Family Focused Care for Refugees and Displaced Populations: Global Opportunities for Family Therapists

Recent global crises have created a significant increase in the number of people leaving their countries. Distress experienced by these refugees often leads to posttraumatic stress disorder and depression and can also result in psychotic disorders, substance abuse, and interpersonal violence. The World Health Organization leads the organizing of refugee services as part of a larger initiative to provide mental health services to citizens in low‐ and middle‐income countries. The World Health Organization has identified challenges in providing care, including a provider shortage, issues with how refugees access and receive care and a lack of uniformity in mental health services. By applying the values and systemic orientation of the profession, family therapists can address some of the challenges in treating mental health concerns of these at‐risk populations.     

Childhood studies,children's politics and participation: perspectives for processes of democratisation

ABSTRACT

From the early Frankfurt School through to the work of Manuel Castells, there has been a rich body of work on the cleavage between technological and social developments of the twentieth century in respect of the consequences for the constitution of subjectivity. However, little attention is paid to the role of children during their childhoods in attempts to bridge this gap beyond discussions about the democratic actors children will become when they are adults. This paper argues that only the full integration of children, during their childhoods, into democratic development of societies will prevent the deepening of the rift between technological and social progress. The paper traces the correspondence between the new childhood studies and those concepts of politics and politicisation which can support social progress towards an emancipatory social perspective undergirded by particular and democratisation of all areas of everyday life. Drawing on Bourdieu and ideas of participation as action, the paper critically examines the various mechanisms by which children are conventionally excluded from democratic participation and then explores how a deeper consideration of agency in childhood and social actorship opens up alternative mechanisms of inclusion and the concomitant expansion of the concept of democracy.     

Metabolic and hormonal responses to different resistance training systems in elderly men

Objective: To compare acute and sub-acute responses in hormonal profile and metabolic parameters in elderly people who participated in two methods of strength training (ST) with equalized loads.

Methods and materials: A total of 12 elder individuals (65?±?3 years) were randomly assigned to two training methods: constant intensity (CI, 3 sets of 10 repetitions with 75% of 1RM) and variable intensity (VI, 1st set: 12 repetitions at 67% of 1RM?>?2nd set: 10 repetitions at 75% of 1RM and 3rd set: 8 repetitions at 80% of 1RM). Both methods included the following exercises: leg press, knee extension, and squat with 1?min rest intervals between sets. Free speed of execution and maximum range of movement were encouraged throughout each set for both protocols. Blood samples were analyzed included glucose, testosterone (T), cortisol (C), T/C rate, growth hormone (GH), and lactate at 2 and 24?h post intervention.

Results: There were no observed differences in glucose, testosterone, GH, and lactate concentrations both at 2 and 24?h after the execution of the two training methods. However, significant increases in the levels of T/C rate and decrease on cortisol were observed immediately post exercise for both protocols.

Conclusions: Although no significant differences were observed between the two interventions in relation to the hormonal and metabolic parameters analyzed, both training methods promoted a favorable response, with a slight superiority noted for the CI method relative to the hormonal profile.     

Unilateral collaboration: The practices and understandings of traditional birth attendants in southeastern Nigeria

Background

Despite the promotion of hospital-based maternity care as the safest option, for less developed countries, many women particularly those in the rural areas continue to patronise indigenous midwives or traditional birth attendants. Little is known about traditional birth attendants’ perspectives regarding their pregnancy and birth practices.

Disembodied politics: commitment and formal distance in Rancière*

Abstract

In light of the theme and concerns of the present collection of essays, we may ask whether ‘distance in general’, and ‘critical distance in particular’ (Fredric Jameson), has truly disappeared with postmodernity. Proposing an immediate and interruptive political engagement with local issues, Jacques Rancière’s articulation of political mobilisation does seem to confirm this claim. Upon further inspection, however, his emancipatory politics repeat the same mistake of valuing an abstract universal at the expense of a concrete particular, however paradoxical this may seem at first sight. The present article develops this thesis in three moments. On the first hand, it highlights Rancière’s notion of conflict as being institutive of politics. Secondly, it connects this ‘sensible’, and Rancière’s understanding of politics as being aesthetic, to Kant’s ‘Transcendental Aesthetics’. The French author sees in the leading section of the first Critique the grounding possibility of (I) freeing up time and space within the social realm; (II) the representation of a common political surface that can be reshaped; (III) political equality; (IV) emancipation. The last section shows how this recourse to the transcendental subject in Rancière’s politics follows and embraces a traditional position in the history of philosophy whereby identity is denigrated at the profit of a disembodied universalism.     

The Impact of Having a Baby on the Level and Content of Women’s Well-Being

The primary objective of this study was to more fully understand the impact of having a baby on women’s well-being by attending to both the level and the content of well-being. To cover the judgemental and affective aspects of well-being we included global measures of life satisfaction and well-being and affective experience measures derived from the day reconstruction method. In a sample of 19 first-time mothers no differences between pre and postnatal reports of general life satisfaction, depression, anxiety, and experienced positive and negative affect were found, suggesting that the arrival of the newborn baby does not universally impact on women’s level of well-being. Changes in the content of well-being were studied by examining changes in the way women experience specific activities and interactions with various social partners. There appeared to be an upward shift in experienced positive affect during active leisure and a slight decrease in negative affect during time spent with relatives. The results are discussed in light of previously documented changes across the transition to motherhood in negative mood states, time use, women’s evaluation of various aspects of daily life, and relational satisfaction.     

L models and multiple regressions designs

Given an orthogonal model

${{\bf \lambda}}=\sum_{i=1}^m{{{\bf X}}_i}{\boldsymbol{\alpha}}_i$

an L model

${{\bf y}}={\bf L}\left(\sum_{i=1}^m{{{\bf X}}_i}{\boldsymbol{\alpha}}_i\right)+{\bf e}$

is obtained, and the only restriction is the linear independency of the column vectors of matrix L. Special cases of the L models correspond to blockwise diagonal matrices L = D(L ₁, . . . , L _c ). In multiple regression designs this matrix will be of the form

${\bf L}={\bf D}(\check{{\bf X}}_1,\ldots,\check{{\bf X}}_{c})$

with \({\check{{\bf X}}_j, j=1,\ldots,c}\) the model matrices of the individual regressions, while the original model will have fixed effects. In this way, we overcome the usual restriction of requiring all regressions to have the same model matrix.

     

The wellbeing of foster children and their relationship with foster parents and biological parents: a child’s perspective

Most Dutch foster children live permanently in foster families. It is often assumed that foster children have ambivalent loyalties and attachments to their birth parents and foster parents and are torn between the two. In this study 59 children between 10 and 18 years placed in long term foster care completed standardised questionnaires on the relationship with their parents respectively foster parents and their wellbeing. Results show that, on average, foster children have positive feelings of loyalty and attachment towards both their foster parents and biological parents. However, their wellbeing appeared mainly related with stronger attachment representations towards their foster parents. This study found no indications for a competing position of biological parents and foster parents from the perspective of the child. Nevertheless, foster children who see their foster and biological parents as more vulnerable or experience stronger normative boundaries, feel worse compared to children who experience this feelings less.