This article presents the framework and explores the measurement, correlates, and outcomes of creative adaptability, proposed here as the cognitive–behavioral-emotional ability to respond creatively and adaptively to stressful situations. Data collection was in April 2020, during the peak of the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in Israel. In Study 1, a sample of 310 adults completed the newly developed CA scale, as well as spontaneity, openness to experience, creative self-efficacy, and well-being measurements. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (...) corroborated the 9-item CA scale’s theorized underlying construct. The scale’s validity and reliability were also supported. Exploratory analyses suggested that the association between CA and well-being was mediated by creative self-efficacy and that CA may buffer the impact of individuals’ concern about Coronavirus on their well-being. In Study 2, short-term longitudinal data based on a sample of 71 students suggested that CA may predict lower psychological stress over time. Support for the CA scale’s internal consistency reliability was obtained and its test–retest reliability was established. Overall, the results shed light on this new construct as a potential protective factor. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deficiencies that characterize the functioning of the Italian national health system. Prisons have always mirrored the most radical expressions of these weaknesses. During the early stages of the pandemic, prison facilities across Italy underwent a series of changes dictated by the need to ensure the safety of the prisoners and staff. The adoption of these rules contributed to a total or partial redefinition of many central facets of life in prison, such as (...) intake procedures for new arrivals and the ways prisoners were allowed to communicate with their families.Objectives: The aim of this qualitative study was to analyze the testimony of penitentiary healthcare workers in prisons throughout Italy to determine the impact of COVID-19 on their professional and personal lives.Participants: Thirty-eight participants were contacted and 20 decided to participate in the interview. The sample was made up of 10 women and 10 men. All the participants were members of the healthcare staff of a penitentiary facility. All were recruited through an Italian association whose mission is the development, promotion, and implementation of social solidarity projects including prisoners' social and health care. This study was facilitated through representatives serving in nine different regions of Italy. The participants were divided according to their professional roles in prisons.Method: In-depth interviews were conducted by telephone or online using telecommunication platforms. The transcribed texts underwent thematic analysis using the Atlas.ti software to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset.Results: Four main themes emerged from the analysis: Interpersonal difficulties, management and operational difficulties, the personal distress and bereavement of healthcare workers, and the distress of inmates. The importance of relationship management skills when interacting with prisoners emerged as a key topic in many interviews, and the participants highlighted the need for adequate training. The increase in prisoners' anxiety made communication more difficult.Conclusions: The findings suggest that healthcare workers in jails need emergency-oriented training. Participants described their feeling of loneliness and quasi-abandonment when carrying out their duties during the pandemic. In particular, they underscored the need for psychological guidance to better manage altered reactions with prisoners and colleagues as a result of heightened death anxiety and isolation. (shrink)

J. L. Moreno (1889–1974), the founder of psychodrama, argued against legitimate theater, asserting it is a “rigid drama conserve,”1 a finished product of the preceding creative process. In particular, Moreno protested against the centripetal manner in which actors of legitimate theater assimilate a role from a written play: an external material, the written play, assimilates into the center, the actor. Moreno viewed such process as an imposition, for it is “not genuinely creative, but re-creative.”2 In line with this notion, Moreno (...) decisively distinguished between the rehearsed art of “dramaturgy” and the extemporaneous art of “creaturgy.”3 Moreno also dissented with the scarcity of spontaneity in Stanislavsky’s .. (shrink)

Concretization is a concept that has different meanings in different psychological theories and varying manifestations in different psychotherapies. In psychodrama, much of the available information on concretization draws on J. L. Moreno’s initial conceptualization, descriptive case studies, and interpretations in the various approaches. However, concretization has not been empirically studied as a concept or as a therapeutic mechanism of change. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was to generate an empirically based conceptualization and operationalization of concretization as well as (...) to identify its clinical benefits in psychodrama. To this end, semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with seven experienced psychodrama therapists. Using a grounded theory approach for the data analysis, the model that emerged consists of three pathways toward concretization: realistic concretization, symbolic concretization, and integrated concretization. The findings suggest a sequential multistep operation that can be linear or nonlinear, depending on the protagonist’s need. The findings also underscore four benefits of concretization as a mechanism of change in psychodrama: reducing the ambiguity of the problem, externalizing the protagonist’s problem, enhancing the therapist-protagonist therapeutic bond, and bypassing the protagonist’s defense mechanisms. The model is discussed in light of the findings and the literature, and future directions are suggested. (shrink)

In recent decades there has been a significant increase in community rehabilitation programs for people with mental health conditions. One such nationwide programs is Amitim in Israel whose mission is to foster the psychosocial rehabilitation of people with mental health conditions in the community. Amitim’s flagship program consists of arts-based groups that integrate participants with mental health conditions and non-clinical community members. To better understand the experiences of participants in these arts-based groups, five focus groups were conducted with participants from (...) 15 integrated arts-based groups. In total, 17 people with mental health conditions and 21 non-clinical community members were interviewed for this qualitative study. Three main themes emerged from the thematic analysis: creation and expression through the arts promote well-being, self-disclosure in a safe space encourages a sense of belonging, and “we are all in the same boat.” The participants underscored the role of creation and expression through the arts in facilitating emotional expression, self-discovery, interpersonal communication, and spiritual elevation. The findings suggest that the facilitators should instill a sense of equality by enabling intergroup acquaintances without labeling participants’ mental health status. Integrated arts-based groups should be accompanied by a mental health professional who can contain and work through complex emotional situations when needed. Arts therapists who specialize in both arts and mental health are particularly suitable for this role. Overall, the interviewees reported that participation in the integrated arts-based groups positively impacted their personal recovery processes by providing a corrective experience of equality as well as enhancing a sense of belonging to the community and social relationships. The participants also reported being empowered by the final artistic event that not only enhanced their sense of visibility, competence, and aspirations for future development in personal, interpersonal, and artistic realms, but also helped to combat both self- and public stigma. (shrink)

This article explores the modalities by which referring to past discursive performance of adversaries within a continuous polemical exchange is used in ad hominem attacks. Our starting point holds that in the context of lengthy debates, participants and third-party listeners share a rhetorical memory, which, dynamic and subjective as it may be, allows for the evaluation of participants’ characters based on their perceived discursive performances. By analysing opinion articles related to the Israeli political debate, this study shows how drawing inference (...) from adversaries’ prior statements and conduct is used to compromise their credibility as participants in the polemical exchange. It is found that, alongside supporting arguments from inconsistent commitment, previous discursive performance is mobilized to discredit speakers’ epistemic authority and their moral legitimacy. (shrink)

As part of a European Erasmus Plus project entitled Death Education for Palliative Psychology, this study assessed the ways in which Master’s Degree students in psychology and the creative arts therapies self-rated their confidence and interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care. In five countries (Austria, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania), 344 students completed an online questionnaire, and 37 students were interviewed to better understand their views, interest, and confidence. The results revealed some significant differences between countries, and showed (...) that older respondents with previous experience as formal caregivers for end-of-life clients showed greater interest in obtaining practical clinical competence in these fields. A mediation analysis indicated that students’ previous care experiences and past loss experiences were related to students’ current interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care through the mediation of their sense of confidence in this field. The qualitative findings identified five shared themes: life and death, learning about death, the psychological burden, personal experience and robust training, and four key training needs. Overall, students’ interest in studying and working with terminal illness and death are rooted in internal resources, a preliminary sense of confidence, but also external requirements. (shrink)