Downsizing due to COVID-19 and its consequences on laid-off employees has attracted the attention of many researchers, around the globe. However, the underlying mechanisms that explain the effects of COVID-19 downsizing on the employees who have survived cutoffs remain underexplored. Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, this manuscript aims to study the causal path through which COV-DS reduces the survivors’ affective commitment. The current study proposes the mediation of survivors’ job uncertainty, stress, and organizational identification between COV-DS and survivors’ (...) affective commitment. This study also posits the moderating role of transformational leadership between COV-DS and both the mediators. The extant study has employed WARPED partial least square WARP PLS 7 and Hayes Process Macro to test the hypothesized relationships. Using the sample of 274 employees from the private sector of Pakistan, it was found that job uncertainty’s stress strongly mediates the relationship between COV-DS and survivors’ affective commitment. While mediation of survivors’ organizational identification was not proven to be significant. However, with the moderation of transformational leadership, both the mediators were proven to be significant. (shrink)

Research shows that after layoffs, employees often report decreased commitment and performance which has been coined the survivor syndrome. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect remain underexplored. The purpose of the paper is to show that reduced organizational identification can serve as an explanation for the survivor syndrome. We conducted a laboratory experiment, in which participants work as a group of employees for another participant who acts as employer. In the course of the experiment, the employer (...) decides whether one of his or her employees should be laid off or not. Mediation analysis supports a social identity-based explanation for the emergence of the survivor syndrome: downsizing causes lower identification with the employer which in turn relates to lower performance of employees. (shrink)

ImportancePrevious studies of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome have focused on critical cases with severe disease. However, most cases are mild to moderate in disease severity.ObjectiveWe aimed to examine cognitive outcomes in cases of non-critical, mild-to-moderate COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: In this cross-sectional study, we enrolled 72 adults aged 22 to 65 years in Central Texas who had non-critical, mild-to-moderate COVID-19 infection between 13 January 2021 and 20 April 2021.Main Outcomes and MeasuresWe remotely administered cognitive-behavioral testing to determine the frequency (...) of cognitive impairment and examine demographic, clinical, and psychosocial contributors to impairment.ResultsThe frequency of objective cognitive impairment was 40%. The largest number of participants showed impairment on a measure of executive functioning. Attention and processing speed was more impaired in males. Males endorsed lower adherence to social distancing guidelines, which was in turn associated with cognitive impairment across participants. Younger age was correlated with impairment but was also associated with racial/ethnic minority status and increased psychological symptoms. Moderate COVID-19 severity was associated with attention/processing speed impairment, increased pain, and higher number of COVID-19 symptoms.Conclusion and RelevanceMild or moderate COVID-19 infection may be associated with cognitive impairments, especially in the domain of executive functioning. A subgroup of younger individuals may be more vulnerable to cognitive and psychosocial effects of COVID-19.HighlightsQuestion: How frequent is cognitive impairment among non-critical, mild-to-moderate COVID-19 survivors?FindingsIn this cross-sectional study of 72 adults, 40% demonstrated cognitive impairment, particularly in executive function.MeaningNeurologic sequelae, such as cognitive impairment, may be common following COVID-19 infection. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze nurses' experiences of role strain when taking care of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). We adopted an interpretive/constructivist paradigm. Twenty-one nurses who had taken care of SARS patients were interviewed in focus groups. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The self-state of nurses during the SARS outbreak evolved into that of professional self as: (1) self-preservation; (2) self-mirroring; and (3) self-transcendence. The relationship between self-state and reflective practice is (...) discussed. (shrink)

Trauma and traumatization have arguably always been part of the human experience yet have in the last few decades come to occupy a prominent place in various popular and academic contexts. This chapter offers an interdisciplinary and comparative investigation of trauma and traumatization in different historical contexts. More specifically, my aim is to discuss whether the rich bodies of research in trauma and traumatization in Holocaust survivors and their descendants yield relevant insights for post-slavery contexts. It has been shown that (...) children of Holocaust survivors suffer from stress and other symptoms related to their parents’ traumatization which influence the interactions with their environments. Such results made me wonder whether the traumatic impact of chattel slavery—which has been abolished some 160 years ago—might have a similar impact, yet now across several generations. Issues of the transmission and current persistence of trauma are inherently linked to questions of social justice, recognition and reparations. This chapter is meant, however, as an exploration of interdisciplinary connections that should be studied in concert to account for the traumatic impact of historical and present day experiences. It starts by discussing the concepts of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Continuing by exploring the phenomenon of the inter- and transgenerational transmission of trauma, it relies in part on the important body of research conducted on families of Holocaust survivors. I then turn to the much less researched ‘post-traumatic slave syndrome’ (DeGruy) and discuss two factors that might contribute to the transgenerational transmission of trauma in the families of former enslaved: epigenetics and the continuation of traumatization even after the abolition of slavery as articulated in Historical Trauma theory. Drawing upon these insights, I conclude that it is plausible that a continuing transgenerational transmission of trauma might occur in some families of slavery survivors, the knowledge of which might help to break the chains of such traumatization across generations. (shrink)

In light of the great interest in interdisciplinary trauma research, this article explores the philosophical-literary concept of cultural trauma from the perspective of psychiatric and psychoanalytical studies of the long-term consequences of the Holocaust. The extensive literature on the psychological after-effects of the Final Solution offers an exceptional opportunity to study the aftermath of extreme violence from different subject positions, including the perspectives of survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and their descendants. Moving from the epicenter of the historical event of the Holocaust (...) to its psychological periphery, the survey reveals how much the concept of trauma has changed in the course of five decades as a result of political and cultural developments. But the review of the literature also demonstrates that none of the existing concepts of Holocaust trauma is well suited to explain the effects of Holocaust representations on individuals or collectives who encounter the Final Solution only as a media event for educational or entertainment purposes. (shrink)

Numerous scholars, representing various fields of knowledge, have studied the Holocaust and published extensively on this subject since the end of the Second World War. Many original Holocaust documents, diaries and memoirs of victims and survivors have been edited and published, along with numerous historical, philosophical and theological treaties on the Shoah. The goal of this paper is to present psychology’s contribution to the study of the Holocaust. The authors discuss results of empirical research and clinical observations concerning the long-term (...) consequences of this trauma (the KZ/survivor syndrome), adaptation and coping skills of survivors, the phenomenon of transgenerational transmission of trauma and intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning of the children of survivors (the Second Generation). They present epidemiological data and psychological mechanisms of attempted and committed suicide among the Jews during the persecutions and deportations, as well as suicide in the ghettos and concentration camps, and among the Holocaust survivors. In the paper a short description ofpsychotherapy and other forms of psychological help available to the Holocaust survivors and their children is also presented. Last but not least, it is discussed how the knowledge of the psycho-social consequences of the Holocaust can be used by psychologists in their work with victims and survivors of other genocides and traumas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nuclear Power after Fukushima 2011:Buddhist and Promethean PerspectivesGraham ParkesDuring 2010 many environmentalists previously opposed to nuclear power were deciding, in the face of anthropogenic climate change from burning fossil fuels, that the only way to prevent runaway global warming would be to build more nuclear power plants after all.1 There are risks involved—though fewer than with carbon-based sources of energy.2 When one compares the detrimental effects of nuclear power (...) with those of burning fossil fuel, it is clear that the human injury and death toll (not to mention environmental devastation) resulting from the former have been nothing compared to the damage caused by the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels, owing to mining accidents, oil spills, and so forth—not to mention the massive carbon dioxide emissions.On the other hand, the problem of how and where to store the growing amount of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, which remains deadly for many thousands of years, has yet to be solved. Costly security measures have to be taken to guard against terrorist attacks and theft of materials usable for nuclear devices. When full safety features are included, nuclear power plants become ever more expensive to build, and the costs of insuring them against accidents are so prohibitive that governments have to subsidize them, which they are increasingly unwilling to do.Not long after the explosions and meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in March 2011, two dismal world records were announced: in 2010 we discharged a record amount of carbon dioxide (more than 30 gigatons) into the atmosphere, mainly by burning fossil fuels, and, as a direct consequence, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (as measured at the Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Hawai'i) reached a record level of 395 parts per million. These figures suggest that we are continuing to generate a rise in global average temperatures that is already destroying the livelihoods of millions and will soon jeopardize the lives of hundreds of millions more.As a consequence of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Japan—long a leading promoter of nuclear power—has begun to enforce some widely neglected safety regulations and is seriously reconsidering its reliance on nuclear energy. China has put construction of [End Page 89] new power plants on hold. Other nations (such as Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand, and Malaysia) have decided to phase out or cancel plans to build more nuclear power stations. Yet the primary motivations remain unclear, since people's attitudes toward the dangers of nuclear radiation are anything but rational—as evidenced by the mass departure of foreigners from Japan after the catastrophe at Fukushima, when health dangers beyond the vicinity of the power station were minimal.In Europe, the reaction to the Fukushima disaster has clearly been aggravated by memories of the catastrophe at Chernobyl in 1986. While Chernobyl was a more widely destructive event than Fukushima, releasing a much greater amount of radioactivity, its effects on human health continue to generate disagreement. According to the third report on the effects of the Chernobyl catastrophe issued by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), among the 134 plant staff and emergency workers who suffered acute radiation syndrome (ARS), the condition proved fatal for twenty-eight of them. By 2006 another nineteen ARS survivors died, although their deaths were not directly attributable to the effects of ionizing radiation. Although the report attributes "a substantial fraction" of the six thousand cases of thyroid cancer in people who were children at the time of the accident to their consumption of milk contaminated with iodine-131, only fifteen cases had proved fatal by 2005, some twenty years later.3 The death toll, then, was fewer than fifty.By contrast, a study by a group of scientists from Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, estimates the number of deaths attributable to the meltdown at around 980,000—almost twenty thousand times greater than the estimate by the UN scientific committee.4 What are we to make of this vast discrepancy, especially since the UNSCEAR report "was prepared in close cooperation with... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dwelling in the GapsGalen SanderlinHave you ever wondered what it would be like to be a mythical being? As a hermaphrodite, I exist in a culture that sees only male or female. Those of us who don’t fit into the rigid sex binary are left out of many of the protections offered to our cousins who more neatly fit the two categories. This leaves an enormous gap in cultural (...) definitions and societal acceptance of my fundamental being.My journey has three main threads: 1) My personal and often rocky self–development, as I have come to understand and accept what it means to be a hermaphrodite, and finding others of my tribe; 2) recognizing the harm done by my medical treatment and actively seeking to change how the medical system treats hermaphrodites, starting from birth onwards; and 3) identifying what was done to me as a human rights violation.I was born in January of 1975. No genetic test was done at the time. My body looked male and my assigned sex/gender was male. As a child, I gravitated toward “male” toys. In 1989, a rural– MD noted that I was not experiencing puberty like my peers and she recommended that my parents take me to a teaching hospital in Seattle for tests. A pediatrician referred me to the adolescent medical division, and from there I was referred to an endocrinologist. After conducting many invasive tests, including drawing blood and comparing my testicles to a bead ring of ersatz testicles, the endocrinologist diagnosed me with Klinefelter’s Syndrome and a karyotype of 47,XXY. I was prescribed testosterone injections to affirm and strengthen the male identity I was assigned at birth and to prevent my body from developing secondary female sex characteristics (breasts and hips).Soon after the shots started I bulked up, adding muscle and hair everywhere. I also became dangerously aggressive and moody. I began to have serious self–esteem issues and a drastic increase in risk–taking behavior as my body was subjected to medical intervention that my parents innocently followed.The prescribed hormone treatment fractured my psyche—what I know now to be a common defense mechanism experienced in trauma survivors. The portion of my consciousness that existed prior to testosterone became deeply buried to prevent harm, and I experienced the emergence of a new “entity.” With each change in prescription, new fractures occurred: testosterone cypionate to enanthate shots, to patches, to gels.The physicians did not consider my feelings or preferences during recommendations or treatment. I feel I was forced into a “male” body based on a medical emergency they created to ease societal concerns.Last February I decided to stop hiding. Tearing the mask off has brought a flood of emotions hidden behind old traumas. I’d been living openly as an intersex person, but still deeply closeted, if not from the public—worse, from myself.Here is the writing that came pouring out of me as I’ve been accessing my repressed memories:I felt the first stirrings of my existence in August of 1989, like a fleeting visage of a long lost lover passing just out of view. The timing of the universe—Out of the infinite we are born, but in this case the body we are to occupy was already housing many other souls. Is this some mistake? Asked to be patient I waited... Late in the year of 1989 I was borne on testosterone wings into an imaginary masculine role/body.Molded in the image of Adonis, Hermes was forced to submit. No longer sexless or ageless—lost in a sea of supposed pressures and roles. My assumed gender [End Page E10] was male. Why!?! Screaming, thrashing, and damaging all around me, no way to express the horror of being so brutally manhandled.My guide Galen/Juniper were excised from our psyche—lost behind a barrier. The only solace was a shared beat: 1,2,3,4 over and over. Was this the pounding of our heart? Thank god for our love of music least we lose ourselves entirely.Why do they insist on calling me Galen? I no longer knew who this was. I... (shrink)

This paper addresses the Harmful Dysfunction Analysis of mental disorder. We argue that some mental conditions meet both of its criteria —the dysfunction criterion and the harm criterion— and yet should not count as mental disorders because of their value. We contend that the harm criterion, by taking harm as a proxy for disvalue, is an inadequate normative criterion in these cases. Therefore, further ethical considerations should be included as a normative criterion. To illustrate our view, we draw on the (...) experience and reflections of Jean Améry, a philosopher and Holocaust survivor who resisted the diagnosis of KZ-Syndrom. (shrink)

This paper offers a feminist review of the debates surrounding delayed (false/recovered) memories. It highlights the philosophical and conceptual issues involved to attempt to illuminate this complex and controversial area. Going beyond disputes around the validity of False Memory Syndrome (FMS) or practical prescriptions, it first considers broader effects of the rhetorical reality this has achieved—in particular in supporting a discourse of disbelief that undermines therapeutic work with abuse survivors. Secondly, four tensions within feminist responses to the memory debate (...) are explored that also highlight constitutive features of its cultural and disciplinary contexts. The third section explores how the memorial controversies reflect prevailing social concerns with familial and existential disintegration, and rely upon an elision between popularly circulating notions of inner childhood and the adult recalling their childhood. Fourthly, it is suggested that the same conceptual difficulties apply to some of the empirical psychological literature drawn upon as evidence in determining the status of false/recovered memories. From this conceptual analysis the paper concludes by highlighting implications for practice, suggesting that it is the false memory advocates rather than their opponents who are insufficiently constructionist in their approach to memory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth in WritingAmandaAn excerpt from my journal during a dark period in my life reads:I am a survivor of sexual mutilation, of coerced gender roles, and of perpetual lies all in the name of normalization. Sometimes I have a hard time even thinking about the true extent of what all happened. It’s like my mind doesn’t have that type of scope, like when I think about the (...) word “eternity.”I wrote this after combing through old medical records, reading comments like “her introitus has healed nicely and looks normal, but my exam suggests that her vagina is shortened,” and “reduction clitoroplasty... removal of testes.” The records go on to say that my “external genitalia is quite satisfactory,” and “on perineal exam, her neovaginal orifice is quite compliant and easily accepts my second and third digits.”My journal continues:I chose this fake hole when I was a teenager because I didn’t know there was another option. I was told from day one to be a female, to be heteronormative, to act like all the other girls, and the only way I could fully accomplish this is by looking the part. A fake hole would be necessary, I thought, to go along with the rest of the lies. Sometimes I think about how the doctors told me to lie about my surgeries and my scars. Sometimes I wonder what my parents would have told the world if I had died during one of surgeries. Maybe they would have said “we were just trying to make her fuckable.”My strength is growing from the stories and experiences I write and share. My journal started about four years ago, when I was in my early 20s, near the beginning of medical school. My initial purpose in writing the journal was to help sort through my feelings and experiences related to a newly discovered sexuality and a changing gender identity. Medical school was thousands of miles away from my previous life, my family, and my friends. Away from my old social network, I was free to self–discover on my own terms. In the first journal entry, I lay out reasons why I decided to get in contact with a therapist, something I had not done previously. Some of the reasons were fairly standard reasons one seeks out a therapist, such as moving away from home. But the fundamental reasons I sought out a therapist, and why I chose to journal, had to do with exploring feelings after my first sexual encounter with a woman, and then [End Page 98] accepting my intersexuality. My relationship with that therapist did not last, but the journaling did.In the beginning of the journal, I write:I am from a small, religious, white, non–diverse, family oriented suburb of Milwaukee. I was raised to be the picture–perfect daughter in a household that did not talk about feelings, sex, cultural or religious differences, etc. My brother and I also never talked about personal issues (and still don’t), which is quite remarkable since we are twins, and have grown up doing most everything together, from sharing birthday parties, to being locker buddies... [When my mother told me about having Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS)] knowing this little fact about my body kept me wanting to become as perfectly female in all ways possible.Growing up without being able to talk about having AIS was stifling to say the least. Closing communication implied great shame, and with the shame came even greater repression. My skate-boarding, baseball card collecting, and model car building interests disappeared after learning about my AIS, which I believe was when I was 12 years old, but I cannot remember exactly. Granted, it’s tough to say whether my interests just changed as I grew older, but I do remember having a fear of portraying any masculine tendencies that other girls in my town weren’t displaying (for example, playing soccer was okay, but I had to shave my legs). I also had crafted some pretty good covers for my AIS, including stories about when I first had my (fake) period, or how I acted fearful about a... (shrink)

Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder that, because of its unique cognitive profile, has been marshalled as evidence for the modularity of both language and social skills. But emerging evidence suggests the claims of modularity based on WS have been premature. This paper offers an examination of the recent literature on WS. It argues the literature gives little support for mental modularity. Rather than being rigidly modular, the WS brain is an extremely flexible organ that that co-opts available neural (...) resource in a highly dynamic manner to cope in the world. (shrink)

Many intelligent, capable, and successful individuals believe that their success is due to luck and fear that they will someday be exposed as imposters. A puzzling feature of this phenomenon, commonly referred to as imposter syndrome, is that these same individuals treat evidence in ways that maintain their false beliefs and debilitating fears: they ignore and misattribute evidence of their own abilities, while readily accepting evidence in favour of their inadequacy. I propose a novel account of imposter syndrome (...) as an instance of self-deception, whereby biased evidence treatment is driven by the motivational benefit of negative self-appraisal. This account illuminates a number of interconnected philosophical and scientific puzzles related to the explanation, definition, and value of imposter syndrome. (shrink)

The research sought to determine the prevalence of Burnout Syndrome in health teachers at a university in north-eastern Peru. The universe was made up of 69 teachers, and 41 responded to the self-administered instrument called Maslach Burnout Inventory. The results show that 14.6% present this syndrome. The highest indicator was personal fulfillment, while depersonalization and emotional exhaustion were low. According to gender, in both it was similar. According to age group, it had a greater effect in ages between (...) 36 and 51 years. Marital status was more prevalent in singles. We conclude that the prevalence of Burnout Syndrome was low. (shrink)

Language evolution resulted from changes in our biology, behavior, and culture. One source of these changes might be human self-domestication. Williams syndrome (WS) is a clinical condition with a clearly defined genetic basis and resulting in a distinctive behavioral and cognitive profile, including enhanced sociability. In this paper we show evidence that the WS phenotype can be satisfactorily construed as a hyper-domesticated human phenotype, plausibly resulting from the effect of the WS hemydeletion on selected candidates for domestication and neural (...) crest function. Specifically, we show that genes involved in animal domestication and neural crest development and function are significantly dysregulated in the blood of subjects with WS. We also discuss the consequences of this link between domestication and WS for our current understanding of language evolution. (shrink)

Impostor Syndrome is the belief or feeling that one is passing oneself off as much more capable than one really is. Anecdotally, it is experienced more by members of historically disadvantaged groups, but the empirical data seems inconsistent with this view. I argue that impostor syndrome occurs because (a) it is normal, appropriate and often even necessary to engage in some degree of pretense in order to acquire specialist expertise, but (b) we are much more likely to be (...) aware of our own pretense than that of others. I argue that we are especially likely to notice pretense when we’re made self-conscious, and that failing to match the stereotype of one’s profession or domain of expertise tends to give rise to self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is elicited by certain cues; this fact explains not only the greater vulnerability of the members of some groups to it, but also explains why the empirical data has not yet provided evidence for this greater vulnerability. I end with some suggestions for reducing the prevalence or impact of impostor syndrome. (shrink)

Le syndrome de Kierkegaard est un essai libre de Jean- Luc Berlet, consacré à l'un de ses penseurs de prédilection, le Danois Seren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Ce syndrome dont il est question, tel que défini par l'auteur, pourrait être conçu comme la tension qui résulte de l'impossible choix entre l'amour de la femme et l'amour de Dieu. Kierkegaard renonça en effet à l'amour charnel de la femme au profit d'une vie ascétique consacrée à I écriture et à la réflexion (...) sur l'Amour. A plus grande échelle ce syndrome pourrait être compris comme l'abandon du temporel au profit d'un idéal spirituel Et les regrets qui en découlent. En effet, comme nombre de contemporains opérant ce type de choix, Kierkegaard connut bien des tourments. Ces affres permirent néanmoins à Kierkegaard de développer une conception de l'Amour et du Divin d'une grande originalité qu'il est bon de redécouvrir dans notre époque marquée par le consumérisme sentimental. Tout au long des quatorze chapitres qui jalonnent cet ouvrage, Jean-Luc Berlet retrace le parcours littéraire de ce philosophe danois considéré par beaucoup comme le père de l'existentialisme, brossant ici un tableau complet de son énigmatique personnalité. En outre, chaque chapitre est accompagné d'un code QR, donnant chacun actes à une vidéo en ligne où Jean - Luc Berlet approfondit son développement et fournit des clefs de lecture pour une meilleure compréhension de l'oeuvre de Kierkegaard. (shrink)

Cockayne syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by a complex clinical phenotype. Most Cockayne syndrome cells are hypersensitive to killing by ultraviolet radiation. This observation has prompted a wealth of studies on the DNA repair capacity of Cockayne syndrome cells in vitro. Many studies support the notion that such cells are defective in a DNA repair mode(s) that is transcription‐dependent. However, it remains to be established that this is a primary molecular defect in Cockayne (...) class='Hi'>syndrome cells and that it explains the complex clinical phenotype associated with the disease. An alternative hypothesis is that Cockayne syndrome cells have a defect in transcription affecting the expression of certain genes, which is compatible with embryogenesis but not with normal post‐natal development. Defective transcription may impair the normal processing of DNA damage during transcription‐dependent repair.‘“Curiouser and curiouser” cried Alice.’ (Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). (shrink)

Narratives by survivors of abuse offer compelling entries into the experiences of abuse and its effects on health. Reading such stories can enlarge the clinician's understanding of the complexities of abuse. Furthermore, attention to narrative can enhance the therapeutic options for abuse victims not only in mental health arenas, but also in other medical contexts. In this article we define the genre of survivor narratives, examine one such narrative in particular (Push by Sapphire, 1996), and explore the clinical implications (...) of narrative in abuse victims' clinical care. (shrink)

Various psychopathologies of self-awareness, such as somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion in schizophrenia, might seem to threaten the viability of the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness since it requires a HOT about one’s own mental state to accompany every conscious state. The HOT theory of consciousness says that what makes a mental state a conscious mental state is that there is a HOT to the effect that “I am in mental state M.” I have argued in previous work that a (...) HOT theorist can adequately respond to this concern with respect to somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion. There is also Cotard syndrome which is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which people hold the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In this paper, I argue that HOT theory has nothing to fear from it either and can consistently account for what happens in such unusual cases. I analyze Cotard syndrome in light of my previous discussion of somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion, and argue that HOT theory can provide a somewhat analogous account without the worry of inconsistency. It is crucial to recognize that there are multiple “self-concepts” and levels of HOTs which can help to provide a more nuanced explanation. With regard to the connection between consciousness and self-consciousness, it is proposed that Cotard patients are indeed capable of having some “I-thoughts” about their bodies and mental states. (shrink)

The author introduces and critically analyzes two recent, curious findings and their accompanying explanations regarding how the folk intuits the capabilities of the dead and those in a persistent vegetative state. The dead are intuited to survive death, whereas PVS patients are intuited as more dead than the dead. Current explanations of these curious findings rely on how the folk is said to conceive of death and the dead: either as the annihilation of the person, or that person’s continuation as (...) a disembodied being. The author argues that these two conceptions are incompatible and inconsistent with each other and the evidence. Contrariwise, the author argues that the folk intuition about dead-survivors and the living dead are more easily explained by appealing to cross-culturally established concepts: the folk biological concept of death the existential concept of death, and the concept of social death. (shrink)

Syndrom uprzedmiotowienia narodowego Polaków jest systemem hamowania aktywności zbiorowej i jednostkowej. Wytwarzany jest poprzez redukcje instytucjonalnych podstaw samostanowienia obywateli, a pogłębiany z powodu niemożności akumulacji osobistej własności i gospodarowania dobrem wspólnym przez pojedyncze podmioty. Polega tez na blokowaniu personalnej dyspozycji do rozpoznania narzucanych zależności. W okresie transformacji politycznej w Polsce po 1989 roku takie strategie zostały skutecznie zastosowane.

Embodied approaches in cognitive science hold that the body is crucial for cognition. What this claim amounts to, however, still remains unclear. This paper contributes to its clarification by confronting three ways of understanding embodiment—the sensorimotor approach, extended cognition and enactivism—with Locked-in syndrome. LIS is a case of severe global paralysis in which patients are unable to move and yet largely remain cognitively intact. We propose that LIS poses a challenge to embodied approaches to cognition requiring them to make (...) explicit the notion of embodiment they defend and its role for cognition. We argue that the sensorimotor and the extended functionalist approaches either fall short of accounting for cognition in LIS from an embodied perspective or do it too broadly by relegating the body only to a historical role. Enactivism conceives of the body as autonomous system and of cognition as sense-making. From this perspective embodiment is not equated with bodily movement but with forms of agency that do not disappear with body paralysis. Enactivism offers a clarifying perspective on embodiment and thus currently appears to be the framework in embodied cognition best suited to address the challenge posed by LIS. (shrink)

Background Potential clinical interventions to mitigate or eliminate symptoms of Down syndrome (DS) continue to be an active area of pre-clinical and clinical research. However, views of members of the DS community have yet to be fully explored.Methods We conducted a survey with parents/caregivers of people with DS (n = 532) to explore interest in potential therapeutic approaches during fetal development or childhood that may improve neurocognition and modulate the DS phenotype. We qualitatively analyzed open-ended responses.Results Some respondents rejected (...) the development of therapies for DS categorically as being fundamentally ableist and promoting the erasure of diverse individuals. Many reflected tensions between the desire to improve quality of life and an aversion to erasure of a child’s personality.Conclusion Findings suggest that views on identity, personality, and disability may influence the acceptance of new interventions, especially if they are thought to mitigate positive attributes of the phenotype or negatively influence social acceptance of people with DS. (shrink)

The functions of the Bloom syndrome helicase and its orthologs are well characterized in mitotic DNA damage repair, but their roles within the context of meiotic recombination are less clear. In meiotic recombination, multiple repair pathways are used to repair meiotic DSBs, and current studies suggest that BLM may regulate the use of these pathways. Based on literature from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Arabidopsis thaliana, Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster, and Caenorhabditis elegans, we present a unified model for a critical meiotic role (...) of BLM and its orthologs. In this model, BLM and its orthologs utilize helicase activity to regulate the use of various pathways in meiotic recombination by continuously disassembling recombination intermediates. This unwinding activity provides the meiotic program with a steady pool of early recombination substrates, increasing the probability for a DSB to be processed by the appropriate pathway. As a result of BLM activity, crossovers are properly placed throughout the genome, promoting proper chromosomal disjunction at the end of meiosis. This unified model can be used to further refine the complex role of BLM and its orthologs in meiotic recombination. In meiotic recombination, Blm utilizes its helicase activity to disassemble early recombination intermediates, thereby retaining a pool of recombination sites from which some can be selected to enter the Class I crossover pathway while simultaneously promoting SDSA and preventing the use of the Class II pathway. (shrink)

This chapter highlights the complexity of the relationship between enhancement of mood and cognition on the one hand and the improvement of people's well‐being on the other. To do so, two psychiatric conditions, Asperger's syndrome and bipolar disorder, are presented in the chapter. Even though there are both negative and positive aspects to Asperger's syndrome or to bipolar disorders, taking away even these negative aspects would not necessarily promote well‐being. It might also be impossible to isolate the positive (...) aspects of these disorders. An increase in specific forms of cognition might be intrinsically connected to a decrease in specific aspects of mood. A decrease in specific aspects of mood might be intrinsically connected to an increase in creativity. Neither is necessarily linked to any changes in some general form of “well‐being.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:74 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Jennifer L. Holland “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust”: Children and Young Adults in the Anti-Abortion Movement During the last three decades of the twentieth century, children across the United States regularly encountered adults who both hailed them as survivors of a holocaust and pleaded with them not to perpetrate one. These adults were not talking about war, (...) at least not in a traditional sense. They were talking about legal abortion. Children and young adults often heard this pitch in school presentations like one made in the mid-1970s by a California anti-abortion group, United Parents Under God, in which pictures of aborted fetuses (whose “feet will never kick a football... run on a playground... or play hopscotch”) and their imagined lost life stories were the centerpiece. Next to pictures of aborted fetuses were pictures of two prematurely born infants of color (the only people of color in the presentation) who were supposedly in danger under Roe v. Wade. With murder hovering in the air, activists asked their teen audience, “Is someone you love next?” According to these California anti-abortion activists, young people were physically and intellectually vulnerable to pro-choice views because they inhabited “atheistic” classrooms “where evil can no longer be called ‘evil.’” “You are quite literally ‘trapped’ in a completely ‘pagan’ situation in our secular society and schools and we must reach you anyway we can,” they continued. In the so-called “pro-life” worldview, liberals were brainwashing children and young people through the media, public schools, and many other institutions. Jennifer L. Holland 75 “Women’s liberal abortion speakers,” political scientists, “who typically work for the STATE” and for whom the “ends justify the means,” and new “secular-science textbooks”—all were trying to frighten teenagers to “into killing [their] OWN OFFSPRING,” activists said. Anti-abortion women, “ordinary women... who LOVE you” according to the California presentation, sought to protect children while feminist “witches... distort [ed] God’s purposes of sexuality.”1 In order to counteract what they viewed as corruption, anti-abortion activists had to wage a counter -battle, politicizing children in order to make them innocent again. In practice, that meant bringing the abortion wars—with their attendant graphic imagery and discussions of immorality, murder, and “holocausts ”—into the haven of childhood. From the movement’s early days, anti-abortion activists waged their fight in the name of innocent young people; abortion, they said, was a genocide of children. While these activists were certainly not the only US movement to use the supposed vulnerability of children to elicit public support for their cause, they also did something different. For the anti-abortion movement, children and young adults were more than just endangered innocents; they were also potential perpetrators. Young people, it seemed, were more liberal than their elders, having allegedly been reared in and indoctrinated by liberal culture. They seemed, in short, to be a potentially pro-choice generation. Thus, adult activists spoke more to and about young people at the end of the century. Adults needed young people to speak for fetuses as “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust,” but they also needed to convert and save America through them. The anti-abortion narrative of childhood vulnerability offered the restoration of social hierarchies as a solution to the problem of abortion. It was “women’s liberal abortion speakers” and feminist “witches” who were the sources of societal indoctrination. Pro-choice women separated sex and reproduction, thus undermining women’s role in society and changing their relationships with men. More subtly, anti-abortion 1. United Parents Under God, “That They May Live: A Presentation on Abortion,” n.d., folder 1, United Parents Under God Ephemeral Materials, Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas. This publication was probably created in the early to mid-1970s because the few citations contained within are from between 1970 and 1973. 76 Jennifer L. Holland activists—who were almost always white—mourned the loss of past racial hierarchies while also envisioning theirs as a civil rights movement. In the California presentation mentioned above, activists explicitly compared abortion to mandated... (shrink)

Werner syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder that mimics some of the characteristics of aging. The gene for this disorder has recently been identified as a helicase of the recQ subclass(1). Other phenotypically distinctive disorders caused by different helicase mutations include Bloom syndrome, Cockayne syndrome, xeroderma pigmentosum and trichothiodystrophy. Possible mechanisms by which helicases might produce the variable phenotypes are discussed. These include altered nucleotide excision repair and RNA polymerase II‐mediated transcription. The discovery of the helicase (...) defect in Werner syndrome provides a road map for future study of its unique pathogenesis and conceivable, but unproved, relationship to the aging process. (shrink)

We often feel survivor guilt when the very circumstances that harm others leave us unscathed. Although survivor guilt is both commonplace and intelligible, it raises a puzzle for the standard philosophical account of guilt, according to which people feel guilt only when they take themselves to be morally blameworthy. The standard account implies that survivor guilt is uniformly unfitting, as people are not blameworthy simply for having fared better than others. In this paper, we offer a rival (...) account of guilt, the relational account of guilt, which makes sense of survivor guilt and other forms of guilt without self-blame while preserving the intelligibility of guilt about culpable wrongdoing. According to this account, guilt involves the feeling of being unable to justify ourselves to others, and we lack self-justification when we (however blamelessly) stand on the positive side of an undesirable asymmetry with them. When someone survives something that those around her do not, the disparity in outcome constitutes an asymmetry that is often undesirable, because it arises from luck or violates a requirement of solidarity. Thus, survivor guilt is often fitting. (shrink)

As a human being possesses dual creation, certain reasons and conditions can oppose his inner and outside worlds. Giving preference one side to other, and to turn another into slavery enhance the syndrome of imbalance which inherent him in birth. To make harmony between them and their complementarities perfect the human being. This also emphasizes the necessity of parallel development of rational and irrational thinking and their complementarities. A human being is perfect in birth and he is the only (...) being who is able to understand his perfection. As it is reflected in Holy Books that the material world is a form of test, and the good and the evil return us. As it is seems that this material world is only the mean of choice in spiritual way. This choice is of the man. The man canchoose light or fire. Everybody understands his inferiority in his own and to solve it differently: it might be material things, divine love or science. What is the truth? It is the soul that defines it, if we can listen to it. (shrink)

For evolution by natural selection to occur it is classically admitted that the three ingredients of variation, difference in fitness and heredity are necessary and sufficient. In this paper, I show using simple individual-based models, that evolution by natural selection can occur in populations of entities in which neither heredity nor reproduction are present. Furthermore, I demonstrate by complexifying these models that both reproduction and heredity are predictable Darwinian products (i.e. complex adaptations) of populations initially lacking these two properties but (...) in which new variation is introduced via mutations. Later on, I show that replicators are not necessary for evolution by natural selection, but rather the ultimate product of such processes of adaptation. Finally, I assess the value of these models in three relevant domains for Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

What is love? In this paper I argue that love is a psychological syndrome, or an enormously complex cluster of psychological attitudes and dispositions that’s accompanied by a corresponding set of symptoms that flow from it. More specifically, I argue that love is an affectionate loyalty that takes different shapes across cases and that manifests itself in some set of behavioral and emotional expressions, where this set of expressions also varies across cases. After laying down three theoretical constraints that (...) viable theories of love must satisfy, I sketch my syndrome theory of love in detail and then defend it. First, I argue that it has a strong yet defeasible claim to satisfying the three theoretical constraints. Then I defend my theory against two objections that target its extensional adequacy. I conclude that we have good grounds for being optimistic about the theory even though it calls for further development and scrutiny. (shrink)

Scholars have identified crimmigration – or the criminalization of “irregular” migration in law – as a key issue affecting migrant access to justice in contemporary immigrant-receiving societies. Yet the gendered and racialized implications of crimmigration for diverse migrant populations remains underdeveloped in this literature. This study advances a feminist intersectional approach to crimmigration and migrant justice in Canada. I add to recent research showing how punitive immigration controls disproportionately affect racialized men from the global south, constituting what Golash-Boza and Hondagneu-Sotelo (...) have called a “gendered racial removal program”. In my study, I shift analytical attention to consider the effects of the contemporary crimmigration system on migrant women survivors of gender-based violence. While such cases constitute a small sub-group within a larger population of migrants in detention, nevertheless scholarly attention to this group can expose the multiple axes along which state power is enacted – an analytical strategy that foundational scholars like Crenshaw used to theorize “structural intersectionality” in the US. In focusing on crimmigration in the Canadian context, I draw attention to the growing nexus between migration, security, and gender-based violence that has emerged alongside other processes of crimmigration. I then provide a case analysis of the 2013 death while in custody of Lucía Dominga Vega Jiménez, an “undocumented” migrant woman from Mexico. My analysis illustrates how migrant women’s strategies to survive gender-based violence are re-cast as grounds for their detention and removal, constituting what I argue is a criminalization of survivorship.The research overall demonstrates the centrality of gendered and racialized structural violence in crimmigration processes by challenging more universalist approaches to migrant justice. (shrink)

This study examined the prevalence and impact of imposter syndrome on a sample of pre-service educators. We report a majority of pre-service educators experience IS; 93% experience moderate levels and 54% had frequent or severe levels of imposter thoughts, and further that IS was negatively associated with educator well-being. We also investigated the effects of minority group membership on experiences of IS, and found that IS was more severe for women and queer minorities, but less severe for racial minorities. (...) Lastly, we investigated the potential for healthy emotion regulation to mitigate the effects of IS on pre-service educator well-being and found that adaptive emotion regulation strategy use mitigates the effects of IS, which may provide a viable means for addressing this pervasive issue among educators, and specifically among those with minoritized identities. We discuss the implications of our findings for educational training and improving the experiences of pre-service educators. (shrink)

Background: Researchers and clinicians have often cited a strong relationship between individuals with Williams syndrome and music. This review systematically identified, analyzed, and synthesized research findings related to Williams syndrome and music. Methods: Thirty-one articles were identified that examined this relationship and were divided into seven areas. This process covered a diverse array of methodologies, with aims to: 1) report current findings; 2) assess methodological quality; and 3) discuss the potential implications and considerations for the clinical use of (...) music with this population. Results: Results indicate that individuals with WS demonstrate a high degree of variability in skill and engagement in music, presenting with musical skills that are more in line with their cognitive abilities than chronological age. Musical strengths for this population appear to be based more in musicality and expressivity than formal musical skills, which are expressed through a heightened interest in music, a greater propensity toward musical activities, and a heightened emotional responsiveness to music. Individuals with WS seem to conserve the overall structure of musical phrases better than they can discriminate or reproduce them exactly. The affinity for music often found in this population may be rooted in atypical auditory processing, autonomic irregularities, and differential neurobiology. Conclusions: More studies are needed to explore how this affinity for music can be harnessed in clinical and educational interventions. (shrink)

Every year medical researchers make contact with a large number of cancer survivors with the aim of evaluating cancer treatment. For this reason we decided to investigate how Swedish cancer survivors perceived their participation in research studies focusing on the long-term consequences of being a survivor of gynaecological or urinary bladder cancer. Data were collected by means of two study-specific postal questionnaires, both consisting of questions covering physical symptoms, well-being and the experience of being a cancer survivor. Both (...) questionnaires also included questions evaluating the participants’ experience of being research subjects. The questionnaires were developed in close co-operation with cancer survivors. The study population consisted of 1068 cancer survivors. Of these, 95% (n=1003) reported that they thought the study was valuable and 54% (n=559) that they had been positively affected by participating. Four per cent (n=39) expressed that they had been negatively affected by their participation in the study. The vast majority of the cancer survivors thought that participating in their particular study was valuable. (shrink)

This essay examines how disability interacts with gender in public discourse about sexual violence by investigating the ableist implications of two popular labels commonly applied to people who have experienced rape or sexual assault: survivors and liars. Using a rhetorical approach in conjunction with disability theory, I analyze how discourses of compulsory survivorship ask people who experience sexual assault to overcome disability and appear nondisabled, whereas rape‐hoax narratives frame others as mentally ill, mad, or irrational. Taken together, I argue, these (...) frameworks form a discursive paradox for people who experience sexual assault, specifically marking their mental fitness and placing them in a rhetorically impossible situation when attempting to disclose sexual assault. Demonstrating how these frameworks silence articulations of pain and the realities of mental illness that can result from sexual trauma brings debates about mental disability and pain more centrally into disability studies through a feminist lens. (shrink)

While some of mental disorders due to emotional distress occur cross-culturally, others seem to be much more bound to particular cultures. In this paper, I propose that many of these “cultural syndromes” are culturally sanctioned responses to overwhelming negative emotions. I show how tools from cultural evolution theory can be employed for understanding how the syndromes are relatively confined to and retained within particular cultures. Finally, I argue that such an account allows for some cultural syndromes to be or become (...) mental disorders and also steers clear of some of the anti-realist trappings associated with a social constructivism of cultural syndromes. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to this journal, Andrew Fenton and Sheri Alpert have argued that the so-called “extended mind hypothesis” allows us to understand why Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have the potential to change the self of patients suffering from Locked-in syndrome (LIS) by extending their minds beyond their bodies. I deny that this can shed any light on the theoretical, or philosophical, underpinnings of BCIs as a tool for enabling communication with, or bodily action by, patients with LIS: (...) BCIs are not a case of cognitive extension. I argue that Fenton and Alpert’s claim to the contrary is the result of a widespread confusion about some related, but significantly different, approaches to cognition that all fall under the heading of “situated cognition.” I first provide a short taxonomy of various situated approaches to cognition, highlighting (some of) their important commonalities and differences, which should dissolve some of the confusions surrounding them. Then I show why the extended mind hypothesis is unsuitable as a model of BCI enhancements of LIS patients’ capacity to interact with their surroundings, and I argue that the situated approach with obvious bearings on the sort of questions that were driving Fenton and Alpert is not the idea that cognition is extended , but the idea that cognition is enacted. (shrink)

Cette recherche s’intéresse aux problématiques de ruptures de liens dans la clinique du placement familial, notamment celles rattachées au conflit de loyauté pouvant être ressenti par des adolescents placés. Ce syndrome, qui peut être baptisé « syndrome de la couverture tirée », correspond à un phénomène de rivalité entre deux familles, une professionnelle et une biologique avec comme enjeu central l’adolescent. À partir d’une étude de cas paradigmatique menée dans le cadre de suivis thérapeutiques associés à une recherche (...) exploratoire, les auteures, thérapeutes et chercheuses en psychologie clinique, procèdent à une analyse des phénomènes psychiques sous-jacents individuels et familiaux en s’appuyant sur les théories psychanalytiques groupales et familiales. Les résultats montrent que les ruptures de liens sont étroitement associées aux processus complexes d’affiliation et à l’empêchement du processus de séparation-individuation. Mais elles sont également liées à l’échec de la fonction tiers du service de placement. (shrink)

Helen Frowe (2014) depicts the following fictional case: Fran is being raped by Eric and can’t stop him with violent resistance. Nevertheless, she resists and breaks Eric’s wrist. The infliction of defensive harm on Eric is intuitively permissible, yet it runs counter to the dominant view that defensive harms must stand a reasonable chance of success. Call this the Success Condition (SC). To solve this problem, Daniel Statman (2008) contends that even if Victim’s defensive harms fail to prevent her rape, (...) they do prevent the destruction of another good, her honor, and thus SC is satisfied. Recently, Joseph Bowen (2016) has critiqued Statman’s proposal by showing that honor-based justifications for defensive harming are too permissive. In this paper, I contend that Statman’s proposal is too restrictive. First, I review Statman’s accounts of honor, dishonor, and non-honor. Second, I argue that Statman’s account requires Fran’s honor to be lost or damaged if she doesn’t resist—a highly offensive conclusion about rape victims. Third, I explain why the best alternative to this (i.e., allowing Fran’s honor to be maintained either way) satisfies SC but not the necessity condition. I conclude that we ought to reject Statman’s solution. (shrink)

Syndromic surveillance uses new ways of gathering data to identify possible disease outbreaks. Because syndromic surveillance can be implemented to detect patterns before diseases are even identified, it poses novel problems for informed consent, patient privacy and confidentiality, and risks of stigmatization. This paper analyzes these ethical issues from the viewpoint of the patient as victim and vector. It concludes by pointing out that the new International Health Regulations fail to take full account of the ethical challenges raised by syndromic (...) surveillance. (shrink)

Lena Dunham is a modern celebrity and television producer-writer who is important in her willingness to self-identify as a feminist, and to engage in feminist activism on social media and in her memoir writing. Her writing in her successful television series, Girls (2012–17), has already raised questions of authenticity. This article develops this analysis further by considering how Dunham’s situation, as a transmedia author, complicates this authenticity, particularly through her construction of ‘affective ordinariness’, a key aspect of her identity as (...) a feminist activist. Her various personas, including that of the celebrity feminist, highlight the ‘contradictions’ which exist within the current complex culture of postfeminism and the perception of new feminisms. Nowhere are these contradictions more apparent than in the dissonance created by Dunham’s transmedia voice in the matter of rape and sexual violence. (shrink)

Why should all nurses and student nurses receive instruction in the subject of torture, its purpose, methods and sequelae on body and soul? One reason is because torture is an atrocity, the most perverted and disgusting act that exists. Some nurses meet torture survivors and their families in their private lives and at work. Many countries have ratified codes and declarations in relation to torture, and are therefore obliged to educate some professional groups in the subject. This article describes how (...) the subject 'Torture' is dealt with at the School of Nursing in Aalborg, Denmark. Aspects of how the course is planned, the placement of the subject, teaching objectives, content of the lessons, teaching methods and teaching materials are mentioned. This article also underlines why it is so important to educate student and qualified nurses about torture. The conclusion is that nurses can help to alleviate the effects of torture in a merciless and unfeeling world. (shrink)

Savant syndrome and prime numbers Oliver Sacks reported that a pair of autistic twins had extraordinary number abilities and that they spontaneously generated huge prime numbers. Such abilities could contradict our understanding of human abilities. Sacks' report attracted widespread attention, and several researchers speculated theoretically. Unfortunately, most of the explanations in the literature are wrong. Here a correct explanation on prime number identification is provided. Fermat's little theorem is implemented in spreadsheet. Also, twenty years after the report, questionable aspects (...) were found in it. Extreme abilities became dubious. One possibility for the less extreme abilities is incomplete trial division. (shrink)