Extreme Despair Research Articles

Counseling Therapy with Hatha Yoga on Adherence Level, Nutritional Status, and Quality of Life Among HIV-Infected Adolescents: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Introduction: HIV infection and AIDS are associated with numerous challenges, and infected people experience extreme despair, fear, anxiety, and depression. However, counseling therapy and yoga techniques may help ease stress-related illness, produce internal strength through relaxation, and enhance immunity. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of counseling therapy and Hatha yoga on the adherence level, nutritional status, and quality of life (QOL) of HIV-infected adolescents. Materials and Methods: A randomized controlled trial study was conducted. Through the simple random method, 388 (195 in the experimental and 193 in the control group) HIVinfected adolescents were selected. The data of HIV-infected adolescents and caregivers were collected from four main Antiretroviral Therapy clinics in Chennai, India, through Standardized Antiretroviral Therapy adherence, QOL, and a structured nutritional assessment questionnaire. Motivational counseling was given to the experimental group, and the researcher demonstrated selected asanas. The data were collected from both groups at 0, 3, and 6 months intervals. The descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, and inferential statistics of the student independent t test and Chi-square test were used to determine the effectiveness of interventional variables in both groups. Results: The Mean±SD age of the experimental group of adolescents was 13.6±2.2 years, and that of the control group was 13.8±2.4 years. There is an improvement range in the experimental vs the control group for the components of adherence level (13.4% vs 4.9%) and QOL (15.1% vs 0.9%) at a significance of P=0.001 with a 95% confidence interval. Also, the nutritional gain score was significantly increased to 9.3% vs 1.5% (P=0.05). Regarding CD4 (cluster of differentiation 4) count, the baseline mean score was 664.86 vs 669.72, whereas, in the sixth month, it significantly increased to 840.35 vs 703.35 (P=0.001). Conclusion: Motivational counseling and behavior modification of yoga efficiently improved health status and well-being among HIV-infected adolescents in the experimental group compared to the control group.

History as Seen Through Postcards: A Story of the Lodz Ghetto—Total Isolation

Thesis. This study explores the role of postcards as a historical, documentary, and artistic source depicting the events of the Holocaust, focusing on postcards written or received by inhabitants of the Lodz Ghetto. 78 postcards were translated into Hebrew and on exhibition at the Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Museum in Israel. Research indicates that the postcards served as an authentic and rare source of information as well as understanding the emotions of Jews whose lives were overshadowed by the threat of annihilation. Methods. The study is a qualitative one, based on the grounded theory approach. Analysis is established on identifying and characterising recurrences in the raw material of findings, with a clear definition of the unit of analysis, to build a hierarchy of the recurrences and themes, and to construct a theoretical model that explains the reality under investigation. Researchers in this method gather information about the life patterns of their subjects as well as the organizational and social structures. Grounded theory assumes that all people who have shared life circumstances also have shared social and psychological patterns, which even if not consciously formulated or expressed grow from the shared experiences. Results and conclusion. In-depth analysis reveals the historical events from the perspective of the postcard writers, as they experienced them in the ghetto. The postcards sent to the ghetto by relatives and acquaintances reveal their writers’ hopes of reuniting with their family or their extreme despair as they cope with the loss of their family.

Comparison of the Effectiveness of Compassion-focused Therapy and Quality of Life Therapy on Self-Criticism and Psychopathological Symptoms in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Background: The main feature of Major Depression Disorder (MDD) is mood swings between sadness (from minor disappointment to extreme despair) for several days, weeks, months, or even years. This work tries to compare the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy and quality of life-therapy on self-criticism and psychopathological symptoms in patients with MDD.Methodology: This work is a quasi-experimental study (pre-test, post-test, and follow-up test with a control group). The subjects include 45 MDD patients admitted in psychological advisory centers in Neyshabur, all of whom are selected by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into three groups: the compassion-focused therapy group, the quality of the life-therapy group, and the control group. The members of the CFT group and quality of life-therapy respectively received 8 and 10 therapy sessions, while the control group members were put on a waiting list. The research tools are as follows Self-Criticism Scale, Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale (DASS-21), and Beck-Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). The participants were tested before therapy intrusions, immediately after the sessions, and two-month after the ending session. Data were analyzed according to the variance analysis test by repetitive measurements and SPSS-24 Software.Results: The results show that both therapies are effective in reducing self-criticism (p < 0.001) and psychopathological symptoms (p < 0.001); however, this effect was significantly higher in the CFT group as compared to the quality of life-therapy group (p < 0.001).Conclusion: Given the biological and psychological infrastructure of MDD, using quality of life-therapy and self-compassion approaches (in addition to medication) can be effective in reducing MDD symptoms.

THE COMMUNICATIVE SPACE OF PERSONALITY FORMATION

The article analyses theoretically the communicative space of a personality. The space of communicative phenomena in the psychology of personality means their cognition with the aims to correlate communicative personal features with certain reference points, to locate them in a system of theoretical and methodological coordinates, in order to know more deeply communicative qualities, to reveal their ambiguous essence, and to obtain additional information for scientific objectivity and social practice. By considering the motives for world-image constructing, we cannot avoid the fact that the human communicative nature gives every communicating agent a hope for mutual understanding with other people, when existential sympathy is awoken, so that each person can expect solidarity and support form society, which prevent extreme despair and loneliness. The communicative space of a personality is examined from two points of view: in the cognitive plan, in order to grasp objective evidences of personal being; and also it is important to present a sense of personal being in its reflection, namely, internally reflected relations with other peoples and the sign system of the reality as a whole. The article determines that the need in communications, as an individual’s generalized need, and communicative abilities are manifested at several levels: biological, social-personal and personal-reflexive. The article shows that the natural physical disunity of people, as well as their perceptions about each other can distort a dialogue, so communicators become too distant psychologically. To be a communicator means, in particular, to remain nominally the same person, but to be changed qualitatively, because the unity that we want to create with another person or group of people involves not only the exchange of most diverse values, that is namely communication, but also interactive acts, in particular, anticipation of pleasure, intellectual enjoyment of these contacts. The article proves that a highly cultivated communicative ability means that communications is implemented confidently, not instinctively or coercively, but as an initiation, an act.

박찬욱 영화의 염세주의적 세계관 연구

Director Park Chan-wook has secured unparalleled oeuvres comprising stylish and provocative films. His shocking narratives and florid mise-en-scene represent a chaotic world. Notably, shuttling between anxiety and rapture, Park’s films converge on a pessimistic view of the mankind and the world. Ranging from his debut film to his latest one, most of his pieces have stuck to a mood of pessimism that the world is replete with agonies. With the agonies haunting people, they fall victim to those agonies or inflict them on the world. The rule of causationism fails to apply to the world whilst even the God will not demonstrate any willingness to redeem the mankind. Thus, Park’s films have formulated a pseudo-message that all men are destined to undergo tragedies given to them. Against the backdrop of the pessimistic world view, Park’s characters are transformed into monsters dashing into an irreversible and unredeemable state of misery. There is no denying that the pessimistic attributes characterizing Park’s films summon up some primordial skepticism and extreme despair about the mankind and the world. Nevertheless, Park’s films also carry a paradoxical message that ‘one should turn over a new leaf even in the face of hopelessness,’ leading the audience to a paradoxical position, where they ruminate over the humans and the world via extreme tragedies.

UNRELIABLE NARRATION AS A TENDENCY IN MODERN LITERARY DISCOURSE

In the aspect of modern approaches to the study of art creativity unusual narrative can be considered to be the author’s technique of fixing of actions and events through the associative grip of memory and imagination domains. In this case the reader perceives the domain of memory on the background of the imagination domain. The unreliable narration focuses the reader’s attention on the mental processes that occur in the mind of the storyteller, who is characterized by a specific mentality, lack of social adaptation and other similar ontological features. The story-teller himself/herself distances from the actual course of events, suffers from the psychological trauma and on initiating the story he/she tries « to heal» from the pain caused by these injuries. The sense of loss, guilt and extreme despair inevitably affect the manner of narrative storytelling. We can say that the goal of the unreliable narration is to put to the forefront the characteristics of the narrator’s psychological state, make the focus on his/her inner life and the ironic understanding of the reality. The narrator’s comments on the reality are not consistent with the concept of the sound judgment. Author’s fixing the narrator’s alarmed consciousness is considered to be the most consistent features of the unreliable narration.

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment: Cultural and spiritual perspectives

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment: Cultural and spiritual perspectives

Obstructive, occupational, and environmental diseases

The bulk of this issue of Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine is devoted to various aspects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with emphasis on new information. However, subjects of the first two articles were chosen not because of an abundance of new information but because they have yet to receive attention commensurate to their importance. The prevalence of smoking-related COPD in women in the US and other developed countries is increasing. In addition, millions of women in resource-poor countries develop COPD and other respiratory illnesses in large part due to indoor environmental exposures. Anita Varkey explores the risk factors that particularly affect women and offers suggestions for risk reduction. While there is a great deal of interest and work done on sleep-disordered breathing, sleep disorders in COPD and their consequences have been less well studied. Kesavan Kutty provides an up-to-date review of this subject. Of all the medications available for the management of COPD, inhaled corticosteroids have justifiably elicited the most interest because of our increasing understanding of the inflammatory component of the disease. Kristin Highland in an evidence-based review clarifies the indications for use of inhaled corticosteroids in COPD. Linus Santo Tomas and I discuss the importance of quality-of-life issues in patients with COPD. Clinicians will readily recognize that relief of dyspnea is of immediate and paramount importance to patients as it affects all aspects of their everyday life. Appropriately now clinicians and investigators are placing emphasis on quality-of-life measures in treating COPD and also incorporating them as outcome measures in clinical studies. Lung-volume-reduction surgery (LVRS) over the years generated extreme hope and extreme despair. Neither of these extreme emotions is warranted based on the landmark 2003 report of the National Emphysema Treatment Trial. Terrence Trow analyzes the data and its conclusions. It is quite likely that the principle behind LVRS will be expanded in the future for less invasive approaches. Andrew Chan and Roblee Allen review the topic of severe bronchiolitis obliterans both in the post-organ transplant and nontransplant settings. Although this topic was reviewed in recent years, since then there have been refinements in noninvasive diagnostic methods such as pulmonary function tests and high resolution computed tomography in posttransplant patients. The last two articles focus on occupational asthma. Palomo Campo, Zana Lummus, and David Bernstein update the methods used in evaluation of occupational asthma. The table they provide on the pros and cons of each test should be of practical use for clinicians. Eduard Monsó examines the causes of occupational asthma and other respiratory illnesses in greenhouse workers. I thank the authors for their contributions.

Family Secrets: Transnational Struggles among Children of Filipino Immigrants

In comparative studies of language proficiency and grades, Filipino second generation youth look relatively successful and assimilated, echoing what we know about their parents: post-1965 Filipino immigrants are predominantly middle-class, college-educated, English-speaking professionals who have integrated easily into U.S. society. Based on fieldwork in two California sites, this paper examines some of the issues and problems confronting second generation Filipino youth. “The family” seems to offer an extremely magnetic and positive basis of Filipino identity for many children of immigrants, yet it is also a deep source of stress and alienation, which for some, has led to internal struggles and extreme despair as manifested by rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. More specifically, by focusing on the gap between family ideology and practices, this paper suggests that many Filipino second generation youth struggle with an emotional transnationalism which situates them between different and often conflicting generational and locational points of reference.

Supervision for work with overdose and deliberate self harm patients — a psychodynamic approach

The anxiety of staff working alone with overdose and deliberate self harm patients can be high, and demands more recognition. In assessing and treating such patients, staff often feel that they are being required to take responsibility for someone's future in the face of an enactment of extreme despair. This article looks at one way to deal with such anxiety.