Psychiatry

Health care will undoubtedly change over the next 20 or 30 years as eHealth technologies become increasingly used and accepted (Treister, 1997; Yellowlees, 1997, 2001). At a global level, the health care system is moving away from episodic care to concentrating on continuity of care, especially for patients with chronic diseases (Yack, 2000), who will give rise to the greatest disease burden in the future (Murray & Lopez, 1999). Many countries are gradually moving away from a focus on the service provider to a focus on the informed patient, and from an individual approach to treatment to a team approach. Increasingly there is a concern less with the treatment of illness and more with the need for wellness promotion and illness prevention, which, of course, parallels a shift away from traditional care to community care.

We used multiple regression to calculate a new Ego Impairment Index (EII-3). The aim was to incorporate changes in the component variables and distribution of the number of response as found in the new Rorschach Performance Assessment System, while sustaining the validity and reliability of previous EIIs. The EII-3 formula was derived from a large, diverse, developmental sample (N = 411) and tested on an independent validation sample (N = 206) procured from psychiatric, forensic, research, and nonclinical control contexts. Additional analyses revealed high correlations with previous EIIs with similar reliability and validity but superior distributional qualities.

Over the past decade the approaches adopted towards the mental health care of refugees by a range of national and international healthcare organisations have been the subject of a sustained and growing critique. Much of this critique has focused on the way in which Western psychiatric categories have been ascribed to refugee populations in ways which, critics argue, pay scant attention to the social, political and economic factors that play a pivotal role in refugees' experience. Rather than portraying refugees as ''passive victims'' suffering mental health problems, critics have argued that attention should be given to the resistance of refugees and the ways in which they interpret and respond to experiences, challenging the external forces bearing upon them. In this paper a range of issues concerning the mental health care of refugees will be examined. These include the role of psychiatric diagnosis in relation to refugees' own perceptions of their need and within the context of general health and social care provision. In examining services the emergence of new paradigms in mental health care is identified. These include the growth of holistic approaches that take account of refugees' own experiences and expressed needs and which address the broader social policy contexts in which refugees are placed. A three-dimensional model for the analysis of the interrelationship between ''macro'' level institutional factors in the mental health of refugees and the individual treatment of refugees within mental health services is proposed. #

"The role that the involvement of parents may play in the treatment outcome of their
children with anxiety disorders is still under debate. Some studies dealing with other
disorders have examined the role that the expressed emotion (EE) construct (parental
overinvolvement, criticism and hostility) may play in treatment outcome and relapse.
Given that some of these aspects have been associated with social anxiety for a long time,
it was hypothesized that EE may be associated with lower treatment outcome. The sample
was composed of 16 adolescents who benefited from a school-based, cognitive-behavioural
intervention aimed at overcoming social anxiety. Then, parents were classified with
high or low EE. The results revealed that the adolescents whose parents had low EE
showed a statistically significant reduction of their social anxiety scores at posttest, as
opposed to adolescents of parents with high expressed emotion. These findings suggest
that parental psychopathology (parents with high EE) should be taken into consideration
to prevent poor adolescent treatment outcome."

"The expression “mental illness” arises historically in the course of conversations about our human relational living, in an attempt to visualize some regularities that occurred in it, thinking that if we could grasp them we would be able to solve some difficulties that we were encountering in our living together, thinking that we could do so through formalizing them with some adequate theory that we would invent. However, to do that, we have to abstract those regularities in our living together first; we must respect ourselves accepting that naming is not a trivial aspect of what we do in our living: names have arisen in our history of living together as operational elements of coordination of our doings, and reveal regularities in that living."

The answer is: it depends. Healthy narcissism is a mature, balanced love of oneself coupled with a stable sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Healthy narcissism implies knowledge of one's boundaries and a proportionate and realistic appraisal of one's achievements and traits.

This paper aims at analyzing a specific aspect of Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed medical expertise, which is the very non-Freudian role he ascribes to dietetics in the treatment of “nervous” diseases. I first consider the philosophical justifications of such a psycho-dietetic approach, namely, Nietzsche’s mind-body monism and his cultural diagnosis of morbidity targeting the Judeo-Christian way of life. I then argue that Nietzsche’s dietetics is not therapeutic in an ordinary sense, both because it doesn’t prescribe universal recipes and because it doesn’t purport to suppress pain. Lastly, I show that the Nietzschean diet is beyond the reach of the typical “decadent”, insofar as the latter instinctively chooses a harmful regime.

Pasando la mayor parte de las veces desapercibidas, aunque existen ya desde hace ya mucho tiempo, no es raro encontrar en los más diversos entornos asistenciales psiquiátricos, ciertas publicaciones, en formato de periódico, revista o fanzine, realizadas por las personas allí atendidas. Nacidas primero en los hospitales psiquiátricos, más recientemente dieron un paso fuera y ampliaron su difusión a otros entornos comunitarios, impresas primero en papel para, en la actualidad, aprovecharse también de las potencialidades y economía del formato digital a través de Internet. Pero, a pesar de su amplia difusión y utilización, parecería que su existencia queda relegada a una especie de subproducto ocupacional, que apenas ha merecido la atención de la literatura académica y especializada, incluso obviando que su existencia se remonta a un ya muy lejano primer tercio del S. XIX. Solo las más recientes corrientes historiográficas son las que han empezado a considerar dichas publicaciones como una importante fuente de información y documentación desde la perspectiva de los propios pacientes. Este tipo de boletines resultan, además, un reflejo práctico de las diferentes modas y tendencias asistenciales predominantes a lo largo de sus ya casi dos siglos de vida, con una evolución que es la que intentaremos esquematizar en esta presentación, resumiéndola en diferentes etapas con sus matices diferenciales entre sí, en cuanto a su presentación formal, contenidos y objetivos.

The article develops the concept of sensus communis in order to describe the fundamentally interactive and socially embedded nature of human experience. In the introduction, we focus on the historical relevance of phenomenological psychiatry for social psychiatry, especially in Germany, and give a short outline of the philosophy of common sense. The concept of sensus communis is then considered under three aspects: (1) as a fundamental intermodal capacity of sensing oneself and the world through the medium of the lived body; (2) as a social sense, derived from primary social interactions with others, and enabling a habitual, pre-reflective and confident relation with the social world; (3) as ‚common sense‘, that means, the capacity to perceive and think in accordance with intersubjectively shared, self-evident rules, and to apply them to specific situations. All three aspects must be considered as mutually interwoven. On this basis, psychopathological implications of sensus communis as well as socio-epidemiological findings on the connection between social environment and mental disorders will be taken into account. Finally, the paper points out possible applications of the concept to therapeutic approaches such as assertive community treatment and open dialogue.

The focus of this paper is on the integration of artistic techniques within the feld of gestalt therapy.
From a humanistic and phenomenological framework, this paper focuses on how these techniques
can enhance mental well-being and therapeutic change. Through the exploration of past research,
both from gestalt therapy and art therapy literature, art is viewed either as a vehicle towards verbalization or as an entity on its own. During Art therapy, a piece of art is created however the focus
and subsequent in depth exploration is on the creative process itself, within the therapeutic relationship. During this exploration, art is used as the ground to facilitate and enhance the expression
of individuals' feelings in therapy. Through this manner art can be used in gestalt therapy to help
an individual become aware of unconscious processes in order to creatively adjust to the present
moment. Whilst tapping on the emotional processes, the client can experience direct, reality-based
and immediate responses. One can say that both gestalt therapy and art therapy focus on the
therapeutic process that is created in between the therapist and client.

the medical superintendent of the Brookwood Asylum, immediately took upon himself the task of unchaining Catherine from what he clearly considered apparel reminiscent of a pre-Conollyite era ofmechanical restraint. In the first few weeks following her admission to Brookwood, he observed that Catherine had responded well to her new physical liberty, behaving placidly, and eating with a sharp knife. "She acts", he confided in his medical casebook, "without exhibiting any suicidal propensities at present." By early 1872, unfortunately, her behaviour deteriorated. Seemingly unprovoked bouts of aggression aimed at both fellow patients and attendants prompted the superintendent to administer morphine and chloral hydrate. Early in 1875, she attempted to strangle herself but appeared soon to recover and during the next six months her behaviour ranged from the diligent to the destructive before she was again transferred (back) to Wandsworth Asylum. Sadly, her persistent attempts to commit self-murder were ultimately successful. A short time after her arrival, she committed suicide by hanging.5

La contenzione fisica è una misura frequentemente utilizzata, nonostante presenti un rischio piuttosto elevato di conseguenze negative, e per questo suscita ampio dibattito tra i professionisti in tutti i luoghi di cura. L’obiettivo che ci si pone attraverso questo elaborato è delineare le evidenze scientifiche, attraverso una revisione della letteratura, delle complicanze legate all’uso della contenzione fisica praticata negli ospedali e nelle strutture residenziali per anziani, evidenziandone la tipologia e le eventuali differenze dei due ambiti.

Trauma-focused cognitive–behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), a well-established, evidence-based treatment for children who have experienced trauma, has been increasingly utilized in a group format. Group therapy formats are appealing because they can be highly effective and have the potential to reach larger numbers of clients. Moreover, TF-CBT group delivery may be particularly valuable in reducing the feelings of shame, isolation, and stigma experienced by youth and their caregivers in the aftermath of traumatic experiences. This article reviews the group TF-CBT research, discusses the therapeutic benefits of TF-CBT therapy groups, and provides clinical and logistical guidance for implementing TF-CBT in group format, including a session-by-session protocol. Future directions for research and clinical work in this area are also discussed.

This paper examines the history and philosophy of a little-known psychological experience: depersonalization. It explores it as a phenomenal experience and as a disorder. It examines nosological debates over the condition, both past and present. It presents speculative hypotheses about phenomenal consciousness, the self and sensation.

Objective: To explain the illusory nature of the self and explore its implications for psychotherapy.

Conclusions: Our usual experience of the self is an illusion. Rather than a discrete entity, it is a network of processes that maintains apparent irreducible unity via alterations of perceptions, beliefs, intentions and memories. By pro- viding an efficient summary of an individual and its surroundings, the self-illusion allows one to predict, experience and interact with the world efficiently. Targeting mechanisms that preserve the self-illusion could provide a focus for psychotherapy. Viewing the self as a complex network offers a valuable conceptual framework for psychotherapy.

Reducing and eliminating the use of restrictive practices, such as seclusion and restraint, is a national priority for Australia’s mental health services. Whilst legislation, organization and practice changes have all contributed to a reduction in these practices, forensic mental health services continue to report high rates. This paper details the findings of research that examined the experiences of nurses working in the inpatient forensic mental health setting.
The research aimed to (i) document the experiences of nurses working in the forensic mental health setting, (ii) articulate their perceived unique skill set to manage challenging patient behaviours, and (iii) determine how their experiences and skill set can inform practice changes to reduce the use of restrictive practices. Thirty-two nurses were recruited from one Australian forensic mental health service. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using inductive content analysis. Four categories were identified that influenced practice experiences: (i) working in a challenging but interesting environment, (ii) specialty expertize, (iii) exposure to aggression and resilience as a protective factor, and (iv) the importance of effective teamwork and leadership. Forensic mental health care is complex, highly specialized, and often delivered in an unpredictable environment. Whilst high rates of restrictive practices may be linked
to the unique characteristics of forensic patients, training, teamwork, and leadership are critical factors influencing their use in this setting. Nurses working in this area need to be educated and supported to work confidently and safely with this high-risk patient cohort.

Amazon Purchasing Link:

https://www.amazon.com/theory-practice-psychotherapy-specific-disorders/dp/0398025398

DOI Link:
https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.123.3.363-a

Book Description:

This book is unique in several basic ways.  It presents a theoretical discussion of the essence of the psychotherapeutic process, which goes beyond just the remediation of pathological symptoms, and also acquaints the reader with the essence of the growth process, which enables one to continue one's personal growth beyond the removal of pathological symptoms to personal maturity, fulfillment, and self-realization.

This book is also unique in that its format approaches the understanding of the therapeutic process through the understanding of the treatment of patients with specific psychopathologies discussed by consistently successful professional psychotherapists.

This book is unique as well in that in addition to the various major neurotic and psychotic disorders, it also covers areas rarely, if ever, found discussed in other psychotherapy books, such as psychodynamics and psychotherapy of suicidal patients, psychotherapy of patients with psychosomatic disorders, psychotherapy of patients with acting-out disorders, psychotherapy of patients with sexual disorders, psychotherapy with the aged, and an entire chapter devoted to establishig some basic criteria for an effective psychotherapy process.

Essentially, this book is designed to serve as a source book or reference book for professional psychotherapists, and students studying to be psychotherapists in such fields as psychology, psychiatry and social work, and it could also be useful as a textbook for advanced courses in psychotherapy, as well as a supplemental text for basic introductory courses in psychotherapy.  Each of the contributors has deliberately taken the pains to try to communicate in a way that will be intelligible to the student, as well as offer material that will be new, informative, and challenging to the more sophisticated clinician. This book goes beyond being what may be called a how-to-do-it type primer. It is not meant to be a structured "cookbook" or set of formulas blueprinting the course of psychotherapy.

Each contributor to this book is a renowned authority  in the area of the treatment of the specific disorder  about which he is writing, and he shares with the reader his understanding of the basic nature of the disorder, along with the therapeutic  considerations and insights that he has found to be most valuable in dealing effectively and successfully with persons with this particular kind of pathology. Case illustrations are appropriately supplied in order to help clarify  for the reader how this contributing therapist deals with the particular kinds of patients under discussion.  However, the suggestions made by each contributor should in no way be interpreted as the only way such problems can be approached and resolved. Rather, it only represents the way that one outstanding clinician tends to deal with the special problems involved in the treatment of persons with the particular disorder under discussion, and it is meant to serve only as a helpful guide for the reader.

As the reader may have already gathered,  the emphasis in this book is primarily focused on the professional and practical aspects rather than on the academic aspects of psychotherapy.  It is meant to fill a void and be consistent with a growing trend today in which professional clinicians and students studying to be psychotherapists want material to study that will provide them with the necessary skills most relevant to exactly what they will be doing in their professional career, rather than the strongly academic emphasis to which they have been exposed at most educational institutions.

This book recognizes that effective psychotherapy is not something that can be learned by being exposed only to theories, techniques, or research findings. Psychotherapy is not just a doing, or a predetermined set of techniques, as such, and, therefore, there is no formula, or systematic defined procedure, that has to be mastered. Rather, it involves an empathically sensitive, genuinely caring, engaged, being-with or intimate experiential communion, and the understanding of patients that naturally arises from that, from which then flows the therapist's appropriate responses. One has to truly, and deeply, here before one can act appropriately and meaningfully. Thus, the best way for one to really come to learn anything significant about effective psychotherapy is to have those clinicians who are truly masters of the art and science of psychotherapy share with others their sensitive and profound understanding of the nature of psychotherapy with patients with particular pathological symptoms.

This milestone text provides a comprehensive and state-of-the art overview of perfectionism theory, research, and treatment from the past 25 years, with contributions from the leading researchers in the field. The book examines new theories and perspectives including the social disconnection model of perfectionism and the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism. It also reviews empirical findings, with a special focus on stress, vulnerability, and resilience, and examines perfectionism in specific populations. Finally, it considers how perfectionism relates to physical health and psychophysiological processes and introduces new approaches to effective prevention and treatment. By increasing our understanding of perfectionism as a complex personality disposition and providing a framework for future explorations, this landmark publication aims to promote further research in this field. It will be invaluable reading for academics, students, and professionals in personality psychology, clinical and counselling psychology, applied psychology and related disciplines.

The METAPSYCHOLOGY part is about everything that is psychically relevant, that is, everything concerning people. People mainly use language to express these matters. Therefore, to differentiate areas of the psychical relevant, I differentiate them similar to how our language is differentiated. (→ Analogy between language and the psychical relevant).
In the part PSYCHOLOGY, I also use this classification for the psyche. Among other things, this leads to a more comprehensive definition of the psyche.
In the part METAPSYCHIATRY, I describe how a confusion of basic meanings can produce inverted, strange realities, thus mental illnesses, too.
I mainly show this process in the part PSYCHIATRY using the example of schizophrenia.
Moreover, I examine the psychotherapeutic quality both of the most important worldviews and religions in the part METAPSYCHOTHERAPY and the most known psychotherapeutic schools of thought in the part PSYCHOTHERAPY.
Finally, I present an ideology-free psychotherapy in the chapter called 'Primary Psychotherapy'.

It has often been observed that, in general, different psychotherapies do equally well. Some have taken this as good evidence that therapeutic action in psychotherapy rests not on the factors specific to individual therapies, but on common factors. I argue against this view in favor of a theory of therapeutic action deriving from psychodynamic psychotherapy. This identifies the therapeutic relationship (and with it, many so-called common factors) and ‘psychodynamic insight’ as therapeutic factors. I review the evidence from outcome studies and from studies into two concepts related to insight, viz. reflection function and psychological defense. I argue that the best interpretation of the evidence supports the claim that insight, in interrelation with the therapeutic relationship, contributes to therapeutic action.

Mark Haddon’s Polar Bears (2010) and Nick Payne’s Constellations (2012) are two recent British plays exploring the minds of women suffering from a disorder of the mind, either psychiatric or neurological: in Haddon’s play, Kay, an artist, is bipolar; in Payne’s play, Marianne, a scientist, has a brain tumour. Both works question the protagonists’ freedom of self-determination and highlight our sense of reality as a construct, using poetic structures which break with the traditional dramatic linearity of the conventional play. Indeed, instead of providing a chronological succession of scenes, they let the drama emerge from a random alternation of parallel scenarios to be read as probabilities. The contradictory, disordered fragments that make up the plays thus invite the reader-spectator, in a suggestive way, to welcome the dramatic possibilities of a story which is never settled or decided, instead of merely registering a given narrative. As a result, in providing structural metaphors for the female characters’ pathological states, these plays not only reflect on the tentative process of their own writing, they also challenge our perception of reality as a given and a single object – a view contested by the paradigm shift of quantum physics. While Marianne, in Constellations, explains the theory that "In the quantum universe, every choice, every decision you’ve ever and never made exists in an unimaginable vast ensemble of parallel universes", Kay, in Polar Bears, seems to experience Everett’s many-worlds interpretation from a first-person perspective, exclaiming, "We think there’s only one world. […] But there are so many worlds, aren’t there, one laid over the other. […] It’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry." This study looks at how these two plays, as instances of a “Theatre of Possibilities”, to use Jean-Pierre Sarrazac’s expression, explore mind and brain disorders to shape a dramatic space that gives rise to a subversive form of realism, based on the quantum principle of uncertainty. They resort to tropes – quantum principles and phenomena used as thematic and structural metaphors – as a means to portray our cognitive processes and, more specifically, to conjure up the hidden reality of pathological subjective experience, paralleled by and entangled with the most mind-blowing theories of modern science. I argue that in Payne’s and Haddon’s plays, the dramatic space becomes a place where quantum descriptions of reality and psychopathological distortions of reality tend to converge to form a consistent landscape/mindscape, making room for theatrical realism to be reinvented from the very matter of what should intuitively appear as the most delusional imaginings.

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Polar Bears de Mark Haddon (2010) et Constellations de Nick Payne (2012) sont deux pièces britanniques récentes qui explorent la psyché de personnages féminins souffrant soit d’un trouble psychiatrique soit d’une maladie neurologique : dans la pièce de Haddon, Kay, une artiste, est bipolaire ; dans la pièce de Payne, Marianne, une scientifique, déclare une tumeur cérébrale. En faisant dialoguer santé mentale, fonctionnement cognitif et mécanique quantique, les deux pièces interrogent la liberté et la capacité des protagonistes à s’autodéterminer malgré la maladie et, à travers la mise à mal des fonctions cognitives, mettent en lumière notre perception de la réalité comme construction subjective en utilisant des structures poétiques qui rompent avec la linéarité traditionnelle du drame conventionnel. En effet, au lieu de proposer un enchaînement chronologique de scènes déterminantes dont le déroulé crée progressivement l’univers de la fiction sur le mode indicatif, Polar Bears et Constellations se tissent toutes deux autour d’une alternance aléatoire de scénarios parallèles qui s’appréhendent sur un mode conditionnel comme autant de probabilités décrochées de la flèche du temps. Les fragments contradictoires et désordonnés qui les constituent invitent ainsi le lecteur-spectateur, par touches suggestives et non successives, à imaginer les possibilités d’une histoire sans résolution, qui n’est jamais fixée ou déterminée, au lieu d’enregistrer simplement les avancées d’un récit donné. Cet article vise à montrer que les hésitations et oscillations qui s’élaborent autour des états pathologiques des personnages féminins (et dont elles sont le résultat et le symptôme) mettent non seulement en abyme le processus même d’écriture (dimension métadramatique), elles nous encouragent également à interroger notre rapport au réel (dimension philosophique) non pas tant comme objet unique et extérieur au sujet qui l’observe, mais comme onde de probabilités ou écosystème d’états superposés dans lequel l’observateur lui-même joue un rôle déterminant. Ce changement de paradigme introduit par la physique quantique rencontre ainsi l’instabilité ou l’indécidabilité psychologique. Tandis que, dans Constellations, Marianne explique la théorie scientifique selon laquelle « dans l’univers quantique, chaque choix que l’on fait, chaque décision que l’on prend existe dans un ensemble infiniment vaste d’univers parallèles », dans Polar Bears Kay semble faire l’expérience directe, à la première personne, de la théorie des mondes multiples d’Everett (many-worlds interpretation) lorsqu’elle s’exclame, en proie à une phase maniaque : « On croit qu’il n’existe qu’un seul monde. […] Mais il existe tellement de mondes (so many worlds), n’est-ce pas, empilés les uns sur les autres. […] C’est si beau que ça me donne envie de pleurer. » Ce travail s’intéresse à la manière dont ces deux pièces illustrent ce que l’on pourrait appeler, avec Jean-Pierre Sarrazac, un « Théâtre des Possibilités » et explorent les maladies de l’esprit et du cerveau pour ouvrir un espace dramatique dans lequel se développe une forme subversive de réalisme postdramatique fondé sur le principe quantique d’incertitude (Heisenberg). Les tropes qui s’y déploient – principes et phénomènes quantiques utilisés comme métaphores thématiques et structurelles – permettent de rendre compte de nos processus cognitifs et, plus précisément, de la réalité cachée de l’expérience intime de la maladie, tout en mettant ces expériences en relation avec les théories les plus révolutionnaires de la science moderne. Chez Payne comme chez Haddon, l’espace dramatique devient le lieu où les descriptions quantiques et les distorsions psychopathologiques de la réalité tendent à converger pour former un paysage étonnamment cohérent dans sa relativité et permettre au réalisme théâtral de se refonder à partir de cela-même qui s’apparente intuitivement aux délires d’une imagination malade et à des dysfonctionnements cognitifs, pour finalement poser la question essentielle de notre libre-arbitre.

Історія безумства як передумова відчуження людини й вигнання її із соціуму захоплює подих і проливає світло на сучасне ставлення суспільства до всіх інакших. Сторінками книги «Божевілля і нерозуміння. Історія божевілля у класичну епоху» разом із Мішелем Фуко ми вирушимо в подорож крізь століття і простежимо, як еволюціонувало уявлення про безумців від часів Середньовіччя й до наших днів.

So far, the value dimension underlying affectivity disorders has remained out of focus in phenomenological psychopathology. As early as at the beginning of the 20th century, however, German phenomenologist Max Scheler examined in depth the relationship between affectivity and value dimension through the concept of valueception (Wertnehmung). In this sense, a recent noteworthy contribution has been provided by John Cutting, who has drawn attention to the importance of Scheler’s analyses for psychiatry. In this work I take into consideration only two aspects of Cutting’s proposal: 1) the relationship between the impairments of valueception and the perception of certain value classes; and 2) the interpretation of Scheler’s phenomenological reduction and its juxtaposition with the modus vivendi of schizophrenia. According to Cutting, in the modus vivendi of schizophrenia the valueception impairment entails putting vital values in brackets and focusing on personal values, with a process that recalls Scheler’s phenomenological reduction. Regarding the first aspect, I share Cutting’s starting point, but then shift the focus on how important the valueception is for the intersubjective dimension. In particular, I maintain that rather than compromising the perception of vital values, valueception impairments in the modus vivendi of schizophrenia interfere with the intersubjective dimension and are interwoven with a process of disembodiment. My thesis is that the modus vivendi of schizophrenia involves a disturbance of the intersubjective dimension that arises from the level of valueception and that determines the person’s self-referential closure. With regard to the second point, by analyzing Scheler’s phenomenological reduction, I sustain that its main objective is to increase both the interaction with otherness and the openness to the world (Weltoffenheit). As a consequence, the modus vivendi of schizophrenia, in my opinion, is not comparable, as Cutting claims, with Scheler’s phenomenological reduction, but goes in a different direction

Il burnout è una sindrome che colpisce gli operatori delle helping profession. Maslach (1982) 1 la descrisse come caratterizzata da tre dimensioni: esaurimento emozionale, depersonalizzazione e riduzione delle capacità personali. L'esaurimento emozionale (EE) è la perdita delle risorse personali ed emotive; l'operatore ha la sensazione di non aver più nulla da offrire ai pazienti. La depersonalizzazione (DP) è una dimensione che comprende una serie di comportamenti negativi dell'operatore nei confronti dei pazienti (risposta fredda e impersonale, sentimenti di squalifica verso l'utenza, rifiuto, cinismo, aperta ostilità). La riduzione delle capacità personali (riduzione di RP) si manifesta con una sensazione di inadeguatezza professionale e porta a una caduta dell'autostima e del desiderio di progressi professionali. Nonostante sia spontaneo pensare che la sindrome interessa categorie ad alto rischio (operatori del pronto soccorso, operatori psichiatrici, oncologici, della terapia intensiva, dei malati di AIDS), per le quali si pone il problema dello stress addizionale connesso con le speciali problematiche con le quali ci si deve occupare, gli studi di prevalenza fin qui condotti dimostrano che il disturbo interessa anche gli specialisti ambulatoriali, gli operatori sociosanitari in genere e i Medici di Medicina Generale (MMG) 2 . A conferma della tesi appena esposta citiamo uno studio del 2007 3 che ha valutato l'efficacia di un progetto di consulenza e prevenzione sviluppato dalla Norwegian Medical Association. Questo programma, chiamato "Villa Sana Program", aveva come scopo il supporto dei medici in difficoltà psicologica; le condizioni emotive dei partecipanti al "Villa Sana Program" sono state valutate con una batteria di test psicometrici, tra cui anche il Maslach Burnout Inventory (test più diffuso per la diagnosi di burnout). È interessante notare come, nonostante il progetto fosse indirizzato a tutte le categorie di medici, una gran parte degli affluenti fosse costituita proprio da MMG. Secondo lo "Studio internazionale sul burnout nei medici di famiglia europei", il 30-40% dei medici soffre di burnout a un livello tale da influenzare le prestazioni professionali 3 . Uno studio di prevalenza condotto sui MMG della provincia di Modena 4 ha rilevato una notevole diffusione del disturbo: più dei due terzi dei MMG è risultato emotivamente esausto, circa la metà ha presentato livelli medio-alti di depersonalizzazione e più del 50% possiede un buon grado di realizzazione personale.

This Lab aims at:

1. The clinical consolidation of the Quanto-Geometric Psychophysics Framework of the Human Mental thru the establishment of a data acquisition and experimental platform.

2. The eventual development of mental health and clinical practice products arising from the visualizations, methodologies and solutions brought about by the Theory.

The sum of the Theory is exposed in the publication Functional Architecture of the Human Mental, ISBN 978-0-9647466-8-8, co-authored by Joseph J. Jean-Claude, Laser-Optics Associate Engineer, and Caroline Stamu-O’Brien, MD.

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This paper investigates the relationship between psychoactive substances and so-called paranormal phenomena falling within the study of parapsychology. It is primarily concerned with extrasensory perception (ESP)—telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance—as well as out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs). Psychokinesis (PK), aura vision, encounter experiences, and sleep paralysis only make a very limited contribution to this review as they are seldom related to psychoactive drugs within the parapsychological literature. The paper borrows widely, but by no means exhaustively, from parapsychology as well as transpersonal studies, anthropology, ethnobotany, phytochemistry, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and neurobiology, particularly neurochemistry. It is organized into neurochemical models of paranormal experience (section 1), field reports of intentional and spontaneous phenomena incorporating anthropological, historical and clinical cases, and personal accounts (section 2), surveys of paranormal belief and experience (section 3), experimental research (section 4), and a methodological critique of the experimental research with recommendations for further work (section 5).

The press, photography, radio, even before television, have prepared the masses for total immersion in the technologically advanced virtual realities that currently dominate and disorient us, destroying identities, without our realizing it. The Matrix is ​​a world where the sacredness of life and the miracle of birth no longer exist, where life can be interfaced, and transformed, with machines, until it is completely replaced by copies, simulacra, artificial ones (such as robots). Virtual reality, as a technology of representation, is nothing other than the extreme consequence of the will of nihilistic domination, the will of omnipotence, the will of death, which pushes man towards the annihilation of himself and of the real world.

"... art is everywhere because artifice is at the center of reality. Thus art is death, because not only is its critical transcendence dead, but because reality itself has been confused with its own image, it no longer even has the time to acquire reality value" (Jean Baudrillard)

"... with the real world we have also eliminated the apparent one" (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Depuis quelques décennies, les théâtres du traumatisme et de la maladie mentale donnent une visibilité de plus en plus accrue à la souffrance psychologique et au trouble psychiatrique sur la scène contemporaine. Dans cette mouvance, un certain nombre de pièces de nature souvent expérimentale insèrent des thèmes, des références et des matériaux issus du domaine de la santé mentale dans les multiples formes qu'elle prend aujourd'hui pour donner la parole à une psyché en détresse – celle, le plus souvent, de personnages féminins. Qu'il s'agisse de psychiatrie, de psychologie clinique, de psychanalyse ou encore de psychothérapie, on trouve ainsi dans des pièces récentes de la scène européenne une assimilation des discours de la médecine et des sciences cognitives. Ces théâtres offrent ainsi une réflexion sur les traumatismes psychologiques et les difficultés existentielles du sujet féminin malade, dont le corps s'efface et dont la voix fragile s'élève sur scène pour dire le drame intérieur de l'errance mentale et/ou du trouble psychique, voire de la pathologie identifiée. Le présent article propose une étude des diverses approches de la maladie mentale et des troubles post-traumatiques adoptées par quatre auteurs contemporains de la scène européenne : les auteurs britanniques Sarah Kane et Martin Crimp, l'homme de théâtre français Gildas Milin, et la dramaturge italienne Francesca Volchitza Cabrini. Les pièces de ces auteurs illustrent à différents niveaux et de différentes manières mais non sans points de convergence forts la façon dont des objets empruntés aux champs de la médecine et de la psychiatrie sont récupérés, dramatisés et mis en scène par le théâtre contemporain. L'originalité commune de ces écritures réside dans le fait qu'elles puisent toutes dans la littérature théorique ou clinique de la psychologie pour recycler des matériaux essentiellement verbaux issus du domaine de la santé mentale et les transformer en poésie de la scène. Cette « psychopoésie » dit la gravité du malaise qui hante l’individu en ce début du XXIème siècle, tout en explorant la nature et les limites de l’humain poussé dans des situations psychologiques extrêmes. Par contraste ou en dialogue avec les discours et les pratiques de la médecine, la psychopathologie devient ressource psychopoétique et se donne ainsi comme une matière qui renouvelle, dans leurs formes aussi bien que dans leurs contenus, le langage, l’écriture et la structure du drame contemporain.

• Employer/workplaces have an impact on mental health nursing staff's general attitudes towards persons with mental illness. • Staff have more positive attitudes if their knowledge about mental illness is less stigmatized and currently have or have once had a close friend with mental problem. • More favourable attitudes among staff towards persons with mental illness could be developed and transmitted in the subculture at work places.

The analysis of mental disorders necessarily requires careful and multilayered reflection. Psychiatry is indeed focused on complex phenomena and symptoms that can be only partly traced back to merely quantitative objectifiable data. This is the reason why we witness a growing methodological and conceptual “mutual enlightenment” between philosophy and psychiatry. Whereas philosophy offers notions that can help to take into account also the qualitative aspects and the lived experiences of pathologies, clinical psychiatry seems to represent one of the most relevant practical fields for philosophy to test its explanatory capacity in relation to its many important issues. The history of phenomenological psychopathology, in particular, shows that philosophers have demonstrated a keen interest in the practical consequences of these issues in the field of clinical psychopathology.

It is important to note that, in diagnosing and analyzing some disorders as well as in providing therapeutic instructions, psychiatry turns to concepts that have a pronounced philosophical relevance. Human being, person, self, intersubjectivity, common sense, lived body (Leib) and inanimate body (Körper) are but some of the concepts employed to comprehend several psychopathologies – for instance, those entailing profound emotional and intersubjective disabilities such as schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and depression. These notions have been the object of lively philosophical discussions. It is therefore quite difficult to imagine, for example, that the connections between time, body and otherness which emerge in certain psychopathologies could be analyzed in complete detachment from the philosophical debate over these issues or without asking whether there is any relationship between mental disorders and the peculiarity of human existence.

Considering these convergences, this special issue offers to its readers a series of contributions that investigate the possible relationships between specific psychopathological symptoms and some crucial philosophical issues from various viewpoints. Joel Krueger and Michelle Maiese argue that the notion of “mental institutions” – discussed in recent debates about extended cognition – can help better understand the origin and character of social impairments in autism, and also help illuminate the extent to which some mechanisms of autistic dysfunction extend across both internal and external factors (i.e., they do not just reside within an individual’s head). In his two papers, John Cutting explores the modus vivendi of schizophrenia and that of depression in relation to Max Scheler's phenomenology. Guido Cusinato develops a critical reflection on Cutting’s proposal, highlighting the intersubjective and enactive dimension of valueception impairments. Underlying  this discussion between Cutting and Cusinato there is a different way of interpreting the relationship between the modus vivendi of schizophrenia and Scheler’s phenomenological reduction. The next issue of the journal will include Cutting’s response to Cusinato’s observations. Guilherme Messas and Melissa Tamelini analyze two concepts of a philosophical origin – that of dialectics and that of essence – which, in their strict application to psychopathology, could be of considerable value for diagnostic purposes and for the introduction and follow-up of therapeutic strategies. Lucas Bloc and Virginia Moirera propose an outline of clinical phenomenology for eating disorders inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical phenomenology. Francesca Brencio explores the “pathic” dimension of existence, which is the capacity of both being affected and being situated within moods and atmospheres. The broader purpose of her paper is to show how the “pathic” dimension of existence is related to psychopathology and clinical practice, for example in affective disorders and schizophrenia. Valeria Bizzari draws attention to the interaffective and intersubjective dimensions of Asperger’s subjects. Finally, Gilberto di Petta and Mario Rossi Monti highlight the importance of the debate on these issues that took place in Italy, retracing the history of the Italian Society for Phenomenological Psychopathology and the School of Phenomenological-Dynamic Psychotherapy.

There will be a further issue of the journal on this topic. All together, these papers aim to promote a closer comparison and collaboration between psychiatry and philosophy, going beyond a reductive and merely symptomatological conception of mental illness and widening the horizon so as to research areas that so far have remained on the margins of phenomenological psychopathology, such as the dimensions concerning value and affectivity.


John Cutting and Guido Cusinato

People abused by angry discipline as children, may tend to abuse or overly punish other people or themselves for perceived wrongs in their adult life. In some individuals, aggressive personality traits may be genetically inherited. The aggressive personality may feel weakened by having guidelines or boundaries for anger. Anger is a normal human emotion, and these guidelines can help express anger in a healthy way.

Introduction: Increase in suicide rate is a major concern. Most suicide attempters approach health professionals for treatment. A negative attitude of these professionals toward these patients can be a major barrier for management. This study aims at assessing the attitude of non-mental health care providers towards suicide prevention. Materials and Method: One hundred and seventy five health care providers were approached to participate in this study during awareness creation symposium for suicide prevention, which was held on World Suicide Prevention Day. An attitude toward suicide prevention scale was administered to the participants and comparison of various variables was done with non mental health care providers those who have not attended awareness programme. Results: Mean age of participants was 29.24 (±8.62). The majority of them were doctors and Post graduate medical students including interns, 50.3% and 32% respectively. More than half (60%) of them had a positive attitude toward working with suicidal patients. Nearly 70% of the participants did not consider unemployment and poverty as the main causes of suicide, and were positively inclined towards suicide prevention measures. At the same time, nearly half of them were of the view that in the majority of the cases suicidal persons will not reveal their suicide plans to others. Conclusions: More than half of the non mental health care providers had a positive attitude toward working with suicidal patients. There is thus a need to create awareness on suicide prevention and to integrate health professionals across all areas in efforts at suicide prevention.

By: American Psychiatric Association

Defines mental disorders, whether you want to introduce in the psychiatric area, you will love this book, explains definitely the most popular mental disorders, it will change your mind and open it for comprehend why human beings are so different one each other. You will observe that having a mental disorder is not as strange and bad as it seems, Whether you open your mind you will realize about how real information can change your perception about human behavior.

Anormal Psikoloji kitabı, ruhsal bozukluklar alanında çalışan tüm profesyoneller, psikiyatristler, klinik psikologlar, psikologlar, psikolojik danışmanlar, hekimler, sosyal hizmet uzmanları, psikiyatri hemşireleri ve bu alanlarda öğrenci yetiştiren akademisyenler ile eğitim alan öğrenciler için temel bir başvuru kitabıdır.
2013 yılının Mayısı ayında yayımlanan DSM-5 ölçütlerine göre ruhsal bozukluklarla ilgili sunulan bilgilerin güncellemesinin de yapıldığı bu kitap, tüm dünyada pek çok üniversitenin psikiyatri ve psikoloji bölümlerinde ders kitabı olarak okutulmaktadır.
Kitabın her bölümünde, ilk olarak ruhsal bozukluklarla ilgili vakalar sunulmakta, daha sonra bozuklukların klinik tanıları yapılmakta ve DSM-IV-TR’den farklı olan DSM-5’te yapılan değişikliklere yer verilmektedir. Ayrıca, DSM-5’teki tanı ölçütleri, bozuklukların etiyolojisi ve epidemiyolojisi, bozukluklar üzerinde kalıtımın ve çevrenin etkileri, biyolojik ve sosyal ve kültürel etkiler, en güncel araştırmalardan elde edilen verilerle harmanlanarak sunulmaktadır. Ruhsal bozuklukların tedavisinde etkili olacak terapi yaklaşımları ve ilaçla yapılan tedaviler hakkında da bilgiler veren kitap, sahip olduğu zengin içeriği ile eşsiz bir kaynaktır.
Anormal Psikoloji kitabının; profesyoneller ve öğrenciler için önemli bir rehber olacağına, yardıma ihtiyaç duyan insanların sorunlarının çözümüne, ruhsal bozuklukların tanı ve tedavisinde önemli katkılar sağlayacağına inanıyoruz.