The association of resilience-related factors with frailty is a recent research topic. Dispositional optimism and context sensitivity are two psychological factors that differently contribute to individual resilience. This study aimed at investigating whether dispositional optimism and context sensitivity might contribute to a multifactorial model of frailty, together with established relevant factors such as cognitive and physical factors. This cross-sectional study involved 141 elderly outpatients aged ≥65 years, who were referred to the Geriatrics and Multidimensional Evaluation Clinic of the University Hospital (...) of Messina. We used the following measures: the Mini-Mental State Examination to screen for global cognitive functioning; 4-m gait speed and handgrip strength to measure physical performance; a 35-item Frailty Index to evaluate patients’ frailty status; the revised Life Orientation Test to gauge dispositional optimism; and the Context Sensitivity Index to measure context sensitivity. We found that LOT-R, CSI, and MMSE were all significantly associated with FI. Gait speed was only marginally associated with FI. The present study showed a novel association of dispositional optimism and context sensitivity with frailty among elderly outpatients. These preliminary findings support a multidimensional approach to frailty in which even peculiar psychological features might provide a significant contribution. (shrink)

Time processing is a multifaceted skill crucial for managing different aspects of life. In the current work, we explored the relationship between interoception and time processing by examining research on clinical models. We investigated whether time processing deficits are associated with dysfunction of the interoceptive system and/or insular cortex activity, which is crucial in decoding internal body signaling. Furthermore, we explored whether insular activation predicts the subjective experience of time (that is, the subjective duration of a target stimulus to be (...) timed). Overall, our work suggests that alteration of the interoceptive system could be a common psychophysiological hallmark of mental disorders affected by time processing deficits. (shrink)

This study aimed at investigating depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among healthcare workers and examine the role of expressive flexibility and context sensitivity as key components of resilience in understanding reported symptoms. We hypothesized a significant and different contribution of resilience components in explaining depression, anxiety, and stress. A total sample of 218 Italian healthcare workers participated in this study through an online survey during the lockdown, consequently to the COVID-19. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 was used to measure depression, (...) anxiety, and stress; the Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression scale was used to measure the ability to enhance and suppress emotional expression; the Context Sensitivity Index was used to measure the ability to accurately perceive contextual cues and determine cue absence. Demographic and work-related data were also collected. DASS-21 cut-off scores were used to verify the mental status among the respondents. Correlational analyses examined relationships between DASS-21, FREE, and CSI, followed by three regression analyses with depression, anxiety, and stress as dependent variables, controlling for age, gender, and work experience. Enhancement and suppression abilities, cue presence, and cue absence served as independent variables. The results showed a prevalence of moderate to extremely severe symptoms of 8% for depression, 9.8% for anxiety, and 8.9% for stress. Results of correlational analysis highlighted that enhance ability was inversely associated with depression and stress. Suppression ability was inversely associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The ability to perceive contextual cues was inversely associated with depression and anxiety. The regression analysis showed that the ability to enhance emotional expression was statistically significant to explain depression among healthcare workers. In predicting anxiety, age, and the ability to accurately perceive contextual cues and determine cue absence made substantial contributions as predictors. In the last regression model, age, work experience, and the ability to suppress emotional expression were significant predictors of stress. This study’s findings can help understand the specific contributions of enhancement and suppression abilities and sensitivity to stressor context cues in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress among healthcare workers. Psychological interventions to prevent burnout should consider these relationships. (shrink)

Emotion-processing impairment represents a risk factor for the development of somatic illness, affecting negatively both health-related quality of life and disease management in several chronic diseases. The present pilot study aims at investigating the associations between alexithymia and depression, anxiety, and HRQoL in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis ; examining the association between these three psychological conditions together with HRQoL, and thyroid autoantibodies status as well as thyroid echotexture in patients with HT; and comparing the intensity of all these clinical psychological (...) features in patients with HT versus controls. Twenty-one patients with serologically or ultrasonographically verified HT and 16 controls with non-toxic goiter or postsurgical hypothyroidism were recruited for this study. Serum thyrotropin and free thyroxine, as well as thyroid autoantibodies, were assayed. Alexithymia, depression, anxiety, and HRQoL were assessed with Toronto Alexithymia Scale; Beck Depression Inventory, second edition; Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale; and Health Survey Short-Form 36, respectively. A negative relationship between the difficulty to describe feelings and the cognitive component of depression was found. Besides, patients with seronegative HT had lower somatic anxiety than patients with HT who tested positive. Besides, no statistically significant difference was found between patients with HT and controls with regard to somatic anxiety. The present study suggests the relevance of alexithymia in patients suffering from HT, which may be intertwined with a possible state of underreported depression that is mainly expressed through physical complaints. Promoting the capability to describe and communicate feelings could contribute to psychological elaboration and coping with the disease and, consequently, to the improvement of self-management and perceived HRQoL. (shrink)

El presente trabajo está dedicado a rastrear la influencia del pensamiento plotiniano sobre el revival de la lírica irlandesa bajo la pluma de su más célebre poeta: William Butler Yeats. Los escritos del Irlandés, en efecto, contienen alusiones directas al filósofo neoplatónico que constituyen la ‘punta del iceberg’, por así decirlo, de una impronta profunda y trascendente de la filosofía eneádica sobre la literatura yeatseana. Nuestro trabajo, por lo tanto, procura examinar el significado de este ascendiente e intenta poner de (...) manifiesto los caracteres propios de la relación personal, textual y conceptual que Yeats establece con Plotino en sus escritos. (shrink)

In the present paper we discuss different issues concerning the Philosophy of India. We examine, in the first place, the current situation of the area in Argentinean universities and, more specifically, in the programme of the Licenciaturas in Philosophy taught in our country. We assess, with this purpose, the programme of the thirty two degrees in Philosophy offered by national private and public universities. In the second place, we provide a brief discussion of the up-to-date specialized bibliography about the dilemma (...) concerning the existence or not of philosophy in India. We consider, thus, the possitions of a few authors who try to deconstruct centenary and rooted conceptions about the absence of philosophy in India. We evaluate, as well, the stances of contemporary specialists in Indian thought who defend the presence of philosophy in classical Indian culture arguing from a sistematic and methodologically honest knowledge of this tradition. Our inquiry tries to show, in such a way, that approaching the (meta)philosophical dilemma regarding the presence or absence of philosophy in India requires and implies a (self-)critical and specialized tradition of research in the area, and that in our country this tradition exists only in an very incipient stage. (shrink)

“Philosophy and Exegesis in the Enneads . The Wings of the Plotinean Soul in his reading of Plato’s Phaedrus ”. In the present paper, we examine the role exegesis plays in the philosophy of the Enneads and, in particular, the way in which Plotinus interprets Plato. With this purpose we analyze, in the first place, some revealing passages of Porphyrius’ Life of Plotinus in order to understand, on the one hand, how late Greek thinkers conceived the exegetic endeavour and, on (...) the other hand, the way in which plotinian philosophy was considered by his contemporaries. In the second section of this work, we examine the treatise IV 8 of the Enneads and try to show some peculiar aspects of Plotinus’ exegetic procedure as well as of his reading of Plato’s Phaedrus. (shrink)

Two of the constitutive elements of Plotinus’ philosophy are mysticism and the exegesis of the philosophers that preceded him. These two aspects, however, are interpreted in different ways by scholars. Due to these facts, in the present paper we try to show and explain Plotinus’ exegesis of some Middle Platonic ideas. Furthermore, we evaluate the impact that these ideas together, with his mystical experiences, had on his metaphysical doctrine. We offer, in the last place, an interpretation of the relationship that (...) mysticism and exegesis have in the Enneads, reconsidering the way in which scholars understand it. (shrink)

La tensión entre fidelidad a la tradición e innovación presente en el pensamiento plotiniano se manifiesta de modo patente en su propuesta metafísica. La ontología expuesta en las Enéadas, en efecto, es un claro ejemplo de la labor exegética mediante la cual Plotino toma las concepciones metafísicas platónico-pitagóricas precedentes y las sintetiza infundiendo nueva vitalidad en ideas antiguas. Para llevar a cabo su exégesis utiliza, incluso, conceptos aristotélicos que integra de un modo peculiar a su pensamiento platonizante. En el presente (...) trabajo, pues, nos proponemos esclarecer el procedimiento interpretativo que Plotino lleva a cabo en la formulación de su doctrina de lo Uno y de la relación entre esta hipóstasis y la Inteligencia. En nuestro análisis examinamos las nociones metafísicas que nuestro filósofo toma como punto de partida y brindamos una interpretación de la transformación que opera sobre ellas para arribar al sistema que dio origen a una nueva corriente de pensamiento platónico. The tension between innovation and fidelity to tradition present in the thought of Plotinus manifests itself clearly in his metaphysical conception. The ontology put forward in the Enneads, in fact, is a fine example of the exegetical work by which our thinker takes the preceding platonic-pythagorean metaphysics and synthesizes it, bringing new vitality into ancient ideas. To accomplish his exegesis he even employs Aristotelian concepts incorporating them in a peculiar way to his Platonizing thought. In the present paper, hence, we intend to elucidate the interpretive procedure that Plotinus carries out to arrive at his conceptions of the One and of the relationship between this hypostasis and Intelligence. In our analysis, we examine the metaphysical notions that our philosopher takes as starting points and we offer an interpretation of the transformation he operates upon them to reach the system that gave birth to a new current of Platonic thought. (shrink)

En el último mes los practicantes de yoga que habitan la ciudad de Washington se han enfrentado con una situación que pone sobre el tapete la definición misma de su práctica. El primero de Octubre pasado, en efecto, ha entrado en vigencia una nueva legislación por la cual a los establecimientos cuya finalidad es el ejercicio físico, tales como gimnasios, centros de fitness y también, de acuerdo con las autoridades impositivas, institutos de Yoga, se les cobra casi un 6% de (...) impuesto sobre las ganancias. Tal medida ha desatado, posiblemente sin buscarlo, una polémica de corte filosófico. Los practicantes, por una parte, abogan por el rechazo de la aplicación del "yoga tax" o impuesto del yoga, como ha pasado a llamarse, sobre su práctica. Alegan, para ello, que la finalidad del yoga es "integrar la mente, el cuerpo y el espíritu" y afirman que la mejora en el estado físico es un efecto secundario. Las autoridades, por otra parte, son taxativas en su visión del yoga como un ejercicio y no están dispuestas a flexibilizar sus criterios. (shrink)

El Yoga constituye uno de los legados de la India a la humanidad que Occidente haadoptado con mayor aceptación y entusiasmo. Conociendo innumerables transformaciones, la práctica del Yoga ha sido incorporada a la vida occidental de diversas maneras, ya sea como profesión, como entretenimiento, como técnica de relajación, como preparación física eincluso, en algunos casos, como técnica de liberación. Pero el carácter mudable o „camaleónico‟, podríamos decir, del Yoga es tan antiguo como el Yoga mismo y ya en la India (...) antigua es posible atestiguar diferentes expresiones de su práctica y de su contenidofilosófico. (shrink)

Though “mysticism” in not a Plotinian idiom, it has been frequently used by scholars to identify an aspect of his philosophy. Thus, Plotinus’ mysticism comprises those passages of the Enneads in which he describes different transcendent experiences or presents his interpretation of these. Upon these two elements, we believe, Plotinus structures a coherent doctrine about the relation between man and the higher degrees of reality closely dependant, as well, on his metaphysical theory. In the present work we intend to provide (...) an accurate account of Plotinus’ mystical doctrine for which we will also need to analyse the singularities of the different mystical discourses present in the Enneads and outline and discuss the main streams of interpretation that scholars have suggested for this subject. (shrink)

Though “mysticism” in not a Plotinian idiom, it has been frequently used by scholars to identify an aspect of his philosophy. Thus, Plotinus’ mysticism comprises those passages of the Enneads in which he describes different transcendent experiences or presents his interpretation of these. Upon these two elements, we believe, Plotinus structures a coherent doctrine about the relation between man and the higher degrees of reality closely dependant, as well, on his metaphysical theory. In the present work we intend to provide (...) an accurate account of Plotinus’ mystical doctrine for which we will also need to analyse the singularities of the different mystical discourses present in the Enneads and outline and discuss the main streams of interpretation that scholars have suggested for this subject. (shrink)

Though “mysticism” in not a Plotinian idiom, it has been frequently used by scholars to identify an aspect of his philosophy. Thus, Plotinus’ mysticism comprises those passages of the Enneads in which he describes different transcendent experiences or presents his interpretation of these. Upon these two elements, we believe, Plotinus structures a coherent doctrine about the relation between man and the higher degrees of reality closely dependant, as well, on his metaphysical theory. In the present work we intend to provide (...) an accurate account of Plotinus’ mystical doctrine for which we will also need to analyse the singularities of the different mystical discourses present in the Enneads and outline and discuss the main streams of interpretation that scholars have suggested for this subject. (shrink)