Source Of Solace Research Articles

The Trials and Consolations of Migrant-Serving Faith-Based Organizations

Abstract This article is a response to Christians in public and private life who favor policies, employ rhetoric, and view migrants in ways that contravene their faith traditions. Speaking primarily from the perspective of Christian migrant-serving, faith-based organizations in the United States, the author examines their challenges, sources of consolation, and understanding of migrants in light of their work and religious touchstones in an era of political polarization and unprecedented forced displacement. He outlines an inclusive path forward, rooted in a commitment to the common good, to solidarity with the displaced, and to a deeper understanding of the hopes, aspirations, and gifts of migrants.

Editorial

Dear Readers, In the fast-paced landscape, modern transportation is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by technological innovation, changing consumer preferences, and the need for sustainability. In the country, from urban areas to remote rural areas, the evolution of mobility technology is restructuring the way we navigate, unlocking new opportunities for efficiency, sustainability, and accessibility. As we stand at the threshold of a new era in mobility, it's essential to explore the innovative technologies driving this revolution and their potential to redefine the future of transportation. ARAI Journal of Mobility Technology takes pride in presenting its Jan–Mar 2024 issue that covers IC engine technology, Brake hose failure analysis, modeling on different technologies, battery and EV related subjects, and vehicle dynamics. The ARAI Journal journey is not just about getting the technologies which are about shaping the future of transportation and society as a whole. Electric vehicle technologies are poised to revolutionize the future of transportation, offering a cleaner, more sustainable alternative to traditional gasoline-powered cars. With growing concerns about climate change and environmental sustainability, the shift towards electric propulsion represents a significant step forward in reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change. With ongoing advancements in battery technology, charging infrastructure, and vehicle design, EVs are becoming increasingly practical and accessible for consumers around the world. By embracing innovation, fostering collaboration, and addressing the challenges ahead, we can accelerate the transition to a cleaner, greener transportation system that benefits both people and the planet. With ongoing advancements in battery technology, charging infrastructure, and vehicle design, EVs are becoming increasingly practical and accessible for consumers around the world. By embracing innovation, fostering collaboration, and addressing the challenges ahead, we can accelerate the transition to a cleaner, greener transportation system that benefits both people and beyond electrification, automotive technologies are also driving progress in safety and convenience. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and automatic emergency braking are becoming standard features in modern vehicles, helping to prevent accidents and save lives. Moreover, the emergence of autonomous driving technology promises to revolutionize transportation by eliminating human error and making roads safer for everyone. ARAI Journal is a gateway for all researchers, industry professionals, students, faculty to discover the latest technologies and advancements driving the automotive industry forward on the planet. In the midst of life's challenges and uncertainties, may this journal be a source of solace and strength, reminding you of your resilience and inner wisdom. May it be a space where you can find clarity, purpose, and peace amidst the chaos of daily life. I want to extend my warmest wishes to each and every reader of this journal.

Antecedents and Perceived Benefits of Religious Conversion—An Exploratory Study within a Protestant Congregation

Religious conversion is a multifaceted phenomenon that has captivated scholars, theologians, and social scientists alike. With the aim of delineating and comprehending the variables associated with personal and social transformation, this paper employed an exploratory quantitative inquiry within a sample of participants affiliated with a Protestant church, chosen for its relevance to analogous experiences within worldwide congregations. The findings present antecedent factors that exert a favorable influence on the conversion process of parishioners, establishing a pronounced correlation between overall satisfaction and perceived benefits observed among regular church attendants. Antecedents to religious conversion are deeply rooted in a complex interplay of personal and social factors. Conversion paths are shaped by existential questioning, crises, or a search for meaning, with key roles played by social factors such as family, peers, and exposure to belief systems through preacher pressure. The benefits of religious conversion are equally multifaceted and can encompass various dimensions of an individual’s life. Spirituality often becomes a source of solace and resilience, helping individuals navigate adversity. On the emotional level, conversion may provide a sense of belonging, inner peace, and a framework for understanding the world and life’s challenges. Adopting a new faith enhances community support and is influenced by cultural and entertainment experiences, contributing to the decision to convert. However, understanding the antecedents and benefits of religious conversion offers valuable insights into the dynamics of faith and human transformation under the global challenges and guidance for religious marketing in the religious postmodern pluralism era. Further research is essential to examine the diverse experiences of religious conversion and their long-term impacts on well-being and societal cohesion, ultimately concluding that it is a multifaceted process influenced by numerous antecedents.

Human Nature Bonds in Wordsworth’s “The Ruined Cottage”

This article explores the theme of human nature bonds in William Wordsworth's poem, The Ruined Cottage (1799). The poem depicts the story of a rural family facing poverty and despair, with a focus on the protagonist's relationship with nature, fellow human beings, and the wider community. The protagonist's deep connection with the natural world is highlighted, portraying nature as a source of solace and spiritual renewal. The bonds within the human community are also explored, depicting both acts of compassion and indifference. The poem emphasizes the importance of empathy and communal support in the face of adversity, fostering a sense of collective understanding. Through its portrayal of human nature bonds, "The Ruined Cottage" underscores the restorative power of nature, the complexities of human relationships, and the significance of communal solidarity.
 The researcher has planned to examine The Ruined Cottage through the lens of ecocriticism by focusing on the correspondence between the gradual withering of Nature and the gradual demise of Margaret’s soul to reach a comprehensive interpretation of the poem. The researcher has explored on the importance of humankind’s ability to survive in nature by considering the viewpoints of the Yale School critics, the New Historicists, and the ecologists also.

다문화가정 여성과 자녀의 유튜브에 대한 인식 및 활용 경험에 대한 이해: 생애사 이야기식 접근으로

This study conducted in-depth interviews using Schütze's(1983) biographical narrative approach to explore the perceptions and experiences of YouTube among three multicultural women and three children in K County, within the context of their life stories. The research findings are as follows. First, they discerned the value of watching YouTube videos and perceived YouTube as an active companion and a realm of engagement in their lives. The participants of the study perceived YouTube as a source of solace, joy, and hopeful future. YouTube was a space where individuals could enjoy their native culture and music while on foreign soil, simultaneously facilitating inter-generational communication and shared joy among different cultures and generations. Furthermore, multicultural women with insufficient educational backgrounds envisioned becoming cultural exchange YouTubers on a platform where formal education was not a necessity. In the meantime, the counter productive aspects of YouTube were also mentioned, which make them compare their lives with those of successful multicultural women on YouTube. However, during YouTube viewing, they demonstrated a discerning attitude toward the economic value and commercial aspects, making efforts to distinguish between the fictitious and genuine aspects of videos. Secondly, regarding the utilisation experience of YouTube, multicultural women and children use YouTube in their daily lives, sometimes becoming addicted to it, but prioritising privacy protection and professionalism regarding video creation and sharing. YouTube deeply integrated into their lives, fostering a sense of intimacy and connection with others. While multicultural children possessed video creation skills, women felt a sense of regret due to a lack of opportunities and time for learning. Furthermore, although some participants expressed concerns about privacy exposure in video creation and sharing, some women aimed to help others through video production and sharing. Therefore, this study suggests developing and implementing programs by social welfare facilities and educational institutions to enhance the YouTube literacy competence of multicultural women and children. These programs should focus on helping them distinguish the commercial and fictitious aspects of YouTube while enabling them to accumulate collective knowledge through video viewing, communication, video creation, and sharing activities, thereby preparing them for the future and utilising YouTube as a platform for economic engagement.

Comments on Glasgow, The Solace

In his book, The Solace: Finding Value in Death through Gratitude for Life, Joshua Glasgow recounts his thoughts as he tried to prepare for a conversation about death with his dying mother, whom he hoped to comfort. After rejecting certain possible sources of solace, he argues that our passing away itself has value, which it derives from the meaningfulness of our lives as a whole, and this value can provide the comfort we may seek. I raise a number of difficulties for and questions about Glasgow’s claims, ultimately concluding that even if our passing away had some value, recognizing thiswould add nothing to the solace we may derive from reflecting on the value of our lives themselves.

Glasgow on Death's Badness and Radiant Value

In The Solace, Joshua Glasgow’s main claim is that life has “radiant value” and that death inherits some of that value; this provides us with a source of solace. He also argues that death is bad not only in virtue of depriving us of good things, but also in virtue of depriving us of opportunities for good things. I raise difficulties for these claims.

From Ritual Mourning to Solitary Grief: Reinterpretation of Hindu Death Rituals in India.

This paper considers the way the outbreak of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown has egregiously impeded the Hindu death ceremonies and mourning rituals in India. It makes a comparative analysis of how Hindu death rituals get renegotiated, modified and reinterpreted across two vastly different regions of India, both of which have their local customs. Whilst death rituals in India are contingent on the deceased's caste, community, class, gender and age, the impediment to the major death rituals creates a central conundrum for all mourners. It results from the substitution of 'sacred' ritual guidelines with new 'profane' ones for the 'disposal' of deceased COVID-19 patients. Departure from many significant pre-liminal rites, specific transition rites, and post-liminal rites has eschatological, ritual and cultural ramifications. The inability to grieve in unison during a Shraddh ceremony denies mourners any scope to quell distressing feelings about mortality which serves as a source of consolation.

Lee, Wendy Anne. Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel.

Lee, Wendy Anne. <i>Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel</i>.

A Struggle for Survival: Meaning of Late Life in a Rural District in Uganda: A Qualitative Study.

Background: Between 2015 and 2050, the aging population of Uganda (aged 50 years and older) will be nearly doubled. Therefore, later-life problems have become an area of increasing research and policy interest. This study aimed at exploring how aging people living in extreme poverty in a low-income country experience their everyday life and what kind of meaning systems employed by them to understand and cope with their living conditions.Methods: We conducted a qualitative interview with 14 participants in the Buikwe district. In this interview, 11 women and 3 men were included, and a thematic analysis was employed for data processing and analysis.Results: Unanimously, all participants reported their condition as extreme poverty. The key informants (KIs) emphasized respect from descendants and the community as a foundation for a meaningful later life. In contrast, this aspect has been ever mentioned by no caregivers but by only one care-receiver. The willingness/ability of children to support the elderly who are in need of support formed a major part of the reflections of care-receivers, which would be decisive for their position in the society and the respect they would receive. In addition, both Christianity and traditional beliefs as well as beliefs in witchcraft and ancestral spirits were employed as a basis for actions and reflections.Discussion: The question arises whether life in extreme poverty conditions can be perceived as meaningful. Respect was mentioned as fundamental by the KIs, thereby giving priority to social relations as the most meaningful factor for living a meaningful life. The ability and willingness of the possible descendants for support as the focus of care-receivers might be a more down-to-earth description of this aspect but without using the same level of abstraction. For the majority, due to their belief system did not serve as a source of consolation their main focus was on social relationships for support. To improve the wellbeing of the old people, their sense of meaning must be restored through a system, guaranteeing the coverage of basic needs and measures to restore dignity through a reintegration in both community and congregations. Social service agencies who are targeting the elderly people need to work toward this objective.

Writing Back to the Self: Leila Aboulela’s Minaret and Fadia Faqir’s My Name Is Salma

ABSTRACT This paper examines the postcolonial concept of “writing back to the self” in relation to two novels authored by two female Arab novelists, namely Leila Aboulela’s Minaret (2005) and Fadia Faqir’s My Name is Salma(2008). After defining the concept of “writing back to the self” and drawing from the works of postcolonial writers such as Fanon, Said, Ashcroft, Hassan and Ghazoul, the paper argues that both authors emphasize “writing back to the self” in the sense of criticizing their communities, social system, and patriarchal traditions alike without ignoring to criticize the colonizer. Their works resist patriarchal system and male dominance. Faqir uses the following strategies of writing back to the self: (1) the use of the single female narrator; (3) the non-linear narration; (4) pregnancy; (5) women transforming into strong characters, enriching themselves, and relating to each other as source of solace and strength to each other. Yet Faqir’s condemnation to Arab patriarchy is harsher. Aboulela is, however, able to find a solution to her own tragedy through a spiritual journey to Islam in which she finds safety and security. Although Faqir does not attack Islam per se as an oppressor, she does not defend it as a solution. The paper is a call for moving away from the endless and futile circle of 'writing' and 'writing back' in order to gaze into our own limitations toward improvement.

Promoting Mental Wellbeing: Young Adults’ Experience on TikTok during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Nigeria

From the last quarter of 2019, the world witnessed the emergence of the COVID -19 virus that shook it to its knees, and Nigeria is not an exception. While countries were struggling with strategies on how to manage the virus, the lockdown option became paramount. During the period of the lockdown in Nigeria, most persons, especially young people, could not visit places of their choice. Hence, social media became their source of solace. This study examines the experiences of young adults in using TikTok to minimise the negative effect of isolation during the COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria. The authors interviewed ten young persons between the ages of 19 to 31. A thematic analysis of the interviews using Braun and Clark (2006) steps for conducting thematic analysis revealed four overarching themes that describe the participants’ experiences on TikTok during the lockdown. Prominent among the themes, the study uncovered how TikTok short videos excelled in impacting the research participants therapeutically; easing boredom, and impacting positively on their mental health. The present study suggests that TikTok short videos could be a phenomenon that could be adopted by individuals or even health professionals, especially psychotherapists in managing or treating patients in similar situations like the COVID-19 compulsory lockdown.

Review of Disruptive Situations: Fractal Orientalism and Queer Strategies in Beirut by Ghassan Moussawi (Temple University Press)

Ghassan Moussawi’s Disruptive Situations challenges the exceptionalist representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) experiences in Beirut through a focus on the everyday queer strategies and tactics. Moussawi analyzes the everyday practices of LGBT interlocutors navigating al-wad’ (the situation), a term that refers to the normative order of disruptions, precarity, and instability that permeate daily life across contemporary Beirut. Al-wad’ simultaneously features as a historical condition of perpetual instability bearing on daily life in Beirut, as well as a lens to analyze the practices of everyday life for Moussawi’s LGBT interlocutors. Moussawi’s inductive ethnographic approach charts the strategic use of identities, visibility, and “bubbles” or sources of solace in order to challenge exceptionalist representations of Beirut and LGBT experiences in the city. Moussawi critiques these reductive representations as “fractal orientalism”, a reductive representation that embeds hierarchies and exclusion through geographic associations, such as in fashioning Beirut as the “Paris of the Middle East”. Beirut becomes charming and “cosmopolitan” in a way that is similar to, but not quite, the same as Paris. Moussawi’s focus on queer daily practices against the backdrop of al-wad’ shows the limitations of these reductive representations in an effort to reimagine queerness, subjectivity, and politics.

Spirituality in expatriate experience and coping in mission

PurposeThe purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the role of spirituality, understood as a personal relationship with God, in missionary intercultural experience.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted narrative interviews with eight Polish consecrated missionaries in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay. We used thematic analysis to establish spirituality in missionary experience and narrative analysis to examine sensemaking processes.FindingsMissionary spirituality was defined by a personal relationship with God as a source of consolation, psychological comfort, strength to cope with distressing experiences, and Grace promoting self-improvement. It compensated for the lack of family and psychological support and enhanced psychological adjustment to the environment perceived as dangerous. Spirituality helped missionaries deal with cultural challenges, traumatic and life-threatening events. Traumatic experiences furthered their understanding of the mission and triggered a spiritual transition that entailed a change in their life, attitudes and behavior.Research limitations/implicationsComparative research into religious vs nonreligious individual spirituality in the experience across various types of expats in various locations could capture the professional and cultural specificity of individual spirituality. Research is also needed to link spirituality with expat failure.Practical implicationsCatholic agencies and institutions that dispatch missionaries to dangerous locations should consider providing professional psychological assistance. Narrative interviewing could be used to enhance missionaries' cultural and professional self-awareness, to better serve the local community. Their stories of intercultural encounters could be incorporated into cross-cultural training and the ethical and spiritual formation of students and future expats.Originality/valueThis study captures a spiritual aspect of intercultural experience of under-researched expats. It offers a model of the involvement of individual spirituality in coping in mission.

Richard Kogan’s Tchaikovsky Lecture Now Online

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article APA & MeetingsFull AccessRichard Kogan’s Tchaikovsky Lecture Now OnlineNick ZagorskiNick ZagorskiSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:11 Jun 2020https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2020.6b8AbstractThe 30-minute video is a condensed version of Kogan’s typical crowd-favorite lectures, which combine discussion about the link between musical artistry and mental illness with piano performances by Kogan, offering listeners a sense of the composer’s state of mind at the time.Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s death in 1893 is commonly attributed to cholera (outbreaks were a reoccurring problem in 19th-century Russia), but the exact cause of death is still a matter of scholarly debate. As psychiatrist and award-winning pianist Richard Kogan, M.D., plays the gentle closing notes of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony written that same year, he hears the most eloquent suicide note ever written.Kogan describes Tchaikovsky’s music and more in the 30-minute musical lecture titled “The Mind and Music of Tchaikovsky.” The video is a condensed version of Kogan’s typical crowd-favorite lectures at the APA Annual Meeting, which combine discussion about the link between musical artistry and mental illness with piano performances by Kogan offering listeners a sense of the composer’s state of mind at the time.Many APA members are familiar with Kogan, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, artistic director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program, and co-director of the Weill Cornell Human Sexuality Program. He has given his lauded lectures/performances on the link between musical artistry and mental illness at many meetings past. At APA’s 2020 Annual Meeting, which could not be held due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kogan was scheduled to perform as part of the William C. Menninger Memorial Convocation Lecture.Kogan’s Bernstein Lecture Also Now AvailableIn response to positive feedback from the Tchaikovsky video, Kogan has recently developed and uploaded another installment of his lecture series for interested viewers. The second video focuses on acclaimed American composer Leonard Bernstein, which Kogan previously performed at the 2018 Annual Meeting in New York. The video can be seen here. Also, stay tuned to Kogan’s personal channel for more potential videos in the future.In his video, Kogan explores Tchaikovsky’s despondency as well as his shame over his sexual orientation, and how these feelings led to the creation of some of history’s greatest pieces—from the melodic (and oft-parodied) love theme from Romeo and Juliet to the structurally groundbreaking opening of his first concerto.Though a video cannot fully recapture the experience of listening to live music in a communal setting, the video format enabled Kogan to add a few elements not available in a live presentation. These include having relevant music play in the background while Kogan explains Tchaikovsky’s feelings and an orchestral background to some of the pieces.Kogan noted that music in one form or another has long served as a source of solace during difficult times. “Music has the extraordinary power to lift spirits and soothe anxiety,” he said, noting that Tchaikovsky himself used musical composition as a tool for self-healing (He once wrote, “Without music, I would go insane.”). Kogan said he hopes his video might likewise provide some solace from the stresses of COVID-19 that his fellow psychiatrists and others are facing. ■The video “The Mind and Music of Tchaikovsky” is posted here. ISSUES NewArchived

Lived Realities of Lonely Older People: Resisting Idealisations of ‘Home’

This article is based on research set up to explore temporal dimensions of loneliness amongst older people in a northern town. As the study progressed, spatial considerations and confinements emerged as a related and equally important feature. The article suggests that the ‘social sphere’ of lived reality, especially reality lived out in one confined space, is a prime candidate for what has been termed ‘de-familiarisation’. Social policy discourses focussed on ‘ageing in place’ can sometimes neglect the realities of older people’s circumstances, daily life and social contact. Central arguments put forward in the article are: that loneliness increases as spatial prospects recede; that ‘home’ can become a source of frustration and negativity rather than a source of solace and comfort; and that expanding and facilitating the social horizons of older people currently ‘confined’ to home should be prioritised within a genuinely age-friendly approach to social policy.

Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies, by Jason R. Rudy

Reviewed by: Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies by Jason R. Rudy Isobel Armstrong (bio) Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies, by Jason R. Rudy; pp. xii + 247. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017, $49.95, £37.00. Adam Lindsay Gordon, Caroline Leakey, Fidelia Hill, Charles Sangster, Henry Lawson, Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson, and Charles G. D. Roberts: these nineteenth-century poets are not familiar figures even to specialists of Victorian poetry. But they have a prominent place in Jason Rudy’s Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies, a study of settler poetry and poems of emigration in three countries—Canada, South Africa, and Australia—on three continents. This book is a must not only for critics of Victorian poetry but also for all scholars working in the long nineteenth century. Rudy has opened a new field: he has mastered the poetry and print culture archives of his three continents, their colonial histories, and their different cultures of settlement. He explores the prolific publication of colonizing poetry over the century and makes it meaningful. His aim is to move away from Anglocentric readings and to repudiate accounts of colonial poetry that disparage both its derivative forms and its sentimental excess. [End Page 161] His overarching argument is that emigrant poetry both articulated and assuaged settler experience of dislocation by creating a sense of community and collective understanding through imagining the new territory as a homeland, relocating the values of the old country in a new context. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983) is recalled in the title, but Rudy has in mind the circulation of affect as the bonding agent rather than abstract theorization of community. Generic familiarity and derivative material in well-worn meters capable of being reworked and resignified in and for new spaces is therefore a positive advantage, rather than a weakness. Secondariness references the Britain left behind, while making possible new redactions of experience and nation. An outstanding example is Felicia Hemans’s “The Homes of England” (1827), which was reworked on the three continents. Rudy’s limpid expository style opens up his theme across six chapters. The first considers poetry in the newspapers published aboard emigrant ships for their so-called community in transit, often amounting to a third of the contents. Poetry, in the awful conditions of up to four months at sea, was a source of consolation in three ways: it drew upon the reanimating possibilities of parody; it gave expression to nostalgia by exploring captivity and exile and so reconstituting Britain; and it newly explored the place of culture in a settler community. This is a fine chapter, with some brilliant readings of parodies of Alfred Tennyson’s “Maud” (1855) and Thomas Hood’s “The Song of the Shirt” (1843). Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are all concerned with authenticity, plagiarism, the recirculation of genre, and the extent to which a derivative poetry can create structures of affect that both recall the country of origin and resituate new experience. Rudy shows how Lindsay Gordon’s “From the Wreck” (1870) reworks Robert Browning’s “How We Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent” (1845) in an agonistic context. He shows how Scottish dialect is used to underwrite communal consciousness. He takes the example of the American William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” (1818) and “The Indian Girl’s Lament” (c. 1832) to show how, as the same poems migrate across South Africa and Australia, they are not cloned, but recontextualized. He shows how second generation and so-called native-born poets such as Australian Thomas Henry Kendall and Canadian Oliver Goldsmith respond ambivalently to their immigrant status, questioning whether an authentic life is possible. Leakey more successfully understands her experience by repurposing genre. Indeed, the successful poet reproduces Britain in a new context by reproducing sentiment, Rudy argues, so that poetry becomes political and social work. The final two chapters move in a slightly different direction. Chapter 5, “Colonial Laureates,” explores the way in which poets established a local culture of poetry. Although loyalist, local poets did not align themselves with elite and aristocratic elements of British political traditions even...

A Comparative Althusserian Analysis of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Ahmad Mahmoud’s The Neighbors

The present study presents a comparative Althusserian reading of two novels; one written in Iran as a Middle East country and the other written in the U.S as a Western country. Both novels, The Neighbors (1974) by J.D Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by Ahmad Mahmud, are written during the Second World War and both focus on the growth, psychological development and unconscious subjugation of a young adult facing conflicts amid socio-political or socio-cultural challenges. Reading the novels under Althusserian notions of Ideological State Apparatuses, Internal Police and Unconscious Subjugation can help deciphering the root problems of internal and external conflicts of Kahaled and Holden, the protagonists of the novels. Functioning through Ideological State Apparatuses, state power acts covertly without exerting particular force by manipulating individuals’ unconscious and culture. Despite experiencing different socio-cultural events, ultimately both characters find peace of mind in the shelter of family and a female character. The journey of transition from innocence to experience ends for Holden by finding Phoebe, his sister, as the source of solace and for Khaled by finding a beloved, the Black-Eyed.

Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief 2.0 (ICSG 2.0): Validation of a revised measure of spiritual distress in bereavement

Spirituality has long served as a source of solace for many grievers following a loss. For other mourners, whose bereavement experience has been significantly challenged by struggles in their relationship with God and/or their faith community, the opposite is true. Complicated spiritual grief (CSG) is a spiritual crisis following the loss of a loved one. To assess CSG in samples of bereaved adults, a simple-to-use, multidimensional measure of spiritual crisis following loss called the Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief (ICSG) was previously developed and validated. However, subsequent research providing greater clarity about the construct of CSG supported the need to revise and update the ICSG. The goal of the present study was to establish the psychometric validity of a revised measure of CSG, called the Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief 2.0 (ICSG 2.0), with a large, diverse cohort of bereaved Christian adults (N = 440). Analyses of the bifurcated sample supported a three-factor model measuring insecurity with God, estrangement from the spiritual community, and disruption in religious practices. Further analyses supported the convergent and incremental validity of a 28-item scale relative to other theoretically similar instruments and measures of poor bereavement outcome, indicating the instrument’s research and clinical usefulness.

“You’re not alone”: Music as a source of consolation among adolescents and young adults

This study aimed at determining whether adolescents and young adults use music as an agent of consolation when dealing with daily sorrow and stress. We furthermore tested whether three aspects of music listening, i.e., the music itself, its lyrics, and experiences of closeness to artists and fans, were experienced as comforting. Third, we explored whether consolation through music listening was related to music use and psychological problems. Overall, 1,040 respondents, age 13–30 years ( M = 20.3, 70.7% female), responded to items measuring listening hours, music importance, music preferences, positive and negative affects elicited by music (PANAS), internalizing and externalizing problems, and consolation through music. Slightly over 69% reported that they (definitely) use music as a source of consolation. Furthermore, female respondents and respondents with higher levels of anxiousness/depression and lower levels of aggression sought consolation by music more often. The same result emerged for respondents with a preference for chart pop music, for those who found music important, and for those with stronger emotional reactions to music. Music’s consoling effects were reported as resulting particularly from the sound and texture of the music itself, from attribution of personal meaning to music’s lyrics, and, to a lesser extent, from perceptions of closeness to artists and other listeners.