Prediction of Stress Level from Speech – from Database to Regressor

The term stress can designate a number of situations and affective reactions. This work focuses on the immediate stress reaction caused by, for example, threat, danger, fear, or great concern. Could measuring stress from speech be a viable fast and non-invasive method? The article describes the development of a system predicting stress from voice – from the creation of the database, and preparation of the training data to the design and tests of the regressor. StressDat, an acted database of speech under stress in Slovak, was designed. After publishing the methodology during its development in [1], this work describes the final form, annotation, and basic acoustic analyses of the data. The utterances presenting various stress-inducing scenarios were acted at three intended stress levels. The annotators used a "stress thermometer" to rate the perceived stress in the utterance on a scale from 0 to 100. Thus, data with a resolution suitable for training the regressor was obtained. Several regressors were trained, tested and compared. On the test-set, the stress estimation works well (R square = 0.72, Concordance Correlation Coefficient = 0.83) but practical application will require much larger volumes of specific training data. StressDat was made publicly available

Buddhism as therapy: the instrumentalisation of mindfulness in Western Psychotherapy

This dissertation explores the integration of Buddhism and the practice of mindfulness into Western psychotherapy, starting with a sketch of the cultural and historical factors that shaped the beginnings of these institutions, and gives consideration to some of the major themes that have influenced the development of both psychotherapy and Buddhism which have given rise to the current proliferation of interest in Buddhism and mindfulness in the West. A secondary objective is to give voice to the obstacles, criticisms and concerns that have challenged the integration of Buddhism in the West, particularly in the amplification of mindfulness practices, which in having been appropriated into Western culture, have met with consumerism, competition and a culture of narcissism, all of which have subjected the practice of mindfulness to commodification and commercialisation. A revisiting of the original practices of Theravāda Vipassanā meditation to gain a deeper understanding of its original practices opens discussion around how Buddhism could then be selectively adapted, modified and reinterpreted to fit in with mainstream Western psychology, not as a religion, or as a philosophy, but rather as psychotherapy with a defined model and categorisation within a constructivist postmodernist epistemology. A third objective is to critically explore a detailed application of mindfulness as it is currently being applied alongside existing Western psychotherapy to ascertain its true efficacy in a clinical therapeutic context. Finally this dissertation highlights the need to move beyond the Eurocentrism in psychoanalysis by the automatic, unquestioning pathologising and marginalisation of religion and spirituality on the one hand; to the other of Orientocentrism as deification and idealisation of religion and the spiritual quest, on the other hand.Religious Studies and ArabicM.A. (Religious Studies

A bibliotherapy project for children with social anxiety

The purpose of this project is to provide a bibliotherapy resource for caregivers to use with children who are experiencing shyness or social anxiety. The project includes a thematic literature review on social anxiety that covers etiology, intervention, prevention and research on the use of bibliotherapy in treating social anxiety. Information that emerged from the literature was used to create a bibliotherapy resource in the form of a children’s picture book entitled Quiet Ira. The book is coupled with a guide for caregivers on how to use the book as a bibliotherapy tool with a child who struggles with social anxiety. The story features a young girl who experiences social anxiety and is supported by caring adults in her life to manage the social anxiety. Interventions introduced in the story and caregiver guide include: psychoeducation, positive self-talk, exposure therapy, supportive relationship, mindfulness, social skills, externalizing, and references to other resources

Freedom from Violence: Tools for Working with Trauma, Mental Health and Substance Use: Resource Tool Kit

First paragraph: The aim of this tool kit is to actively engage readers in applying a feminist analysis to women's experiences of mental health, substance use and past and current experiences of violence. The tool kit contains a wide variety of voices that speak to these issues by drawing on a range of sources: the experience of providing services to women, theory, research, feminist activism and scholarship and, naturally, by the writers' own experiences of substance use, mental health problems and violence

From motivator to ‘psychoeducator’: A critical exploration of emotional distress and recovery

The overall purpose of this research is to contribute to a deeper understanding and alleviation of emotional distress, which has individually unique as well as generic features. To contribute to that purpose, the aim of this research undertaking was to make sense of my own experience of emotional distress and the search for a cure from the perspective of an author of several self-help books, a motivational speaker and a coach. The chosen method is critical memoir. The objectives to achieve that aim were dialogues with the internal and external influences on my route to recovery. The artefact presented which accompanies this commentary is a draft of an intended publication that diverges from my usual publications and seeks to share insights into a personal journey which have taken my professional work in a new direction. From seeing myself as a motivational expert giving speeches to ‘unleash potential’, my role is shifting more intentionally to ‘psychoeducator’’, one who facilitates a process of learning to assist in emotional healing. This research ensures that I continue my own personal and professional development to fulfil my purpose of helping those who try to cope quietly and privately with anxiety behind their successful personas. Note: To avoid confusion, in this work I use ‘practice’ as a noun and ‘practise’ as a verb. The exception may be when I am quoting an author. Also, wherever possible, male, female and trans will be referred to with the pronouns ‘them’ or ‘they.

Reaching the end : an exploration of attachment and existential theory as a path to assist in the dying process

In this exploration I will utilize the theory of Attachment as well as Existential Theory to assist in expounding upon available paths to assist elderly individuals in their journey at the end of life. I will present an overview of the two selected theories of Attachment as well as Existential Theory and argue that such approaches honor the venerable end stage of life. A discussion pertaining to these two theories will shed light on the question of how a clinician can seek to improve the quality of life for an individual during the end of life process and therefore assist in the experience of a good death. The intent of this endeavor is to lend attention to a population that is often neglected as well as forgotten and additionally explore the phenomenon of death, which is also a typically ignored experience, and considered to be taboo within western society

Kennebec: A Portfolio of Maine Writing Vol. 11 1987

https://digitalmaine.com/kennebec_portfolio/1010/thumbnail.jp

Sound in Conflict: Lyric Poetry and the American Civil War

This dissertation investigates the acoustic resources of lyric poems written during and about the American Civil War, and asks how closely related these acoustics were to their historical environment. I thus attempt to redress the dominant visual and material responses to Civil War aesthetics, in favour of attention to its sounds. I also set out to discover whether lyric poetry, now held to be an essentially sounded medium, can be understood as part of the boom in sound technologies that textured the nineteenth century. These two aims can be drawn together into one question: did the lyric poetry of the Civil War record anything? To answer this question, the dissertation positions itself at an intersection between sound studies, historical poetics, and lyric theory, examining whether the playful sound experiments noted by current writers on lyric were in conversation with their historical moment, even to the extent (and this is the proposal of some sound studies practitioners) that the poems can be used as acoustic evidence of particular Civil War soundscapes. The dissertation is made up of three chapters, structured around the three sounds that lyric poems have been held as making or containing: rhythm, rhyme and voice. The first chapter investigates the rhythmic patterning of Walt Whitman’s Drum-Taps (1865), and its potential origin in Whitman’s theories of health and his work in army hospitals. The second chapter takes on rhyme, via a paired reading of Herman Melville’s Battle-Pieces (1866) and Laura Redden’s Idyls of Battle and Poems of the Rebellion (1863). I argue that Melville was invested in rhyme as nonsense, and that Redden investigated the possibility of untying rhyme from sound, thus strengthening the prospect of a deaf Civil War poetry. The third chapter turns to the Civil War poems of Emily Dickinson and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and asks how they set about preserving or recovering the voices of Civil War soldiers. I conclude by looking at the place of Dunbar’s poems in the early market for recorded sound. The dissertation ultimately contends that while the poems discussed do not record their environment, their experiments with form and sound do let them work as a historiographic instrument, and that ‘lyric’ thus remains a valuable and informative way of reading Civil War literature