The perceived meaning of life significantly affects the quality of human life. It is of particular significance in borderline situations. One of such situations is the birth of an intellectually disabled child. The article presents the results of the study concerning the perceived meaning of life in the case of parents who bring up a child with limited intellectual abilities. The study included 87 mothers and 65 fathers bringing up an intellectually disabled child. In the studied cases, parents perceived their (...) life as highly meaningful. The results indicated that the perceived meaning of life in the case of parents of intellectually disabled children was related with: suffering experienced by the parents as a result of a limited intellectual ability of their daughter/son, the manner of performing their parental role and the sense of parental identity. (shrink)

Perioperative nurses assist in organ procurement surgery; however, there is a dearth of information of how they encounter making conscientious objection requests or refusals to participate in organ procurement surgery. Organ procurement surgical procedures can present to the operating room ad hoc and can catch a nurse who may not desire to participate by surprise with little opportunity to refuse as a result of staffing, skill mix or organizational work demands. This paper that stems from a larger doctoral research study (...) exploring the experiences of perioperative nurses participating in multi‐organ procurement surgery used a grounded theory method to develop a substantive theory of the nurses’ experiences. This current paper aimed to highlight the experiences of perioperative nurses when confronted with expressing a conscientious objection towards their participation in these procedures. A number of organizational and cultural barriers within the healthcare organization were seen to hamper their ability in expressing a conscience‐based refusal, which lead to their reluctant participation. Perioperative nurses must feel safe to express a conscientious objection towards these types of surgical procedures and feel supported in doing so by their respective hospital organizations and not be forced to participate unwillingly. (shrink)

Body experience can be seen as the basis for the formation of the self-concept. The relation between body experience and self-concept is fundamental for human existence and is especially in focus in the fields of psychotherapy and movement activities . But body experience is a "data source" which is difficult to handle scientifically. Body experiences are based on "internal physical sensations" - which Gendlin also describes as the felt meaning or the felt sense, and is not in opposition to phenomenology. (...) To bridge the gap between internal sensations - which are the foundation of the creation of meaning - and language as the medium in both everyday and scientific communication, a form of visualisation technique is introduced to help to evoke descriptions and metaphors that are able to transform body experiences as the pre-reflective mode of information into language as the digital mode of information. Metaphors are the source domain for the target domain body experience . Through the presentation of an empirical project in the field of movement and sport, the theoretical reflections on the process of transforming body experience into language will be exemplified. (shrink)

What does ‘the neutrality of the state’ mean and is it possible? There are two colliding concepts in political thought regarding the extent of the state’s intervention in the life of an individual. The first of them is minimalist and the second is that of the common good. It is in this context that it is worthwhile analysing what neutrality means. The dispute between the advocates of the state’s neutrality and its enemies is not only of a theoretical nature. The (...) lack of agreement in this matter often leads to political conflicts, which antagonise not only politicians but also society in its entirety, as in the case of abortion or euthanasia. Neutrality is one of the main features of a contemporary, liberal state. In the liberal approach, the standpoint may be also put forth that compromise and toleration are the most important of liberal and democratic values. The essence of this is the separation of the sphere of the state from that of morality, which results in the creation of a space for discussion, polemics and dispute. Involvement on the part of the state raises controversy, most of all in the moral sphere related to one’s philosophy of life. When we talk of the neutrality of the state, the issue which comes to the fore is that of religious toleration and an issue akin to this, the issue of relations between the state and the church. The contemporary understanding of this matter is more narrow. Neutrality of the state is associated with the latter’s remaining distant from any philosophy of life, and not necessarily only that which is rooted in religion. The issue of religious toleration has, however, contributed to a large degree to the debates on the neutrality of the state which are being carried out at present and the very idea of the neutrality of the state is like a generalisation of the role of the concept of neutrality with regard to religion. (shrink)

We comment on Cesario's assertion that social psychological intergroup research focuses solely on stereotypes, neglecting actual differences between groups to explain group disparities. This reasoning, however, misses yet another explaining force: In addition to stereotypes, ample laboratory and field research documents relationships between group disparities, discrimination, and prejudice, which cannot be explained by people's accurate judgments of real-world group differences.

An essay, translated from the Polish by Marian Hillar and Claire S. Stelter, extolling a system of values which we develop through a rational and analytical approach to reality both natural and human.