Extended network learning error: A new way of conceptualising chronic fatigue syndrome

Abstract

The cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is controversial: psychological, hypothalamic and immune mechanisms have been proposed as well as the possibility of some form of interaction between these mechanisms. Patients' own conceptual models vary and sometimes adversely affect self-management. This paper suggests an interactional way of conceptualising CFS using developments in complexity theory (networks, parallel processing or connectionism). I propose that the neurological, immune and endocrine systems are pan of a single, self-regulatory, extended brain-body network. Furthermore, that CFS is caused by self-organisational change in this extended network created by normally adaptive error-sensitive learning rules that malfunction when physiological and psychological challenges coincide. This psychoneuroimniunoendocrinological model shows how previously proposed mechanisms could interact to cause CFS. explains the heterogeneity of the presentation of the disease, and provides a conceptual model that may be acceptable to patients but is also consistent with effective self-management.     

Perceptions of treatment control moderate the daily association between negative affect and diabetes problems among adolescents with type 1 diabetes

Perceived control over diabetes may serve to buffer the relationship between adolescents’ experience of daily negative affect and daily problems with diabetes. In a daily diary study including 209 adolescents (ages 10.5–15.5) with type 1 diabetes, we examined how daily affect related to daily fluctuations in experience of diabetes problems, and whether perceptions of control moderated these daily associations. Using hierarchical linear modelling, we found that day-to-day experiences of negative affect were associated with more frequent daily diabetes problems. Perceptions of treatment control moderated associations between negative affect and number of problems; negative affect was more strongly associated with number of problems among teens perceiving lower versus higher treatment control over their illness. The same pattern of association was not apparent for personal control. Results suggest that perceived treatment control may help to buffer detrimental associations between negative affect and adolescents’ ability to successfully manage their diabetes.     

It is our destiny to die: The effects of mortality salience and culture‐priming on fatalism and karma belief

The current study explores whether Asians use culture‐specific belief systems to defend against their death anxiety. The effects of mortality salience (MS) and cultural priming on Taiwanese beliefs in fatalism and karma were investigated. Study 1 showed that people believe in fatalism and karma more following MS compared with the control condition. Study 2 found that the effect of MS on fatalism belief was stronger when Taiwanese were exposed to an Eastern cultural context than to a Western cultural context. However, a matched sample of Western participants did not show increased fatalism belief after either a West‐ or East‐prime task. The present research provides evidence that Asians may use some culture‐specific beliefs, particularly fatalism belief, to cope with their death awareness.     

Joining up with ‘not us’ staff to run adolescent groups in schools

The author describes the development of a model for working with staff members from non-psychoanalytic backgrounds to run therapeutic and therapy-like pupil groups in schools. She draws on her experience of co-facilitating groups at a London-based secondary school and uses examples from recent group work with Year 10 pupils (aged 14–15). Child psychotherapists who have shied away either from doing group work in general, or more specifically taking on group work in schools, may be encouraged to see that the underlying principles are essentially no different from those of individual therapy. Worrying and troublesome young people tend to have difficulties in their external relationships, often exhibited at school and contributing to their underachievement. Psychoanalytically informed groups such as the kind portrayed here can address this difficulty by offering a safe setting for interactions with other group participants and with the leaders to be observed, examined and challenged in the here and now. Attention is paid to primitive anxieties and the defences employed to keep them at bay, including the tendency to place individual needs before group needs when sense of self and sometimes survival itself are felt to be threatened. The aim is for participants to learn about themselves by sharing a group experience and, if successful, integrate some conflicting aspects of themselves. This model for doing group work demonstrates how child psychotherapists can make a unique and valuable contribution, provided the school environment is conducive and there is a member of staff who is open to learning a new way of working.     

Inmate Subculture in a Nigerian Prison

This study of a prisoners' subculture in a Nigerian prison dealt with the prisoners' interactions among themselves and their adaptations to the subculture. It did not deal, except in passing, with the official or formal prison organization, which is unusually different from prisons in the United States and Great Britain. The focus was on the principal values and practices of the subculture and the vulnerability to them of different groups of prisoners. Striking similarities were found between the subculture and the world outside the prison. The prisoners' world, however, parodies the outside world rather than being a reflection of it.     

Towards new work arrangements: The case of telecommuting

Telecommuting is an example of novel ways of organizing work now being implemented in technologically advanced nations. It is the major industrialized countries that have provided the circumstances and the incentives to experiment with new approaches. These approaches were created within, and co‐exist with these models of social organization. They also embrace some elements that undermine basic tenets of industrial models. Telecommuting is discussed below as an example of newly evolving work arrangements which illustrates the interplay of tensions between existing models of work organization and innovative ways of ordering tasks. This paper is based upon graduate research in Rural Extension. The conceptual framework was created by synthesizing material from interdisciplinary sources and primary data collection included in‐depth interviews with key informants engaged in telecommuting.     

THE RATIONAL SOCIETY: A CRITICAL STUDY OF SANTAYANA'S SOCIAL THOUGHT,Beth J. Singer

Anthropocentric and individualistic foundations result in forest management policy based on linear, single‐dimensional, marginal analysis detrimental to the well‐being of the forest ecosystem. Recent theories from the fields of ethics, economics, and policy analysis find that nonlinear, multidimensional analysis is possible, provided one can divorce oneself from anthropocentric and individualistic tendencies. Deep policy is introduced as a policy perspective that encourages questioning the fundamental values upon which policy decisions are made, just as deep ecology encourages a similar questioning of ecological values. An experiment is proposed for forest management in the Pacific Northwest, in which a self‐realizing Forest Board demonstrates punctuated equilibrium in forest management policy.     

“Beyond Frontiers of Traditional Project Management”: The Concept of “Project Management Second Order (PM-2)” as an Approach of Evolutionary Management

Fundamental changes in sciences offer new perspectives for the management of complexity. Increased complexity in society, economics, and technology requires a new and suitable organization and management. What are the consequences and results for project management? That is the theme of this article. First of all it will given a short introduction to project management, which will be later called “traditional project management” or “project management 1st order (PM-1).” Then, the challenges by the fundamental changes in sciences and the increased complexity in society, economics, and technology will be discussed. It will state that traditional project management cannot solve these challenges. The widespread working-themes and results of the research program “Beyond Frontiers of Traditional Project Management” as an answer to these challenges will be presented at a glance. Subsequently, it will discuss some selected results of the research program:

• The principle-definition and foundation of “Evolution of 1st and 2nd Order.”

• The Evolution of 1st Order and the impact on Project Management methods and processes.

• Evolution of 2nd Order and the Grand Evolutionary Systems Theory (GEST) of E. Laszlo as also the impact on Project Management methods and processes.

• Management of crisis: turn a change to advantage or risk-assurance?

Thereafter, the concept of “Project Management Second Order (PM-2)” is presented as a highlighted result of the research program, as a new paradigm in project management, and as an answer to the challenges, described earlier will be explained in detail. Finally, a real example of transfer evolutionary and self-organizational management principles in a real project life will be demonstrated.