Psychic Suffering Research Articles

Psychic Suffering among Police Officers: a Study in Civil Police Force of Rio Grande do Sul

Psychic Suffering among Police Officers: a Study in Civil Police Force of Rio Grande do Sul

Laing Versus Szasz: Antagonists, Kindred Spirits, or a Misconstrued Rivalry?

In the mid-1970s, as the role of institutional psychiatry was being debated, Thomas S. Szasz directed a severe and unexpected critique at the work of Ronald D. Laing, after which there arose an acrimonious debate between Szasz and supporters of Laing in the Philadelphia Association (PA). (Laing himself conspicuously declined to respond to Szasz). This clash of views was initiated by Szasz in The New Review (TNR), which prompted a series of rebuttals from those working alongside Laing in the PA. Pivotal to this dispute were contrasting ideas on how to guide people from breakdown to sanity and the roles to be played by professionals and institutions in engaging with them. The main purpose of this article is to evaluate whether Laing (seen through lens of his then-associates in the PA) and Szasz were “antagonists,” whether they shared a kindred spirit in their view of the psychiatric establishment, or whether their perceived differences on how to treat psychic sufferers stemmed from misrepresentations created by themselves or others. My conclusion is that, even though Laing and Szasz shared an interest in changing conventional psychiatric practice and the mode of understanding and treating psychic suffering, each side misconstrued the position of the other.

As Conversações e a Narrativização do Sofrimento Psíquico entre Adolescentes / Conversations and Narrativization of Psychological Suffering Among Adolescents

Abstract: This article discusses the method of Conversations in its ethical-political dimension. It was used for the narrativization of psychological distress among adolescents. The intervention research was carried out with young people from a high school located on Fortaleza. Conversations are configured as a work methodology developed from psychoanalysis, widely used in working with young people in school contexts. Its objective is to provide a space for the elaboration of malaise that emerges as an impasse in the social bond. The Conversations took place in the second semester of 2019 and had a group of eight teenagers. The experience attested the power of Conversations as a way to narrate the psychological suffering in its socio-political dimension. The adolescents, when translating their malaise into words, moved between shared experiences and the subjectification of what is unique to them. Psychological suffering was associated by adolescents with family difficulties, experienced mourning and the violence present in the territory where they live. Keywords: Adolescence, Psychoanalysis; Conversations; Narrativization; Psychic Suffering.

Sofrimento psíquico e a psicodinâmica no ambiente de trabalho do enfermeiro: revisão integrativa

Objetivo: Identificar a presença de sofrimento psíquico no ambiente de trabalho do enfermeiro e a relação com seu estado emocional. Método: Revisão integrativa da literatura comparada em estudos acadêmicos dos últimos seis anos, compreendendo uma temática da psicodinâmica do trabalho em enfermagem. Resultados: Os 20 artigos analisados posicionam-se como favoráveis à presença de prazer e sofrimento no trabalho da Enfermagem. Conclusão : o sofrimento psíquico do enfermeiro é um fator que interfere na sua vida pessoal e profissional, devendo popularizar ou debater sobre os mecanismos para confrontar o sentimento de sofrimento no ambiente de trabalho.

Of Caring for Yourself by Becoming Yourself as Designing Psychic Suffering: An Analysis Based on Foucault and Heidegger

Of Caring for Yourself by Becoming Yourself as Designing Psychic Suffering: An Analysis Based on Foucault and Heidegger

The Healing Power of Music? Documentary Evidence from Late-Fourteenth-Century Bologna

The idea of the healing power of music—rooted in Platonic and Aristotelian psychologies and Galenic humoral theory—has a long-standing tradition in European intellectual thought and occurs in several texts of the medieval and early modern periods. In contrast to the abundance of references in theoretical discussions, however, historians today face the scarcity of evidence documenting specific, actual uses of music as therapy. Among such rare evidence are two documents emanating from the chancery of late-fourteenth-century Bologna, which form the focus of this article. The documents, which concern a musician and an itinerant healer, provide new insights into musical practices directed in particular to the cure of psychic sufferings. The documents make clear that the secular authorities of Bologna considered the agency of these two practitioners and their medical and musical skills to be crucial for maintaining or restoring individual and collective health. The evidence discussed here suggests that the use of music toward curative ends must have been more widespread than hitherto acknowledged. It also highlights the powerful association between notions of musical healing and ideas of individual and civic well-being that underlay the Bologna officials’ idea of the state.

Therapeutic Mediations and Their Use in Teaching: Family Psychic Suffering

Therapeutic Mediations and Their Use in Teaching: Family Psychic Suffering

Psychic Suffering Nowadays: from Gadgets to the Consumed Subject

Abstract This text aims to establish relationships between drugs and so-called gadgets from this social call to consumption whether they are objects in general, or drugs in particular. We carried out a bibliographic study using, mainly, books, articles, and dissertations referring to the subject with the intention to reach this objective. We also developed this research in three parts, which highlight the critical points of contemporary psychopathology. The first one deals with how the consumption of objects has become an object that consumes the subject. We then traced the legitimation of the subject "compressed" in the current discourse. Finally, we highlighted the gadgets and the new way of life for the contemporary people.

Psychosocial X Biomedical Paradigm: Where is the Social Representation Anchored in Psychic Suffering?

Psychosocial X Biomedical Paradigm: Where is the Social Representation Anchored in Psychic Suffering?

Risk Factors Related To The Psychic Suffering In Women In Pre And Post-Natal Accompanied By An Institution Of Philanthropic Pernambuco State

This article aims to identify the prevalence of women who present risk for psychological distress in the pre- and postnatal period. A descriptive, exploratory study was conducted with a quantitative data approach, a study carried out at the pre and postnatal health outpatient clinic of IMIP - Instituto de Medicina Integral Prof. Fernando Figueira, Recife (PE). We used instruments such as the Sociodemographic Data Survey Questionnaire, the Puerperal Pregnancy Cycle Questionnaire Questionnaire, and the Psychiatric Morbidity Questionnaire in Adults (QMPA) with 775 women, of whom 450 were pregnant and 325 were women who had given birth in the period of August / October 2014, After approval of the Ethics and Research Committee (CEP) of IMIP, under the number of CAEE: 30991314.9.0000.5201. The study showed that, in prenatal care, 48% (216) of the cases presented a risk for psychological distress; And in the postnatal period, 47% (152). It was possible to identify psychic suffering in the majority of women, and they often go unnoticed by the professionals who assist them. The knowledge of the risk factors, triggers and symptoms during the pregnancy-puerperal cycle, makes the mental diagnosis more efficient, thus providing a safer and more peaceful pregnancy for mother-child-family.
 Keywords: Women’s Health; Mental Health; Stress Psychological; Risk Factors.

The Childhood Depression: Narrative In Familiar Settings

The most mental disorders, including depression, involve the children in a way of great influence in their development processes. Similarly, say the researchers, it is imperative to explore the role of prenatal exposure and develop interventions to reduce the long-term negative impact of low socioeconomic status state in childhood on cognitive ability. On this way, parental practices and communication strategies with the child and the adolescent in the understanding of child depression happen thought the analysis of involvement narratives of disease, affective practices, empathic and linked in describing the itineraries of psychic pain and suffering. It is also important to know that there are “prohibited words” in the family and that these words said and prohibited by relatives appears to make the encounter with the brands and the representations that make up the child depression in search of another character, as a way to associate the words the other access codes, and with this to situate pain and psychic sufferings in the return bedding of voices interpretation, especially in the recognition of what transforms life in mental disease possibilities. Because of that, the discourse have been pointed as one of the steps in the treatment of this disease. In the talk it is important to understand the relationship that requires understanding the child, through contact with the dynamics that seek to explain it by words spoken and prohibited in the face of life reality. In this way, in terms of depression, the word heard with ethics and commitment, combined with the medication and its monitoring can be a powerful icon in the treatment of disease

The Formation of Social Reintegration Strategies of the Psychic Suffering Carrier: New Directions for Psychiatric Nursing in Brazil

This is an exploratory and descriptive study of a qualitative nature. Its objective is to analyse the formation of strategies for social reintegration of the psychic suffering carrier in the practice of nurses working in hospital psychiatric institutions. For this study, we use, as a basis, the concepts and processes of the formation of strategies presented by Isabel Nicholau, 2001. Twelve nurses with health care experience in hospital psychiatric institutions participated in this study, and data collection occurred through semi-structured interviews in the year 2013. The data revealed that, in addition to human, material, and financial resources, institutional support is needed as is articulation and interaction among professionals and services. The importance of the social dimension and of the negotiation process depicts the development of conception of collective and integrated work. We conclude that strategies are emerging from the daily life of work and are not limited to a rational logic of cost and fundraising, but instead are developed through a negotiated process.

A Mind Apart: Poems of Melancholy, Madness, and Addictionedited by Mark S. Bauer. New York, Oxford University Press, 2008, 432 pp., $24.95.

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ForumFull AccessA Mind Apart: Poems of Melancholy, Madness, and AddictionJOEL YAGER M.D.,JOEL YAGER M.D.Search for more papers by this author,Published Online:1 Aug 2009https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09020155AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé taught that a poet’s role is to purify the language of the tribe, a perspective amply validated by the fact that gifted poets create our most informative psychiatric phenomenology. They regularly describe subjective moods and passions with great precision and eloquently portray how altered states of mind impact lives. Poets not only write our finest histories of the present illness and mental status exams, but they also best describe human experiences from anguish and despair to elation and manic frenzy in words that incomparably convey the inner worlds of these disorders. Mark S. Bauer, a professor of psychiatry who is an expert mood disorders researcher and senior educator at Harvard, was therefore surprised to find no available anthologies of verse concerning the rich poetic tradition focusing on disordered mood. Since he is an accomplished poet as well as a medical academic, he found that this gap in the literature cried out for attention. Dr. Bauer, who reads poetry widely and critically, set himself the task of filling this void. In A Mind Apart , he gifts the field with a wide-ranging intellectual and artistic treasure trove that nicely remedies the deficiency. The anthology offers a poet’s Facebook, featuring selections from more than 120 English-language poets (and a few lyricists) whose work has been published from the 12th through the 21st century. Dr Bauer frames these works through several cross-cutting themes: “melancholy,” featuring poems that deal with the classic syndrome; “madness and reason,” expressing oppositions of conventional, rational thought by unrulier passions; “sweet melancholy,” in which authors draw philosophical and noble truths from their psychic sufferings; and several others. In an erudite introductory essay riddled with illuminating examples, Dr. Bauer shows us how to read these poems—how to focus on and extract their pearls.As for the main events, many of your favorite poets appear: classic English authors, such as William Shakespeare and John Milton; 19th century poets including Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly, Keats, Browning, Dickinson, and Tennyson; American poet laureates such as Stanley Kunitz and Howard Nemerov, and other 20th century greats including Allen Ginsberg, Randall Jarrell, Donald Justice, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Roethke, Dylan Thomas, and numerous others. Each has much to say about personal struggles and shifting moods. Premonitory brooding works of poets, who ultimately committed suicide, including John Berryman, John Bolton, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton, underscore the deadly seriousness as well as the high art of these writings. Several well-established physician poets are represented, including Robert Bridges (who was also a poet laureate) and Thomas Beresford, a contemporary academic psychiatrist. In addition, I learned about—and from—a host of diverse, perceptive poets who were new to me. A selection of 18th century song lyrics by anonymous authors movingly conveys their moods. (Attention musicians: Many poems included in this book have never been set to music. What inviting material to facilitate future evolutions of the blues.)For those who read poetry to better plumb and empathically ken the depths of human experiences, including painful ones, and those who find poetry capable of providing humanistic educational tools for medical and allied students, residents, professional colleagues, patients, families, and other learners, this volume provides a welcome and accessible collection. Through this work, Dr. Bauer has advanced the literature on mood disorders. One hopes that in the future he and others will continue these efforts and harvest additional fine specimens of poetry from the wider pools of language and culture that further inform our knowledge and experience of melancholy, madness, and addictions.Denver, Colo.The author reports no competing interests.Book review accepted for publication February 2009 (doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09020155). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 166Issue 8 August, 2009Pages 939-940THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY August 2009 Volume 166 Number 8 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 August 2009 Published in print 1 August 2009

Recherche de sensations, désinhibition et pratique de sports à risque : quelques pistes de réflexion

Sensation seeking is at the root of different behaviours. Skydivers, artists, drug addicts and criminals somehow share the same need for stimulation. But are there drug-addicted skydivers? Are there different ways to seek sensations? Studies on risky sport practices and disinhibition are contradictory. While some find risk-taking athletes do not consume substances, others maintain these athletes are indeed the most uninhibited of all. Diversity and the type of activities supposedly depend on what exactly an athlete seeks from a psychological point of view. The analysis of different sensation seekers’ personality traits helps to better understand the choice and role of one or several sources of activation. Based on a review of studies, we will discuss three sensation seeker profiles. Depressed “escapists” primarily seek sensations through substance use in order to regulate their negative affects. This “passive” stimulation mode seems better suited than practising risky sports for these individuals lacking in energy. Conversely, extraverted “hedonists” comfort their positive affectivity by seeking multi-faceted pleasure in risky sports or the “social” use of substances. They are not characterized by negative affects but by alexithymia. Some probably bypass their difficulty to understand their feelings by seeking various readily available sensations that need not be mentally interiorised (purportedly found in disinhibition or risky sports). Finally, “compensatory” types are adventurers who seek sensations in high-risk sports only. They are not characterized by depression, anxiety, disinhibition, extraversion or alexithymia. They seek to enhance and build up their personality by confronting the natural environment and danger. While all athletes seek sensations, these might not be essential to escapist and compensatory types who use them only as a mere means to escape and compensate. Extraverted hedonists seem to be the “true” sensation seekers inasmuch as stimulations are worthwhile in themselves. This strong need for hedonistic sensations might lead to an addictive process, a common answer to psychic sufferings that may also derive from boredom or a need for sensations and pleasure.

A medicalização do sofrimento psíquico: considerações sobre o discurso psiquiátrico e seus efeitos na Educação

Este estudo analisa criticamente as mudanças observadas no tratamento do sofrimento psíquico na história recente, apontando a contribuição de fatores como: a padronização de sintomas trazida pelas sucessivas edições da série DSM (Manual Diagnóstico e Estatístico de Transtornos Mentais), os resultados de pesquisas na neurociência - que tentam fundamentar o funcionamento psíquico em bases orgânicas - e o grande desenvolvimento dos psico-fármacos, fruto de maciços investimentos financeiros. A ação desse conjunto de fatores teve por efeito a perda da noção de sentido/significado dos sintomas e dos sofrimentos subjetivos, própria da psiquiatria clássica, e a crescente medicalização dos indivíduos na sociedade contemporânea. O texto busca alinhavar como aconteceu a produção de uma nova verdade acerca dos sofrimentos psíquicos e amplia essa análise, evidenciando que os procedimentos de medicalização surgidos no cuidado da população adulta foram estendidos também para as crianças. Revê a evolução do tratamento da criança, marcando a interação da pedagogia e da medicina na constituição da psiquiatria infantil. Além disso, busca evidenciar os efeitos dessa verdade sobre os sujeitos, identificando a forma como o discurso técnico (especialmente influenciado pelo discurso médico-psicológico) tem tido lugar no mundo contemporâneo e como este tem influenciado a Educação. Trata de ressaltar, como produtos, a banalização da existência, a naturalização do sofrimento e a culpabilização dos indivíduos pelas vicissitudes da vida. Argumenta que a psicologização da escola pode ceder lugar hoje à psiquiatrização do discurso escolar. A articulação saber/verdade/poder é aqui tratada a partir dos textos de Michel Foucault.

Battling Depression Among Blacks Means Confronting Racism's Legacy

Battling Depression Among Blacks Means Confronting Racism's Legacy

Du corps au sein : enjeu social et narcissique

The man, in a general meaning, possess a body, which he invests in the course of his existence. Some parts of this body have an unusual prestige in his form, his function and especially in his representation. The breast, in particular, combines these characteristics to be in the center of interests and investments. The history of the techniques to embellish this one, in the course of the century and in the cultures, shows this. Beyond of theses techniques, we will present especially the stakes around the body and the breast. Stakes, as we will see, social as much as individual, which we find in the social dynamic of our contemporary world and in the expression, the take care of the psychic sufferings.

Choosing psychotherapy as a career: Beyond “I want to help people”

This article briefly considers the career determinants of mental health professionals and then introduces the contents of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session issue devoted to "why I became a psychotherapist." Psychotherapists are assuredly a special sort because the average person prefers to minimize the psychic sufferings of fellow humans and to avoid extensive contact with troubled individuals. Although the most frequent and conscious reason for becoming a psychotherapist is a desire to "help others," the decision is more complex and multidetermined than that. The multiple, intertwined motives are partly unconscious, impacted by chance encounters, and probably not well understood into late in one's career.

Basic Principles of Psychic Suffering

The aim of the present work is to propose an analysis of psychic suffering and the criteria to account for its occurrence and intensity. Psychic suffering is defined as the suffering implied by a frustrating assumption, that is, a particular kind of discrepancy between a belief and a goal, embedding a time specification for both the goal and the belief representation. Psychic suffering is distinguished from cognitive distress due to interruption, overload or malfunctioning of mental processes. General criteria for both psychic suffering and cognitive distress are identified and discussed, including the kind of goal according to a variety of parameters (such as terminal vs instrumental; pursued vs not pursued; achievement vs maintenance, etc.), as well as the crucial role played by attention, self-awareness and expectations. Relations between suffering and negative emotions and the limits of the approach are discussed.

A follow-up study of operated transsexual males.

The opportuneness of operating on transsexuals has often been discussed but it has obviously been the only form of treatment they wish themselves. Most transsexuals in Denmark have been assessed at the Rigshospital prior to surgery. Since 1951, when the first operation on a transsexual took place, we have had a thorough preoperative knowledge of a total of 29 transsexual males who have all obtained official status as females and who have subsequently been followed up. A phenomenologically based clinical theory of the dynamic coherence of the symptomatology of transsexuals has been advanced. A special core group of transsexual males has been described as characterized by a stable defence in the form of a pseudofeminine narcissism, a stable ego strength, an intact reality testing and a poor genital interest. These patients are expected to have a relatively stable life postoperatively. Of the 29 operated transsexual males six were not interviewed, three had committed suicide and two refused to take part in the follow-up. These last five did not belong to the core group, whereas one patient, who emigrated to Canada after sex-reassignment, belonged to the core group. The remaining 23 have all been interviewed, of the 14 belonged to the core group. The average for the follow-up period is 6 years. The operations turned out not to be resocializing, rather the contrary. The majority had no occupation at follow-up and the number of persons with disablement pension had increased considerably. About 66% lived alone and the majority of those with sexual relationships had had problems. Both before and after operation the majority felt socially isolated. About 66% were satisfied with the surgical outcome, nevertheless 50% wished for supplementary plastic surgery. None of the patients showed signs of more severe psychic sufferings or psychoses postoperatively. Psychically, 83% felt better after than before sex-reassignment. The majority have had complications and subjective trouble in connection with plastic surgery leading to reoperations of the vagina in most of them. Almost 75% have had sexual relationships postoperatively but not without difficulties. Characteristic of the persons in the core group is a better economy, a better adjustment to the environment and less problems with neighbours, they are more satisfied with the surgical outcome and have had fewer surgical corrections and also have a better psychic condition than the rest. It is the general impression at follow-up that the advantages of sex-reassignment outweigh the disadvantages where the core group is concerned. But among the persons who do not belong to the core group subjective and objective problems seem so pronounced that operation must be advised against in spite of the often extremely, subjectively unsatisfactory condition of these patients preoperatively.