Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration is a transtheoretical and transdiagnostic clinical approach to working with patients who are using or considering using psychedelics in any context. The ongoing discussion of psychedelics in academic research and mainstream media, coupled with recent law enforcement deprioritization of psychedelics and compassionate use approvals for psychedelic-assisted therapy, make this model exceedingly timely. Given the prevalence of psychedelic use, the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and the unique cultural and historical context in which psychedelics are (...) placed, it is important that mental health providers have an understanding of the unique motivations, experiences, and needs of people who use them. PHRI incorporates elements of harm reduction psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and can be applied in both brief and ongoing psychotherapy interactions. PHRI represents a shift away from assessment limited to untoward outcomes of psychedelic use and abstinence-based addiction treatment paradigms and toward a stance of compassionate, destigmatizing acceptance of patients' choices. Considerations for assessment, preparation, and working with difficult experiences are presented. (shrink)

Cognitive and behavioral predictors in the process of smoking cessation during pregnancy: Testing for discontinuity patterns in the Transtheoretical Model The aim of the study was to assess predictive power of cognitive variables and health-promoting behaviors for the process of smoking cessation described in terms of the Transtheoretical Model. Participants in the study were 150 women, in uncomplicated pregnancy. Cigarette smokers constituted 29.3% of the sample, while the rest had previously quitted smoking. Beliefs and expectations were (...) measured by means of scales developed by the author, while health-related behaviors were assessed using the Health Behavior Inventory by Z. Juczyński, supplemented with pregnancy-specific behaviors. TTM discontinuity patterns were tested in the study using polynomial-based orthogonal contrasts. Statistically significant linear trends were found for expectations concerning the infant's health state and the course of delivery, for beliefs about the effect of maternal smoking on infant health, as well as for pregnancy health behaviors. The obtained results were confirmed by hierarchical regression analysis, with smoking cessation explained to a larger extent by cognitive factors than by health-related behaviors. This may suggest that the TTM is a "pseudo-stage" model, and a general change of the variables under study is of greater importance for the process of smoking cessation than focusing on the TTM stages. (shrink)

Counselors ask their clients to become creative in their personal lives and within their counseling process. The process of counseling is a creative process. Growth is necessary for effective improvement in the counseling process. This paper will examine creativity from the point of view of the affective experience of the creator, and the relationship of this experience to the client in counseling. The position here is that the process of counseling is both a creative process and one that involves tensions (...) and turbulence. Based on a model of nonlinear dynamics, and ideas about the creative process, this study draws a dynamical fractal movie of the counseling process in which the counselor serves as an attractor for the construction of opposites in the client behavior that allow for growth and the construction of a new state of psychosocial events. (shrink)

There are strong indications that many consumers are switching towards more socially and environmentally responsible products and services, reflecting a shift in consumer values indicated in several countries. However, little is known about the motives that drive some toward, or deter others from, higher levels of ethical concern and action in their purchasing decisions. Following a qualitative investigation using ZMET and focus group discussions, a questionnaire was developed and administered to a representative sample of consumers; nearly 1,000 usable questionnaires were (...) collected. The degree of awareness, concern and action regarding 16 ethical issues was quantified, using a measure developed from the Stages of Change concept within the Transtheoretical model. Motivations for ethical behaviour, in relation to each individual’s most salient ethical issue, were investigated using initially 22 motive statements within the framework of the Decisional Balance Scale (DBS). The findings suggest that the DBS and Stages model have an explanatory value within the ethical decision-making context, and that the motives identified do reflect the Decisional Balance Constructs. Indeed the study suggests that respondents’ motivational attitudes are a function of their stage of ethical awareness, concern and action. Therefore, the Decisional Balance Scale may well prove useful for designing appropriate interventions and communications to facilitate movement towards more ethical decision-making. These findings yield strategic insight for communicating messages to ethical consumers and for better understanding their purchasing decisions. (shrink)

" In Imagination and the Meaningful Brain, psychoanalyst Arnold Modell claims that subjective human experience must be included in any scientific...

Abstract.Since the gene splicing debates of the 1980s, the public has been exposed to an ongoing sequence of genetic and reproductive technologies. Many issue areas have outcomes that lose track of people's inner values or engender opposing religious viewpoints defying final resolution. This essay relocates the discussion of what is an acceptable application from the individual to the societal level, examining technologies that stand to address large numbers of people and thus call for policy resolution, rather than individual fiat, in (...) their application. A major source of guidance is the “Genetic Frontiers” series of professional dialogues and conferences held by the National Conference for Community and Justice from 2002 to 2004. Genetic testing, human gene therapy, genetic engineering of plants and animals, and stem cell technology are examined. While differences in perspective on the beginning of life persist, a stepwise approach to the examination of genetic testing reveals areas of general agreement. Stewardship of life, human co‐creativity with the divine, and social justice help define the bounds of application of genetic engineering and therapy; compassionate care plays a major role in establishing stem cell policy. Active, sustained dialogue is a useful resource for enabling sharing of religious values and crystallization of policies. (shrink)

Aristotle is oftentimes viewed through a strictly philosophical lens as heir to Plato and has having introduced logical rigor where an emphasis on the theory of Forms formerly prevailed. It must be appreciated that Aristotle was the son of a physician, and that his inculcation of the thought of other Greek philosophers addressing health and the natural elements led to an extremely broad set of biologically- and medically-related writings. As this article proposes, Aristotle deepened the fourfold theory of the elements (...) with anatomic and physiologic observations. In books like History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and the lost Anatomai, he actively dissected organisms and recorded his findings. The corpus of medically-related literature Aristotle developed had a direct influence on subsequent Greek thinkers, including Galen, and on Medieval Islamic and modern Western practitioners such as William Harvey. Aristotle's ideas continue to influence modern medical thinkers in Europe and America through both his interpretation by European philosophers gaining the attention of medical humanists, and his writings' enduring impact on medical researchers balancing scientific with more personalistic approaches to medicine. (shrink)

The estrangement between genetic scientists and theologians originating in the 1960s is reflected in novel combinations of human thought (subject) and genes (investigational object), paralleling each other through the universal process known in chaos theory as self-similarity. The clash and recombination of genes and knowledge captures what Philip Hefner refers to as irony, one of four voices he suggests transmit the knowledge and arguments of the religion-and-science debate. When viewed along a tangent connecting irony to leadership, journal dissemination, and the (...) activities of the "public intellectual" and the public at large, the sequence of voices is shown to resemble the passage of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, tRNA, and protein, and from cell nucleus to surrounding environment. In this light, Hefner's inquiry into the voices of Zygon is bound up with the very subject matter Zygon covers. (shrink)

Coherence and correspondence are classical contenders as theories of truth. In this paper we examine them instead as interacting factors in the dynamics of belief across epistemic networks. We construct an agent-based model of network contact in which agents are characterized not in terms of single beliefs but in terms of internal belief suites. Individuals update elements of their belief suites on input from other agents in order both to maximize internal belief coherence and to incorporate ‘trickled in’ elements (...) of truth as correspondence. Results, though often intuitive, prove more complex than in simpler models (Hegselmann & Krause 2002, 2006; Grim, Singer, Reade & Fisher 2015). The optimistic finding is that pressures toward internal coherence can exploit and expand on small elements of truth as correspondence is introduced into epistemic networks. Less optimistic results show that pressures for coherence can also work directly against the incorporation of truth, particularly when coherence is established first and new data is introduced later. (shrink)

This paper outlines the demographic characteristics of the Baiga tribe, one of the most primitive of the aboriginal tribal groups of Central India. The Baiga population has grown steadily since the first anthropological study of the tribe in the 1930s. Age at menarche, age at marriage, breast-feeding, and time interval between marriage and first conception are natural. There are more females than males. Sub-tribe endogamy is common; consanguineous marriage is favoured (34% of marriages are between first cousins) and marital distance (...) is low (mean 7·1 km). Though the mean menarcheal age is high (15·2 years), mean age at first marriage is low (16·6 years), giving a long reproductive period. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo confirm the effects of a transtheoretical model based on multidimensional life management on healthy behavior in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome.MethodsIn total, eighty eligible patients were recruited from March 2021 to June 2021 and randomly assigned to either the intervention or control groups. Outcome measures include health-promoting behavior, self-efficacy, anthropometrics, and the number of unplanned outpatient admissions. Data were collected at baseline, 3, and 6 months after the intervention. The chi-square test, rank-sum test, t-test, and repeated measurement (...) analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.ResultsIn total, sixty-six participants completed the study: 35 participants in the intervention group and 31 participants in the control group. After 6 months of intervention, the healthy behavior level of patients with PCOS increased from moderate [health-promoting lifestyle profile -II score of 105.37 ± 12.57] to good in the intervention group; and there was no change observed in the control group. In addition, the total self-efficacy score, PCOS-related unplanned outpatient admissions, waist circumference, and body mass index were found to have a significant difference in the intervention group at 6 months. Meanwhile, repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significantly greater improvement in health-promoting behavior and self-efficacy over time in the intervention group than in the control group.ConclusionThe transtheoretical model based on multidimensional life management positively affected healthy behavior, self-efficacy, the number of unplanned outpatient admissions, and anthropometrics in patients with PCOS.Clinical Trial Registrationwww.chictr.org.cn, ChiCTR2000034572. (shrink)

Overweight and obesity among children and adolescents are global problems of our time. Due to their authority and role modeling, parents play an essential part in the efficacy of prevention and intervention programs. This study assessed the barriers that parents of overweight/obese children face in preventive and interventional health care utilization. Sixteen parents were qualitatively interviewed. A content analysis was performed, and barriers to change were allocated to their stage of change according to the transtheoretical model. Among the (...) main barriers is the underestimation of health risks caused by overweight/obesity in association with diminished problem awareness. Parents seem not necessarily in need of theoretical knowledge for prevention and interventions. They do however need support in evaluating the weight status of their child and the knowledge of whom to turn to for help as well as specific and hands-on possibilities for change. The results extend past studies by adding specific barriers to change that parents commonly experience. Possibilities to address these barriers, e.g., through trainings at the pediatric practice or adoption of conversation techniques, are discussed. Future studies might identify subgroups experiencing specific barriers and thus be able to address these in an individualized way. (shrink)

Transtheoretical integrative decision-making models help clinicians to use patient factors that are known to predict outcomes in order to inform individualized treatment. Patient factors with a strong evidence base include: functional impairment, social support and interpersonal functioning, complexity and comorbidity, coping style, level of resistance, and subjective distress. Among those with binge-eating disorder (BED), patient factors have not been extensively characterized relative to norms or other clinical samples. We used an integrative decision-making model of these six domains of (...) patient factors related to patient outcomes to characterize a sample of 424 adult treatment-seeking patients with BED. Data were from medical charts, a demographics questionnaire, and validated psychometric scales. We then compared these data to published data from normative and other eating disorder (ED) samples. Results showed that the average patient with BED: (1) was significantly more functionally impaired compared to non-clinical norms but somewhat less impaired than other patients with ED, (2) demonstrated clinically significant problems in social support and interpersonal functioning, (3) presented with complex comorbid pathology and high levels of chronicity, (4) used a more internalizing coping style compared to the norm and other ED samples, (5) had low levels of resistance to interventions, and (6) experienced a moderately high level of subjective distress indicating good motivation for treatment. Corresponding recommendations to these findings are that the average patient with BED should be provided higher intensity treatment that is longer in duration, interpersonally-focused, directive in nature, and emphasizing self-reflection and insight. Despite the nomothetic nature of the findings, clinicians are encouraged to assess these patient domains in order to come to an ideographic case conceptualization and to tailor precision treatment to the individual patient with BED. (shrink)

Current work in language models (LMs) helps us speed up or even skip thinking by accelerating and automating cognitive work. But can LMs help us with critical thinking -- thinking in deeper, more reflective ways which challenge assumptions, clarify ideas, and engineer new concepts? We treat philosophy as a case study in critical thinking, and interview 21 professional philosophers about how they engage in critical thinking and on their experiences with LMs. We find that philosophers do not find LMs to (...) be useful because they lack a sense of selfhood (memory, beliefs, consistency) and initiative (curiosity, proactivity). We propose the selfhood-initiative model for critical thinking tools to characterize this gap. Using the model, we formulate three roles LMs could play as critical thinking tools: the Interlocutor, the Monitor, and the Respondent. We hope that our work inspires LM researchers to further develop LMs as critical thinking tools and philosophers and other 'critical thinkers' to imagine intellectually substantive uses of LMs. (shrink)

. Computational chemistry grew in a new era of “desktop modeling,” which coincided with a growing demand for modeling software, especially from the pharmaceutical industry. Parameterization of models in computational chemistry is an arduous enterprise, and we argue that this activity leads, in this specific context, to tensions among scientists regarding the epistemic opacity transparency of parameterized methods and the software implementing them. We relate one flame war from the Computational Chemistry mailing List in order to assess in detail the (...) relationships between modeling methods, parameterization, software and the various forms of their enclosure or disclosure. Our claim is that parameterization issues are an important and often neglected source of epistemic opacity and that this opacity is entangled in methods and software alike. Models and software must be addressed together to understand the epistemological tensions at stake. (shrink)

Die gängige Unterscheidung zwischen 'Modellen von etwas' und 'Modellen für etwas' basiert weitgehend auf der Zuordnung der einen zu den Wissenschaften, der anderen zu den Künsten und den entwerfenden Disziplinen. Diese Aufteilung hält einer näheren Untersuchung nicht Stand. Zudem hat sie die Einsicht vereitelt, dass und wie Forschen und Entwerfen im Modell ineinander verflochten sind.

This paper critiques a number of standard ways of understanding the role of the metalanguage in a semantic theory for natural language, including the idea that disquotation plays a nontrivial role in any explanatory natural language semantics. It then proposes that the best way to understand the role of a semantic metalanguage involves recognizing that semantics is a model-based science. The metalanguage of semantics is language for articulating features of the theorist's model. Models are understood as mediating instruments---idealized (...) structures used to represent select aspects of the world, aspects the theorist is seeking some theoretical understanding of. The aspect of reality we are seeking some understanding of in semantics is a dimension of human linguistic competence---informally, knowledge of meaning. (shrink)