Knowledge,Attitudes, and Beliefs of Catholic Clerics’ Regarding Mental Health in Lebanon

Journal of Religion and Health - Arabic speakers rarely seek the help of professional mental health providers while they heavily rely on religious leaders. However, little is known about the...     

“What Goes Around Comes Around”: Attitudes and Practices Regarding Ageing and Care for the Elderly Among Moroccan Muslim Women Living in Antwerp (Belgium)

The aim of this article is threefold. First, we seek to elicit the attitudes and practices of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women towards ageing and care for the elderly. Second, we aim to identify possible differences between middle-aged and elderly women’s attitudes and practices. Third, we seek to explore which role religion plays in their attitudes and practices. Qualitative empirical research was conducted with a sample of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women living in Antwerp (Belgium) (n = 30) and with experts in the field (n = 15). Our study unveils that ageing and care for the elderly are clearly understood from a religious framework. More specifically, theological and eschatological considerations take up a central position. Access to and utilization of professional elderly care is hampered by several barriers (e.g. religious, cultural and financial). We found a more open attitude towards professional elderly care among middle-aged women than among elderly women.

     

Mind, Body, and Spirit: Family Physicians’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding the Integration of Patient Spirituality into Medical Care

This study used a qualitative approach to explore family physicians’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices regarding the integration of patient spirituality into clinical care. Participants included family medicine residents completing training in the Southwest USA. The qualitative approach drew upon phenomenology and elements of grounded-theory. In-depth interviews were conducted with each participant. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using grounded-theory techniques. Four main themes regarding physicians’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices were apparent from the analyses; (1) nature of spiritual assessment in practice, (2) experience connecting spirituality and medicine, (3) personal barriers to clinical practice, and (4) reflected strengths of an integrated approach. There was an almost unanimous conviction among respondents that openness to discussing spirituality contributes to better health and physician–patient relationships and addressing spiritual issues requires sensitivity, patience, tolerance for ambiguity, dealing with time constraints, and sensitivity to ones “own spiritual place.” The residents’ voices in this study reflect an awareness of religious diversity, a sensitivity to the degree to which their beliefs differ from those of their patients, and a deep respect for the individual beliefs of their patients. Implications for practice and education are discussed.Michael M. Olson, Ph.D., is a member of the Department of Family Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.M. Kay Sandor, Ph.D., R.N., is in the School of Nursing.Victor Sierpina, M.D., is in the Department of Family Medicine.Harold Vanderpool, Ph.D., Th.M., represents the Institute for Medical Humanities at the university and Patricia Dayao, M.A., is a graduate student there.Funding for this study provided in part by the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Foundation and the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health/John Templeton Foundation. Correspondence to Michael M. Olson, mmolson@utmb.edu.     

Triple Roles,Worship, and “Period Shaming”: How Muslim Women Maintain Belonging and Connection in Ramadan

Ramadan is a time when Muslims experience an increased connection to God and an increased sense of belonging through communal acts of worship, but Muslim women are often excluded from many acts of worship due to religious restrictions while they are menstruating. This study innovatively applies concepts of “religious citizenship” and women's “triple roles” drawn from lived religion and feminist literature to a new context of Muslim women and their everyday practices. Based on research with more than 60 culturally diverse Melbourne Muslims who kept anonymous diaries before, during, and after Ramadan 2021, this analysis shows how Muslim women's understandings of religious belonging and connection in Ramadan are shaped by their own reconfigured approaches to worship and socialization alongside their everyday workload. It provides a unique opportunity to investigate the invisible challenges faced by Muslim women in worship and devotion during Ramadan.     

Character and Cure: “Patient,Heal Thyself”

Human spirituality is a source of healing and health. Accessing this depends on a person's ability to assume an active rather than a passive attitude toward healing. The argument is that such an ability depends on the nature of a person's character or personality, and whether that nature is able to undergo change and transformation into a higher key. Several typologies of personality are described and evaluated in so far as they provide useful access to human spirituality for health and healing.     

In Experiential Sessions, There Is No Therapist or Client: There Is a “Teacher” and a “Practitioner”

In virtually every kind of psychotherapy, therapist and client attend mainly to one another throughout almost the entire session. If each experiential session is to be successful in enabling the person to become the whole new person that the person can become, and to become free of the painful feeling in the painful situation, the radical alternative is for the experiential teacher–therapist and the person to attend mainly to the third thing that is the important center of attention for the person. An even more radical glimpse into the future includes the person having one's own sessions by oneself, complemented by skill-development sessions with the experiential teacher.     

Embracing Change: Examination of a “Capabilities and Benevolence” Beliefs Model in a Sample of Military Cadets

This research used a capabilities and benevolence framework to examine 2 characteristics (learning orientation and propensity to trust) potentially associated with a cadet's attitudes and responses to organizational change. The research hypothesized that cadets with a high learning orientation and a high propensity to trust others will hold a significantly more positive attitude toward change than other individuals, even when controlling for the cadet's general dispositional resistance to change. Findings confirmed the hypothesis regarding learning orientation but not trust. Discussion focused on how organizations, by identifying the factors associated with a person's dispositional orientation, may ultimately develop better interventions to influence responses to change and increase the overall effectiveness of change initiatives.     

“Something There is That Doesn't Love a Wall”: Queer Theologies and Reparative Readings

A set of recent conversations among scholars working in queer cultural and literary theory has focused on the trope of reparative reading. Reparative readings, usually contrasted with the “paranoid” criticism of those working in the Butlerian tradition, are often informed by the writings of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. This article explores the “reparative turn” in the context of Christian queer theologies, and suggests that it may include practices of “sociability with the dead”: both listening to and honouring the abjected past of queer ancestors, and continuing to be in conversation with the damaging and hurtful parts of the Christian tradition as a means of holding them accountable.     

For the Common Good: The Church of England,Christian–Muslim Relations and A Common Word

This paper seeks to explore some of the dynamics of Christian–Muslim relations today, particularly in England, and asks what might be the relationship between such dynamics and current Anglican theology, belief and practice. It explores the lecture of 7 February 2008 given by Archbishop Rowan Williams to the Royal Courts of Justice in London, and suggests that the Archbishop's remarks on this occasion are consonant with his understanding of Anglican ecclesiology. Finally the paper concludes by looking at the Archbishop's response to the document A Common Word and draws links between the Archbishop's interest in this document and his more domestic concerns.     

Embracing Change: Further Examination of a “Capabilities and Benevolence” Beliefs Model in a Military Sample

Building on earlier research that used a “capabilities/benevolence” framework to examine an “embracing change” disposition, the current investigation extended previous cadet-based findings to a sample of company- and field-grade military officers. We hypothesized that officers with a high learning orientation and a high propensity to trust others would hold a significantly more positive attitude toward change than other individuals, even when controlling for the officer's general dispositional resistance to change. As with the earlier cadet results, the findings confirmed the hypothesis for learning orientation but not for trust. Discussion focused on the utility of acquiring a better understanding of an embracing change disposition and on the value of salting individuals with high learning orientations throughout the organization. Additionally, for future research, we consider the importance of employing multiple and diverse methods when exploring the embracing change construct. Such methodological expansion will undoubtedly reduce some conceptual ambiguities associated with the current study.     

“In the Face,a Right Is There”: Arendt,Levinas and the Phenomenology of the Rights of Man

This paper examines the differences between the thought of Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas concerning the “Rights of Man”, in relation to stateless persons. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt evinces a profound scepticism towards this ideal, which for her was powerless without being tethered to citizenship. But Arendt’s own idea of the “Right to have Rights” is critiqued here as being inadequate to the ethical demand placed upon states by refugees, in failing to articulate just what states might be responsible for. I argue that the ethical philosophy of Levinas meets this lacuna in Arendt’s thought, via his concept of the Face as the locus of human dignity and to which states can be recalled to responsibility. Levinas wrote several papers on what he called “the phenomenology of the Rights of Man”, and in his phrase, which provides a summation of precisely what is lacking in Arendt’s arguments: “In the face – a right is there”.     

Sexism, Hostility toward Women, and Endorsement of Beauty Ideals and Practices: Are Beauty Ideals Associated with Oppressive Beliefs?

Relationships between the endorsement of Western beauty ideals and practices and measures of hostility toward women and sexism were studied in 159 college men and 194 college women. The participants were predominately 18 or 19 years of age and of European American ethnicity. Correlations were computed between five factor analytically derived measures of beauty ideals and practices, two measures of the thin body ideal, and the following measures: Hostility toward Women Scale (HTWS; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995), Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS; Spence & Helmreich, 1978), and the two subscales of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996): hostile sexism (ASI-H) and benevolent sexism (ASI-B). It was found that endorsement of Western beauty ideals and practices was associated with hostility toward women, traditional sexism, hostile sexism, and, to a lesser extent, benevolent sexism. Results support feminist critiques of beauty practices as oppressive.     

Living There,Leaving There: Identity,Sociospatial Mobility,and Exclusion in “Stigmatized Neighborhoods”

As mobility is increasingly reshaping social relations, understanding how it affects new forms of social exclusion is an important challenge in today's polarized societies. From a political-psychological perspective, this challenge requires recognition of how identity processes linked to exclusion are significantly shaped by sociospatial mobility practices. Identity, mobility, and exclusion are at the core of the psychological experience of people living in segregated areas from where they are impelled to leave. Building on this argument, we present a qualitative case study based on ethnographic and narrative methods, which aimed to understand identity processes among young people who have lived most of their lives in four “stigmatized neighborhoods” in Santiago de Chile. The analysis indicated that young people navigate a paradoxical identity project in such neighborhoods, driven by contradictory cultural mandates. This case study contributes to knowledge on how sociospatial exclusion and the politics of mobility can manifest in the form of “identity trouble,” as young people struggle between belonging and running away, while attempting to maintain a coherent sense of self.     

“Why me?”: Low-Income Women’s Poverty Attributions,Mental Health,and Social Class Perceptions

Although much is known about broad societal attitudes toward poverty, less is known about how women perceive their own poverty. We sought to examine the types of self attributions low-income women make about their poverty, as well as the association of self poverty attributions to women’s mental health and upward mobility beliefs. Using close-ended questions in a community sample of 66 low-income mothers from the Midwestern United States, we found these women were most likely to attribute their poverty to issues related to having children, their romantic relationships, and structural/government blame. The least endorsed attributions for poverty were fatalistic and individualistic reasons. Attributing one’s poverty to children and structural reasons was related to greater depression, and attributing one’s poverty to romantic relationships and structural reasons was related to greater anxiety. Moreover, attributing one’s poverty to children and romantic relationships was positively related to upward mobility beliefs, whereas individualistic attributions were negatively related to upward mobility beliefs. Understanding how women view their poverty and upward mobility can help to improve interventions and policies aimed at low-income women.     

A review of: “Agency,Health and Social Survival: The Ecopolitics of Rival Psychologies”

Caroline New (1996) Agency, Health and Social Survival: the Ecopolitics of Rival Psychologies, London: Taylor & Francis, 190 pp., $12.95