Affective spectrality in therapeutic space

Spaces for therapy and counselling are haunted spaces, spaces whose physical characteristics can manifest past inhabitation and cue connections to trauma. This paper explores findings from a research project which aimed to understand the perceptions of spatiality of individuals who self harm, and the role of the built environment in supporting therapeutic processes and experience. The data collection and analysis were designed to preserve the integrity of the voices of mental health service users who self harm and communicate their self-reported spatial perceptions. Comparisons between lived/embodied experiences, analysis of intrinsic properties of accounts and exploration of therapeutic sites underpinned the findings relative to the psycho-cognitive geographies of experiences. This paper explores how individuals who self harm experience particular connections between physical and psychological spaces, how their self-reported encounter with interior space is overlaid with the inhabitation of past occupants and memories, which reduces opportunities for access to the therapeutically supportive dimensions of the space, and exercises in self production. This paper first defines ‘haunted space’ ‘trace’ and ‘trauma’; secondly reviews existing literature on affective spectrality, atmospheres and materialites; thirdly discusses the methods used in the study reported in this paper; and finally, explores the relationships between sensory encounters, affective traces, signifiers, felt architecture and the therapeutic function for which spaces are designed. The paper concludes with implications for future research and practice.     

浪漫媒介内容接触对大学生浪漫信念的影响:感知真实性和社会比较倾向的作用

为探讨浪漫媒介内容接触对大学生浪漫信念的影响及其作用机制,采用浪漫媒介内容接触问卷、感知真实性量表、社会比较倾向量表和浪漫信念量表对614名无恋爱经验的大学生进行调查,结果发现：（1）浪漫媒介内容接触与感知真实性和浪漫信念都呈显著正相关,感知真实性和浪漫信念也呈显著正相关;（2）感知真实性在浪漫媒介内容接触对浪漫信念的影响中起中介作用;（3）浪漫媒介内容接触对浪漫信念影响的直接效应,以及感知真实性的中介效应均受到社会比较倾向的调节,且在高社会比较倾向群体中,这两种效应都更显著。     

What Is ‘Real’ in Probabilism?

This paper defends two related claims about belief: first, the claim that, unlike numerical degrees of belief, comparative beliefs are primitive and psychologically real; and, second, the claim that the fundamental norm of Probabilism is not that numerical degrees of belief should satisfy the probability axioms, but rather that comparative beliefs should satisfy certain constraints.     

Vulnerable Creation: Vulnerable Human Life between Risk and Tragedy1

In this paper a theology of vulnerability is explored by describing three bridges between risk and tragedy. Conceptually, ontological and situational vulnerability will be explored as the basis of anthropological realism. Hermeneutically, a case study is done by interpreting the documentary film “Roadside Radiation,” which shows attempts to live a normal life in tragedy in the “death zone” around Chernobyl. The theological bridge unfolds a theological approach to vulnerability that grasps its processive character.     

Animal cognition + optimal choice = behavior: A review of adaptive behavior and learning, 2nd Ed., by J. E. R. Staddon

Staddon discusses a vast array of topics in comparative psychology in this book. His view is that adaptive behavior in most cases is the result of optimal choice acting on an animal's knowledge about the world. Staddon refers to this as a functional teleonomic approach inasmuch as it attempts to understand an animal's behavior in terms of goals. He builds mathematical models based on this idea that are designed to reproduce specific sets of empirical observations, usually qualitatively. A natural consequence of Staddon's approach is that many models are developed, each of which applies to a specific set of observations. An alternative to functional teleonomy is a functional approach that builds on prior principles. In most cases, this approach favors a single‐theory account of behavior. Prior principles can be understood as functional stand‐ins for antecedent material causes, which means that these accounts are closer to mechanistic theories than are goal‐based teleonomic accounts. An ontological perspective, referred to as supervenient realism, is a means of understanding the relationship between functional theories and the material world. According to this perspective, the algorithmic operation of a successful functional theory may be understood to supervene on the material operation of the nervous system.     

Beyond Realism and Moralism: A Defense of Political Minimalism

What is the relationship between morals and politics? What is the relationship between moral philosophy and political philosophy? Defenders of political moralism postulate moral aims or constraints for politics, and hence they see political philosophy as a chapter of moral philosophy. Contrastingly, advocates of political realism describe politics as an independent endeavor aiming at providing order and security, and conceive of political philosophy as an autonomous discipline. This article claims that political moralism and political realism share the mistake of assuming that politics has substantial, permanent goals or constraints. After criticizing political substantialism, the article explains the main ingredients of its alternative, political minimalism: (1) the idea that politics, understood as collective instrumental rationality, aims at providing adequate means for the accomplishment of people's goals, whatever these are; and (2) the conception of the relationship between morality and politics as one of “reciprocal containment.” Finally, it addresses some foreseeable criticisms of political minimalism.     

What Happens After the Demonstration Phase? The Sustainability of Canada's At Home/Chez Soi Housing First Programs for Homeless Persons with Mental Illness

This research examined the sustainability of Canada's At Home/Chez Soi Housing First (HF) programs for homeless persons with mental illness 2 years after the end of the demonstration phase of a large (more than 2000 participants enrolled), five‐site, randomized controlled trial. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 142 participants (key informants, HF staff, and persons with lived experience) to understand sustainability outcomes and factors that influenced those outcomes. Also, a self‐report HF fidelity measure was completed for nine HF programs that continued after the demonstration project. A cross‐site analysis was performed, using the five sites as case studies. The findings revealed that nine of the 12 HF programs (75%) were sustained, and that seven of the nine programs reported a high level of fidelity (achieving an overall score of 3.5 or higher on a 4‐point scale). The sites varied in terms of the level of systems integration and expansion of HF that were achieved. Factors that promoted or impeded sustainability were observed at multiple ecological levels: broad contextual (i.e., dissemination of research evidence, the policy context), community (i.e., partnerships, the presence of HF champions), organizational (i.e., leadership, ongoing training, and technical assistance), and individual (i.e., staff turnover, changes, and capacity). The findings are discussed in terms of the implementation science literature and their implications for how evidence‐based programs like HF can be sustained.     

Outcomes of a Therapeutic Gardening Program in a Mental Health Recovery Center

This study evaluated outcomes of a therapeutic gardening project in a community mental health center. The authors worked with 20 adults with severe mental illnesses, to plan, build, and care for raised-bed gardens. Targets for recovery-oriented outcomes related to personal responsibility, emotional and physical well-being, and socialization, were established in advance. Achievement of outcomes was measured using quantitative and qualitative methodology. Results indicated that the program supported recovery. Participants demonstrated significant improvement in mood and markedly higher levels of involvement and spontaneity, when engaged in gardening. Positive changes in diet and social interaction were also reported.     

Towards a literary account of mental health from James' Principles of Psychology

The field of mental health tends to treat its literary metaphors as literal realities with the concomitant loss of vague “feelings of tendency” in “unusual experiences”. I develop this argument through the prism of William James’ (1890) “The Principles of Psychology”. In the first part of the paper, I reflect upon the relevance of James' “The Psychologist's Fallacy” to a literary account of mental health. In the second part of the paper, I develop the argument that “connotations” and “feelings of tendency” are central to resolving some of the more difficult challenges of this fallacy. I proceed to do this in James' spirit of generating imaginative metaphors to understand experience. Curiously, however, mental health presents a strange paradox in William James’ (1890) Principles of Psychology. He constructs an elaborate conception of the “empirical self” and “stream of thought” but chooses not to use these to understand unusual experiences – largely relying instead on the concept of a “secondary self.” In this article, I attempt to make more use of James' central division between the “stream of thought” and the “empirical self” to understand unusual experiences. I suggest that they can be usefully understood using the loose metaphor of a “binary star” where the “secondary self” can be seen as an “accretion disk” around one of the stars. Understood as literary rather the literal, this metaphor is quite different to more unitary models of self-breakdown in mental health, particularly in its separation of “self” from “the stream of thought” and I suggest it has the potential to start a re-imagination of the academic discourse around mental health.