The Impact of the Housing Environment upon the Ability of Disabled People to Live Independently

The independent living (IL) paradigm proposes that the presence of environmental barriers affects critically the level of independence of people with disabilities. This study refines the IL paradigm and evaluates empirically the role that the environment plays in independent living, especially the influence of home adaptations and other housing variables on disabled people and their families. The results of this research indicate that housing adaptations have a variety of impacts upon the productivity of disabled people. Other housing issues are very important to individuals with disabilities, particularly tenants. This paper concludes by presenting implications for theoretical development and recommendations for housing policies which are responsive to the needs of disabled people.     

Establishing self and meaning in low back pain narratives

Pain narratives encounter the problem of verbalising private and internalised experiences. Words appear to fall short of giving meaning to the feelings and impact of pain. In this paper we report on how people describe their low back pain and the way in which they claim to present this to clinicians. In the research interviews they need to establish themselves as believable narrators and provide accounts of how they legitimise their pain in clinical encounters. As a result, the interviews provide complex and layered narratives of pain and its representation.     

The Story of Alex—An Improvisational Drama

This paper describes the intensive, long-term psychotherapy of a woman, severely abused in childhood, who remembered her abusive experiences although devoid of any affect. Alex was agoraphobic and unable to sustain intimate relationships. This paper describes how, during the course of this long-term therapy, she used improvisational acting techniques to access and integrate those repressed affects.This paper was presented at the Conference of the National Membership Committee for Psychoanalysis in Chicago in March, 2002.     

Personal, health, academic, and environmental predictors of stress for residence hall students

The authors studied contributors to stress among undergraduate residence hall students at a midwestern, land grant university using a 76-item survey consisting of personal, health, academic, and environmental questions and 1 qualitative question asking what thing stressed them the most. Of 964 students selected at random, 462 (48%) responded to the survey. The authors weighted data to reflect the overall university-wide undergraduate population (55% men, 12% minority or international, and 25% freshmen). Women and US citizens experienced greater stress than did men and non-US citizens, respectively. Frequency of experiencing chronic illness, depression, anxiety disorder, seasonal affective disorder, mononucleosis, and sleep difficulties were significant stress predictors. Although alcohol use was a positive predictor, drug use was a negative predictor of stress. Both a conflict and a satisfactory relationship with a roommate, as well as a conflict with a faculty or staff member, were also significant predictors of stress.     

Doing good while doing business: Using financial viability to enhance employability for the disadvantaged

The employment social enterprise (ESE) model can provide an opportunity to create a financially viable business that helps individuals with employment barriers become integrated into the labor force. This research studied eight ESEs. Findings suggest that by applying private‐sector business principles to a workforce development programs, social enterprises can provide participants with meaningful and valuable work experience, while offsetting program costs. Analysis identified four promising practices that social entrepreneurs should adopt when setting up a new enterprise. Enterprises should (a) provide soft‐skill training and social services to participants; (b) operate at a size that allows for economies of scale in production and the provision of support services; (c) have few occupational skill requirements; and (d) hire supervisors with both industry knowledge and the capacity to support individuals with employment barriers.     

Application of commercial software to the classification of suicide cases: a brief report

Mosaic Profiler software was used to classify suicide and open verdict cases during 1996 to 1998 in England and within England, for the London and the North West regions. The classification system was based on the socioeconomic characteristics of the last place of residence of the cases at the level of postcode. The results highlighted that deprived areas and areas that contain elderly population or those areas that suffer from lack of social cohesion are overrepresented, whereas affluent areas are underrepresented. All of these, although in the larger scale, seem to support the results of other studies. Nevertheless, more studies would be required before one can fully evaluate the application of the Mosaic Profiler in the field of spatial epidemiology.