Sleep and theology: ‘An half adieu to the world’

The study of sleep has become a field of widespread interest. It engages many disciplines from neuroscience to sociology, philosophy to evolutionary biology. It features in the lifestyle sections of newspapers and websites often because of its connections with mental and physical wellbeing. Yet theology has, in the most part, remained silent on the subject, despite many Biblical references to sleep in both the Old and New Testaments. There is a theological story to be told about sleep ? as a gift, and not an affliction ? despite the unfortunate occasional conflation of sleep with sloth. It is a state of grace and not of sin. It refreshes and renews yet can never be earned; all we can do is to be in a posture of receptivity so that it falls upon us. Sleep is profoundly precarious and sometimes frustratingly elusive and is suggestive of the fragility and vulnerability of human existence. When it comes to us, sleep transforms our experience of waking life. The eschatological character of sleep points us to reflect on mortality and resurrection. This article argues that it is possible to speak of a ‘theology of sleep’, but that it is not to be found in a coherent body of teaching or theological exploration. Rather, a theology of sleep is found articulated in Christian practices such as the Office of Compline, the keeping of vigils and the Examen of Consciousness, and in evening hymnody and prayers before bed. The author will suggest that the word theosomnia encapsulates this understanding of sleep.     

Knowledge of eating disorders among collegiate administrators, coaches, and auxiliary dancers

Knowledge of eating disorders, confidence in knowledge, and attendance of eating disorder educational programs were assessed among NCAA Division I and II university administrators (n = 61), coaches (n = 44), and dancers (n = 53). A questionnaire assessed knowledge in 5 domains: etiology, signs and symptoms, management and treatment, risk factors, and prevention and education. Overall, dancers' knowledge and previous attendance were significantly lower than administrators' and coaches'. There was inconsistency between participants' confidence in answers and the correctness of their answers. Education is necessary for improving knowledge and reducing risky behaviors in auxiliary dancers.     

Chasing Our Tails: Psychological, Institutional and Societal Paradoxes in Natural Resource Management, Sustainability, and Climate Change in Australia

Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) have been guiding frameworks in Australia for a number of decades. Recently, NRM and ESD have become central to climate change mitigation. In this paper, we explore the psychological paradoxes that function within climate change settings, with particular attention devoted to the way that research and development reinforces these paradoxes by advocating for participatory forms of inquiry. Paradox emerges in NRM at psychological, institutional, and organisational levels. Paradoxes are also features of different forms of democracy such as neoliberal and participatory democracy. Although NRM, ESD and climate change are often conceptualised as distinct issue domains, these policy areas are fundamentally interconnected in both theory and in practice. This interconnection between these policy and research settings, reflections on paradox, and the experience of incorporating community psychology into the paradoxical settings of NRM and climate change are captured in this paper.     

Feasibility of a Telephone Intervention for HIV Patients and Their Informal Caregivers

Objectives: To assess the feasibility of a telephone intervention for HIV-positive patients and their caregivers. Methods: HIV-positive participants, some co-enrolled with their informal caregiver, enrolled in this randomized study. Intervention-arm participants (124 patients and 76 caregivers; dyads assigned to same arm) received up to 12 scheduled calls from an interventionist over 6 months. Results: An average of 7.6 (SD = 3.0) calls to each participant was completed; 66.5% received at least 6 calls; 43.0% received more than 75% of the intervention (defined as ‘study adherent’). Having a higher T-cell count was associated with call adherence (p = .014); cocaine use was associated with reduced call adherence for both patients (p = .019) and caregivers (p = .083). Common telephone themes included problems with mood, relationships, finances, housing, and work; interventions (e.g., referral for mental health care) were initiated in response to these. Participant satisfaction was high, and many reported benefits from the intervention. Conclusions: Using a telephone intervention with HIV-positive patients and their caregivers is a feasible and potentially beneficial intervention.     

Using Photography to Enhance Development of Self,Professional Identity,and Multicultural Awareness

Counseling can be a vulnerable process for clients and counselors alike. Counselors-in-training often find their early development to be an ambiguous and anxiety-provoking process. Both metaphors and experiential activities are effective methods in counselor training for addressing the ambiguity of counseling and the concerns experienced by counseling students. This article describes how counselor educators can use photography as a metaphor to support counselor development. We also outline four creative photography activities designed to foster self-reflection, professional identity development, and multicultural awareness among counselors-in-training.     

Domain-specific assessment of anger expression and ambulatory blood pressure

Bongard and al’Absi (2003) proposed domain-specific anger expression as an improved method for measuring the expression of anger with stronger links to cardiovascular parameters. We tested this proposal by relating their domain-specific measure to ambulatory blood pressure. One hundred and forty-nine Singapore young adults responded to a modified version of the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory that measured anger expression at home, school/work and leisure and then underwent 24 h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. Results indicated significant differences in reported anger expression in the three domains measured and also showed that domain-specific measures of anger expression were more strongly related to ambulatory blood pressure than was the general measure of anger expression. These results provide additional evidence for the importance of measures of anger expression that take account of the specific context in which anger occurs.     

Downward causation in fluid convection

Recent developments in nonlinear dynamics have found wide application in many areas of science from physics to neuroscience. Nonlinear phenomena such as feedback loops, inter-level relations, wholes constraining and modifying the behavior of their parts, and memory effects are interesting candidates for emergence and downward causation. Rayleigh–Bénard convection is an example of a nonlinear system that, I suggest, yields important insights for metaphysics and philosophy of science. In this paper I propose convection as a model for downward causation in classical mechanics, far more robust and less speculative than the examples typically provided in the philosophy of mind literature. Although the physics of Rayleigh–Bénard convection is quite complicated, this model provides a much more realistic and concrete example for examining various assumptions and arguments found in emergence and philosophy of mind debates. After reviewing some key concepts of nonlinear dynamics, complex systems and the basic physics of Rayleigh–Bénard convection, I begin that examination here by (1) assessing a recently proposed definition for emergence and downward causation, (2) discussing some typical objections to downward causation and (3) comparing this model with Sperry’s examples. The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relations among things; outside these relations there is no reality knowable. – Poincaré     

Move it! Visual feedback enhances validity of preferential looking as a measure of individual differences in vocabulary in toddlers

Forty toddlers aged 20 to 24 months were presented with 32 pairs of images with the auditory stimulus Look followed by the name of the target image (e.g. Look . . . tree) in an intermodal preferential looking (IPL) paradigm. The same series of 16 items was presented first with one image as target and then with the other member of the pair as target. Half the children were given feedback, in the form of movement of the target image at the end of the trial, while the other half were presented with static images. IPL performance was quantified in terms of number of words showing at least 15% increase in proportion of looking time in the post-naming interval. Looking preference for the named item was correlated with parental report of vocabulary, this effect being stronger for those receiving feedback. The correlation with parental report of vocabulary comprehension was .65 for those receiving feedback, but only .37 for those with no feedback. It is concluded that the preferential looking task, which has been widely used in group studies, has the potential to act as a reliable index of comprehension level in individual children, especially when movement feedback is used to maintain attention.