Mental health of caregiving spouses: coping as mediator, moderator, or main effect?

Coping strategies used by 315 persons providing care to a spouse diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease were characterized as either emotion-focused (wishfulness, acceptance, intrapsychic) or problem-focused (instrumental). Models in which coping strategies were postulated as having mediator, moderator, and independent main effects were tested using multiple indexes of mental health. Wishfulness and intrapsychic strategies mediated the relationship between degree of stress and CES-D, Anxiety, and Depression. Wishfulness had a direct effect on Obsessive-Compulsive, Somatization, and Interpersonal Sensitivity; intrapsychic strategies had a direct effect on Obsessive-Compulsive, Somatization, and Interpersonal Sensitivity; and instrumental strategies had a direct effect on Positive Affect. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that stressors and coping strategies explained between 12% and 40% of the variance on mental health indexes.     

“Satan Has Afflicted Me!” Jinn-Possession and Mental Illness in the Qur’an

Mental health stigma in Muslim communities may be partly due to a commonly held belief among some Muslims about the supernatural causes of mental illness (i.e. jinn-possession brought on by one’s sinful life). A thematic analysis was carried out on four English translations and the Arabic text of the Qur’an to explore whether the connection between jinn-possession and insanity exists within the Muslim holy book. No connection between spirit-possession and madness or mental illness was found. Pagans taunted and labelled people as jinn-possessed only to ostracize and scapegoat. Linking the labelling of people as jinn-possession to a pagan practice may be used to educate Muslims, so they can reassess their community’s stigma towards the mentally ill.     

Hope as an Intellectual Virtue?

Hope is a ubiquitous feature of human experience, but there has been relatively little scholarship within contemporary analytic philosophy devoted to the systematic analysis of its nature and value. In the last decade, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in the study of hope and, in particular, its role in human agency. This scholarly attention reflects an ambivalence about hope's effects. While the possession of hope can have salutary consequences, it can also make the agent vulnerable to certain kinds of personal risk. The pervasiveness of hope is not a sign of its quality; only a well‐tuned hope can be a virtue. Recently, Nancy Snow has argued that hope can be an intellectual virtue. Framing her account as a contribution to regulative epistemology, she contends that the intellectual virtue of hope can (i) motivate the pursuit of important epistemic ends, (ii) create dispositions that enable the successful pursuit of these aims, and (iii) generate a method for enduring intellectual projects. In this paper, I provide a critical appraisal of Snow's account of hope as an intellectual virtue. One important implication of this critique is that hope can function as an intellectual virtue only to the extent that it has benefitted from the correcting and perfecting influence of other cognitive excellences.     

What is it Like to Have an Unconscious Mental State?

Philosophical Studies - HOST is the theory that to be conscious of a mental state is totarget it with a higher-order state (a `HOS'), either an innerperception or a higher-order thought. Some...     

Mental health consumer survey on a shoestring budget — it is possible!

Consumers of service in a decentralized unit of a county mental health services organization were surveyed. Two samples, one of 100 and one of 386 former clients, were selected for a questionnaire survey of satisfaction and perception of ensuing changes. This report is offered as an example of what a busy clinical team can accomplish in the midst of its basic task of providing therapeutic and diagnostic help.     

Teachers’ professional development as a pathway for educational reform in Egypt

This study explores teachers’ reflections on the professional development (PD) provided by the Egyptian Ministry of Education as part of a national reform plan implemented right before the political changes in Egypt. The study took place in three national language schools and focused on English as Foreign Language teachers’ perspectives on the PD and the successes and challenges they faced implementing it. Results highlight teachers’ critical reflections on the quality and duration of the PD. Despite the effort, they expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of support and follow up from the administration, in addition to the lack of practical examples that characterized the PD.     

Imagining an ‘ideal school’: an approach for reflecting on principals’ educational creed

In this paper, we describe an approach to the study and development of school principals’ school creed. The approach and its underlying method are grounded in the phenomenological tradition, predominantly in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. School principals are asked to imagine an ideal school and present it both visually and verbally. We illustrate the potential of this process using one ideal school proposal developed by a high school principal in Israel. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the approach for research, theory and practice.     

Uncivilizing “Mental Illness”: Contextualizing Diverse Mental States and Posthuman Emotional Ecologies within The Icarus Project

This article argues humans should not be defined strictly at their physical boundaries with clear distinctions between anatomical bodies, mental states, and the rest of the world. Rather, diverse mental states, which are often diagnosed as “mental illness,” take shape within greater environmental forces and flows, including those that are constructed online. Drawing from a multi-sited ethnography of The Icarus Project, a radical mental health community, the author situates online narratives written by two of its members within posthuman emotional ecologies in which the exchange of ideas online affects mental states in a profound way. These narratives can be seen as a new type of psychiatric resistance based in new technologies, one that “uncivilizes” mental illness by searching for alternative frameworks and metaphors to understand lived experiences with mental distress. This ethnographic perspective differs significantly from traditional bio-psychiatric models and interventions and can offer both patients and mental healthcare providers with an alternative language to frame mental health.     

Correction to: “Experiences of Having a Parent with Serious Mental Illness: an Interpretive Meta-synthesis of Qualitative Literature”

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This paper provides and informs a set of corrections to the previously published article noted above. Specifically, following the publication of the article,...