Parental experience of childhood cancer using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Whilst survival rates for childhood cancer have improved dramatically over the past three decades, it is still a devastating diagnosis for family members and an illness which severely disrupts the lifestyle of the family unit. Developing an understanding of the impact of the illness on the family is crucial to better support families’ deal with the demands of the illness. In this study nine families in which a child was diagnosed with cancer were interviewed twice over a 12 month period, approximately 6 months apart. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a semi-structured interview was used to explicate parent's experience of childhood cancer. The results revealed five super-ordinate themes; (1) a pivotal moment in time, (2) the experience of adaptation in relation to having a sick child, (3) the nature of support, (4) re-evaluation of values during a critical life experience and (5) the experience of optimism and altruism. Findings indicate that parents express both negative and positive experiences as they re-evaluate the meaning and purpose of life, seek to redefine themselves, often in terms of priorities, relationships, sense of community and achieve degrees of optimism and altruism. Implications for addressing the needs of parents and for further research are discussed.     

A randomised controlled trial of a brief online mindfulness-based intervention

ObjectivesThere is growing evidence that mindfulness has positive consequences for both psychological and physical health in both clinical and non-clinical populations. The potential benefits of mindfulness underpin a range of therapeutic intervention approaches designed to increase mindfulness in both clinical and community contexts. Self-guided mindfulness-based interventions may be a way to increase access to the benefits of mindfulness. This study explored whether a brief, online, mindfulness-based intervention can increase mindfulness and reduce perceived stress and anxiety/depression symptoms within a student population.MethodOne hundred and four students were randomly allocated to either immediately start a two-week, self-guided, online, mindfulness-based intervention or a wait-list control. Measures of mindfulness, perceived stress and anxiety/depression were administered before and after the intervention period.ResultsIntention to treat analysis identified significant group by time interactions for mindfulness skills, perceived stress and anxiety/depression symptoms. Participation in the intervention was associated with significant improvements in all measured domains, where no significant changes on these measures were found for the control group.ConclusionsThis provides evidence in support of the feasibility and effectiveness of shorter self-guided mindfulness-based interventions. The limitations and implications of this study for clinical practice are discussed.     

Counselling asylum seekers and refugees: a study of Kurds in early and later stages of exile

This study explores the experience of asylum seekers and refugees in early and later phases of exile. Twenty-five Kurds (mainly asylum seekers) were interviewed in Greece in early phases of exile and twenty Kurds (mainly refugees) in later phases of exile in the UK. Refugee camps in Greece and community centres in London were the main locations for these interviews. Representatives from eight support organizations were also interviewed in each country. The multidimensional aspects of being a refugee are discussed, including models of formulating the experience, PTSD and the cross-cultural context. Key findings of the study include the desperate need among the asylum seekers and refugees, in the early phases, to have the story of their traumatic journey to Greece witnessed and validated by an outsider; the differing experiences of men and women; a change in identity over time; and considerable fear, which was evident in early and later phases. Moreover, all the support organizations expressed pronounced frustration but responded to it in different ways. Those organizations with supervision and support groups in place demonstrated more insight into their interactions with asylum seekers and refugees. Counselling approaches are evaluated with reference to the asylum seekers' and refugees' needs, and the desirability of adequate support for those with a counselling role is highlighted.     

Drive for muscularity and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in men: The role of set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence

Set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence are information-processing biases associated with thinness-oriented eating and body image pathology in women. However, little is known about the relationship between these processing biases and muscularity-oriented eating and body image pathology. We investigated whether set shifting and central coherence were uniquely related to the drive for muscularity and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in a sample of 91 male undergraduates. Participants completed the Wisconsin Card Sort Test, the Matching Familiar Figures Task, the Drive for Muscularity scale, and a modified Eating Disorders Examination-Questionnaire. Results indicated that set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence were both uniquely positively associated with the drive for muscularity, and that set shifting difficulties were uniquely positively associated with muscularity-oriented disordered eating. Results are discussed with regard to the male experience of body image and eating pathology, and in regard to muscle dysmorphia.     

Space Trumps Time When Talking About Objects

The nature of the relationship between the concepts of space and time in the human mind is much debated. Some claim that space is primary and that it structures time (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) while others (cf. Walsh, 2003) maintain no difference in status between them. Using fully immersive virtual reality (VR), we examined the influence of object distance and time of appearance on choice of demonstratives (this and that) to refer to objects. Critically, demonstratives can be used spatially (this/that red triangle) and temporally (this/that month). Experiment 1 showed a pattern of demonstrative usage in VR that is consistent with results found in real‐world studies. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 manipulated both when and where objects appeared, providing scenarios where participants were free to use demonstratives in either a temporal or spatial sense. Although we find evidence for time of presentation affecting object mention, the experiments found that demonstrative choice was affected only by distance. These results support the view that spatial uses of demonstratives are privileged over temporal uses.     

Rigid objects that appear to bend

Simple rigid objects are presented that appear to bend when viewed from certain angles. These illusions illustrate that perspective information is used by the stereo system, that projective distortions can override rigidity constraints in motion perception, and that touch only corrects the illusion for a local region.     

Alcoholic drinking: suppression by a brief time-out procedure

Volunteer chronic alcoholics were given daily access to substantial quantities of alcohol within a residential research setting. Drinking was suppressed to an average of approximately one-half of Baseline levels when 10 or 15 min of physical and social isolation was required as an immediate consequence to receiving each one-ounce drink of 95-proof ethanol. This time-out procedure suppressed the drinking of nine out of ten subjects. Drinking returned to high levels when brief contingent time-out was discontinued. The relevance of such reversible controlling relationships to the treatment of alcoholism is discussed.