Women's experiences of the therapeutic value of writing about pregnancy sickness

Background

There is evidence of the beneficial effects of writing therapy in relation to a range of disorders. This is the first study to evaluate those effects in the field of pregnancy sickness.

Aim

To analyse the experiences of women using writing therapy to address issues associated with pregnancy sickness.

Method

Ten women with an age range of 32–48 years participated in this research study. All had been hospitalised at least once with severe pregnancy sickness symptoms in the form of hyperemesis gravidarum. Participants were invited to write reflectively about their former pregnancy sickness, at home, and then take part in a qualitative, semi‐structured telephone interview of approximately one hour to talk about how they experienced this writing process.

Findings

Thematic analysis identified several themes relating to the beneficial effects and uses of writing therapy and women's relational need to be heard and supported.

Discussion

This study supports previous findings about the beneficial effects of writing therapy and contributes new knowledge to the field of pregnancy sickness vis‐à‐vis the importance of emotional expression, emotional care and emotional recovery. The findings have important implications for healthcare professional practice.     

Embodied Self-Care: Enhancing Awareness and Acceptance Through Mindfulness-Oriented Expressive Writing Self-Disclosure

Self-care is fundamental to mental health practitioner training and professional efficacy. Expressive writing about stressful events has been researched and shown to have positive physical and psychological effects. Mindfulness, an embodied approach to clinical practice and education, has also been studied and documented as an effective self-care approach. Embodied education integrates experiential history with current learning, which may influence future practitioner performance and client outcomes. This self-care exercise is designed to promote awareness and acceptance among counselors and counselors-in-training, as well as among clients, through use of a mindfulness-oriented written self-disclosure task that may facilitate meaning-making and may enhance psychological well-being and therapeutic efficacy. It aligns with Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs and American Counseling Association Code of Ethics standards addressing counselor self-care as a necessary facet of ethical practice.     

Letter Writing: A Creative Tool for School Counselors Working with Adolescents

Letter writing is a therapeutic tool used in many helping professions with many populations. In school counseling, letter writing can be a useful way for school counselors to build relationships and assess student needs. Letter writing may appeal to students who are more introspective and prefer less direct forms of communication (France, Cadieax, & Allen, 1995). Evidence to support school counselors’ use of letter writing with students is underdeveloped. Citing conceptual, empirical, and theoretical support, the authors propose prompting students to write Letters About Themselves (LAT) at the beginning, middle, and end phases of the school year. Considerations for school counselors using letter writing with adolescents are explored.     

Perceived motivational climate influences athletes’ emotion regulation strategies,emotions, and psychobiosocial experiences

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether athletes’ perceptions about the motivational climate created by their coach influence emotion regulation strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), emotions, and psychobiosocial experiences of athletes. A sample of 459 competitive athletes (201 women, 258 men), aged 16–35 years, drawn from individual and team sports, completed self-assessment measures of perceived motivational climate, emotion regulation, sport emotions, and psychobiosocial experiences. Main results from structural equation modeling showed that perceived mastery climate was positively related to cognitive reappraisal, pleasant emotions, and psychobiosocial experiences, while perceived performance climate was positively related to expressive suppression and unpleasant emotions. Moreover, mediation analysis showed perceived mastery climate to have positive indirect effects on pleasant emotions and psychobiosocial experiences via cognitive reappraisal, while performance climate had indirect effects on unpleasant emotions via expressive suppression. Overall findings suggest that the type of motivational climate created by the coach has consequences in terms of athletes’ emotion regulation strategies, emotions, and psychobiosocial experiences.     

An introduction to the reading of Bion

The author suggests that a good deal of the confusion that arises in the course of reading Bion derives from the fact that Bion's analytic writing is comprised of two periods of work that involve markedly different conceptions of psychoanalysis. These two periods require of the reader very different ways of reading and generate contrasting experiences in reading. Bion, in passages in Learning from experience (1962) and Attention and interpretation (1970), offers advice to the reader regarding how he would like his 'early' and 'late' work to be read. The author treats the experience of reading these passages as ports of entry into the fundamental tenets underlying Bion's widely differing conceptions of the psychoanalytic enterprise. The experience of reading early Bion generates a sense of psychoanalysis as a never completed process of clarifying obscurities and obscuring clarifications, which enterprise moves in the direction of a convergence of disparate meanings. Incontrast, the experience of reading Bion's later work conveys a sense of psychoanalysis as a process involving a movement toward infinite expansion of meaning. The author offers a detailed account of an analytic experience which he discusses from a point of view informed by Bion's work, particularly his late work.     

Infant motor skill predicts later expressive language and autism spectrum disorder diagnosis

Motor difficulties may be an early Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) risk indicator and may predict subsequent expressive language skills. Further understanding of motor functioning in the first year of life in children with ASD is needed. We examined motor skills in 6-month-olds (n = 140) at high and low familial risk for ASD using the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (Grasping, Visual-Motor Integration, and Stationary subscales). In Study 1, motor skill at 6 months predicted ASD status at 24–36 months; ASD was associated with poorer infant motor skills. In Study 2, motor skill at 6 months predicted expressive language at 30 and 36 months. Findings provide evidence that vulnerability in motor function early in development is present in ASD. Findings highlight the importance of developmental monitoring in high-risk infants and possible cascading effects of early disruption in motor development.     

Five women talk about work‐related brief therapy and therapeutic writing

Therapeutic writing can play a valuable role in brief, workplace counselling. The present study explores the experiences of five women who used therapeutic writing in this context. Ethical and methodological dilemmas in carrying out this research are highlighted. The study also demonstrates the use of ‘fictionalist’ accounts as a way of overcoming some of the difficulties associated with the dual role of practitioner/researcher, especially confidentiality.     

发展性协调障碍与书写困难个案研究

该研究对一个14岁书写困难儿童zl的动作和认知技能进行了系统的考察。zl的书写困难主要表现在以下几方面：书写速度慢,字与字之间的空间距离非常近,字迹难以辨认,笔画顺序混乱。该研究首先测查了zl的基本智能和一系列精细动作技能、视觉、视空以及序列加工能力。结果发现他的基本智能、视觉加工能力正常,动作技能和视空加工能力皆显著落后于控制组儿童。语言能力测试发现,他的识字量、阅读理解和听力理解均正常。他在汉字单字、双字词、数字和图片命名上的正确率与控制组没有显著差异,但命名速度明显慢于控制组。神经生理检查发现,他的脑电波轻度异常,核磁共振扫描(MRI)显示双侧脑室体后部和枕角周围白质和小脑发育异常。这些结果表明该儿童的书写困难是更广泛的动作协调障碍的一种体现,并可能以他的脑神经发育状况为基础。文章讨论了zl书写障碍的认知神经机制及对书写障碍早期鉴别和训练的意义。     

语言书写机制的研究进展：来自失写症的证据

近年来人们采用认知神经心理学方法,通过研究失语症病人的选择性语言功能损伤取得了许多理论成果。该文主要介绍了当前比较认可的书写模型,简要阐述了书写过程中所涉及的认知成分,以及从刺激呈现到拼写出单词的简单动态过程,并回顾了模型建立的实验证据和逻辑思想