Meaningfulness in Day Centers for People With Psychiatric Disabilities: Gender and Empowerment Aspects

This study investigated the experience of meaningfulness in occupations at day centers among people with psychiatric disabilities from an empowerment and gender perspective. One hundred eight participants, from eight day centers in Sweden, completed instruments measuring experienced meaning, empowerment, psychosocial functioning, and socio-demographic factors. Mixed methods were used, combining statistical analyses and content analysis. Gender differences were found concerning principal occupations performed. These confirmed traditional gender roles. The experience of meaning in day center occupations, particularly the domain of meaning pertaining to personal development, was significantly associated with empowerment. These results may be used in the future development of day centers.     

Normative Sample of the PEAK Relational Training System: Generalization Module with Comparison to Individuals with Autism

With the rising number of individuals diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities comes an increased need for effective assessment and treatment options. Previous research has indicated that applied behavior analytic techniques are among the most empirically supported and utilized treatments for this population; however, curriculum and assessment tools rooted in utilizing these techniques have very little empirical support for their reliability and validity. The current studies sought to assess the performance of both a normative sample and a sample with autism on one such assessment tool: The PEAK Generalization Module. Altogether, 183 typically developing children participated in study 1 and 84 children with a diagnosis of autism participated in study 2. The results indicated that the normative sample demonstrated a strong positive correlation between the PEAK Generalization Assessment and age, whereas the sample with autism demonstrated no significant relationship between the two. Further analysis indicates that the PEAK Generalization Assessment may be an appropriate tool for assessing individuals with autism across a wide range of ages, and provides a preliminary benchmark against which to measure both current functioning and progress in individuals with developmental disabilities.     

Occupational Therapists' Perception of the Tree Theme Method™ as an Intervention in Psychosocial Occupational Therapy

This study investigated how occupational therapists experience utilization of the Tree Theme Method, an intervention based on creative activities and life-story telling and making. The Tree Theme Method is comprised of five sessions in which the therapist asks the client to paint symbolic trees, with specific themes representing their present life situation, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the future. Nine occupational therapists in mental health care were asked about their experiences when using the Tree Theme Method. The informants formed two focus groups and each group was interviewed twice. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify five categories including: (1) therapeutic frames, (2) therapist requirements, (3) client requirements, (4) the therapeutic relationship, and (5) the Tree Theme Method as a multi-dimensional process. Overall the informants were satisfied with the intervention with some variation as to therapists' perception about the helpfulness of the tool. The Tree Theme Method was experienced as a structured method of starting a therapeutic process and initiating a therapist–client relationship. The therapeutic attitude, self-knowledge, and expert knowledge seemed to be important prerequisites for the therapists when using the Tree Theme Method intervention.     

Psychological Well-Being of Sexual Minority Young Adults in Iceland: Assessing Differences by Sexual Attraction and Gender

The literature on sexual minority adolescents and young adults has highlighted a poor mental status among those groups compared to their heterosexual peers. Sexual minorities are also more likely to experience stress factors such as bullying and physical violence. However, sexual minority young adults have not been studied much in Iceland, a Nordic country renowned for a high degree of sexual equality. Given what the literature has shown to date, a noteworthy question is whether patterns of mental well-being of sexual minority adolescents and young adults in Iceland are comparable to other countries. The aim of the present study was to provide an assessment of mental well-being in sexual minority young adults in Iceland. We used population data to examine a selection of mental well-being indicators in 16–20 year-olds, both-sex-attracted and same-sex-attracted participants, and compared them to other-sex-attracted peers. Findings indicated that sexual minority young adults exhibited significantly greater levels of depressed mood, anger, and perceived stress than other-sex-attracted young adults. However, when stratified by gender and sexual attraction pattern, the analyses revealed that both-sex-attracted young women scored significantly higher on all indicators than any other group. We conclude that studies in this area should strive to distinguish between same-sex and both-sex attraction as well as to stratify analyses by gender. The well-being of both-sex-attracted young women is a compelling topic for future research.     

In Defense of Ambivalence and Alienation

In this paper, I argue against certain dogmas about ambivalence and alienation. Authors such as Harry Frankfurt and Christine Korsgaard demand a unity of persons that excludes ambivalence. Other philosophers such as David Velleman have criticized this demand as overblown, yet these critics, too, demand a personal unity that excludes an extreme form of ambivalence (“radical ambivalence”). I defend radical ambivalence by arguing that, to be true to oneself, one sometimes needs to be radically ambivalent. Certain dogmas about alienation are even more entrenched. Allen Wood’s entry on “alienation” in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy begins as follows: “A psychological or social evil, characterized by one or another type of harmful separation, disruption or fragmentation, which sunders things that belong together.” I think that it is not true that self-alienation is necessarily “harmful.” I argue that radical ambivalence is a form of self-alienation. Thus, because faithfulness to oneself sometimes requires radical ambivalence, to be true to oneself, one sometimes needs to be alienated from oneself.     

Measurement invariance of personality traits from a five-factor model perspective: multi-group confirmatory factor analyses of the HP5 inventory

Associations between personality and health may be influenced by contextual factors varying across studied cohorts. Moreover, measurement bias related to contextual factors could also influence these associations. Gender and age have been discussed as important contextual factors when studying personality and health outcomes. An examination of measurement invariance across gender and age may therefore be warranted. In the present study, measurement invariance across age and gender was examined for a five-factor model of personality traits in which scales have been included to operationalise lower-order traits related to health-behaviour or health outcomes. Using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis on a population based cohort (n= 5700), all important parameters of the measurement model were found to be invariant. On the basis of this invariant model, hypotheses of mean differences across age and gender in personality traits were tested. These results were discussed in relation to meta-analyses on personality change and gender differences in personality.     

Does physical pain impair abstract thinking?

The ability to think abstractly constitutes a fundamental dimension of human cognition. Although abstraction has been extensively studied, its emotional and affective antecedents have been largely overlooked. One experiment was conducted to examine whether physical pain affects abstraction. Drawing on Construal Level Theory [Trope, Y., &; Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117, 440–463] and Loewenstein’s [(1996). Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65, 272–292] visceral factors theory, we hypothesised that pain impairs abstraction because pain constricts people’s mental horizons and lead to a concrete, inward-focus toward oneself in the here and now. Physical pain was manipulated between subjects (N?=?150). The participants either kept their left hand immersed in cold (painful) water or neutral (painless) water while we measured abstract versus concrete behaviour identification, categorisation, and perceptual processing. Bayesian statistical analyses indicate substantial evidence against the hypothesis that pain impairs abstraction. In contrast to many other previously studied cognitive outcomes (e.g. attention), abstraction appears to be largely immune to acute, experimentally induced pain.