Self-harm as a sign of hope

The author describes psychotherapeutic treatment with a woman who uses severe forms of self-harm to express her hope that she can find real understanding and an environment that can respond to her. She discusses the significance of the earliest experiences of maternal care and the particular importance of the skin; she describes how traumatic breakdowns in early care are unconsciously re-created in later assaults on the body, which serve to communicate distress, anger, protest and the hope that a real attempt will be made to relate to the person who self-harms. Self-harm is viewed not as a suicidal gesture, but rather, as an attempt to preserve life, and to represent and contain unbearable states of minds. The author outlines ways in which self-harm can create a narrative and embody unbearable feelings and unspoken thoughts. It is seen as a form of self-expression and communication, both conscious and unconscious, which is not wholly destructive but has important hopeful and self-preservative aims.     

Hope in the Supervision of Therapy of Patients with Psychotic Disorders

Abstract

Psychotherapeutic interventions for individuals diagnosed with psychotic disorders have been extensively reviewed and studied (Fromm-Reichmann, 1950; Searles, 1965; Rosenfeld, 1988) and have recently received further attention (Kanwal, 1997; Silver, 2001; Spinelli, 2001). Nevertheless, there are almost no updated articles on the supervision of this therapy. This article addresses the issue, focusing on the importance of a sense of hope among therapists working with individuals who have psychotic disorders.     

Therapeutic Work with Trauma,Revictimization, and Perpetration: Bearing Witness,Offering Hope,Embracing Despair

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a case study of a survivor of childhood incest who in adulthood has become a victim of violence in her relationships with chosen partners and is concerned that she herself may be a perpetrator of sexual abuse. It examines selected literature on attachment, dissociation, transference/countertransference, role responsiveness and sadomasochistic therapeutic enactments, the two-system superego model, and the triadic self. The paper focuses on long-term treatment dynamics with survivors of cumulative trauma and explores such psychodynamic psychotherapy issues as the therapist as a perpetrator of violence, the development of sacred space, authenticity, and the importance of both offering hope and embracing despair in this work.     

Deception,Catholicism, and Hope: Understanding Problems in the Communication of Unfavorable Prognoses in Traditionally-Catholic Countries

The doctor's use of deception in appropriate circumstances has commonly been considered a necessity of the medical art. Resistance to full and frank communication is typical of many traditionally Catholic countries, and particularly of Italy, a western country where Catholicism remains particularly influential. The Catholic teaching on truth and lies, and the problem of telling the truth to a severely ill patient is discussed. It is suggested that the contemporary Catholic model of gradually telling a terminal patient the truth, which looks reasonable and feasible in theory, is rarely followed in practice, as in the majority of cases the truth is not told tout court. Problems stem from the way in which medicine is currently practiced in Italy; from the synergism between Catholicism and the medical tradition's grounded paternalism; and from the ambiguity of the term ‘hope’. Catholic ethics in fact recommends that the truth must be told without destroying hope, but the Catholic meaning of ‘hope’ is very different from its meaning in current language.     

Theology and Epidemiology as Complementary Perspectives on Aging

ABSTRACT

The religiousness of individuals and communities can be effective resources for healthcare practitioners serving older Americans. Such effectiveness can be more fully realized if theology and epidemiology are recognized as complementary ways of understanding aging and health. The ways in which theologians and epidemiologists can be complementary consist of the different modalities of hope they engender, the different types of preferential recollection they exercise, and the different stages of life they address. The complementarity of theology and epidemiology is dependent upon a spiritual but not supernatural conception of the relationship between religion and health.     

The glass half-full or a hopeful outlook: Which explains more variance in interpersonal suicide risk in a psychotherapy clinic sample?

Recent research has suggested that constructs in the field of positive psychology may be important for understanding suicide risk. Specifically, both hope theory and dispositional optimism have been linked to lower levels of suicidal ideation and interpersonal suicide risk. Despite these encouraging findings, no study has investigated the relationships between hope, optimism, and suicide risk in a clinical sample. The current study aimed to address this gap and to determine if hope or optimism was more important for understanding suicide risk as operationalized by the interpersonal-psychological theory and suicidal ideation. Results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both hope and optimism predicted lower levels of burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, but were not significant predictors of suicidal ideation. Further, results revealed that when both hope and optimism were entered into a hierarchical regression in the final step, only optimism remained significant. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

社会支持对青少年创伤后成长的影响:状态希望和积极重评的中介作用

采用创伤暴露程度问卷、社会支持问卷、状态希望量表、认知情绪调节量表和创伤后成长问卷,以雅安地震2.5年后的397名中学生为被试,考察其社会支持、状态希望、积极重评与创伤后成长（PTG）之间的关系。结果发现,雅安地震2.5年后青少年的社会支持可以直接正向预测PTG,不过,在社会支持与PTG之间纳入状态希望和积极重评后,社会支持不能直接地促进PTG,但却可以分别通过状态希望和积极重评来促进PTG,还可以经过状态希望由积极重评的多重中介来正向预测PTG。     

Thinking styles and risky decision‐making: Further exploration of the affect–probability weighting link

People usually overweight small probabilities and underweight large probabilities leading to the familiar inverse S‐shaped weighting function. This research explores the link between affect and the structure of probability weighting from the perspective of thinking dispositions, a concept central to dual system theories of reasoning. The effects of affective priming and cognitive load on both probability weighting and the value function are also examined. The evidence suggests that thinking styles do have predictive implications for risky decision‐making. Participants with a more affective thinking style tend to be more risk‐seeking in small probability gambles. However, increasing access to the affective system by affective priming or cognitive load manipulations tend to reduce risk‐seeking behavior in small probability gambles as well as reduce risk averse behavior in large probability gambles. Previous research, manipulating the affective nature of lottery outcomes, found evidence for an increase in curvature (more overweighting of small probabilities and more underweighting of large probabilities) of the weighting function for affect‐rich outcomes, lending support to a hope‐and‐fear deconstruction of probability weighting. The present research suggests that increased anticipatory emotions characterized by the elevation of the weighting function (more overweighting at all probabilities) is also important and could sometimes be more significant than hope‐and‐fear in decision‐making under risk. An integrated approach incorporating the impact of affect on all three, the elevation and curvature of probability weighting as well as the curvature of the value function explains the empirical findings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond Eschatology: Environmental Pessimism and the Future of Human Hoping

In much environmentally concerned literature, there is a burgeoning concern for the status and sustainability of human hope. Within Christian circles, this attention has often taken the form of eschatological reflection. While there is important warrant for attention to eschatology in Christian examinations of hope, I claim that to move so quickly from hope to eschatology is to confuse a species of Christian hope for a definition of hope itself; as such, it is important for theological ethicists to examine hope also from the experiential perspective of the human hoper. In particular, this is important today given the shortcomings of an eschatological focus in addressing anxieties arising due to the environmental crisis. Through examining hope as a fallible human activity, one can come to better understand hope's importance to human life, its profound ambiguity, and the potential threat that the environmental crisis poses to it.     

心理资本理论及其教育启示

本文回顾了心理资本的内涵和构成要素,分析了心理资本理论在教育中的价值和意义,并在此基础上提出了培育和开发学生心理资本的一些基本方法。