The purpose of this study was to explore how one person experienced the early years of dementia as she was living through the pre-clinical and earlyclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Interviews were held onfour occasions over a period of three years. The data were analyzed usingthe descriptive phenomenological psychological method, in which theresearcher approached the data from a caring perspective. The livedexperience of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease showed to be acomplex transitional phenomenon that involves a dynamic process of personaladjustment. The process (...) is set in motion as the participant receives thediagnosis and will eventually lead her towards a state of increased opennessand receptiveness toward the disease. The results describe this process asit unfolds in the context of the overall experience, and the variousadjustments that the participant undertakes. Some reflections concerning theplausible needs of patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s diseaseare included in the discussion. (shrink)

This article addresses Barthes’s development from a structuralist semiotician towards an affectively responding reader in terms of ‘postrational’ subjectivity. In light of his whole oeuvre, Barthes anticipates the understanding of emotion as an integral part of cognition presented in contemporary social neuroscience. To illustrate Barthes’s growing awareness of the importance of this epistemological move, the article starts from his textual ‘reality effect’ as a critical vehicle of realist representation. It then shifts to his attempt at conceptualising an affective reading which (...) resists the universalising idea of one ideologically determined signified. Barthes’s progress towards embracing the actual reader’s embodied self-feeling is prompted by two conceptual milestones: the obtuse meaning found incinematic stills, and the experience of punctum felt in photos. In light of his lectures in the Collège de France, Barthes substitutes the Husserlian disembodied method of introspection with the Chinese wu-wei as a reading practice. As a result, his Zen-Buddhist concentration on bodily feelings elicited by visual/verbal images becomes a method capable of creating a fruitful link between language and wordless cognition. Finally, the article proposes an idea of the ‘embodied reality effect’ by reading affectively two similar scenes interpreted by the early and late Barthes himself. (shrink)

In this article, based on my doctoral research, I discuss the appropriation of religious elements from South America by Finnish ‘mystical tourists’. The plant medicine ceremonies are approached as spiritual commodities. Imagining local beliefs and practices as ancient cultural heritage, essentially and authentically spiritual, Finnish mystical tourists adapt these practices for their own therapeutic uses. They are accompanied by singing prayers to various plant spirits. Among the appropriated elements are the ceremonial ingestion of imported organic cacao, sacred tobacco and ayahuasca, (...) as well as praying by singing to plant spirits understood in terms of animism. My findings indicate how the appropriated cultural elements are given therapeutic functions in collectively created musical and ritual spaces for individual well-being. I analyse appropriation in categories introduced by Richard A. Rogers (2006) and understand the ceremonies to provide ‘mystical tourists’ with a role as a racially privileged group over the subaltern indigenous peoples through processes of commercialization, where reimagined cultural elements become spiritual commodities to be bought and sold in commercial networks on the basis of access. I argue that the associated forms of cultural appropriation align with the individualistic spiritual well-being needs of the Finnish participants and are related to the theme of ‘sacralization of the self’. (shrink)

While psychotherapists are trained to improve their clients’ quality of life, little work has examined the quality of life experienced by psychotherapist trainees themselves. Yet their life satisfactions and stresses would plausibly affect both their ability to learn new skills and conduct psychotherapy. Therefore, in the Society for Psychotherapy Research Interest Section on Psychotherapist Development and Training study, we investigated the patterns of self-reported life quality and their correlates in a multinational sample of 1,214 psychotherapist trainees. A comprehensive questionnaire was (...) used at the outset of trainings to assess trainees’ professional background, current life situation, personal characteristics, family background, and social and national origin. The findings indicated 54.3% of trainees’ lives could be characterized as fortunate or happy, whereas 14.3% could be characterized as clearly distressed or troubled. The strongest correlates of high life stress, a contributor to poor life quality, were economic insecurity, self-protectiveness, and attachment-related anxiety in relationships, and economic or psychological hardship in childhood. In turn, greater wellbeing was most strongly associated with a warm and open interpersonal style, being married, having sufficient economic means, and material and emotional security in childhood. While the results indicate the majority of therapists experience a relatively good quality of life, the findings also suggest potential targets for increasing trainees’ life quality when it may be deficient, such as those on a societal level, training program level, and individual level, in order to promote effective learning and therapy practice. (shrink)

This article addresses Barthes’s development from a structuralist semiotician towards an affectively responding reader in terms of ‘postrational’ subjectivity. In light of his whole oeuvre, Barthes anticipates the understanding of emotion as an integral part of cognition presented in contemporary social neuroscience. To illustrate Barthes’s growing awareness of the importance of this epistemological move, the article starts from his textual ‘reality effect’ as a critical vehicle of realist representation. It then shifts to his attempt at conceptualising an affective reading which (...) resists the universalising idea of one ideologically determined signified. Barthes’s progress towards embracing the actual reader’s embodied self-feeling is prompted by two conceptual milestones: the obtuse meaning found incinematic stills, and the experience of punctum felt in photos. In light of his lectures in the Collège de France, Barthes substitutes the Husserlian disembodied method of introspection with the Chinese wu-wei as a reading practice. As a result, his Zen-Buddhist concentration on bodily feelings elicited by visual/verbal images becomes a method capable of creating a fruitful link between language and wordless cognition. Finally, the article proposes an idea of the ‘embodied reality effect’ by reading affectively two similar scenes interpreted by the early and late Barthes himself. (shrink)

I distinguish two kinds of contribution that have been made by recent minimalist accounts of joint action in philosophy and cognitive science relative to established philosophical accounts of shared intentional action. The “complementarists” seek to analyze a functionally different kind of joint action from the kind of joint action that is analyzed by established philosophical accounts of shared intentional action. The “constitutionalists” seek to expose mechanisms that make performing joint actions possible, without taking a definite stance on which functional characterization (...) of joint action is the appropriate one. I elucidate the contrasting methodological underpinnings of these minimalist research programs in accordance with Bechtel and Richardson’s account of the heuristics of decomposition and localization as a research strategy for the study of complex systems. (shrink)

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is usually taken to express a limitation of operational possibilities imposed by quantum mechanics. Here we demonstrate that the full content of this principle also includes its positive role as a condition ensuring that mutually exclusive experimental options can be reconciled if an appropriate trade-off is accepted. The uncertainty principle is shown to appear in three manifestations, in the form of uncertainty relations: for the widths of the position and momentum distributions in any quantum state; for the (...) inaccuracies of any joint measurement of these quantities; and for the inaccuracy of a measurement of one of the quantities and the ensuing disturbance in the distribution of the other quantity. Whilst conceptually distinct, these three kinds of uncertainty relations are shown to be closely related formally. Finally, we survey models and experimental implementations of joint measurements of position and momentum and comment briefly on the status of experimental tests of the uncertainty principle. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to explore the views and experiences of adult cancer patients about patient participation in care and decision making and the preconditions for this participation. The data were collected by means of focused interviews; in addition the patients completed depression and problem-solving instruments. The sample comprised 34 cancer patients from the haematological and oncological wards of one university hospital in Finland. The results revealed considerable variation in the patients’ views on their participation in care and (...) decision making. Some of the patients understood participation either in terms of contributing to the decision making or in terms of expressing their views on treatment options. Some considered that their participation in care was impossible. Patient participation in care and decision making was promoted by good health, access to information, assertiveness, good interactive relationships with nurses and physicians, and encouragement by nurses and physicians to participate. Factors restricting such patient participation were poor health, ignorance, anxiety, age, time pressures of staff, lack of time, high staff turnover and poor interactive relationships. With regard to participation in medical decision making, the patients were divided into three groups: active participants, patients giving active consent, and patients giving passive consent to medical decisions. (shrink)

This article examines translating and translations primarily from a sem(e)iotic viewpoint. The focus is, on the one hand, on a semiotic re-reading of certain translation-theoretical suggestions (such as the idea of translation being an inherently semiotic category), and on the other hand, on a translation-theoretical re-reading of certain semiotic suggestions (such as what signs can be used for representing). Other proposals that receive a revisiting discussion include, for instance, Roman Jakobson’s translation typology and Umberto Eco’s notion of semiotics as a (...) theory of the lie. The approach adopted in the present article advocates a serious re-reading and attitude, but even more, a literal reading and sometimes, a less serious attitude as well. (shrink)

Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis as a method, this article explores the role of embodiment and tactility in negotiating peer relations in classroom interaction. We aim at discussing how social relations between peers are locally constructed and negotiated through embodied, tactile-haptic, and spatial practices during classroom activities. The focus of the empirical analysis is on how students sequentially co-construct specific peer-to-peer touch type—sustained leaning touch—as well as how embodied two-student formations, synchronization of bodily movements and negotiation of personal space serves (...) as displaying social bonding and balancing between students’ dual role orientation. Our findings suggest that intercorporeal construction of we-ness—including exclusive and inclusive practices in relation to peer groups—is based on students’ embodied orientations during leaning touch as well as re-organized embodied choreographies, participation frameworks and spatial arrangements. Our empirical analysis on tactility, embodied consciousness and incorporeal compresence has its basis in a phenomenologically rooted understanding of intercorporeality, and therefore our article aims at building bridges between phenomenological understanding and conceptualization and detailed empirical analysis of clearly observable interactional phenomena. (shrink)

Environmental influences on the experiences of people with Parkinson’s diseaseThis study elucidates environmental influences on lived illness experiences. For two consecutive years, persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) participated in 1 week of daily walking in the Swedish mountains. Daily, low‐intensive walking that is free of intense effort or time pressures associated with group interaction characterized the week. Participants were interviewed 3 months after the mountain stay regarding experiences in the mountains, daily living, and how their experience in the mountains influenced (...) their daily living after returning home. A phenomenological method was used for data analysis. Results point to the close connection between mind, body, and environment. The connection becomes highlighted when people are afflicted with sickness, such as PD, which causes impaired control of body language, impaired voluntary mobility, and lowered energy levels. The results also show how a social context in an environment with suitable physical challenges led to a change in individuals’ perceptions of the manageability of their experienced sicknesses. These results provide a deepened understanding of how individuals with PD experience illness, its influences on daily life, and how a suitable environment opens opportunities for managing daily issues. (shrink)

The subject animal welfare is increasingly in the public discourse. Consumers and policymakers are increasingly demanding products that are produced under increased animal welfare standards. The profession of the farmer involuntarily gets into disrepute. Many consumers want fundamental changes in pig farming, but are not aware of the consequences of implementation. In this representative study, consumers (n = 1101) were asked about their assessment of 33 animal welfare measures with regard to their importance and the feasibility of implementing those measures. (...) With the help of a four-field matrix, both the perceived importance and the feasibility of the animal welfare measures surveyed were brought together. The results show four possibilities: important and easy to implement, important and not feasible, not important and easy to implement as well as not important and not feasible. The results show that any outdoor access to pasture ranks first, followed by any outdoor access to straw bedding. The results can make a significant contribution to future communication with critical consumers concerning the implementation of higher animal welfare levels, as it becomes clearer how realistic consumers are about the feasibility of several animal welfare measures. Furthermore, the results could prove useful for the design of animal welfare programs and could help famers making targeted decisions concerning stable construction and management. (shrink)

Dance events as a caregiver intervention for persons with dementiaThe aim of the study was to illuminate the phenomenon of dance events as a caregiver intervention for persons with dementia in one nursing home as described by the caregivers. Seven caregivers were interviewed. The interviews were unstructured and conducted while the caregivers were watching a video of dance events arranged in the nursing home. The analysis was carried out using the phenomenological method developed by Giorgi. The results are presented in (...) five consistent themes: (1) prerequisites for dance events; (2) creating and preparing different kinds of activities related to the dance events; (3) emotional arousal; (4) caregivers’ situational understanding; and (5) dance events and contextual consequences and synthesis into a general structure. The meaning of the dance events as a caregiver intervention was founded not only on the dancing itself but also encompassed the ontological state of ‘being together’. (shrink)

This article analyses problem situations in the context of anaesthesia care. It considers what it means for nurse anaesthetists to be in problematic situations in the anaesthesia care of older patients. Benner’s interpretive phenomenological approach proved useful for this purpose. Paradigm cases are used to aid the analysis of individual nurses’ experiences. Thirty narrated problematic anaesthesia care situations derived from seven interviews were studied. These show that experienced nurse anaesthetists perceive anaesthesia care as problematic and highly demanding when involving older (...) patients. To be in problematic anaesthesia care situations means becoming morally distressed, which arises from the experience or from being prevented from acting according to one’s legal and moral duty of care. An important issue that emerged from this study was the need for an ethical forum to discuss and articulate moral issues, so that moral stress of the kind experienced by these nurse anaesthetists can be dealt with and hopefully reduced. (shrink)

Feeling old: being in a phase of transition in later life The aim of the study was to illuminate very old persons’ experiences of feeling old in order to get a nuanced understanding of the ageing process in later life. Fifteen persons 85–96 years of age, living in their own homes, were interviewed in‐depth. Data were analysed utilising a phenomenological‐hermeneutic approach. Eight persons reported that they felt old. The experience of feeling old entailed four characteristics: being able to date the (...) beginning of feeling old, fear of helplessness and of being unable to manage one’s life situation, not recognising one’s former self, and feeling different from others. These characteristics corresponded to the main properties of a transition process. The comprehensive understanding was that the very old persons who also felt old were in a phase of transition. The distinguishing qualities of those that felt old were also found to be in line with the dystonic dominance in the ninth stage designated by Joan Erikson of the previously described life cycle. Knowledge about transition processes and sensitivity to very old people’s experiences of feeling old are of great importance to nursing in order to provide adequate health care services and prevent unhealthy transitions. (shrink)