From early stress to 12-month development in very preterm infants: Preliminary findings on epigenetic mechanisms and brain growth

Very preterm (VPT) infants admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are at risk for altered brain growth and less-than-optimal socio-emotional development. Recent research suggests that early NICU-related stress contributes to socio-emotional impairments in VPT infants at 3 months through epigenetic regulation (i.e., DNA methylation) of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4). In the present longitudinal study we assessed: (a) the effects of NICU-related stress and SLC6A4 methylation variations from birth to discharge on brain development at term equivalent age (TEA); (b) the association between brain volume at TEA and socio-emotional development (i.e., Personal-Social scale of Griffith Mental Development Scales, GMDS) at 12 months corrected age (CA). Twenty-four infants had complete data at 12-month-age. SLC6A4 methylation was measured at a specific CpG previously associated with NICU-related stress and socio-emotional stress. Findings confirmed that higher NICU-related stress associated with greater increase of SLC6A4 methylation at NICU discharge. Moreover, higher SLC6A4 discharge methylation was associated with reduced anterior temporal lobe (ATL) volume at TEA, which in turn was significantly associated with less-than-optimal GMDS Personal-Social scale score at 12 months CA. The reduced ATL volume at TEA mediated the pathway linking stress-related increase in SLC6A4 methylation at NICU discharge and socio-emotional development at 12 months CA. These findings suggest that early adversity-related epigenetic changes might contribute to the long-lasting programming of socio-emotional development in VPT infants through epigenetic regulation and structural modifications of the developing brain

Self-identity, embodiment and the development of emotional resilience

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Recent social work reforms in the UK have highlighted the need for social work practitioners to be empathetic, reflexive and resilient. Current literature defines resilience as the individual's adaptive response to adversity, stress-resistant personality traits and the ability to ‘bounce back’, yet the processes by which resilience is developed remain underexplored. The stressors associated with training to be a social worker particularly necessitate such an investigation. This study adopts a phenomenological approach to explore social work students' lived experiences of managing emotion and developing resilience. Emotion is constructed as a relational concept, developed within intersubjective space and as an embodied experience. Findings indicate tensions in student narratives around the expression of emotion and ‘being professional’. Critical incident narratives reveal often overwhelming difficulties experienced by students, prior to and during the social work programme. A variety of coping strategies were adopted including active resistance, spirituality, critical reflection and social support. Narratives as ‘discourses-in-the-making’ highlight embodiment as a valuable analytical lens by which emotional conflicts are experienced, deconstructed and resolved through the process of integrating the personal and professional self. Spaces to develop emotional resilience within the social work curriculum are discussed

Emotional Awareness During Bug Fixes – A Pilot Study

This study examines the effects of a programmer\u27s emotional awareness on progress while fixing bugs. The goal of the study is to capitalize on emotional awareness to ultimately increase progress made during software development. This process could result in improved software maintenance

Commentary: primary emotional systems and personality: an evolutionary perspective

In Primary emotional systems and personality Christian Montag and Jaak Panksepp analyze how emotional systems are involved into the development of basic personality into an evolutionary framework. They also stress the importance of such investigation for the promotion of human welfare in the context of psychiatric research and practic

Emotional intelligence and its role in recruitment of nursing students

This article considers the concept of emotional intelligence and how it can be used in the recruitment and development of nursing students. The links between emotional intelligence and the qualities of compassion and caring are examined. The ethical difficulties surrounding the use of emotional intelligence tests are explored and the value of using a variety of recruitment methods is emphasised. The article suggests that emotional intelligence is an ability which may be developed through nurse education programmes, even if not fully present at interview. The contribution of service users to the recruitment of nursing students is examined, suggesting that they offer some important observations about interviewees. These observations may be more valid than the insights gained from the use of emotional intelligence tests

A Critique of Emotional Intelligence (Book Review)

A review of: A Critique of Emotional Intelligence. What Are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed? edited by Kevin R Murphy, 2006. This book written by psychologists describes the development of EI in the 1990s, and regards Goleman's work as a populist bandwagon. Chapters focus on the non-measurability of emotional intelligence, concluding that since it cannot be securely measured, it ought not to be described as an intelligence. It regards general intelligence (g) as the best predicter of potential, against Goleman's subtitle. Nevertheless, emotional maturity remains a not insignificant aspect of general personality

Emotional Outlet Malls: Exploring Retail Therapy

People turn to shopping as an emotional outlet. This article focuses on the concept of retail therapy highlighting the personal benefits, possible issues, and research development surrounding the topic. Negative connotations regarding retail therapy exist, and today, scholars are reexamining retail therapy as a distress-motivated act of consumption from a psychological and emotional perspective. A variety of perspectives can be used to analyze shopping therapy as a face-to-face transaction, an online experience, and a simulated experience in order to explain the emotional component related to shopping

TERAPI BERMAIN KELOMPOK UNTUK MENINGKATKAN REGULASI EMOSI PADA ANAK DENGAN PERILAKU AGRESI

Childhood is the most vulnerable period of physical and mental development. The emotional development that occurs during this period will play a very important role in the future of children. Children who suppress their emotions too often will affect their mental health conditions. Low emotional regulation and anger management will have an impact on high levels of aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior appears as a form of expression of suppressed emotions, where children show aggression in response to feelings of fear, frustration or sadness that cannot be resolved in a healthy way. This research aims to improve children's emotional regulation abilities through play therapy in reducing aggressive behavior in children at the Islamic boarding school. This type of research is a quasi-experiment with a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design approach. There were 12 subjects in this study who met the criteria for aggression. Subjects were also given the aggression questionnaire and emotion regulation questionnaire. Subjects were divided into two groups, namely the experimental group and the control group. Analysis uses the Wilcoxon test and Mann-Whitney test. The research results show that group play therapy can improve emotional regulation abilities in children with aggressive behavior, as shown by the Wilcoxon test results with a Z value of -2.201 and p 0.028