Holy Apparition or Hyper-Religiosity: Prevalence of Explanatory Models for Religious and Spiritual Experiences in Patients with Bipolar Disorder and Their Associations with Religiousness

Pastoral Psychology - One point that emerges from qualitative research on religion and bipolar disorder (BD) is the problem patients with BD experience in distinguishing between genuine religious...     

The effect of personal and group discrimination on the subjective well-being of people with mental illness: the role of internalized stigma and collective action intention

The goal of this study is to test a model in which personal discrimination predicts internalized stigma, while group discrimination predicts a greater willingness to engage in collective action. Internalized stigma and collective action, in turn, are associated to positive and negative affect. A cross-sectional study with 213 people with mental illness was conducted. The model was tested using path analysis. Although the data supported the model, its fit was not sufficiently good. A respecified model, in which a direct path from collective action to internalized stigma was added, showed a good fit. Personal and group discrimination appear to impact subjective well-being through two different paths: the internalization of stigma and collective action intentions, respectively. These two paths, however, are not completely independent, as collective action predicts a lower internalization of stigma. Thus, collective action appears as an important tool to reduce internalized stigma and improve subjective well-being. Future interventions to reduce the impact of stigma should fight the internalization of stigma and promote collective action are suggested.     

Divine timelessness: A coherent but unfruitful doctrine?

The author argues in this article that it is possible to have a consistent and coherent version of the doctrine of divine timelessness. Towards the objection that a timeless God cannot act it is defended that a timeless God can certainly act in the world and can love human people. In spite of the consistency and coherence of the doctrine of divine timelessness, however, the author has serious problems with the fruitfulness of this doctrine when it comes to essential practices of the Christian faith, such like seeking help from God, loving God, and prayer.     

Delinquent Development in Dutch Childhood Arrestees: Developmental Trajectories,Risk Factors and Co-morbidity with Adverse Outcomes during Adolescence

Heterogeneity of re-offending patterns was studied in a group of 287 male early onset offenders who were first arrested before age 12. By combining data on the frequency and severity of offending as registered by the police over a 5-year follow-up period, three delinquent trajectories were identified; low, escalating, and high level re-offenders. Predicting group membership by individual and environmental characteristics known to the police at the time of the first arrest proved difficult. Compared to low level re-offenders, escalators were older and more often came from disadvantaged neighborhoods. High level re-offenders were also older at onset, more often had a non-Western ethnic background, and initially committed more vandalism. Furthermore, at the first police encounter, the police reacted more severely towards those who later became high level re-offenders. Finally, high and escalating re-offenders more often had other adverse outcomes, such as criminal victimization and Child Welfare Agency involvement.

Exploring Connections of the Supervisors in Supervision

Four therapists have worked closely in a professional support group. More recently attention has been given to the group processes and internal experiences of the group itself. An observation of the four members of this group is that the group process has allowed for peer validation, fortuitously resulting in their professional identities shifting and evolving. They have become curious about the interface between and the integration of personal and professional facets of the therapist's self. A resulting discovery has been that the very mechanisms which disconnect the therapist out there may serve to promote connection in the support group.     

Humour styles,gelotophobia and self‐esteem among Chinese and Indian university students

This study examined the relationship between humour styles, gelotophobia and self‐esteem among 102 Indian and 101 Hong Kong university students. The Humour Styles Questionnaire, the GELOPH‐15 Scale and the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale were used. Indian students rated the importance of humour significantly higher than Hong Kong Chinese students and considered themselves as being significantly more humorous as well. Both Indian and Hong Kong Chinese students engaged in significantly more affiliative and self‐enhancing humour. Indian students engaged in significantly more affiliative and self‐enhancing humour and reported less gelotophobia than Hong Kong students. Gelotophobia was negatively correlated with self‐esteem and affiliative humour in both samples and was positively correlated with self‐defeating humour in the Indian sample only. Affiliate humour mediated the relationship between self‐esteem and gelotophobia in both samples whereas self‐defeating humour mediated the relationship in the Indian sample only. Taken together, both Indian students and Hong Kong students valued adaptive humour, but Indian students valued humour more than Hong Kong students. This study is a pioneering study of its kind conducted in a Chinese‐Indian sample.     

Revelation,delusion or disillusion: subjective interpretation of religious and spiritual experiences in bipolar disorder

The objective of this study is to explore the interpretation of religious and spiritual experiences during mania, depression and recovery, from the perspective of bipolar clients and to inquire into their expectations of treatment in relation to these experiences. For this purpose, a qualitative pilot study is designed, which includes interviews with 10 outpatients of Altrecht, a Dutch mental health institution. The meaning of religious and spiritual experiences and the question of their authenticity proved to be an important theme for the participants. The support of spirituality for illness management was brought to the fore, as well as the temporary lack of this support during depression by some participants. Participants considered it desirable that more attention be paid to the topic during treatment, and to establish better cooperation between spiritual counsellors of the institution and other professionals. Thus, a more existential or hermeneutical approach towards religious experiences in relation to bipolar disorder would be a desirable contribution to standard treatment. The exact outlines of such an approach demand more empirical research.     

HIV‐related stigma in social interactions: Approach and avoidance behaviour in a virtual environment

People living with HIV are a stigmatized group in our society, especially homosexual people living with HIV. One of the behavioural manifestations of stigmatization is an increased interpersonal distance kept during social interactions. Immersive virtual environment technology enables the experimental study of social interactions in an accurate and relatively unobtrusive manner. Using a virtual hospital room, we measured to what extent diagnosis (HIV, cancer or broken leg) and sexual orientation (homosexual or heterosexual) were related to approach behaviour (based on the interpersonal distance and the speed of approach), and the degree patients were looked at (as was obtained from an additional exploration of our head orientation data). Moreover, implicit and explicit attitudes were predicted to moderate this relationship. Participants (N = 50) were healthy, heterosexual students. A main effect of diagnosis revealed larger interpersonal distances from patients with HIV than from patients with cancer. Also, an interaction effect demonstrated that distances were largest when the HIV patient was homosexual. Furthermore, a main effect of diagnosis showed that HIV and cancer patients were approached more slowly than broken leg patients, an effect that was larger for HIV than for cancer patients. In addition, head orientation analyses revealed that patients with HIV were relatively ‘looked at’ more often as well as relatively ‘looked away from’ less often than patients with cancer and patients with a broken leg. None of these effects however were found to be moderated by implicit and explicit attitudes. These findings provide behavioural evidence for the stigmatization of people living with HIV and homosexuals with HIV in particular. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effects of a Learning‐Goal Orientation Training on Self‐Regulation: A Field Experiment Among Unemployed Job Seekers

Finding reemployment after job loss is a complex and difficult task that requires extensive motivation and self‐regulation. This study aimed to examine whether improving unemployed job seekers’ cognitive self‐regulation can increase reemployment probabilities. Based on the goal orientation literature, we developed a learning‐goal orientation (LGO) training, which focused on goal setting aimed at improving rather than demonstrating competences and creating a climate of development and improvement. We predicted that the LGO training would influence peoples’ goal orientation towards job seeking, which in turn would relate to learning from failure, strategy awareness, and self‐efficacy, leading to job‐search intentions, resulting in increased reemployment status. Using a 2‐group quasi‐experimental design with 223 unemployed job seekers, we found support for these predictions, except for self‐efficacy. The results suggest that an LGO training is a promising tool to improve self‐regulation in and effectiveness of job search.