Personal Life Experiences Research Articles

His master’s voice: Carl Rogers’ verbal response modes in therapy and demonstration sessions throughout his career. A quantitative analysis and some qualitative-clinical comments

ABSTRACTWe present an empirical analysis of session transcripts we have from the different phases of Carl Rogers’ career: Ohio 1940–41; Chicago 1945–1957; Wisconsin 1958–1960; La Jolla 1965–77 and Workshop demonstrations 1980–86. This is done with an adapted and further differentiated ‘Hill Counselor Verbal Response Modes Category System’. On the basis of quantitative data and some qualitative-clinical comments the following questions are focused on: What types of responses does Rogers make and to what extent? What strikes us as responses he almost never makes? Did he change over the years? What are the idiosyncratic characteristics of his reflections of feelings, of the way in which he confronts and gives feedback, of his personal task-related process comments, of his expressed relational here-and-now feelings, of his disclosures of personal life experiences …? To what degree and in what sense are his responses ‘experiential’ and process-differential …? As to the issue of non-directivity, we make a distinction between process-directivity, content-directivity and client-centeredness.

Race and Class: Are They Social Constructs or Ontologically Real and How Are They Related? (A View From the Bottom Up)

This paper is a conceptual analysis of race and class. It begins as a contemplation of my personal life experience with both varying from my white trash emigrant beginnings to my Ivy League education. I then go on to an analytic contemplation of the past meanings of race and class, their present use and usefulness, and the future use and usefulness of these concepts. I argue that social class distinctions are a necessary attribute of any modern Technological Society just as they have always been a necessary aspect of all past civilizations. The only new attribute of class struggle that Technological Society creates is its ability to isolate individuals in the lower classes from any social bonding with others in their class and thus potentially ends class struggle and makes present ruling class ideology permanent thus resulting in the death of history. However, the death of history is not the end of history. I argue that such death may not be a bad thing given the material benefits and power Technological Society creates for humanity's need to explore, discover, and conquer the universe. I argue that race distinctions will continue to be used and be usefulness as a means to maintain class distinctions and as a business model for profit. In modern Technological Society, the humanities act solely as a means for normative power. Distinctions such as race serve both as a means to keep individuals in the lower classes isolated and unable to struggle together and as a means for monetary profit by those humanities holding normative power.

‘The body is a battleground for unwanted and unexpressed emotions’: exploring eating disorders and the role of emotional intelligence

ABSTRACTEmotional difficulties have been observed in individuals with eating disorders across awide range of studies, including poor interoceptive awareness, confusion of emotional states and difficulties with emotional language. Literature has linked these difficulties with emotional functioning as being an important factor related to the core aetiology ofeating disorders, however limited knowledge exists to how this impacts on professionalability to engage patients within treatment as a result of such dysfunction. Using aqualitative design this paper explores how facets of Emotional intelligence (EI) are related to the experience of an eating disorder. The study sampled a total of 32 participants with either a professional background working with eating disorders (n=27)or participants with personal lived experience (n=5), with a number of the participants (n=13) identified as having dual roles. The findings of the study show that aspects of EIsuch as emotional regulation and lack of an emotional language are considered to beat the core of the onset and maintenance of these disorders. Additional aspects of emotional awareness and expression were found to be related to treatment disengagement and difficulties. Building on previous literature, this paper found suchemotional deficits as a transdiagnostic issue rather than specifically anorexia nervosa. Furthermore, such dysfunction was seen by professionals to have a considerable impact on therapeutic relationships and successful treatment. These findings provide insight into the potential applications that EI may have in addressing aspects of theeating disorder to create better outcomes for treatment and intervention models.

FORMATION OF THE SCENICALLY-SHAPED CULTURE OF FUTURE TEACHERS OF MUSICAL ART: METHODOLOGICAL BENCHMARKS

It is proved in the article that at the current stage of development of artistic and pedagogical education its traditional principles of development that are oriented at acquiring of knowledge, formation of experiences and skills, range of competences are established. It is defined that the new requirements are imposed on a teacher in the context of innovational approaches as follows: the modern society needs professionals who can perform professional functions and will be ready from the beginning of professional activity to manifest professionalism, competences in formation of the generation with a high level of aesthetic culture, values and ethical orientations. Methodological aspects of formation of scenically-shaped culture of future teachers of the musical art are highlighted. The concepts of methodological approaches in the context of problem formation of scenically-shaped culture of future teachers of the musical art are disclosed. It is defined that among the leading methodological approaches that determine the essence of scenically-shaped culture of a teacher of the musical art are cultural, axiological, competence-based and hermeneutic ones that enables definition of the corresponding professionally- meaningful quality, professional competence that allow a specialist to master the content of a musical composition as a particular cultural phenomenon, to consider it as synthesis of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic experience of humankind on the basis of interpretation of its artistic and sense dimension to build its scenic image and to relay it to the pedagogical, performing and vocal activities. This quality manifests itself in orientation on artistic image interpretation through a scenic image on the basis of universal and national culture experience, personal life and professional experience, value orientation in command of interpretative skills, vocal and acting techniques, pedagogical talent in decoding of shaped system of a musical composition through the mediation of a stage image, manifold quality, structural components of which are motivational and empathetic, cognitive and educational together with creative and active. Keywords: future teachers of the musical art; methodological foundations; scenically-shaped culture; cultural approach; axiological approach; hermeneutical approach; competency-based approach; image.

ナラティヴ・アプローチによる家庭科教師のカリキュラム・デザインと私的生活経験の関連の検討

ナラティヴ・アプローチによる家庭科教師のカリキュラム・デザインと私的生活経験の関連の検討

PREPAREDNESS OF THE MOUNTAIN JEWS FOR INTER-ETHNIC COMMUNICATION: INTEGRATION POTENTIAL AND CONFLICT ZONES

The results of a sociological study of the interethnic attitudes of Mountain Jews are showed in this article. The process of ethnic- contacting was described. We considered attitudes towards maintaining interethnic contact in their mass consciousness. It is showed their cultural distance in various spheres of interethnic communication. We showed the orientation of Mountain Jews on interethnic communication through the establishment of the frequency and intensity of ethnic-contacts, their evaluation by the respondents themselves, the characteristics of the attractiveness of spheres of interpersonal interaction by sociological analysis. We established the contradictory nature of the interethnic interaction of Mountain Jews on the basis of empirical information. There is the orientation toward interethnic communication on the one hand and a certain degree of self-isolation on the other. It was revealed that various factors influence the formation of institutions for international communication. It should be to note the educational process in the family, the level of education, social and ethnic space, state national policy, the microenvironment in the working collective, the ethnic stereotypes in the mass consciousness, prejudices and personal life experience. The conducted study shows positive perception and evaluation of interethnic communication, the orientation towards maintaining ethnical contacts in the mass consciousness of Mountain Jews. It is the basis for the formation of a positive, normal ethnic identity, thanks to which interethnic tolerance and interethnic harmony in a multinational environment are formed.

En-Force: Pascal Hachem’s Art

This article discusses how violence, force, and law and order are problematized in the selected artworks of the Lebanese contemporary artist Pascal Hachem. The notions Hachem tackles are grounded in his personal experience of daily life in Lebanon. And the subjects of his artworks are related to current issues in Lebanon and the region. Describing and analyzing a selection of artworks, I emphasize the staged workings of violence in law and order. My interpretation of the artworks relies on the theoretical frameworks provided by Jacques Derrida in “Force of Law” and Asef Bayat in Life as politics. They help underline the connection between the concepts of ‘force of law’ and ‘ ordinary life’—exposed in Hachem’s work. The artworks, I argue, deal with both ‘ordinary’ and political issues, and highlight and disclose the similar workings of force in law and order, proposing a critical evaluation of violence. The analysis leads to a rethinking of the question of change in a region that ‘cries for it’.

The impact of environmental factors on activity and participations of persons with spinal cord injury in Korea

There is lack of data on the lived experiences of persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) which may lead to lack of proper health policy and service provision for optimal functioning in their everyday lives. To resolve this issue, International spinal cord injury (InSCI) survey was launched in 28 countries in 2017. In this study, we aim to describe the impact of environmental factors on the activity and participation in persons with SCI based on the InSCI survey conducted in Korea. Korean version of InSCI survey questionnaire was used for data collection which consists of 125 items that cover relevant information on all aspects of lived experience according to the ICF categories. Community dwelling adults who have sustained traumatic or non-traumatic SCI were recruited using the databases of National Rehabilitation Center and Korean Spinal cord injury Association. For the data analysis, items on ‘environmental factors’ were grouped into three categories of ‘accessibility’, ‘service provision’, and ‘attitudes of others’ by using factor and reliability analysis. Items on activity and participation were grouped into four categories–‘coping issues’, ‘health management’, ‘physical activity’, and ‘transportation’ by using the same analysis. Multivariate regression was used for the analysis of the impact of the environmental factors on the four categories of activity and participation. A total of 892 out of 6047 eligible people participated in the survey through online and paper-pencil version questionnaires. Multivariate regression analysis showed that environmental categories ( P < 0.05) except ‘attitudes of others’ ( P = 0.755) had statistically significant impact on activity and participation of persons with SCI. As the first community survey for persons with SCI in Korea, InSCI study may reveal many aspects of the lives of persons with SCI. It has shown that indeed accessibility and proper service provision is important in activity and participation of persons with SCI in Korea.

Adult attachment pattern. Influence on parenting skills

The role of parents in raising and educating children is fundamental, and, in recent years, there is an increase in mentioning their active participation in maintaining the mental health of children. Beyond the rational approach to problems in raising the children, different structural factors, personality traits, and personal life experiences, sometimes with traumatic effects, can interfere with adherence to the chosen parenting style. Adopting an inconsistent attitude in the application of self-imposed or recommended educational rules or principles, emotional instability or expression of fluctuating feelings, alternating between guilt and aggression may represent just a few examples of behaviors that launch the hypothesis of a fundamental relationship between the way of exercising the profession of parent and parental attachment pattern. Specialists in child psychology and psychiatry carefully evaluate the attachment of young individuals, being considered an important determinant of the pattern of subsequent social relationships. The adult attachment is however a controversial topic, many authors assimilating it with personality traits while other sustain its substantial impact on social relationships, especially on couple and family relationship. This paper aims to review the data on adult attachment and its relation to the individual's functionality as a parent.

‘An inside job’: An autobiographical account of desistance

Various theories have been put forward to explain the processes underpinning desistance from crime. To provide additional insights into this phenomenon, this article presents an autobiographical account of one man’s journey towards a crime-free life. The narrative reveals a change process that is at once personal and universal, and describes the external forces that shaped his pathway to desistance as well as his experiences of personal fortitude and agency. In addition, it highlights the role of probation supervision as a catalyst for change. The autobiographical account is accompanied by a reflective academic commentary that situates these personal life experiences within the wider desistance literature. While the reader may view the autobiographical tone of this article as subjective, it should be noted that the account is not simply a re-telling of an individual life story but offers a critical appraisal of existing knowledge viewed through the lens of one person’s journey towards desistance.

Precious Data: Interim Report from the Jefferson Pancreas Tumor Registry.

Purpose: The Jefferson Pancreas Tumor Registry (JPTR) is a voluntary hospital-based registry of persons with pancreas and related periampullary cancers, premalignant lesions, and nonaffected family members (NAFMs). The ultimate goals of the JPTR are to provide a link between family history, gene mutations, and precision medicine therapy, and to identify high-risk NAFMs for potential surveillance screening.Methods: The JPTR is an Institutional Review Board approved longitudinal epidemiological study housed in the Department of Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Individuals who met the eligibility criteria and signed informed consent provide information on hereditary conditions, family history of cancers, environmental exposures, and occupational risk factors. Data are collected using a self-administered questionnaire, the electronic medical record, and the molecular analysis of tumor specimens.Results: Established in 2008, >725 persons have enrolled in the JPTR. The cohort is mostly composed of sporadic pancreas cancer, with 13% of enrollees having familial pancreas cancer and a control group comprising nonaffected persons. Data from the registry have been utilized to inform clinical studies, molecular investigations, and to shed light on and gain insight into the lived experience of persons with these conditions.Conclusion: The JPTR contains precious qualitative data and is an invaluable repository of information about persons with pancreatic and related tumors.

Making the Invisible Visible: Inviting Persons with Disabilities into the Life of the Church

Christianity espouses the dignity of all humanity and professes welcome for all to the communion of saints. Yet people with disabilities, especially those with more severe or profound physical or psychological disabilities, are largely invisible inside our houses of worship. This article examines the meaning of dignity and inclusion through the lenses of Christian anthropology, disabilities liberation theology, and the lived experience of persons with disabilities. It concludes with some suggestions on how to begin inclusion.

Modeling the Relationship Between Pesticide Use and Farmers' Beliefs about Water Pollution in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is currently facing a serious deterioration of water quality due to the use of pesticides in agriculture, which is an even greater challenge for the government since farmers are unaware of the toxicity of these chemicals. Therefore, reducing pesticide use requires updating farmers' beliefs about the environmental and health consequences of their actions. Drawing on the theory of positional objectivism developed by Sen, this study seeks to determine the influence of various positional characteristics (gender, education level, socio-cultural factors, etc.) on individual beliefs. In so doing, it uses a recursive bivariate probit model. The model was tested using data collected from a sample of 389 farmers. The results from this model showed that the more farmers' had beliefs about the degradation of water quality, the less they were inclined to use pesticides. These beliefs were based on personal lived experiences and were also formed through interactions with other farmers. Moreover, government agencies and NGOs in regular contact with the farmers played a crucial role in shifting the farmers' observational positions.

In memory: Predicting preferences for memorializing lost loved ones

ABSTRACTPeople’s preferences for memorializing loved ones vary and may depend on their personal attitudes and experiences with death. Participants (N = 145) completed the memorializing preferences checklist and measures of personal attitudes and life experiences with death. Factor analysis identified four memorializing preferences. In terms of predicting preferences, greater acknowledgment of death, and having experienced more losses, predicted preference for memorializing through societal tradition, community legacy, and continuing intimacy. Greater death resistance and less closeness to the deceased predicted preference for memorializing through confronting loss. Findings are discussed in terms of the range of preferences for and motivations behind memorializing.

Effects of Using Musical Fairy Tales in the Classroom: Action Research in Poland

Abstract The paper concentrates on the problem of developing imagination understood as human trait and virtue. To realize the challenge educators have to face huge difficulties as a tendency to flatter the world and its inhabitants dominates and becomes more and more powerful. A musical fairy tale is presented as a valuable and effective school practice. From one side it refers to perennial human custom of listening, telling, and creating stories, fables, and sagas. They may base on real life or refer to imaginary situations. Thus creation may have various realizations, depending on personal knowledge, skills, life experience, cognitive horizon, individual interests and virtues. From the other side the idea of the fairy tale shown in the paper refers to the music and its uncountable possibilities of describing the world. Everything depends only on one’s imagination. The last part of the paper presents the effects of students’ work on musical fairy tales. Those students apart of being instrumentalists and vocalists of the Music Academy of Lodz, Poland plan to become music teachers in compulsory general education.

Piloting and psychometric properties of a patient-reported outcome instrument for young people with achondroplasia based on the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health: the Achondroplasia Personal Life Experience Scale (APLES)

Background: This study describes the psychometric testing of the Achondroplasia Personal Life Experience Scale (APLES): a new disease- and functioning-specific health-related quality of life instrument for young people with achondroplasia, which was developed based on the International Classification of Functioning–Children and Youth Version.Method: The qualitative analysis of focus group statements from German patients and parents using the International Classification of Functioning–Children and Youth Version yielded 59 items, which after cognitive debriefing were included in a pilot-test. Psychometric performance was cross-culturally examined in a field- and re-test in Germany and Spain.Results: Cognitive debriefing and pilot-test results suggested to reduce the 59-APLES version to a 35-items version. Field-test data showed acceptable reliability and validity, which further improved after the APLES was shortened to 21 items.Conclusion: Developing a disease-specific instrument within the framework of the International Classification of Functioning allows the universal assessment and comparison of perceived health. Psychometric analysis showed that the APLES fulfills psychometric quality standards and provides a way to assess health-related quality of life from self- and observer report in young persons with achondroplasia. Further studies may use the instrument in clinical research and practice to understand perceived burden and to optimize care.Implications for RehabilitationHealth-related quality of life instruments are useful tools to include in clinical research and/or practice to evaluate treatment effects directly from the patient’s perspective.Cross-culturally developed health-related quality of life measures that are based on the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health provide the opportunity to assess the health status in a standardized language and to compare it across countries and health professions.All four components of the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health – Child and Youth Version (“Body Functions & Structures”, “Activities and Participation”, “Environmental Factors”, and “Personal Factors”) have been shown to be relevant in assessing health-related quality of life and functioning in young achondroplasia patients.Results underline the important aspects associated with disproportionate short stature, emphasizing the benefits of a disease-specific instrument.

Inclusion of the Public in the Natural Capital, Ecosystem Services and Green Infrastructure Assessments (Results of Structured Interviews with Stakeholders of Commune Liptovská Teplička)

Abstract Nowadays, topics like natural capital assessment, ecosystem services and green infrastructure have become frequent subjects of a number of national and international projects accomplished on local, regional, national and cross-frontier levels. These projects respond to the deterioration of biotopes due to their fragmentation and degradation as a result of constructions and tourism/recreation. This situation requires an economic assessment of ecosystems from the view point of their capacities to satisfy human necessities with simultaneous conservation of the environmental quality, and the optimal status of landscape diversity both in rural and urban areas. The aim of the Green Infrastructure initiative is to stop the loss of land as an irreplaceable natural resource and to contribute to the inclusion of ecological and sustainability aspects into the spatial planning and regional development in rural and urban areas. Green Infrastructure is the tool that may reduce the loss of ecosystem services connected with future occupation of land and improve functions of land. It may support ecological measures aimed at conservation of agricultural landscape and adoption of measures in the sphere of forest and water economies. Important role in the assessment of ecosystems is played not only by the scientists but also by experts and the public at large. This is the reason why ever more stakeholders possessing knowledge of local territory and personal life experience participate in these projects. Their judgments and views, often bearing information important for the above-mentioned assessment, are applied to proposed measures aimed at the improvement of environmental quality and quality of life in terms of sustainability. This article brings the possible example of how to include a selected sample of stakeholders into the assessment of natural capital and ecosystem services on local level in the frame of Green Infrastructure. The aim of this paper is to analyse attitudes of the involved for the evaluation of natural capital and ecosystem services at a local level by means of structured interviews. Obtained views will be applied for the assessment of ecosystem services and proposals aimed at protection and conservation of natural capital and building of green infrastructure. The research was carried out in the model territory of the rural commune Liptovská Teplička.

Orthodoxy and the Russian National Idea in V.I. Alekseev’s Works

For the first time, the article attempts to identify the cultural aspect of V.I. Alekseev’s creative legacy and to introduce the fictional prose of this author into the scientific discourse. This will allow to better represent the complex scope of Russian literature abroad and to deepen its analysis as a cultural phenomenon. V.I. Alekseev (1906—2002) was a writer of the second wave of Russian emigration, who is nowadays almost unknown in his motherland. Meanwhile, his works are a significant part of our national culture, which deserve the attention of Russian readers and researchers for a number of reasons. First of all, this is a specific perspective in which the writer sees and reflects the reality. Alekseev views the national history through an unbreakable bond of the Russian national idea and Orthodoxy. Secondly, it is the complexity and significance of the period of Russian history Alekseev writes about. The action in his works, reflecting primarily the author’s personal life experience, takes place in the USSR during the interwar years, as well as on the both opposing sides on the front line during the Great Patriotic War and in the West (mainly in Germany) soon after the end of the Second World War. The article describes the peculiarities of the individual style of the author, who, undoubtedly, had great literary skills. There are identified and represented Alekseev’s three main ways of central idea developing in his main work of fiction — the dilogy “Invisible Russia” (1952) and “Soldierly Russia” (1954). The genre nature of this work is revealed. The complex analysis of the creative legacy of Alekseev is given in the article in correlation with his biography. The writer’s life journey, also almost unknown to the average Russian reader, is exposed to light, partly on the basis of resources difficult to access (introductions to the emigrant editions of the middle of the 20th century, emigrant press of the same period), partly through the reconstruction made by the author of the article, basing on the autobiographic works of Alekseev. The list of sources includes rare, hardly accessible materials and may serve as an additional characteristic of the writer’s creative legacy.

Supernatural or Material: Haunted Places in H.P. Lovecraft’s, M.R. James’s, A. Machen’s and A. Blackwood’s Horror Fiction

The horror story writers of the early 20th century presented various views on the surrounding reality. Howard P. Lovecraft and Montague R. James, for their part, rejected the mere possibility of phenomena regarded as supernatural, contrary to other writers, such as Arthur C. Doyle, Arthur Machen or Algernon Blackwood, who were members of theosophical or occultist societies. The writers differed also in the level of their education. Lovecraft was an erudite interested in science, notwithstanding the fact that he did not receive formal education. James was a respected medievalist, a specialist in the history of Christianity. Blackwood, educated abroad (in Germany), explicitly differed in his artistic output from Machen, a Welshman, who left the United Kingdom only to pursue his journalistic career. The aim of the article is to present the haunted places in the literary works of the chosen authors and to juxtapose their narratives with their scholarly achievements and their views on the surrounding reality. Based on the New Historicist approach, the study shows that the roots of horror in the haunted places presented by the authors in their works were more “material” than “supernatural”—what accounted for their choices of haunted places, story characters and haunting horrors were personal attitudes and life experience of each of the writers.

Influences that count: professional development of psychotherapists and counsellors in India

ABSTRACTThe helping professions of psychotherapy and counselling involve a process of lifelong learning and professional development. Multiple influences may serve as pathways to professional development and growth. The study explored practitioner perceptions of a range of influences on their development as therapists. The Development of Psychotherapists Common Core Questionnaire-India (DPCCQ-I) was completed by 250 mental health practitioners with diverse professional backgrounds and experience levels, practising in India. A section assessed therapists’ ratings of ten potential influences, both positive and negative, on their professional development. Thse results indicated that experiences in therapy with clients, reading books and journals, therapists’ personal life experiences, and case discussions were perceived as having the most positive impact on development as a therapist. The most frequently reported negative influences were institutional conditions, experiences with clients, and personal life experiences.The strength of influences in select domains varied according to therapist experience levels and professional background and was significantly associated with indices of therapist perceptions of their skills and growth in therapeutic work. These results are discussed in the context of unique practice realities in India. Implications for professional training and continuing development are outlined.