Anxiety reactivity and anxiety perseveration represent independent dimensions of anxiety vulnerability: an in vivo study

Trait anxiety is a relatively stable disposition reflecting an individual's tendency to experience anxious symptomatology, typically measured using questionnaires such as the Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T). While trait anxiety commonly is considered a unitary construct, recent questionnaire research suggests that two different dimensions of anxiety vulnerability account for independent variance in trait anxiety scores. These dimensions are anxiety reactivity (AR), reflecting the intensity of anxiety reactions to stressors, and anxiety perseveration (AP), reflecting the persistence of anxiety symptoms. This study investigated whether in vivo measures of these two facets independently contribute to anxiety vulnerability. Seventy-two participants were exposed to a novel stress task designed to yield measures of AR and AP. Regression analysis determined that these in vivo measures were unrelated to each other, and each accounted for independent variance in trait anxiety scores. The implications of these findings for the assessment and understanding of anxiety vulnerability are discussed.     

A little bit transparent with one another: Constructing vulnerability in the evangelical discourse of women preachers

Using four categories of Brown’s shame resilience theory (SRT), this paper analyses two similar online videos by prominent American evangelical female preachers: Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore. As each unpacks her survivor’s story of childhood sexual abuse, SRT (and its components of vulnerability, critical awareness, reaching out and speaking shame) can provide a matrix for interpreting the narrative in which each preacher frames her self-disclosure.     

The Limitations of “Vulnerability” as a Protection for Human Research Participants

Vulnerability is one of the least examined concepts in research ethics. Vulnerability was linked in the Belmont Report to questions of justice in the selection of subjects. Regulations and policy documents regarding the ethical conduct of research have focused on vulnerability in terms of limitations of the capacity to provide informed consent. Other interpretations of vulnerability have emphasized unequal power relationships between politically and economically disadvantaged groups and investigators or sponsors. So many groups are now considered to be vulnerable in the context of research, particularly international research, that the concept has lost force. In addition, classifying groups as vulnerable not only stereotypes them, but also may not reliably protect many individuals from harm. Certain individuals require ongoing protections of the kind already established in law and regulation, but attention must also be focused on characteristics of the research protocol and environment that present ethical challenges.     

Agency vulnerability,participation, and the self-determination of indigenous peoples

Development, understood as a process of social and economic change, can be a source of great freedom. But when individuals and groups have little or no control over that process, it can be a source of vulnerability as well. This paper proposes the concept of ‘agency vulnerability’: the risk of being limited in one's ability to control the social and economic forces that propel one into change. All individuals and groups are susceptible to harm, but indigenous groups often face the gravest constellation of such threats. In particular, indigenous peoples struggle against both individual and societal vulnerabilities and often have the least control over processes of change that affect them. The language of human rights is frequently used to justify policies aimed at reducing vulnerability. For indigenous peoples, this often takes the form of a right to self-determination, a right in part intended to reduce agency vulnerability. This paper draws a distinction between the process and the substantive aspects of self-determination, and identifies participation as a key component of the process aspect, defending its importance in decision-making in any residual areas of shared rule between indigenous and non-indigenous groups or entities. Finally, it proposes a framework for evaluating the extent and quality of participation of indigenous (or any other) peoples in decisions that affect them.     

The Northwestern-UCLA youth emotion project: Associations of cognitive vulnerabilities, neuroticism and gender with past diagnoses of emotional disorders in adolescents

Neuroticism has been hypothesized to be a non-specific risk factor for both anxiety and unipolar mood disorders whereas some cognitive and personality-cognitive vulnerabilities have been hypothesized to be more specific to depression. Using a retrospective design with a sample of 575 high school juniors, we tested three competing models of the associations among these variables. Both neuroticism and the cognitive and personality-cognitive vulnerabilities had significant zero-order associations with rates of past diagnoses of both anxiety and unipolar mood disorders. Neuroticism had significant unique associations with past anxiety disorders and comorbid anxiety and unipolar mood disorders whereas the other vulnerabilities did not. In addition, gender interacted with neuroticism but not with the other vulnerabilities in associating with past diagnoses of mood disorders, showing that neuroticism is more highly associated with past unipolar mood diagnoses in males than in females. Finally, the cognitive and personality-cognitive vulnerabilities overlapped with substantial portions of the variance that neuroticism shared with diagnoses. These results suggest that, at least for retrospective associations with past anxiety and unipolar mood disorders, the cognitive and other personality-cognitive vulnerabilities are non-specific facets of neuroticism.     

THE ELUSIVENESS OF MASCULINITY: PRIMORDIAL VULNERABILITY,LACK, AND THE CHALLENGES OF MALE DEVELOPMENT

Reaching beyond the Oedipus prototype to address the unrepresentable vulnerability founded on the boy's infantile helplessness in contact with the mother's body, the author aims to identify the inherent tensions and enigmas of being male. He proposes that both the repudiation of femininity and the overvaluation of phallicity are unconsciously constructed to withstand the fundamental deficiency grounded in the asymmetry of the boy's prephallic relation with his primary object. This bodily based primordial vulnerability, marked by absence and lack, remains elusive—an unsymbolizable experience that provides the archaic matrix for adaptive and defensive phallicism, the oedipal complex, and genital progression. A clinical vignette is presented to illustrate these concepts.     

Maternal and Paternal Perception of Child Vulnerability and Behaviour Problems in Very Preterm Born Children

Preterm born children have more behaviour problems than term born children. Perinatal risks, current child functioning, sociodemographic characteristics, parental psychological distress and parental perceptions of child vulnerability (PCV) have been shown to be risk factors for behaviour problems. However, the role of maternal and paternal PCV is unclear, as these have not been investigated as a risk factor for behaviour problems, with all other risk factors taken into account. Aim of this study is to investigate whether maternal and paternal PCV are independent risk factors for behaviour problems in very preterm (VP) and term born children. The present study is a single centre prospective cohort study. Preterm children (n = 104), born at <30 weeks' gestation and/or birth weight <1000 g, and term children (n = 95) were assessed at age 5. Results showed that risk factors for parent‐rated behaviour problems were low/middle parental education, VP birth, parental stress and, in VP children, maternal PCV. Risk factors for teacher‐rated behaviour problems were low/middle parental education, foreign parental country of birth, intrauterine growth restriction and objective child vulnerabilities. It can be concluded that maternal PCV is a risk factor for parent‐rated behaviour problems in VP children. When VP children are presented with behavioural problems, clinicians ought to be aware of the possibility that parents might still perceive their child as vulnerable. The neonatal history of the child, the way parents experienced that period, their perceptions of the child and possible consequences of these perceptions could be subjects for conversation during visits at follow‐up clinics. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Spiritual Dimension of Caring: Applying a Model for Spiritual Tasks of Ageing

SUMMARY

This chapter describes a spiritual dimension of ageing using themes and a model for spiritual tasks of ageing, developed as a part of doctoral studies that examined spirituality amongst a group of independent-living older adults in Canberra and NSW. This model has been tested further and the model was confirmed through in-depth interviews of residents of nursing homes in the ACT. The first study identified six major spiritual themes from participant interviews. These were: ultimate meaning in life for each person, the way they responded to meaning, self-sufficiency versus despair, moving from provisional to final life meanings, relationship versus isolation in ageing and hope versus despair.     

Fear of Pain is Elevated in Adults with Co‐Occurring Trauma‐Related Stress and Social Anxiety Symptoms

The aim of this study was to determine whether fear of pain and related fear constructs are elevated in people with co‐occurring trauma‐related stress and social anxiety symptoms relative to people with 1 or neither of these conditions. Eighty students were selected from a larger sample and divided into 4 equal groups comprising those with both high trauma‐related stress and social anxiety symptom scores (TRS/SAS), only high trauma‐related stress symptom scores (TRS), only high social anxiety symptom scores (SAS), or neither (N). Results indicated that the TRS/SAS group had significantly higher scores on all fear of pain measures, anxiety sensitivity, and illness/injury sensitivity than any other group, even when level of current pain was included as a covariate. These findings suggest that people with co‐occurring trauma‐related and social anxiety symptoms are most likely to be fearful of pain and to thereby be at increased risk of developing chronic and disabling pain. Implications for future research and treatment are discussed.     

Forever is Always Finite: Reflections on Radical Life Extension

This essay reflects on the Radical Life Extension movement from six critical perspectives: RLE (1) ignores the benefits of finitude; (2) perpetuates the denial of death by seeking to vanquish it; (3) disregards the paradoxical nature of death as problem and mystery; (4) turns death and the Bronze Dream into idols; (5) overlooks a plethora of ethical dilemmas; and (6) fails to ask the central life question: “how well can we live?.” RLE is not only problematic: it is redundant. Being kept in the love of God forever is a different kind of ‘radical life extension’ that includes finitude and death.