Social Aspects of Management: personal development, cultural changes, economic progress

Praca recenzowana / Peer-reviewed pape

Towards Effective Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Strategies and Policies in Abu Dhabi Police: An Investigation of Critical Factors

Crime and other kinds of anti-social behaviour are viewed as serious social problems. These issues exist in all countries, but they are especially prevalent within the UAE, a country that recently has undergone rapid social changes within a short period of time. There is a vital need to identify appropriate preventive programmes suitable to the surrounding culture, as well as factors that could lead to effective solutions. Because there is a deficiency of research on crime prevention within Arab countries, this study focuses explicitly on the prevention of juvenile delinquency in the UAE. It considers processes of implementing effective crime prevention strategies, approaches, and programmes. This study uses qualitative methods, in the form of document analyses and semi-structured interviews. The first element of data-gathering is an exploration of the context of juvenile delinquency and juvenile crime prevention in Abu Dhabi, something which has not comprehensively been done before. The second part concentrates on participants from the Abu Dhabi Police force and other organisations involved in preventive work in the area of juvenile delinquency, in order to obtain extensive and detailed information about the dynamics of juvenile crime and potential strategies of prevention. The findings of this research offer several recommendations that could help to implement successful prevention strategies in the Middle East in general and in the UAE in particular. This study identifies and explains critical risk factors, and explores the cultural considerations that must be taken into account when designing and implementing prevention programmes. It identifies several requirements that should be considered for the formation of partnerships in the prevention of juvenile crime. It includes some important recommendations for the Abu Dhabi Police force for its future development and improvement. It also contains some general recommendations for the Government of the United Arab Emirates. Further research directions are also suggested, in light of this study’s findings and its potential limitations

Legal Status of the Child (Theoretical and Practical Problems)

Programa Oficial de Doutoramento en Dereito. 5010V01[Abstract] The urgency of the topic under study: The global political, socio-economic transformations of the 21st century, along with the positive results, have reduced the living standards of a significant part of the population in many countries; meanwhile, the most vulnerable sections of the population have suffered the most. The actual condition of children is several times worse than that of adult citizens1. From the beginning, a child who is not protected by the state, society and family is not able to develop harmoniously, physically, mentally and intellectually as a law-abiding citizen. The lack of legal basis of “The right of the child” has a devastating effect on the development of a normal society of democratic orientation. In this regard, the modern domestic policy of the state has undergone significant development during the international legal reforms in the field of child protection at the end of the 20th century. Reforms in the field of child protection are primarily aimed at combating ruthlessness, eliminating orphanhood, building a healthy society, helping children with disabilities, refugee children, and the formation of a citizen capable of being an independent individual, a person of free will, whose activities will be built on the best ideals of public life

Dissociation and interpersonal autonomic physiology in psychotherapy research: an integrative view encompassing psychodynamic and neuroscience theoretical frameworks

Interpersonal autonomic physiology is an interdisciplinary research field, assessing the relational interdependence of two (or more) interacting individual both at the behavioral and psychophysiological levels. Despite its quite long tradition, only eight studies since 1955 have focused on the interaction of psychotherapy dyads, and none of them have focused on the shared processual level, assessing dynamic phenomena such as dissociation. We longitudinally observed two brief psychodynamic psychotherapies, entirely audio and video-recorded (16 sessions, weekly frequency, 45 min.). Autonomic nervous system measures were continuously collected during each session. Personality, empathy, dissociative features and clinical progress measures were collected prior and post therapy, and after each clinical session. Two-independent judges, trained psychotherapist, codified the interactions\u2019 micro-processes. Time-series based analyses were performed to assess interpersonal synchronization and de-synchronization in patient\u2019s and therapist\u2019s physiological activity. Psychophysiological synchrony revealed a clear association with empathic attunement, while desynchronization phases (range of length 30-150 sec.) showed a linkage with dissociative processes, usually associated to the patient\u2019s narrative core relational trauma. Our findings are discussed under the perspective of psychodynamic models of Stern (\u201cpresent moment\u201d), Sander, Beebe and Lachmann (dyad system model of interaction), Lanius (Trauma model), and the neuroscientific frameworks proposed by Thayer (neurovisceral integration model), and Porges (polyvagal theory). The collected data allows to attempt an integration of these theoretical approaches under the light of Complex Dynamic Systems. The rich theoretical work and the encouraging clinical results might represents a new fascinating frontier of research in psychotherapy

The words of the body: psychophysiological patterns in dissociative narratives

Trauma has severe consequences on both psychological and somatic levels, even affecting the genetic expression and the cell\u2019s DNA repair ability. A key mechanism in the understanding of clinical disorders deriving from trauma is identified in dissociation, as a primitive defense against the fragmentation of the self originated by overwhelming experiences. The dysregulation of the interpersonal patterns due to the traumatic experience and its detrimental effects on the body are supported by influent neuroscientific models such as Damasio\u2019s somatic markers and Porges\u2019 polyvagal theory. On the basis of these premises, and supported by our previous empirical observations on 40 simulated clinical sessions, we will discuss the longitudinal process of a brief psychodynamic psychotherapy (16 sessions, weekly frequency) with a patient who suffered a relational trauma. The research design consists of the collection of self-report and projective tests, pre-post therapy and after each clinical session, in order to assess personality, empathy, clinical alliance and clinical progress, along with the verbatim analysis of the transcripts trough the Psychotherapy Process Q-Set and the Collaborative Interactions Scale. Furthermore, we collected simultaneous psychophysiological measures of the therapeutic dyad: skin conductance and hearth rate. Lastly, we employed a computerized analysis of non-verbal behaviors to assess synchrony in posture and gestures. These automated measures are able to highlight moments of affective concordance and discordance, allowing for a deep understanding of the mutual regulations between the patient and the therapist. Preliminary results showed that psychophysiological changes in dyadic synchrony, observed in body movements, skin conductance and hearth rate, occurred within sessions during the discussion of traumatic experiences, with levels of attunement that changed in both therapist and the patient depending on the quality of the emotional representation of the experience. These results go in the direction of understanding the relational process in trauma therapy, using an integrative language in which both clinical and neurophysiological knowledge may take advantage of each other