Loss and Psychosocial Support Among Palestinian Women in the Occupied Territories: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the “From a Bereaved Woman to Another” Project

Many Palestinian women in the occupied territories face the risk of experiencing incidents of personal loss of their husbands, youngsters, and relatives through death, imprisonment, or deportation due to daily confrontation with the Israeli occupation. In many such incidents, the individualistic focus of psychological therapy renders it less appropriate as a technique to minimize the psychosocial consequences of loss at the population (macro) level. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of an alternative approach called “from a bereaved woman to another.” A convenience sample of 94 bereaved women (aged 31–50 years) from West Bank territories took part in this initiative. The results of the study confirmed a statistically significant increase in women's positive self-attitudes and interpersonal skills and a decrease in loss-related symptoms.     

Loss and the Organization of Affect

The present studies evaluated the association between positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) following romantic relationship loss experiences, as well as following less stressful romantic relationship situations, given theoretical evidence that the structure of affect may differ following a relationship loss. Across two studies, evidence suggested that the association between NA and PA was more strongly inverse following romantic relationship loss experiences when compared to less stressful relationship experiences. Such findings provide important implications for the study of romantic relationship loss, as well as the treatment of psychopathology following romantic relationship loss.     

From Demonization to Identification: How Parents Who Lost Children in Terrorist Attacks Perceive the Attacker

The aim of this article is to examine how bereaved parents who lost children in terrorist attacks in Israel perceive the terrorist attack perpetrators. Forty bereaved parents were interviewed using a semistructured in-depth interview. The content analysis revealed a typology of reactions to the Arab attackers that included perceiving them as objects of anger, hate, and revenge; as demons; as negligible; and as people with whom they could identify. The way bereaved parents perceive the Arab attackers serves as a coping resource. Follow-up research to examine the efficacy of the different types of reactions towards attackers would contribute to gaining a deeper understanding of the coping process that bereaved parents experience.     

Bereaved Parents' Perspectives on Informal Social Support: “What Worked for You?”

This study identified and explored the informal social supports that bereaved parents found helpful following the death of their primary school-aged child. Ten participants were interviewed using a semistructured interview schedule. Data were transcribed and analyzed using content and thematic analysis. Results indicate the existence of novel informal supports that enrich contemporary literature. Nine common characteristics of helpful support emerged from the analysis; the specifics of each depended on congruence with parents' unique framework of meaning. Parents also identified five ways to strengthen informal social support. Implications for health promotion research and practice in parental bereavement are discussed.     

Pet Loss and Human Emotion: Romanian Students' Reflections on Pet Loss

Thirty-five graduate and undergraduate students, owners of dogs and cats, were asked to respond in writing to a several questions regarding their relationship with their pet. In this retrospective analysis, we discuss aspects that describe the pet-owner relationship, including attachment and the role played by the pet in the owner's life (e.g., emotional support, the pet being seen as a family member). Most of the participants felt that their pet's loss caused great pain; some considered that even if they had suffered greatly, the death of their pet was not felt more intensely and severely than the death of any other family member or a friend.     

Effects of an experimental social stressor on resources loss,negative affect,and coping strategies

This experimental study, grounded in Hobfoll's conservation of resources (COR) theory, assessed the effects of manipulating a social stressor on loss of psychological resources, negative affect, and coping strategies. Israeli student volunteers were randomly allocated to one of two conditions: (1) social stressor (n = 66) and (2.) nonstressor (n = 59). The social stressor, aimed at reducing participant's personal resources, was experimentally induced via the Trier Social Stress Test protocol. The protocol consisted of a mock job interview administered under evaluative conditions, followed by performing a difficult arithmetic calculation task. The nonstressor condition involved a neutral interaction with an experimenter, followed by performing a relatively easy mental calculation task. Consistent with our hypotheses, the social stressor, compared to the nonstressor condition, resulted in statistically significant lower mean levels of psychological resources, higher levels of negative affect, and increased emotion-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping. Furthermore, under the social stressor condition, compared with the nonstressor condition, negative affect was more strongly related to loss of psychological resources and various coping strategies. Overall, the data provide experimental support for key tenets of COR theory     

An inquiry into the emotional impact of sight loss and the counselling experiences and needs of blind and partially sighted people

Background: The link between sight loss and depression is well documented. The UK Vision Strategy seeks to bring the emotional impact of sight loss into public awareness and improve access to emotional support for visually impaired people. However, dedicated counselling services for visually impaired people remain scarce, and research into the effectiveness of psychological interventions is predominantly anecdotal rather than evidence based. Aim: To explore the emotional impact of sight loss in four core areas (mood, self concept, social connectedness and loss), and to explore the counselling experiences and needs of blind and partially sighted adults. Method: Data were collected using the mental health and social functioning sub-scales of the National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire-25 and semi-structured interviews transcribed and analysed using grounded theory. Results: Participants with a serious eye condition shared a common transition from sight to blindness, starting with diagnosis, coping with deterioration of sight, experiencing loss in different areas of life, experiencing changed perceptions of self in relation to society, experiencing others in a changed way and experiencing rehabilitation. A theoretical model describing the transition from sight to blindness is proposed. Participants reported negative perceptions of counselling and a lack of counselling opportunities in relation to their sight loss. Implications: The implications for policy and practice are discussed, particularly the need for counselling after diagnosis of visual impairment and the specific challenges facing those who deliver counselling to blind and partially sighted clients.     

Loss: the ultimate philosophical problem

This paper draws on Jan Zwicky’s claim in Lyric Philosophy that loss is the ultimate philosophical problem and Wittgenstein’s attitude to philosophy in his Culture and Value that: ‘philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition’. This paper will enter the difficult territory of loss using poetry and reflections to engage loss as a spiritual challenge and perhaps one of the major forces shaping cultural ways. Death inescapably brings loss into life for those who remain after a death but loss has many other forms and is a persistent experience in living that touches every stage of the life journey. It is a philosophical problem rooted in common human experience from childhood on that has been addressed in a multitude of forms, conceptualizations, rituals, belief systems and religions. As a method, poetry is a way of inquiry that allows one to enter experience and meet the intensity of events, particularly loss. In her essay ‘Entering the Bird Cage: Poetry and Perceptibility’, Jane Hirschfield says that poetry allows us ‘to understand the world beyond the narrow self’ and to do so ‘it is necessary to be available to the unknown’ and loss moves experience into the unknown.     

Effects of hearing and vision impairments on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment

Many standardized measures of cognition include items that must be seen or heard. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to overlook the possible effects of sensory impairment(s) on test scores. In the current study, we investigated whether sensory impairments could affect performance on a widely used screening tool, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Three hundred and one older adults (mean age = 71 years) completed the MoCA and also hearing and vision tests. Half of the participants had normal hearing and vision, 38% impaired hearing, 5% impaired vision, and 7% had dual-sensory impairment. More participants with normal sensory acuity passed the MoCA compared to those with sensory loss, even after modifying scores to adjust for sensory factors. The results suggest that cognitive abilities may be underestimated if sensory problems are not considered and that people with sensory loss are at greater risk of cognitive decline.     

Internal state of emergency – working with an international student suffering from trauma in a student counselling service

In this paper I look at the suicidal state of mind of an international student who comes from a country at war and has been traumatized by a violent event. The student is tortured by an internal dilemma surrounding unbearable feelings of guilt and shame that arise when she leaves her home country to study abroad. Her dilemma or survivor guilt triggers an internal contract with herself, whereby she is internally persecuted when she makes an attachment to the university and her course. I suggest that an individual in this state of mind, suffering from post-traumatic stress, has regressed to a primary state of unintegration where the self is at the mercy of psychotic anxieties and the student is at risk of suicide. It is suggested that a safety net made up of the student services and the wider health service can provide a symbolic or mental space and containment for the student's state of mind until she can function as a student.