression and tone of voice. When cues are in conflict, interpreting emotion can become challenging. Here, we examined the effects of incongruent emotional cues on toddlers' interpretation of emotions. We presented 33 children (22-26 months, Mage = 23.8 months, 15 female) with side-by-side images of faces along with sentences spoken in a tone of voice that conflicted with semantic content. One of the two faces matched the emotional tone of the audio, whereas the other matched the semantic content. For both congruent and incongruent trials, toddlers showed no overall looking preference to either type of face stimuli. However, during the second exposure to the sentences of incongruent trials, older children tended to look longer to the face matching semantic content when listening to happy vs. angry content. Results inform our understanding of the early development of complex emotion understanding.

Artificial intelligence–enabled care equipment

Abstract With the aging of China’s population and changes in the disease spectrum of older adults, China will face a multitude of age-related health issues and, in turn, demand for medical care services. Artificial Intelligence (AI) care equipment has become an effective means of addressing imbalances between the supply of and demand for medical care services. AI care equipment can provide intelligent, precise and personalized care services for the elderly, the core of which is to analyze the data generated during the use of care equipment and provide real-time feedback. Common AI care equipment includes mobility aid devices, bathing aid devices, smart wearable devices, and care robots. AI care equipment can not only help older adults and other users with daily living assistance and rehabilitation, but also disease prevention, environmental risk factor screening as well as emotional communication and psychological support. The technical, social and market dilemmas faced by AI care equipment will be solved through the establishment of industry standards, the formulation of laws and regulations, and the strengthening of talent training. Our goal is to promote the popularity and development of AI care equipment, and to address the shortage of care resources brought about by the aging population.

Father Involvement in Parenting Questionnaire Development and Rating for Middle School Students

Family education has always been an important factor in influencing achievement, and in recent years the involvement of fathers in parenting has become the focus of family education. Junior high school students are in adolescence, the physical and mental development is not yet mature, parents’ education plays a key role in the process of students’ growth, and has a far-reaching impact on the healthy development of children’s physical and mental health. The purpose of this paper is to develop and measure a questionnaire on fathers’ involvement in parenting, using the questionnaire method, self-administered questionnaire, selected four dimensions of father image, academic support, emotional communication and disciplinary behavior to develop the questionnaire. The questionnaire was found to be of good quality after item analysis, exploratory analysis and validation analysis. Tests were conducted using SPSS 22.0 and Amos 22.0. The results showed that (1) the effect of father’s involvement in parenting on male students is more significant, senior junior high school students will be more influenced by their father’s parenting, junior high school students from two-parent families are more effective in being influenced by their father’s involvement in parenting, and only children are more profoundly affected by the influence of parenting that comes directly from their fathers. (2) There is no significant difference between urban and rural students affected by father involvement in parenting. (3) Among the factors affecting students, disciplinary behaviors have the greatest impact on junior high school students.

PECULIARITIES OF THE PROPAGANDA TRANSFORMATION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF INFLUENCE IN THE METAMODERN SOCIETY

The article reveals the substantive characteristics of the transformation of propaganda as an instrument of influence, and also shows its both destructive and constructive role in the metamodern society. The importance of considering propaganda in a neutral context is determined, which allows us to describe it as an important form of directed communications aimed at changing public opinion in favor of a specific task or intention. The author reveals the positive function of propaganda as a technique of social unification, strengthening faith and ensuring social harmony. At the same time, its destructive potential as a means of manipulation and disinformation is revealed. The stages of transformation of the content, methods and forms of propaganda from antiquity to the present are described. The influence of communication means on the nature of propaganda is shown. If in the twentieth century the main instruments of propaganda were radio, cinema and television, in the twenty-first century they have become social networks. The article identifies the peculiarities of propaganda in the metamodern society, which is characterized by indirect methods of influence based on the mechanisms of seduction and soft power and includes appeals to either rational interests or irrational needs for spectacular or emotional communication. The deterritorialization of ideas and narratives in the modern digital environment creates favorable conditions for concealing propaganda and promoting it more quickly. The author identifies such mechanisms of modern propaganda as temptation, performance, reformatting of contexts, false intertextuality, and personalization of messages. While classical propaganda was vertical in nature, in the metamodern society, horizontal ties through which propaganda narratives are promoted are becoming more important. The increasing dependence of the authorities on the desires of citizens in modern democracies causes propaganda to be built on the basis of public expectations, which leads to the prevalence of populism in political decisions. The author describes the phenomenon of post-truth as a product of modern propaganda, which shapes public opinion not by using facts but by relying on emotional reactions of people. The author proves the importance of controlling the methods and strategies of propaganda in the metamodern society.

The Relationship between Communication Skills and Emotional Intelligence among Students Attending Medical School: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Intelligence quotient (IQ) cannot predict how a person will react to the ups and downs of life, while emotional intelligence is a thoughtful ability that determines how we can use our other skills, including IQ, in the best way. The impact of emotional intelligence components on people›s success in healthcare organizations is remarkable. This study discussed the relationship between communication skills and emotional intelligence among medical students. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in 2021 among 114 medical students studying basic science. The questionnaires used to collect data were demographic information questionnaires, Goleman’s emotional intelligence, and Queen Dam’s communication skills. After collecting data, data analysis was performed using SPSS software. For this analysis, a significance level of less than 0.05 was used. Results: 114 questionnaires were completed. The average level of emotional intelligence of all students was 99.82±6.18. Also, in the study of communication skills, the average communication skill of all students was 109.1±8.01 (both moderate to high). There was no significant relationship between marital, gender, average age, and type of acceptance with emotional intelligence and communication skills. Students’ highest emotional intelligence skill was motivation, and the lowest was social skills. A significant correlation was found Between communication skills and educational status with emotional intelligence. Conclusion: This study showed meaningful connections between communication skills and emotional intelligence, which can be set in the training program, to increase emotional intelligence, which can increase effective communication between medical students and promote community health.

Palliative Social Work Services for Cancer Patients in Southeast Nigeria: An Exploration

Palliative social work services are essential for addressing the complex psychosocial needs of cancer patients, particularly in resource-constrained areas like Southeast Nigeria. Despite the recognition of social work in palliative care for cancer patients, effective delivery faces significant challenges impacting both social service delivery and patient outcomes. This study investigates the provision of palliative social work services for cancer patients using in-depth interviews with 18 participants (six social workers and twelve cancer patients) from two hospitals in Southeast Nigeria. Participants were purposefully sampled based on their roles in providing or receiving palliative care support. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that social work palliative services encompass psychosocial support, spiritual guidance, and educational resources. However, social workers encounter barriers such as emotional stress, burnout, communication gaps, financial constraints, and socio-cultural factors. The study suggests that regular debriefing sessions and educational programs could improve palliative care delivery. Policy advocacy is recommended to recognize and support the pivotal role of palliative social workers in cancer care. Future research should explore innovative strategies using quantitative methods to overcome barriers and enhance palliative social work effectiveness across diverse cultural and healthcare contexts, ultimately improving social service delivery to cancer patients and advancing social service research.

Post-play communication of emotions facilitates prosociality and cooperation

Social decisions with monetary consequences are often accompanied with emotional consequences. Previous studies document a robust role of pre-play message communication in facilitating pro-sociality and cooperation. Yet, the effects of communicating emotional experiences in social interactions (particularly post-play) remain understudied. Here, we examine the value of a social environment where emotional expressions are shared post-play in contrast to a private environment where emotion exposure is absent. We develop an experimental design that facilitates emotion exposure and can be readily administered in or outside the laboratory. In this pre-registered online study, participants (N = 196) completed incentivized extensions of the Dictator Game (DG) and the Prisoners' Dilemma Game (PD). Participants learned to classify their emotional experiences on the arousal, valence, and dominance dimensions using non-verbal pictorial representations. Our experiment comprised both a within-subject and a between-subject manipulation: each participant completed a control condition (C, no emotional exposure) as well as an emotion exposure condition (Emotions), but the type of exposure varied between subjects (certain exposure, or Emotions-E, or probabilistic exposure, or Emotions-P). In all conditions, participants complete a one-shot DG and PD. We find that emotion exposure increases other-regarding behavior under both Emotions-E and Emotion-P conditions in the DG and under Emotions-E only in PD. Further, we find that demand for emotion exposure is hardly driven by the outcome of the social interaction (or the actions selected). We also document how empathic concern influence other-regarding behavior and how reports of emotional experiences vary across treatments and with the different outcomes of social interactions. Our results highlight the integral role of emotion exposure in social decision making. Environments that facilitate the communication of emotional experiences increase pro-sociality and encourage cooperation.

Exploring the interplay between individual and family functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

AbstractFamily relationships are central to an individual’s development and influence their emotional, relational, and social trajectories. Optimal family functioning, encompassing emotional connections, communication patterns, and coping mechanisms, is pivotal to the well-being of individual family members, especially during challenging periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic. From this perspective, this study, conducted during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, assessed the interplay between individual and family functioning. Utilizing Hill's ABC-X model, we explored how the pandemic (stressor) impacted family dynamics (resources), perceived individual affectivity and family efficacy (perception), thereby influencing family quality of life (outcome). Four hundred and four participants completed a battery of standardized questionnaires to evaluate perceived individual affectivity during the pandemic, family quality of life, family dynamics (cohesion, flexibility, and communication), family conflict, family efficacy, and family coping strategies. Positive affectivity was associated with better family quality of life and more adaptive family coping strategies. The sample reported a low family quality of life and low family cohesion, flexibility, and communication during the pandemic. A positive sense of family cohesion, flexibility, and communication was associated with better individual well-being, better family quality of life and efficacy, and less conflict. Family communication was the strongest predictor of family quality of life in the study sample. In conclusion, our results emphasize the importance of strengthening family and individual resilience in transforming post-pandemic challenges into psychological and familial growth opportunities.

‘My recovery is in English’: Clients' language choices in multilingual psychotherapy

AbstractBackgroundPsychotherapy is constituted through language. Due to voluntary migration or forced mobility, many people do not have access to therapy in their first language (L1). How multilingual clients manage their languages in therapy is an issue many therapists need to address in their practice. Psychotherapy is about trauma, emotions and identity, and when a multilingual client chooses a particular language, it may influence their emotional expression, cause a cultural misunderstanding, and a distorted presentation of who they are.AimsIn this study, we investigated how clients perceive psychotherapy in a foreign language (LX). We also aimed to provide psychotherapists with more insights into the effect of language choices on the course and outcome of therapy.MethodsWe conducted 30 semi‐structured interviews with multilingual clients who had experience with therapy in LX. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.FindingsThe data revealed that there is not one correlation between language and emotion, and that different backgrounds may lead to different preferences for the language of therapy; for some, LX may be preferred because it provides emotional distance necessary for discussing past trauma; for others, LX feels inadequate for expressing themselves fully.ConclusionsOur data suggest that there is a need for multilingual psychotherapists to learn more about their clients' linguistic and cultural profiles and how they play a role in emotion communication to facilitate a smoother therapeutic process and a more beneficial outcome.

The Structural Pattern of Family Functioning Based on Religious Orientation in Working Men and Women of Hamedan City with the Role of Resilience as a Mediator

Introduction: Family functioning refers to the effectiveness of family members in emotional communication, family rules, family communication and coping with external events. Aim: The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the structural pattern of family functioning based on religious orientation in working men and women of Hamedan city with the role of mediator of resilience. Method: The current research was descriptive-correlation based on structural equation modeling. The research population included all married men and women working in government organizations in Hamadan city in 1400-1401. The sample size was 335 working men and women available by non-random sampling method. Family functioning questionnaire (FAD), religious orientation scale (ROS) and resilience scale (RISC) were used. Data analysis software was SPSS-21 and AMOS-24. Results: The results showed that religious orientation (β = -0.518 and p = 0.001) and resilience (β = -0.236 and p = 0.001) have a direct effect on family functioning and religious orientation mediates resilience on Family performance was also significant at 0.1 level. In the following, the indirect relationship of the proposed model was investigated, and a significant value was obtained for the approximation index of goodness of fit (PCLOSE) of 0.001 and the RMSEA index equal to 0.073, which indicated the fit of the model. Conclusion: The results showed that religious orientation can explain the functioning of the family with regard to the role of resilience, so psychologists are recommended to strengthen the functioning of the family and strengthen the foundations of families by holding psychological workshops centered on religion and spirituality. With the help of resilience training to administrative staff. These people help.

Is PDQ-39 a reliable measure of quality of life of patients at advanced stages of Parkinson's disease considered for Deep Brain Stimulation

PurposeParkinson's disease (PD) significantly impedes, especially at its advanced stages, the health-related quality of life (QoL) of patients. The Parkinson's disease questionnaire (PDQ-39) is a widely-used measure assessing the impact of the disease on the patients' QoL. To date, the reliability of PDQ-39 has not been selectively evaluated for patients at a particular delineated stage of the PD progression. Against this backdrop, the study aimed firstly to evaluate comprehensively the internal consistency reliability of PDQ-39 and the constituent scales specifically for patients at the advanced stages of PD who were candidates for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery, and secondly, to compare the Cronbach's alpha coefficients with those reported in other studies conducted with patients across all stages of the PD progression. MethodsThe sample included 36 Bulgarian patients (29 men and 7 women) at advanced stages of PD (Hoehn and Yahr stage 4), PD duration, M = 11.06, SD = 3.50). The internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire and the constituent scales was assessed using three criteria: Cronbach's alpha coefficients, inter-item and item-total correlations. ResultsThe internal consistency reliability indicators were satisfactory for the entire instrument and for most of the scales and similar to those reported in previous studies. None of the scales had low internal consistency reliability results across the three criteria. Except for the Communication scale, seven of the eight scales had Cronbach's alpha values that were satisfactory or marginally below the cut off score. All scales had acceptable inter-item correlations. Three of the scales (Emotional Well-Being, Cognition and Communication) contained more than one item with non-satisfactory item-total correlations. With minor exceptions, the removal of the items with low item-total correlations either did not improve or improved marginally or even decreased the Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the respective scale. The Communication scale was the only scale with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient that was both low and comparatively different to other studies and had as well low item-total correlations for all constituent items, thus showing non-satisfactory results on two of the three internal consistency reliability estimates. In contrast, the Mobility scale met all three internal consistency reliability criteria. ConclusionPDQ-39 is a reliable tool for assessing the QoL of patients at advanced stages of PD across multiple health-related domains. The questionnaire can be recommended for inclusion in the best practice guidelines for evaluating DBS candidacy and the efficacy of DBS treatment for patients’ QoL.

Perceptions of Patients and Nurses about Bedside Nursing Handover: A Qualitative Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis.

Bedside nursing handover is a recognized nursing practice that involves conducting shift change communication at the patient's bedside to enhance communication safety. Understanding the perceptions of both patients and nurses regarding bedside handover is crucial in identifying the key principles for developing and implementing effective bedside handover protocols. However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive evidence that summarizes and evaluates studies focused on qualitative approaches for gaining insights into the perceptions of both nurses and patients. This meta-synthesis review aims to identify, synthesize, and evaluate the quality of primary qualitative studies on the perceptions of patients and nurses about bedside nursing handover. A meta-synthesis review was conducted to identify qualitative studies that reported patients and nurses' perceptions about bedside handover using seven electronic databases, including CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, Education Database (ProQuest), Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, and PubMed, from January 2013 to November 2023. The authors independently selected reviews, extracted data, and evaluated the quality of included studies using the 10-item JBI Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument tool. A total of 871 articles were retrieved, of which 13 met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. These studies identified three main themes: (1) facilitators of bedside nursing handover, (2) barriers to bedside nursing handover, and (3) strategies to maintain confidentiality during bedside handover. This study systematically reviewed and integrated the perceptions of patients and nurses about bedside handover. Based on nurses' perceptions, the combined findings highlight the facilitators of bedside handover, including developing partnership interaction between nurses and patients, promoting professionalism, and enhancing emotional communication among nurses. From the patients' viewpoint, the synthesized findings emphasize the facilitators of bedside handover, including acknowledging the expertise, professionalism, and humanity of the nursing profession, ensuring a sense of safety, satisfaction, and confidence in the care received, as well as promoting individualized nursing care. In the context of barriers to bedside handover, both nurses and patients perceive breaches of confidentiality and privacy violations as significant barriers. When it comes to maintaining confidentiality during bedside handovers, it is important to consider patients' preferences. Patients often prefer handovers to take place in a private setting. From the nurses' perspective, it is important to inquire with patients about their preference for the presence of caregivers, and to conduct private handovers for sensitive issues away from the bedside. Relevance to Clinical Practice. Clinicians should carefully evaluate the barriers and facilitators in this meta-synthesis prior to implementing bedside handover. Study Registration. This study is registered in PROSPERO with Protocol registration ID: CRD42024514615.

Mixed Method Evaluation of ACTS: Advancing Connection Through Storytelling-A Novel Approach to Improve Older Adult Engagement and Staff Interactions in Korean Nursing Homes.

A culture centered on relationships and communication is necessary to improve the quality of life of older adults living in nursing homes. To examine the effects of a storytelling program by examining the cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial changes in older adults in facilities and explore staff experience of changes in care. This mixed method study delivered a 6-week storytelling program based on relationship-centered care for residents of nursing homes (aged >65 years). Changes in emotional expression, depression, communication skills, social support, interpersonal relationships, nurse-patient interaction, and the person-centered environment as perceived by older adults were quantitatively analyzed using pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys. Qualitative data were collected through weekly stories created by residents, followed by focus group interviews with nursing home staff, analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to enhance understanding of the program's outcomes. The 42 residents reported significant changes in their emotional expression, depression, communication skills, social support, interpersonal relationships, nurse-patient interaction, and person-centered environment scores after the 6-week intervention. Analysis of the residents' stories identified 5 themes. The staff focus group interviews identified 2 themes and 7 subthemes. Intervention group residents were more likely to initiate conversations, express themselves, carefully observe themselves and others, and actively participate in social activities. The storytelling program was useful in reducing older adults' negative emotions by allowing them to express their thoughts and feelings and improve their relationships, creating opportunities for social interaction. These effects could help foster relationship- and communication-centered facility cultures.

Acoustic analysis of clients' expression of self-compassion, self-criticism, and self-protection within emotion focused therapy video sessions.

When it comes to the non-verbal communication of emotions, it is apparent that the human voice is one of the main ways of expressing emotion and is increasingly important in psychotherapeutic dialog. There is ample research focusing on the vocal expression of emotions. However, to date the analysis of the vocal quality of clients' in-sessional emotional experience remains largely unexplored. Moreover, there is generally a gap within the psychotherapy literature in the understanding of the vocal character of self-compassion, self-criticism, and protective anger. In this study we investigated how clients vocally convey self-compassion, self-protection and self-criticism in Emotion Focused therapy sessions. For this purpose we investigated 12 commercially available Emotion Focused Therapy videos that employed a two chair or empty chair dialog. Praat software was used for the acoustic analysis of the most common features - pitch (known as fundamental frequency or F0) and intensity (voice amplitude, i.e., loudness). Results showed that intensity was significantly higher for self-criticism and self-protection than for self-compassion. Regarding pitch the findings showed no significant differences between the three states. More research analyzing acoustic features in a larger number of cases is required to obtain a deeper understanding of clients' vocal expression of self-compassion, self-protection and self-criticism in Emotion Focused Therapy.

Investigation of Imbalanced Sentiment Analysis in Voice Data: A Comparative Study of Machine Learning Algorithms

INTRODUCTION: Language serves as the primary conduit for human expression, extending its reach into various communication mediums like email and text messaging, where emoticons are frequently employed to convey nuanced emotions. In the digital landscape of long-distance communication, the detection and analysis of emotions assume paramount importance. However, this task is inherently challenging due to the subjectivity inherent in emotions, lacking a universal consensus for quantification or categorization.OBJECTIVES: This research proposes a novel speech recognition model for emotion analysis, leveraging diverse machine learning techniques along with a three-layer feature extraction approach. This research will also through light on the robustness of models on balanced and imbalanced datasets. METHODS: The proposed three-layered feature extractor uses chroma, MFCC, and Mel method, and passes these features to classifiers like K-Nearest Neighbour, Gradient Boosting, Multi-Layer Perceptron, and Random Forest.RESULTS: Among the classifiers in the framework, Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) emerges as the top-performing model, showcasing remarkable accuracies of 99.64%, 99.43%, and 99.31% in the Balanced TESS Dataset, Imbalanced TESS (Half) Dataset, and Imbalanced TESS (Quarter) Dataset, respectively. K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) follows closely as the second-best classifier, surpassing MLP's accuracy only in the Imbalanced TESS (Half) Dataset at 99.52%.CONCLUSION: This research contributes valuable insights into effective emotion recognition through speech, shedding light on the nuances of classification in imbalanced datasets.

Neo-Ottoman Soft Power: AKP’s Strategic Use of Turkish-Islamic Organizations in the German-Speaking Diaspora

The article indicates a shift in Turkey’s foreign policy initiated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Unlike its predecessors, the AKP aims to safeguard its interests not solely through traditional political alliances but also via “soft power” mechanisms. It employs a strategy of emotive communication through identity, religion, language, and culture and seeks to engage segments of the diverse Turkish diaspora, encouraging their support for the AKP.

Awareness As a Vehicle for Well-Being: College Students’ Lived Experiences Participating in a Mindfulness-Based Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT College students are experiencing increasing rates of mental health problems, with difficulties exacerbated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has demonstrated efficacy in treating psychological problems and promoting well-being within this population. Less well-understood, however, are MBSR participants’ perceptions of the mechanisms underlying this therapeutic change. The current qualitative study examined nonclinical college students’ experiences participating in a randomized controlled trial of an online adaptation of MBSR, administered during the fall 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine participants who had recently completed the MBSR course. The qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants described greater self-awareness, relational awareness, present-moment awareness, and body awareness as resulting in improved emotion regulation, empathy, communication, and well-being, while reducing anxiety and physical pain. These findings support and extend other theoretical models of change in mindfulness-based interventions. The results further suggest that online MBSR adaptations may be beneficial in promoting mental health for college students and that cultivating greater awareness may help in bolstering psychological well-being within this population.

Guidelines for art-based interventions in parental training

Art-based parental training involves engaging the parents in creative processes and the observation of their art products. The current paper presents guidelines for art-based parental training, based on the assumption that the encounter between the world of art and the world of therapy creates a rich triangular relationship between therapist, parent, and artwork. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 art therapists who described their experiences and the interventions they have developed for parents. The findings show how these interventions can be applied in clinical settings and how these art therapists see the impact of these art-based interventions on the therapeutic process. Most therapists believe that encouraging parents to create spontaneously and authentically in a suitable environment that contains a range of art materials for painting and sculpture can support the initiation of emotional communication on the part of the parents with themselves, their partner, and their child. In this type of therapy, the parents’ responses and the creative product are primordial since they are considered to reflect the parents’ development, personal skills, fields of interest, concerns, and difficulties. The guidelines are derived from these findings.