Health,Healing and Wholeness in Frail Elderly People

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between health, healing and wholeness in a group of twenty frail older residents of nursing homes, using in-depth interviews. While the participants in this study were all frail and lived with a number of disabilities, they demonstrated signs of transcendence in their responses to their disabilities. While independent living older adults in a previous study had all expressed fears of future vulnerability, only 45% of these nursing home residents said they had fears. Failure to thrive is discussed as one area of concern for frail older people, noting that this may stem from a lack of nourishment of the soul. Pastoral care is described as a multidisciplinary intervention for these residents, forming part of their wholistic care.     

Spiritual Maturity and Wholeness in the Later Years

SUMMARY

Nuturing spiritual wellness is a prominent goal of most religious groups and is central to wholistic health. Although spirituality is very important to most older people and spiritual well-being and maturity are relevant to gerontological theories, consensus on criteria for evaluating them is not yet complete, and mainstream gerontology tends to ignore the subject. Two paradigmatic orientations are dominant; one extrinsically seeks self-gratification; the other is intrinsic, self-denying, and self-centered. It is important to face the divergent values about this and related topics like death and dying, the afterlife, the “new ageism” in services with and for the aging, the value-denying compromises of alleged neutrality, the danger of reification, and the tendency to ignore spirituality by meeting only empirically observable human needs.     

Hylomorphism and Human Wholeness: Perspectives on the Mind-Brain Problem

The relation between mind and matter has always been a conundrum in Western philosophy. Now framed as the mind-brain problem, it is often addressed through reductionism or dualism. As empirical science has become more aware of instances of emergence and top-down causality, however, it has developed a new appreciation of the wholeness of individuals or systems. By retrieving some aspects of Aristotle's philosophy of hylomorphism, we may better understand the metaphysical grounding of human wholeness and so develop an integrated account of the human person, including mind and brain.     

On the Complexity and Wholeness of Human Beings: Husserlian Perspectives

Abstract

At the beginning of Being and Time, Heidegger rejects Husserl’s classical phenomenology on three grounds: he claims that Husserlian phenomenology is impaired by indeterminate concepts, by naïve personalism, and by obscurities in its account of individuation. The paper studies the validity of this early critique by explicating Husserl’s discourse on human persons as bodily-spiritual beings and by clarifying his account of the principles by which such beings can be individuated. The paper offers three types of considerations. After a summary of Heidegger’s early critique of Husserl, the second section of the paper distinguishes between two dimensions of Husserl’s discourse on human persons. It argues that Husserl does not put forward one analysis of the being of humans, but explicates two different accounts and then studies critically their mutual relations of dependency: on the one hand, the naturalistic account of human beings as layered beings and on the other hand the personalistic account of human beings as peculiar kinds of unified wholes in which the mental and the bodily are inextricably intertwined. The third section of the paper clarifies Husserl’s theory of individuation and its consequences for our discourse on human persons. Finally, the fourth section explicates the conceptual means by which Husserl develops his account of human beings as persons. The paper ends in drawing some conclusions for contemporary philosophical anthropology.     

Hope,Wholeness, and Helping the Flat to Grow Round

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to bridge the gap between neuroscience and psychotherapy so that there is greater understanding of how the objective biological processes of the brain affect interpersonal relationships and how relationship therapy can affect that biology. The research on emotional systems, implicit and explicit learning and memory are reviewed. Suggestions for therapeutic interventions include focusing on the changing the brain of each partner, reattaching through the therapeutic relationship, increasing physical activity, using nonverbal techniques, understanding the role of emotions in rational thinking, activating the left prefrontal cortex, using mindfulness techniques, and creating new experiences.     

Sacred Circle: Symbol of Wholeness in Traditional Persian Art and Architecture

Jung wrote extensively about the archetypal mandala symbol as an expression in many cultures of the centrality and nature of the interplay between human consciousness and divine consciousness. This article investigates—how in Persia, for millennia—the archetypal symbol of the mandala has been widespread in many expressions of the sacred arts. My research outlines the importance of the archetypal mandala symbol in Persian religio-aesthetic history from the first unearthed stone carvings of Persia's ancient foundations until the more recent, breathtakingly marvellous ceilings of traditional Persian architecture today. From the artistic expressions of first religious beliefs of ancient Persia—Mithraism—and through the development of the Zoroastrian faith until the subsequent rise of Christianity and then Islam, Persian sacred art illustrates the Jungian idea that wholeness sought in the journey of individuation is often expressed through archetypal symbols of circles that articulate basic truths about the divine interplay with humanity.     

文化比较中的标准、差异性与整体性问题

这是一个文化对话的世纪,现代信息技术等全球化因素使书桌边的学者可以、甚至不得不随时面对世界上迥然相异的文化传统,而在几千年文明史中,大部分学者终其一生,更多是沉浸在自己的传统中,遥远的异族文化只属于偶然的猎奇,不会产生必须面对的文化压力.但今天的历史机缘使各个传统的学者不得不真正地考虑他者,文化对话也就成为一种必然的热潮.     

Tender Mercies: Love,Oatmeal, and the Quest for Wholeness

Tender Mercies (1983) is a simple and quiet film that reveals a complexity in its depiction of the many forms love can assume in the soul. Using some of C. G. Jung's and Robert Johnson's observations on the dynamic nature of love, the article tracks the plot of Horton Foote's award-winning screenplay as it unfolds the qualities of love, beginning with romantic love, the most popular form our current culture depicts and promotes, as well as perhaps less glamorous and outwardly exciting forms that nonetheless ground the soul in fuller, more sustainable relations between couples, father and daughter, father and son, as well as the deep passion for what excites and sustains us as creative persons. It also touches on the infernal form of addiction as a kind of fixed and fixated love that harbors no freedom for the individual; an addiction is understood as pornographic to the extent that it continues to promise what it cannot ever deliver, so the individual is always hooked by its fury. By looking closely at various scenes from the film, the author articulates the slow retrieval of one soul from addiction to a life full, whole, and satisfying in its creative and familial love.     

浅谈五岳的文化整体性

五岳是中国五大名山的总称,历史十分悠久。五岳是中国古代正统疆域的代名词,在中国传统文化中居于十分重要的地位。五岳是一个文化的统一体,应该进入世界遗产名录,向世界传播中国文化。     

学习邓小平理论要在"全面、正确"上下功夫 --中国历史唯物主义学会常务理事扩大会侧记

会议内容主要是学习讨论江泽民同志《在学习邓小平理论工作会议上的讲话》（以下简称《讲话》）。与会者认为，这个讲话很重要、很及时，有很强的现实指导意义。《讲话》中指出：“深入学习邓小平理论要同学习和贯彻十五大精神结合起来，紧紧围绕十五大的主题，在全面、正...     

清凉澄观的三圣圆融观

清凉澄观认为,《华严经》所说的毗卢那如来与普贤、文殊二大菩萨都是“托事表法”,其中毗卢遮那如来为果,普贤、文殊二菩萨表因。“相对明表”展示普贤、文殊所表法门的差异:文殊表示能信、解、智、普贤表示所信、行、相、理;“相融显圆”展示普贤、文殊二圣所表法门之间的圆融以及因果之间的圆融。经过澄观的发挥,佛教界确立了对“华严三圣”的信仰和崇拜。     

A Journey Toward Wholeness, a Journey to God: Physical Fitness as Embodied Spirituality

Physical fitness expressed through exercise can be, if done with the right intention, a form of spiritual discipline that reflects the relational love of humanity to God as well as an expression of a healthy love of the embodied self. Through an analysis of the physiological benefits of exercise science applied to the human body, this paper will demonstrate how such attention to the optimal physical fitness of the body, including weight and cardiovascular training and nutrition, is an affirmation of three foundational theological principles of human embodiment: as created in the “imago Dei”, as unified body/spirit, and as part of God’s creation calling for proper stewardship. In a contemporary climate where women’s bodies in particular are viewed through the lens of commodification—as visual objects for sale based on prescribed notions of superficial esthetics and beauty—as well as the consistently high rates of eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and obesity, authors Greenwood and Delgado offer a vision of how women and men can imagine a subjective relationship with their own bodies that reflects the abundant love of God for God’s creation. Spoken from the lived experience of professional fitness competitor and trainer, as well as trained biokineticist, Dr. Greenwood presents the most current scientific data in the field of biokinetics that grounds the theological analysis offered by Dr. Delgado, whose personal journey through anorexia and scholarly emphasis on Christian theological anthropology inform this work. Taken together, Greenwood and Delgado suggest a response to God’s love for humanity, including our physical bodily humanity, which entails a responsibility to attend to the physical fitness of our bodies in order to live into the fullness, flourishing and love of God’s creation as God intended.     

Searching for Wholeness Amidst Traumatic Grief: The Role of Spiritual Practices that Reveal Compassion in Embodied,Relational, and Transcendent Ways

Pastoral Psychology - How can body-centered spiritual practices help those experiencing traumatic grief? Research on trauma recovery using Porges’s polyvagal theory demonstrates the central...