Intense Emotional Experiences Research Articles

Дослідження взаємозв’язку особливостей психоемоційного здоров’я з даними життєдіяльності у молоді.

The article analyzes the problem of the uniqueness of psycho-emotional health of the individual during adoles-cence. The leading components of this phenomenon are outlined. The expediency of considering the construct "psycho-emotional health" as an independent subject of research is substantiated. Psycho-emotional health is understood by us as an integrative property of the individual that has lifelong (unparalleled) value due to the determinism of the search for meaning of life. It characterizes the personality as a whole, its psychological resourcefulness, determining the ability to develop own subjectivity in today's changing world. It has different rates of formation, quality scales, due to the indi-vidual's ability to self-development at different ages. This is especially evident in adolescence, when it is believed that all scientifically established dimensions of the emotional sphere of the human psyche become clear (self-creation of emotions; sign, modality, intensity of emotional experiences; available vector of emotional personal readiness; dimen-sion of emotional self-knowledge; ability to spiritual experiences). Construction of the construct "psycho-emotional health" creates an opportunity to fully comprehend it as a psychological phenomenon and personal property, which integrates all the established components of the emotional sphere - value-motivational, informative-reflexive. In addi-tion, we are talking about psycho-emotional health as a complex and, at the same time, holistic personal education that accumulates regulatory-adaptive and active potential. Psychological mechanisms of positive dynamics of psycho-emotional health of an individual are identification, emotional self-regulation, reflection, empathy, imitation, mental infection. The results of analytical work aimed at clarifying the component composition (axiological, cognitive-affective, conative-instrumental, social-determinative) and scales of levels of psycho-emotional health of the individual in adulthood (subjective - predictive-creative; personal - adaptive-program; social - similar-adaptive; individual – psy-cho-emotional ill health). The originality of the author's questionnaire and some parallel methods aimed at establishing links between students' psycho-emotional health and vitality, indicators of stress resistance, depression, and subjective feelings of loneliness are highlighted. The results of factor analysis, which determine the dynamics of the processes of self-knowledge, self-preservation, self-recovery and strengthening the psycho-emotional health of students, in particu-lar, in higher education are identified.

Predator fear memory depends on glucocorticoid receptors and protein synthesis in the basolateral amygdala and ventral hippocampus

Previous studies have suggested that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and the ventral hippocampus (VH) are critical sites for predator-related fear memory. Predator exposure is an intense emotional experience and should increase plasmatic corticosterone likely to modulate the emotion-related memories. However, it is unclear whether the BLA and VH harbor plastic events underlying predator-related fear memory storage and how molecular and endocrine mechanisms interact to modulate memory to the predatory threat. Here, we first examined the effects of protein synthesis inhibition in the BLA and VH on fear memory to a predatory threat. We next evaluated how exposure to a predatory threat impacts the corticosterone release and how the inhibition of corticosterone synthesis can influence predator-related fear memory. Finally, we examined how predator exposure triggers the activation of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors in the BLA and VH and whether the GR antagonist injection affects predator-related fear memory. We showed that predator-related contextual fear is dependent on protein synthesis in the BLA and VH. Moreover, we described the impact of rapid glucocorticoid release during predatory exposure on the formation of contextual fear responses and that GR-induced signaling facilitates memory consolidation within the BLA and VH. The results are relevant in understanding how life-threatening situations such as a predator encounter impact fear memory storage and open exciting perspectives to investigate GR-induced proteins as targets to deciphering and manipulating aversive memories.

The "Sickness" Memory: Can Patients With Alzheimer Disease Remember the Diagnosis Announcement?

Diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD) can cause substantial psychological distress in patients. We thus assessed how patients with AD remember the announcement of diagnosis. We recruited 47 participants with mild AD (26 women; M age=68.89 y, SD=7.37; M years of formal education=9.74, SD=3.00). We invited the participants to remember the moment when their clinicians announced their diagnosis, within 6 months of the event, as well as a control memory, over the same period. We analyzed memory retrieval regarding specificity, as well as the subjective experience of retrieval (ie, regarding mental time travel, visual imagery, emotion and importance). No significant differences were observed between memory of diagnosis and control memory regarding specificity, mental time travel and visual imagery. However, memory of diagnosis triggered a more intense emotional experience and feeling of importance than control memory. Retrieval of the diagnosis announcement can activate a strong emotional and personally important experience in patients with AD. When remembering the diagnosis announcement, patients with AD may re-experience some features of that turning point in which they shift from "person" to "patient."

Schwartz Centre Rounds: qualitative exploration of panel members' experiences within a forensic mental health service.

Schwartz Centre Rounds (SCRs) provide a structured forum for staff from all disciplines to meet and discuss the difficult emotional and social challenges that arise in caring for patients. Research into the implementation of SCRs has shown that staff who attend report increased insight into the emotional and social aspects of care; greater understanding of the roles of their colleagues; improved teamworking and decreased feelings of isolation and stress. However, little research has explored the implementation of SCRs within forensic settings, and no research has focused solely on the experiences of panel members. Three focus groups were facilitated with participants who had participated in a SCR panel within a forensic mental health service. Semi-structured interviews were carried out, audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was utilised to analyse the transcripts, and four key themes were identified. These themes were: feeling vulnerable, the importance of validation, exposure to intense emotional experiences and improved understanding and connection. We conclude that SCRs can be an emotionally challenging but rewarding experience, with the potential to enhance teamworking and general well-being. Limitations and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Welfare solidaristico nel sistema delle relazioni educative

The Covid-19 Pandemic effects invites us to reflect and rethink of our model of welfare state. What type of welfare model? The content of this contribution is to suggest a different point of view on welfare, through a supportive, generative and pedagogical approach, renewed attention on inequalities from a prospective of inclusion, sustainability and care of human beings. Forced isolation induced by COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted individuals' well-being, isolation, pain, loneliness and shock has raised awareness of the essential values both on men and women, the importance of inclusiveness and pedagogical generativity. It can be said that this was in some ways a spiritual experience, helpful in rediscovering humanity in man, which recalled that ex malo bonum, good can come from something bad, but, as St. Augustine himself argued: bad moments can bring out the good "if you work on it", consciously. It is by working exactly on this awareness, without refusing this intense emotional experience of change, that can be found the pedagogical transformative space and the role of educational relations and of the educator in the welfare system; a new idea of ​​governance of capacities, an opportunity for the development of a welfare society for the well-being of individuals and Communities.

Acute ischemic stroke after enjoying Top of Europe.

Sudden onset of disturbed consciousness, neurocognitive deficits, and weakness of the proximal limbs are typical findings of a watershed stroke. Occurrence after an intense emotional experience and electrocardiogram changes are hints toward the rare cause of stroke of a takotsubo cardiomyopathy, even more if the stroke pattern is embolic.

Autistic traits predict underestimation of emotional abilities.

People vary in their self-awareness of their own emotions, and this may predict psychological well-being. Evidence suggests that emotional self-awareness is diminished in autism, but these findings may be biased by self-report or confounded by verbal intelligence. To address this issue, we developed the emotional consistency (EC) task, measuring emotional self-awareness through consistency in emotional decision-making. In the EC-Task, we showed participants pairs of emotional images, asking them to judge which evoked the more intense emotional experience. The logical consistency of decision making, based on transitive relationships between stimuli, reflects precision of judgment of experience of emotional intensity, which in turn reflects emotional self-awareness. Emotional consistency significantly correlated with lower self-reported alexithymia but not autistic traits. Instead, autistic traits predicted greater discrepancy between EC-Task performance and self-reported difficulties identifying feelings. Participants with higher autistic traits were more likely to underestimate their emotional self-awareness, possibly because of greater metacognitive difficulties and negative self-beliefs. Our study suggests emotional self-awareness is not diminished in autism and provides a novel method to investigate this issue. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Molecular and Functional Imaging Studies of Psychedelic Drug Action in Animals and Humans.

Hallucinogens are a loosely defined group of compounds including LSD, N,N-dimethyltryptamines, mescaline, psilocybin/psilocin, and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methamphetamine (DOM), which can evoke intense visual and emotional experiences. We are witnessing a renaissance of research interest in hallucinogens, driven by increasing awareness of their psychotherapeutic potential. As such, we now present a narrative review of the literature on hallucinogen binding in vitro and ex vivo, and the various molecular imaging studies with positron emission tomography (PET) or single photon emission computer tomography (SPECT). In general, molecular imaging can depict the uptake and binding distribution of labelled hallucinogenic compounds or their congeners in the brain, as was shown in an early PET study with N1-([11C]-methyl)-2-bromo-LSD ([11C]-MBL); displacement with the non-radioactive competitor ketanserin confirmed that the majority of [11C]-MBL specific binding was to serotonin 5-HT2A receptors. However, interactions at serotonin 5HT1A and other classes of receptors and pleotropic effects on second messenger pathways may contribute to the particular experiential phenomenologies of LSD and other hallucinogenic compounds. Other salient aspects of hallucinogen action include permeability to the blood–brain barrier, the rates of metabolism and elimination, and the formation of active metabolites. Despite the maturation of radiochemistry and molecular imaging in recent years, there has been only a handful of PET or SPECT studies of radiolabeled hallucinogens, most recently using the 5-HT2A/2C agonist N-(2[11CH3O]-methoxybenzyl)-2,5-dimethoxy- 4-bromophenethylamine ([11C]Cimbi-36). In addition to PET studies of target engagement at neuroreceptors and transporters, there is a small number of studies on the effects of hallucinogenic compounds on cerebral perfusion ([15O]-water) or metabolism ([18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose/FDG). There remains considerable scope for basic imaging research on the sites of interaction of hallucinogens and their cerebrometabolic effects; we expect that hybrid imaging with PET in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) should provide especially useful for the next phase of this research.

Dear Self: On Writing the Clinical Experience

ABSTRACT In this article, the author describes how her sensitive receptivity to the projections of others leaves her vulnerable to emotional resonances that are difficult to process. While supervision helps, writing facilitates the integration and metabolization of intense emotional experience in a different, more stabilizing way. The author reflects on an experience-near example of the writing that grounds her, demonstrating how the timelessness of primary process is transformed. Writing structures the passage of time and creates a relationship between the feeling self, the writing self, and readers.

Experiences of women undergoing infertility treatment from embryo transfer until pregnancy test and their conceptualization of their embryo

Aim This study aims to explore women’s experiences with embryo transfer (ET) until pregnancy test and their conceptualization of their embryo. Method The sample of this descriptive phenomenology study consists of 17 women with ET. The data were collected through in-depth interviews. The thematic analysis developed by Braun and Clarke was used for data analysis. Results Analysis of the interviews led to the emergence of five themes and 14 sub-themes. The theme “pregnancy in biological terms” has two sub-themes: “considering herself pregnant” and “the first moment with the baby”. The theme “not an embryo, my child” has three sub-themes: “world of hope”, “ unnatural but normal” and “attachment to embryo”. The theme “daily life after ET” has three sub-themes: “living life in the usual way”, “process of self-listening”, and “the negative effects of drugs on the body”. The theme “seeking ways to ensure fertility” has four sub-themes: “complete bed rest”, “the search for information: the internet”, “practice an infertility diet” and “spiritual support with prayer”. Finally, the theme “caring after the transfer” has two sub-themes: “need more information” and “unmet women-oriented care”. Conclusion In this study, it was determined that women had intense physical and emotional experiences during the waiting period after ET and their daily lives were affected. It was also understood that the embryo means "baby/child/son/daughter" to them and that they establish a close bond with their embryos. Women’s needs are not sufficiently known until post-ET pregnancy testing. Explaining the experiences of women after IVF-ET and the meanings of their embryo will help determine the issues they need in holistic care.

THE CHALLENGES OF I-SPLITTING OR ICHSPALTUNG FOR THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF EDITH STEIN AND GERDA WALTHER

The phenomenon of I-splitting or Ichspaltung poses many challenges for phenomenology. In particular, one wonders how one and the same I can perform different acts while preserving its disinterested autonomy and identity. Moreover, as the I moves from the natural attitude to the phenomenological one, phenomenologists like Husserl defend the purity of the transcendental I to grasp the sense of what its lives. How can the I move from one attitude to the next without being affected or conditioned by the acts carried out and content seized by the I in both attitudes? For example, one wonders how trauma or intense emotional experiences may affect the transcendental or phenomenological I, if at all. Edith Stein and Gerda Walther are read here as deepening the problem of I-splitting, for they introduce a form of it that is not merely defined by the undertaking of different acts of consciousness, for example, the move from the natural to the phenomenological attitude; rather, they describe lived experiences in which the very fundamental unity of the individual, personal I is challenged or negated through intense forms of sociality and intersubjectivity achieved in community and telepathy as well as ruptures in the constitutive unity of persons through soullessness. I argue here that these phenomena seriously challenge not only the unity of I experience but also phenomenology’s claim of the capacity of a pure and absolute ego to grasp philosophically and scientifically the objective sense of its investigations.

Emotions, Planning and Co-production: Distrust, Anger and Fear at Participatory Boundaries in Bengaluru

Emotions relationally and performatively constitute the very boundaries that distinguish the subject from the other(s). The urban human in India is affectively constituted by many intense emotional experiences of everyday life. Adopting a participation view of planning and drawing from Sarah Ahmed (2014, The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh University Press), we examine ‘what emotions do’ in the planning and participatory atmospheres (Buser, 2014, Planning Theory, vol. 13, pp. 227–243) in Bangalore. Tracing emotional content embedded in participations and non-participations, we demonstrate how distrust, anger and fear co-produced the process and outcomes of the 2031 Master Plan of Bangalore. We join the few emerging scholars that call attention to the emotional geographies of planning, particularly to be able to transform the continuing colonial urban management practice in the postcolonial world to that of planning. Planning, we argue, has to involve participation, in which emotions, we demonstrate, are the connective tissue (Newman, 2012, Critical Policy Studies, vol. 6, pp. 465–479).

An exploration of the emotional experience of BASE jumping

BASE jumping is an extreme sport, where participants jump from fixed objects and deploy a parachute to land safely. The aim of this study was to explore the emotions that BASE jumpers experience and determine what role and impact these emotions may play for participants. Twenty male BASE jumpers with at least 10 jumps and 3 months of participation in the sport were interviewed, and thematic analysis was undertaken. Participants reported intense emotional experiences of fear, flow and thrill. These emotional states influenced how they negotiate and make meaning in their sport. The experience of fear may become normalised, whilst flow and thrill may lead to an escalation of risk taking. Participants rationalised their participation in such a dangerous sport and emotional dissonance emerged as denial and guilt. Emotions may at times negatively impact risk taking and decision making, while flow and thrill can encourage ongoing participation.

Nursing Students' Experiences of Clinical Practices in Emergency and Intensive Care Units.

Clinical practices are key environments for skill acquisition during the education of nursing students, where it is important to encourage reflective learning. This study sought to explore the experience of final year nursing students during their clinical placement in emergency and intensive care units and to identify whether differences exist between female and male students. Using qualitative methodology, a documentary analysis of 28 reflective learning journals was carried out at a public university in Northern Spain. Four themes were identified: “an intense emotional experience”, “the importance of attitudes over and above techniques”, “identifying with nurses who dominate their environment and are close to the patient in complex and dehumanized units” and “how to improve care in critically ill patients and how to support their families”. The female students displayed a more emotional and reflective experience, with a strong focus on patient care, whereas male students identified more with individual aspects of learning and the organization and quality of the units. Both male and female students experienced intense emotions, improved their learning in complex environments and acquired attitudes linked to the humanization of care. However, the experience of these clinical rotations was different between female and male students.

Wybrane cechy osobowości a dysfunkcjonalna regulacja emocji jako czynnik ryzyka nadciśnienia tętniczego

<p>W artykule przedstawiono przegląd badań o roli stresu, wybranych czynników psychologicznych i dysfunkcjonalnej regulacji emocji w rozwoju nadciśnienia tętniczego (NT). Zgodnie z psychogennymi poglądami na etiologię NT dysfunkcjonalna regulacja emocji odgrywa kluczową rolę w patogenezie NT i jest jego czynnikiem ryzyka. Najbardziej charakterystycznymi cechami psychologicznymi chorych na NT są: lęk, niektóre wymiary aleksytymii, nieadaptacyjny charakter reakcji na sytuacje stresujące, tłumione emocje, sztywne postawy wobec siebie i świata. Dysfunkcjonalna regulacja emocji wyraża się w niezdolności do szybkiego odzyskiwania równowagi emocjonalnej i bardziej intensywnym przeżywaniu emocjonalnym przez chorych na NT znaczących dla nich sytuacji. Wskazano, że badania cech osobowości chorych na NT są sprzeczne, a izolowane badanie cech osobowości bez uwzględnienia ich związku z innymi zjawiskami o charakterze somatycznym lub psychicznym ma niewielkie znaczenie w celu zrozumienia patogenetycznych mechanizmów rozwoju NT. Przedstawiono też pewne refleksje na temat zdrowia duchowego i jego związku z NT. Ponadto zaproponowano sposoby dalszych badań nad regulacją emocji u osób z NT, które należy przeprowadzić z perspektywy jedności „predyspozycja biologiczna – osobowość – sytuacja”.</p>

Virtual experience, real consequences: the potential negative emotional consequences of virtual reality gameplay

As virtual reality (VR) technology enters mainstream markets, it is imperative that we understand its potential impacts on users, both positive and negative. In the present paper, we build on the extant literature’s focus on the physical side effects of VR gameplay (e.g., cybersickness) by focusing on VR’s potential to intensify users’ experiences of negative emotions. We first conducted a preliminary survey to assess users’ emotional responses during VR gameplay, with the results suggesting that certain VR situations can in fact produce intense negative emotional experiences. We then designed an interactive scenario intended to elicit low to moderate amounts of negative emotion, wherein participants played out the scenario in either VR (using the HTC Vive) or on a laptop computer. Compared to the participants who enacted the scenario on the laptop, those in the VR condition reported higher levels of absorption, which in turn increased the intensity of their negative emotional response to the scenario. A follow-up questionnaire administered several hours later revealed that the intensified negative emotions resulting from VR had a significant positive correlation with negative rumination (i.e., harmful self-related thoughts related to distress). These results show that VR gameplay has the potential to elicit strong negative emotional responses that could be harmful for users if not managed properly. We discuss the practical and policy implications of our findings.

Emotionotopy in the human right temporo-parietal cortex

Humans use emotions to decipher complex cascades of internal events. However, which mechanisms link descriptions of affective states to brain activity is unclear, with evidence supporting either local or distributed processing. A biologically favorable alternative is provided by the notion of gradient, which postulates the isomorphism between functional representations of stimulus features and cortical distance. Here, we use fMRI activity evoked by an emotionally charged movie and continuous ratings of the perceived emotion intensity to reveal the topographic organization of affective states. Results show that three orthogonal and spatially overlapping gradients encode the polarity, complexity and intensity of emotional experiences in right temporo-parietal territories. The spatial arrangement of these gradients allows the brain to map a variety of affective states within a single patch of cortex. As this organization resembles how sensory regions represent psychophysical properties (e.g., retinotopy), we propose emotionotopy as a principle of emotion coding.

Muerte en la Catedral: Cenizas y ritos funerarios en los campos de fútbol

Un aspecto principal de los ritos funerarios y las prácticas mortuorias modernas y occidentales ha sido un desplazamiento de ubicaciones religiosas-institucionales a otras seculares-privadas. Sin embargo, algunas respuestas performativas, como esparcir las cenizas de los aficionados difuntos en estadios deportivos, continúan definiendo la muerte como una relación social emplazada en un sistema cultural de obligaciones simbólicas más amplio. Los esparcidos de cenizas en los estadios son actos de los que se cree que tendrán consecuencias para el futuro de la comunidad. Hay tres factores que convierten los estadios en emplazamientos pertinentes para la re-ritualización de la muerte: emoción, identidad, e iconicidad. Las intensas experiencias emocionales, la tradición familiar, las narrativas colectivas y el poder transformador del espacio liminal permiten a los aficionados imaginar su propia transición de muerto a vivo, y su presencia continua en el orden social.

Different Aspects of Emotional Awareness in Relation to Motor Cognition and Autism Traits

Emotion is inherently embodied, formulated through bodily sensation, as well as expressed and regulated through action. Both expressing one’s own emotions and understanding the emotional actions of others are common areas of difficulty in autism. Moreover, reduced emotional awareness is also thought to be problematic in autism, and such difficulties may be mediated by impaired motor cognition. We aimed to examine how intensity of emotional experience and ability to differentiate between one’s own emotions relates to motor empathy and autistic traits. We hypothesized that greater motor cognition would be associated with greater emotional intensity and more refined emotion differentiation. Participants from the general population (N = 160) completed the Actions and Feelings Questionnaire (AFQ), a self-report measure assessing motor cognition, alongside the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire and an emotion elicitation task. Motor cognition was significantly associated with more intense emotional experiences but not with ability to differentiate between similar emotions. Autistic traits, particularly social aloofness, predicted less emotion differentiation and lower scores on the animation subscale of the AFQ. We suggest that whereas as intensity of experience may be dependent on sensorimotor representation of emotions, differentiation requires additional cognitive functions such as language understanding. A dissociation between awareness of intensity and differentiation may be critical for understanding emotional difficulties in autism.

Bordering on the bipolar: a review of criteria for ICD-11 and DSM-5 persistent mood disorders

SUMMARYThe principal manuals for psychiatric diagnosis have recently been updated (ICD-11 was released in June 2018 and DSM-5 was published in 2013). A common diagnostic quandary is the classification of people with chronic low mood, especially those with repeated self-harm (‘emotionally unstable’ or ‘borderline’ personality disorder). There has been a great interest in use of type II bipolar affective disorder (‘bipolar II disorder’) as a less pejorative diagnostic alternative to ‘personality disorder’, despite the radically different treatment options for these disorders. DSM-5 (but not ICD-11) clearly distinguishes between borderline personality disorder and bipolar II disorder, indicating that intense emotional experiences (such as anger, panic or despair; irritability; anxiety) should persist for only a few hours in people with a personality disorder. Both manuals now use the term ‘borderline personality disorder’ rather than ‘emotionally unstable personality disorder’. The diagnostic criteria for cyclothymic disorder remain confusing.LEARNING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this article you will be able to: •appreciate the key differences in diagnostic classification between persistent mood disorders: bipolar II disorder, borderline personality disorder and dysthymia•be aware of the modest differences between ICD-10, ICD-11 and DSM-5 in diagnostic criteria for these disorders•appreciate that intense emotional experiences need persist for only a few hours to meet criteria for DSM-5 borderline personality disorder and that persistent emotional dysregulation (e.g. irritability, impulsiveness, disinhibition) for a few days meets criteria for DSM-5 bipolar II disorder.