Makes Life Worth Research Articles

Emerging Subspecialties in Neurology: Neuroethics: An Emerging Career Path in Neurology.

Essential to responsible practice and progress in neurology and neuroscience research is robust engagement with associated ethical dimensions and challenges. By virtue of the privileged relationship between personhood and the brain, and the importance of properties of the nervous system to what for most makes life worth living, conditions that affect neurologic function introduce a growing host of novel ethical and philosophical issues. Rather than serving a reactionary role, it is important for neurologists to anticipate such issues and develop familiarity with ethical analysis to inform quality medical practice and to safeguard neuroscience research. The field of neuroethics is an emerging career path devoted to identifying and evaluating such issues with the aim of informing optimal clinical practice and responsible neuroscience research. This article describes the past, present, and future of neuroethics, informed by an interview with one of the field's key founders and luminaries, Dr. James Bernat, with specific focus on training and career opportunities for neurologists in training.

The Infinite Pleasure of Reading

Abstract Irene Vallejo11 has perfectly demonstrated the accuracy of Nuccio Ordine’s thesis on the usefulness of the useless. In a screenobsessed world that often destroys our serenity and the pleasure to be found in slowness, this wonderful author has found a direct line to the relevance of the ancient world and, by extension, to the world of books and many of the things they do to make life worth living. Kant distinguished between what has a price – and what has dignity.

The ICU: Ants in the Forest.

During a break between clinical rotations in medical school, I was 6 miles into a hike in Kings Canyon National Park. Surrounded by stunning scenery—expansive mountain vistas, towering forests of redwoods, and the first streams of sunlight shining on the valley dirt path—I found myself staring at a rock. Not a particularly notable rock, except for the vibrant, neon green moss growing on its side. As I leaned in to get a closer look, I watched tiny ants navigating their way through the stalks of the moss forest. Tiny step after tiny step, each fork in the road a new critical decision point in reaching their destination. They navigate their moss as I navigate the redwood forest.“Silly ants,” I thought, “they don’t even know how much more moss there is on this rock. They don’t even know that this rock is just a single rock in a whole pile of rocks set atop a mountain, which itself is a giant rock.”Flashback to my first week on my intensive care unit elective: I too felt lost in the forest that was patient care in the ICU. Surrounded by very different scenery—peaks and valleys scrolling on the ventilator screen with each patient breath, tangles of IV tubing spilling from towering poles above the bed, bands of fluorescent light reflecting on tile illuminating the path down the hall.The following series of pictures depicts my progression in thinking about patient care.Left: Feeling like the ant in the moss of day-to-day decisions: Can we decrease positive end-expiratory pressure from 10 to 8 today? Is the arterial line giving us the accurate blood pressure or should we titrate pressors based off the cuff? Should we give fluids? Or are they already volume overloaded?Center: Stepping back to their current illness trajectory: Once we get them off continuous renal replacement therapy, will they need dialysis indefinitely? How much longer will they stay in the ICU? Should we start talking about a tracheostomy at this point? What sort of cognitive recovery can they expect?Right: Seeing their life as a whole, not limited to their illness: What matters to them in life? What makes life worth living to them? Will we be able to get them home to enjoy a Sunday afternoon ice cream cone with their grandchildren? What were they looking forward to before this admission?As students/clinicians/ants, let us all humbly aspire to escape the forest within the moss to see the magnitude of scope in caring for each patient.The author thanks Pratik Pandharipande, M.D., M.S.C.I., professor of anesthesiology and surgery (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee), for his incredible teaching and thoughtful reflections during the author’s time in the intensive care unit.

The Trauma of Disregard

The Trauma of Disregard

Psychooncology 2021 - a holistic treatment concept

The article presents an organizational structure for the psycho-oncological treatment of cancer patients that is unique in Germany, in which professional therapeutic support is provided by practioners from a wide range of professions "under one roof".In addition, from the perspective of a psychooncologist, the intra-psychic processes that cancer patients can go through during their illness are described, as well as their psychooncological-psychotherapeutic treatment. The presentation is based on two case studies and a specific psychological-psychotherapeutic classification. The positive influence of a successful psycho-oncological treatment on the overall treatment compliance and thus on the comprehensive treatment success is also shown.In conclusion, it is stated that psychooncology in its best sense can help patients to recognize the value of their lives and, regardless of the time span left to live, to make life worth living. This claim requires for the psychooncological approach a holistic therapy offer, which also includes existential and trauma-oriented dimensions in the treatment.

Life meaning in a social context among formerly homeless residents of permanent supportive housing

ABSTRACT Objective: Experiencing a life of meaning is considered fundamental to “what makes life worth living,” yet investigation of life meaning among persons with lived experiences of homelessness is lacking. This study seeks to understand life meaning among formerly homeless residents of permanent supportive housing through an examination of its association with social context. Method: Data were collected through interviews with 383 persons with experience of chronic homelessness who were provided permanent supportive housing (PSH). Recruitment of participants occurred through partnerships with 26 providers of PSH in Los Angeles County, California. Multivariate logistic regression models were employed to understand association of life meaning with hypothesized social contextual variables, controlling for demographic and background characteristics. Results: Community integration and sense of belonging were significantly and positively associated with life meaning, consistent with findings from previous research involving persons not identified as experiencing homelessness. Conclusions: Findings suggest opportunities for service providers to facilitate life meaning among residents of supportive housing. Specific attention to life meaning and its social context is consistent with the World Health Organization’s position that well-being is a significant aspect of health.

Gender Differences between Cyberbullying Victimization and Meaning in Life: Roles of Fatalism and Self-Concept Clarity.

Despite widely linking cyberbullying victimization (CV) to some poorer mental health outcomes, CV also negatively impacts the internal strengths that make life worth living, such as meaning in life, which has received less attention. This study thus aimed to examine the relationship between CV and presence of meaning in life as well as the mediating roles of fatalism and self-concept clarity in this relationship. Gender differences in the mediation model were also examined. A sample of 766 Chinese junior school students (M = 13.11 years, SD = 1.19 years) completed questionnaires regarding CV, presence of meaning, self-concept clarity, and fatalism. The results revealed that CV was significantly and positively correlated with presence of meaning. Structural equation modeling indicated that self-concept clarity and fatalism completely mediated the link between CV and presence of meaning in parallel and sequential manners. The multigroup analysis further showed that CV was positively related to fatalism only among girls and had a stronger negative association with self-concept clarity for girls compared with boys. Thus, the indirect link between CV and presence of meaning was stronger for girls (versus boys). Findings suggested that CV was associated with poor self-concept clarity, stronger fatalism, and low levels of presence of meaning in life among adolescents, especially for girls. Increasing self-concept clarity and decreasing fatalistic beliefs are thus necessary to help cyberbullying victims to develop meaning in life.

Meaning of Life: A Perspective of Javanese Local Wisdom

Meaning is the main element needed to achieve happiness; including the meaning of life. In many studies, meaning of life is defined in terms of purpose, significance, or a multifaceted construct. One of the empirical reviews that is still necessitated in the study of meaning of life is the one which focuses on significance. This article attempts to provide answers to this question according to the perspective of the local wisdom of the Samin tribe as a part of the Javanese tribe. The Samin tribe is the name presented to the community that adheres to a doctrine in regards to “laku” or behavior that is believed to be taught by Samin Surosentiko. In other words, they are also known as “Sedulur Sikep”. Historically it can be traced that their presence was closely related to the passive resistance to the Dutch colonial government that colonized Indonesia around the 19th century. For the Samin tribe, there are no colonial laws. Instead, there are only laws of action, speech and necessity, which include not committing crimes, not arguing, not fighting, not having jealousy, not coveting or stealing, and not lying or slandering. The Samin tribe teaches these values to their generation because they believe that if they behave and act based on these values, they will live happily. The technique used is referred to as “kanda/pitutur” or giving advice by giving examples. This study used a qualitative approach in the form of phenomenology to understand the personal dimensions of the subject’s subjective experience on the meaning of the values of kanda/pitutur of sedulur sikep. The data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations on the Samin people. The data were analyzed in three stages, which were phenomenological reduction, eidetic reduction, and transcendental reduction. The results of this study provide a description of the reasons that make life worth living; as a transformation of the significance of meaning of life. The cognitive dimension as an evaluative component is related to self-acceptance, self-control, productive attitudes, autonomy, and positive relationships and harmonization with fellow living beings. In addition, there are also the affective and motivational dimensions shown.

Editor's Introduction: The Arts and Humanities in a Democracy

Editor's Introduction: The Arts and Humanities in a Democracy

The manifestation of death as seen in Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air: A psychological approach

When Breath Becomes Air was written by Paul Kalanithi. Death is the major thing discussed in the novel. This research investigated the manifestation of death in the novel When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Perspective and attitude are the manifestation of death. It gives an impact on the main character’s life. The research proves that someone who is dying will experience a change of feeling and develop two attitudes (positive and negative). Negative attitudes include kind’s fear of death, and the positive attitudes are about what makes life worth living in spite of suffering and death anxiety.

Introduction: The University We Want

Introduction: The University We Want Timothy Shenk (bio) It’s over, kind of. After more than a year of Zoom purgatory, millions of Americans—students, faculty, administrators, and all the workers who make a modern university run—are heading back to campus. In this special section of Dissent, we take a close look at the world they’re returning to as higher education stumbles beyond the pandemic. That starts by acknowledging that much of academia today looks the same as it did in March 2020, except with more people wearing masks. Universities are still trying to squeeze every last bit of tuition revenue out of students, whether it’s cash-strapped publics making up for cuts in state funding, ivy-covered privates looking to add an extra billion to the endowment, or for-profits grifting while they can. Deans and sub-deans keep proliferating, while the ranks of the tenured dwindle, adjunctification marches onward, and graduate students ask what they’re supposed to do next. All the old political battles are waiting to be picked back up, only everyone is angrier than they were eighteen months ago, and journalists need to fill a Trump-sized gap in pageviews. It’s as if they all spent the pandemic at home working on their tinderboxes. Now they’re back together waiting to see who remembered the match. Contemplating this gloomy scene, it’s easy to forget that higher education is more than the sum of its scandals. For a country with a reputation of anti-intellectualism, the United States invests an enormous amount in its colleges. And for institutions that are supposed to traffic in the higher things, universities offer an attractive return on the investment. Along with hospitals, they anchor an economy built on eds and meds. They’re incubators for the technologies shaping our lives, from the fetal monitors tracking an unborn child’s heartbeat to the computers that will ruin the poor kid’s brain. They brew ideas that take over political debate: hello, critical race theory. More than ever, they’re where Democrats—and socialists—are made. And they’re still the envy of the world, one of the few pillars standing in the crumbling edifice of American global hegemony—like Hollywood for nerds. Although views on the relative merits of all this will vary, the scale of the thing can’t be denied. [End Page 17] So we won’t try to. Instead, this section will take the beast apart piece by piece. A symposium featuring Tressie McMillan Cottom, Maggie Doherty, Christopher Newfield, Adam Harris, and Nils Gilman takes stock of the changes wrought by the pandemic. Jennifer Mittelstadt and Ian Gavigan explore the prospects for industrial-style organizing within the university, considering what it would take to bind students and all university workers together into a coherent movement. Davarian Baldwin surveys the political economy of higher education in a conversation with Sam Klug. Lyra Walsh Fuchs examines a new frontier in college activism: pathbreaking efforts by feminists to bring the principles of restorative justice to cases of sexual harm while ensuring safety for all. Mike Rose details the obstacles preventing students at community colleges—especially working-class, first-generation students—from turning their education into a tool for social mobility. Michael Kazin and I reflect on the politics of higher education from two sides of the generational divide. And Lucia Geng makes her debut as Dissent’s first college columnist with a report on the strengths and limits of a mutual aid movement that flourished among students during lockdown. Taken as a whole, the section offers a bracing assessment of the state of higher education: clear-eyed in its analysis of the challenges ahead, but unwilling to give up on the possibility of meaningful reform. It’s a section for anyone who has seen how rarely universities live up to their own stated ideals, and how easy it is to twist high-minded arguments into rationales for exploitation. It’s also a section for anyone who believes in what universities could be: a community devoted to human flourishing, where students are invited to join a vital conversation about what makes life worth living. Welcome back to...

Humans in the Loop: Learning to Trust in AI but to What Extent?

Spontaneity makes life worth living. If we had all the answers to every question and could accurately predict the result of our actions and choices before embarking on a particular path into the future, human life would be substantially different—some might even say boring. The fact that we must strive through things ourselves, make mistakes, and learn from them, provides a certain level of freedom that none of us should take for granted. It was not that long ago that we would get into a car with a street directory on our laps, excited to explore a new route for the first time, instead of just delegating our route selection to the shortest path algorithm and relying on it to get us to our destination. While we are all grateful for the ease with which we can now navigate the world, there is an opportunity cost generated by an augmentation–automation paradox.

Grit and Flow as Prescriptions for Self-Actualization

Psychology as a discipline has historically focused on psychopathology and associated evidence-based modalities to alleviate symptoms of mental illness and distress. In recent decades, however, there has been a shift towards studying the positive aspects of human experience that make life worth living. This Positive Psychological perspective was utilized by Humanistic Psychologist Abraham Maslow when he created his theory of Self-Actualization, in which he postulated that the highest aim a person can strive towards is to become the absolute best version of themselves, and to maximize their abilities and potential to the highest possible degree. Aside from describing a hierarchy of needs required before Self-Actualization could be realized, Maslow left little recommendation for how the phenomenon could be enacted. This article recommends the combined utilization of the non-cognitive trait of Grit along with the implementation of activities that promote the full-immersion state of Flow as prescriptions for Self-Actualization. Additional emphasis is placed on the importance of healthcare professionals utilizing the concepts Grit and Flow in their clinical practice with patients.

Care Is A Basic Human Right

Care Is A Basic Human Right

Repugnance and Perfection

Repugnance and Perfection

The emotion of joy: commentary on Johnson

ABSTRACTIn this contribution, I push for a deeper understanding of the emotion of joy as compared to happiness and to other discrete positive emotions, by specifying its appraisals and functions. I suggest that joy connects us to our core identity, values, and priorities. It is the emotion that makes life worth living in the moment. I further discuss the distinction between an objective versus subjective account of instances of joy, a distinction I find important to bear in mind when dealing with morally problematic cases of joy. Finally, I discuss points of connection between the psychologies of joy and religion and suggest multiple lines of future research.

Does the Time Trade-Off Method Reflect Health-Related Quality of Life? A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Preference Measures 10 Years After Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

To investigate if the time trade-off (TTO) method reflects health-related quality of life (HRQoL) 10 years after an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). A cross-sectional study with a mixed-methods approach was used to follow up 208 patients treated for aSAH. Data were collected with intramethod mixing; the quantitative data consisted of the EQ-5D-3L instrument and a TTO question, and the qualitative data comprised motivations to the TTO answer. The quantitative data were analyzed statistically and comparisons were made between participants willing to trade off years and those not willing to trade off years. The qualitative data were merged in a matrix and analyzed with manifest content analysis. Participants willing to trade off years scored significantly lower HRQoL, and the correlation between EQ-5Dindex and EQ VAS to TTO values were rs= 0.369 (P < 0.001) and rs= 0.345 (P < 0.001), respectively. In the content analysis, 4 categories emerged: perceived full health or satisfactory life; adaptability and managing strategies; the importance of hope and meaning in life; and unacceptable changes do not make life worth living. The results showed that several reasons other than health status were evident when expressing the willingness to trade off or not trade off life-years. Individuals willing to trade off years showed significantly poorer HRQoL; however the TTO method did not seem to fully reflect HRQoL. Most participants did not want to trade off years, despite their living with severe disability, making it difficult to fully rely on the TTO method in evaluation of medical outcome.

Democracy and the Nietzschean Pathos of Distance

In this paper I discuss the Nietzschean notion of a pathos of distance, which some democratic theorists would like to recruit in the service of a democratic ethos. Recently their efforts have been criticized on the basis that the Nietzschean pathos of distance involves an aristocratic attitude of essentializing contempt towards the common man that is incompatible with the democratic demand to accord everyone equal respect and dignity. I argue that this criticism is misguided and that the pathos in question involves encouraging the fl ourishing of higher types that give meaning and justification to the social order. For Nietzsche, the experience of living under a society that is thus organized leads to the psychological demand to search for spiritual states within a person that can make life worth living. I conclude by considering whether, so conceived, the pathos of distance is compatible with democracy.

Dreaming a Better World through Literature: Positive Psychology in the Select Short Stories of Humayun Ahmed

Humayun Ahmed has been instrumental in guiding readership in Bangladesh with his profuse literary works for over forty years. He enjoyed in his life time and is still enjoying after death consistently unchallenged highest popularity. His acceptance among the readers specially the youth is due to his deeper understanding of the socio-cultural situations of post-independent Bangladesh and psyche of the people in general specifically the town dwelling middle class. His major focus in his writings is to bring out the lighter and brighter part to make life worth of living in every situation irrespective of its gravity. Both his novels and short stories stimulate a happier mood and purer mind through bringing out the positive aspects of life. This widely recognized area of Humayun goes well with the youngest branch of psychological studies, positive psychology. This paper is an attempt to study Humayun Ahmed's select short stories from the view point of positive psychology.

Japanese Men’s Embodied Culinary and Eating Practices: Health, Bodyweight Control, and the Male Self

This article presents the outcomes of interview with a group of Japanese men to unveil how bodyweight control was connected to their embodied culinary and eating practices. Aged 24 years to 56 years, participants were from Tokyo and Osaka. Eight of the men identified themselves as “slim-muscular” and one as “beefy.” Nine of them have been called “chubby” and two have been requested to lose weight. Grounded in symbolic interactionism, biopedagogy, gender, and emotion are the three axes used to present the analysis. Participants produced their own version of biopedagogy largely relying on the vegetablization of cooking to cope with healthism and sizeism entrenched in Japanese society. Some cooking and eating practices were underpinned by a pathological relation with food, others represented embodied masculinized practices connected to a recreational viewpoint of food and cooking. Cooking and eating delicious food represented an embodied “happy male self” and the meaning of “what makes life worth living.”