Healing in the Midst of Chaos: Nah We Yone's African Women's Wellness Group

This article discusses the creative use of the group treatment modality to provide psychosocial support to African women refugees and asylum seekers with a history of refugee trauma, war, and human rights abuses who have fled to the United States. In particular, this article describes the African Women's Wellness Group developed by Nah We Yone, Inc., a small grassroots organization in the New York City area. This women's group draws on the tenets of traditional Western group psychotherapy while using African cultural awareness to provide healing. The rationale for this type of treatment, group design, specific techniques used to provide healing, along with various group-related themes and challenges are described. This type of treatment provides an example of the usefulness of group therapy technique with traumatized displaced women struggling to survive in a new cultural setting.     

Some Pitfalls for Effective Caregiving in a War Region

Abstract

This article presents an overview of issues and concerns which can negatively impact the effectiveness of caregiving in a war zone by traumatization of caregivers, conflicting agendas and prejudice of foreign mental health organizers and trainers.     

See the Triumph Healing Arts Workshops for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault

Existing research demonstrates the potential value of arts-based interventions for survivors of abuse and other forms of trauma. The See the Triumph Healing Arts Workshops were designed to provide survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault with an opportunity to express themselves and connect with others through arts-based interventions. When appropriate, using the art developed through the workshops to create an art exhibit can be useful for raising awareness and giving voice to survivors in the local community. The preliminary results of the pilot evaluation suggest that the workshops were well-received and allowed participants to experience emotional expression, connection with others, and greater self-awareness.     

Hybridized Indigenous Healing in the Kyrgyz Republic: Helping Survivors of Violence

ABSTRACT

Harmful consequences of civil unrest in 2010, in the Southern region of the Kyrgyz Republic in Osh, continue to have an impact on communities to the present day. One of the most significant effects has been numerous undiagnosed cases of rape and other types of gender-based violence (GBV) that occurred during the interethnic conflict. The true prevalence rate of GBV cases is still unknown. For example, according to official data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (2011), there were only seven cases of rape during the conflict; however, crisis center reports documented 322 rapes (Molchanova, 2016 Molchanova, E. (2016). Okazanie psihologicheskoi pomoshci licam, postradavshim ot genderno-gonasiliya vo vremya krizisov i chrezvichainih situacii. Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic: AltynPrint Publishing House.  [Google Scholar]). Cultural norms dictate that women who experience GBV hide their “shame,” which is why only a small percentage of victims with PTSD symptoms resulting from GBV seek out services from professionals, such as from crisis centers, psychologists and psychiatrists, and police. Indigenous healers are often the first and only stop for help-seeking. However, the influences of diverse religious beliefs and practices as well as the development of Western-style helping methods in the Kyrgyz Republic have shaped the practice of traditional healing. This hybridization, which is a process of including religious and even medical practices into traditional healing, started in the middle of the 1990s, and now, the extensive networks of traditional healers in the Kyrgyz Republic often combine traditional rituals with Islamic prayer, herbal treatment, massage, and other techniques. This article explores the hybridization of indigenous healing in the Kyrgyz Republic as a consequence of a variety of social transformations, and, as a result of polymorphism, the complexity and clinical variability of posttraumatic symptoms in Kyrgyz cultural settings.     

Assessing Trauma Impact,Recovery, and Resiliency in Refugees of War

Abstract

This paper describes the psychometric properties and process of using the Multidimensional Trauma Recovery and Resiliency Scale (MTRR) with 83 untreated war-affected adolescent and adult refugees of diverse cultures, family of origin, age, gender, and time since the war. The MTRR met reliability, validity, and utility criteria with this convenience sample. This paper discusses modifications made to the MTRR-I format, questions, and prompts to enable work with the wide range of ages and cultures represented in the sample. The results support the MTRR as a tool that may have the ability to capture the complexity of culture as well as measure a variety of trauma responses and work with other measurements. Limitations of the study and avenues of future research are discussed.     

Consequences of Child Exposure to War and Terrorism

Acts of war and terrorism are increasingly prevalent in contemporary society. Throughout history, weaponry has become more efficient, accurate, and powerful, resulting in more devastation and loss of human life. Children are often overlooked as victims of such violence. Around the world, children are exposed to violence in multiple forms, frequently developing traumatic stress reactions. Such reactions are best understood within the context of social-emotional and cognitive development, as children respond differently to the stress of violence depending on their developmental level. Furthermore, the violence of war and terrorism often results in a multitiered cascade of negative life events including loss of loved ones, displacement, lack of educational structure, and drastic changes in daily routine and community values. These numerous losses, challenges, and stresses affect children's brains, minds, and bodies in an orchestrated whole-organism response. This paper describes these effects, synthesizing the current state of research on childhood traumatic stress reactions from the fields of neuroscience, clinical psychology, and pediatric diagnostic epidemiology.     

Exposure to War Trauma, War-Related PTSD, and Psychological Impact of Subsequent Hurricane

This study explored the impact of psychological outcomes to war on response to subsequent natural disaster. Participants were 312 military personnel, 66% of whom saw Gulf War duty. All were exposed to the 1992 Hurricane Andrew. Troops were compared on reported traumatic events, hurricane impact responses, and psychological symptoms in subgroups defined by war or no war exposure prior to hurricane and by presence or absence of war-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Data were gathered in face-to-face clinical assessments. War trauma prior to hurricane was associated with more reported traumatic events, greater fears for safety during the hurricane, and heightened psychological symptoms. Troops with preexisting war-related PTSD showed more adverse psychological hurricane sequelae and reported more traumatic events, higher depression, anxiety, anger, PTSD symptoms, and physical symptoms, and lower self-esteem than those free of diagnoses. Results point to the negative influence of exposure to one traumatic event on the experience of and response to a subsequent stressor.     

Legacies of War: Asian American Women and War Trauma

ABSTRACT

Although Asian Americans are diverse in many ways, such as language, culture, ethnicity, religion, generational status, and more, many share a common experience: that of having experienced war first hand or being progeny of war survivors. World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian genocide, along with centuries of oppressive and authoritarian rule, have brought experiences of trauma, directly and historically, to the lives of many Asians. Subsequent experiences of migration and resettlement, as well as life in the United States as an ethnic minority, have also compounded the layers of oppression for many Asian Americans. Sexism in our cultures of origin, as well as sexism in the U.S., represents additional realities and traumas faced by Asian American women. In this article, we explore the experiences of war and subsequent traumas in the lives of Asian American women. We present a brief review of the current state of mental health as it relates to the experiences of war trauma, with the goal of providing a crucial contextual backdrop for our review of the best practices in mental health services to Asian American women. We review some of the best practices and conclude with a narrative reflection based on our own involvement in a small professional women’s group that yielded insights, discoveries, healing, and empowerment from the legacy of war trauma.     

Exposure to Violence and Expressions of Resilience in Central American Women Survivors of War

Abstract

This article focuses on expressions of resilience in a sample of 30 women from El Salvador and Guatemala who survived multiple types of violence, including war trauma, before taking refuge in the US. Traumatic impact, recovery, and resilience were assessed using the Multidimensional Trauma Recovery and Resilience Interview (MTRR-I) and rating scale, MTRR-99. Exposure to violence was assessed by the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the MTRR-I. The study established that the women had suffered multiple and extreme forms of violence prior to and en route to the United States and yet were highly resilient on multiple MTRR domains when compared with a US sample. Implications for future research for assessment of trauma exposure and resilience among war-afflicted populations are discussed.     

Perceptions of War Trauma and Healing of Marital Relations Among Torture-surviving Congolese Couples Participating in Multicouple Therapy

Citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) experienced widespread torture during national wars between 1998 and 2003. Couples who survived and stayed intact suffered tremendous relationship stress. This study used a critical ethnography framework to explore the prewar, wartime, and postwar experiences of 13 torture-surviving couples who participated in a 10-session Torture-Surviving Couple Group in 2008 in the DRC. The group was designed to address the relational effects of torture and war trauma. Participants reported profound negative effects of the war on their relationships; mostly positive experiences during the group, including marital and peer connection and relationship growth; and a number of improvements in their relationship after the group. Implications include support for the use of relational interventions informed by both treatments for traumatic stress and couple approaches to promote trauma healing. Future directions call for increased funding, research, training, and clinical action to treat the effects of traumatic stress on relational family dynamics.     

《孙子兵法》与商业经营散论

《孙子兵法》在商业经营中有着非常的启发作用。书中很多军事论断如兵为诡道、致人而不致于人、避实而击虚、不战而屈人之兵等等完全可以用来指导我们的商业活动。     

《孙子兵法》的思维特征

《孙子兵法》的思维方式代表着我国先秦时期思维发展的正确方向,对构建现代科学思维方式具有重要的借鉴意义,学者们对此多有论述。本文从综合的角度,对《孙子兵法》七个方面的思维特征进行整理与探讨,以求教于方家。     

先秦兵学与齐鲁文化

先秦时期,齐鲁兵学在地域文化中名列榜首。原因在于,这里战争发生的频率较高,使将帅们获得了丰富的实践经验,同时,齐鲁具有浓厚的思想文化传统,是“百家争鸣”的中心,其思想文化精英们长期形成了好学深思、长于辩论、乐于著述的优良传统,为兵家提供了得天独厚的沃土。齐鲁又具有着悠久而厚重的兵学传统,姜尚、管仲、司马穰苴、孙武、吴起、孙膑等构成了这一传统的系列星座。     

The Crosstown Initiative: Art,Community, and Placemaking in Memphis

This case study examines an arts organization at the center of an urban neighborhood revitalization effort and its contributions to creative placemaking and inclusive community building. The study documents innovative arts practices and explores their meaning for a local context, an understudied city in the Mid‐South region of the United States. It builds on the research team’s ongoing work as teachers, students, and scholars in partnership with the arts organization. It includes systematic participant observation, interviews with stakeholders, and a review of historical and contemporary media coverage. We found that the organization and its practices provided a rich context for exploring an expanded sense of community including bridging social capital and place‐based frameworks. Analysis suggests that the organization’s intentional arts based practices bring multiple understandings of community and art into meaningful dialogue through the generation of creative and social friction. These practices illustrate one context‐specific strategy addressing the tensions in a community–diversity dialectic (Townley et al. in Am J Commun Psychol 47:69–85, 2011 ).     

Pathways to Help-Seeking and Mental Health Service Provision for African Female Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexualized Gender-Based Violence

ABSTRACT

African migration to Canada is a relatively new development. There is a dearth of literature on the mental health of this newer immigrant population, especially those from the conflict zones of Sub-Saharan Africa. Our exploratory study examined the experiences of African female survivors of conflict-related sexualized violence based on the insights of six community mental health professionals. Guided by interpretive inquiry, semi-structured interviews were analyzed thematically and interpreted in light of multicultural feminist and transnational perspectives. Findings highlight refugee women’s resilience in the face of threats of social isolation and stigma. Their prioritization of assistance with practical needs, parenting, community/social supports, and education attainment in the context of counseling raises questions about agency and identity in understanding the relationships between female survivors, what they identify as important to their recovery, and their pathways to accessing mental health services.     

《孙膑兵法》的流传、失传及研究价值初探

本文通过考察《孙膑兵法》的流传情况、分析其失传原因,认为《孙膑兵法》的根本价值在于对《孙子兵法》的诠释,同时,对佚而复出的古书源流研究提出新的思考。     

Science and the Art of Healing: A Contribution to the History of Life Science

In conventional medicine, healing is effected mainly by treating the symptoms of the physical body disease, while in mind–body medicine the cure is performed by the mind itself (thoughts and emotions). In fact, the holographic mind theory claims that the mind could be either the healer or the slayer. Thus, this article is a contribution toward a more in-depth study of this theme of conventional medicine versus mind–body medicine, particularly to understand the gifts of quantum physics to life science and the art of healing, so that we might find an integrative medicine model (a holistic approach to health) that could explain some “incurable” diseases.     

Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez on Religious Authority and Cause for Justified War: The Centrality of Religious War in the Christian Just War Tradition

Contrary to the received understanding that Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez ruled out religious war by grounding just cause in natural law, they supported a robust view of papal authority for war when necessary for the defense of the church against heretics, schismatics, and pagans as well as for the spread of Christianity and Christendom throughout the world. They believed that religious wars were in accord with natural law as a means to its fulfillment in Christianity, as a justification for the defense of the church as the one true faith, and as a moral obligation to provide all of humanity with the opportunity to receive Christian truth and grace. The neo‐Thomists' vigorous support for religious war was in the mainstream of the Christian just war tradition from the time of the wars against pagans in the early middle ages through their own time. This finding and the continuation into the modern era of sanctified patriotism stemming from the mixing of church and state especially during war that began in early Middle Ages, along with the historic roots of the recently prominent presumption against war, argue for a more complex understanding of the normative Christian just war tradition than that found among supporters of the classic interpretation of that tradition.     

论成纤维细胞在创面愈合中作用的认识历程

成纤维细胞对创面愈合作用的演变及进展是循环往复、以至无穷的过程,经过了“实践、认识、再实践、再认识”.本文详细介绍了成纤维细胞的发现史、成纤维细胞与创面愈合关系的初步探索、成纤维细胞对创面愈合的临床实践以及规颈.最后着重提出,未来成纤维细胞对创面愈合实践应用取得突破的三个关键点:基因工程、成纤维细胞胶原凝胶和干细胞.