A study of the relationship of death anxiety to openness toward change and sense of well-being

Several writers have suggested a similarity between the loss process experienced by the dying person and the loss process experienced by individuals making changes in their lives. This concept has been incorporated into several areas of therapy yet little research has been done to substantiate the idea. A sense of well-being has also been suggested as important within the Existential concept that death resolution enhances mental health and functioning. This study explores the possible relationship between death attitudes and both openness to change and sense of well-being. Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) there is an inverse relationship between death anxiety and measures of openness to change, (2) there is an inverse relationship between death anxiety and measures of a sense of well-being and (3) there is a positive inter-relationship between measures of openness to change and measures of a sense of well-being.;To test these hypotheses, a variety of scales considered representative of openness to change and a sense of well-being were extracted from three instruments; the California Psychological Inventory, the Adjective Check List and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. The Templer Death Anxiety Scale was used to measure death attitudes.;The scales were randomly combined into a single instrument and administered to 191 adult individuals from five diverse occupational and age groups. These groups were chosen for the purpose of gaining heterogeneity within the total sample measured. Participation was voluntary and subjects were naive as to the specific variables being measured. Statistical analysis consisted of subjecting the hypotheses to a Pearson Product-Moment correlation.;Results for the total sample (N = 191) indicated that: (1) There was no relationship between death anxiety and measure of openness to change except for the n Change Scale from the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. Significance was obtained between this scale and death anxiety in an inverse direction. (2) There was a significant inverse relationship between death anxiety and measures of a sense of well-being. (3) There was a significant positive interrelationship between 14 of the 15 scales used to measure openness to change and sense of well-being.;Results for each of the five groups were also evaluated and included in the discussion. Directions for future research were suggested

Minimal Sets, Union-Closed Families, and Frankl\u27s Conjecture

The most common statement of Frankl\u27s conjecture is that for every finite family of sets closed under the union operation, there is some element which belongs to at least half of the sets in the family. Despite its apparent simplicity, Frankl\u27s conjecture has remained open and highly researched since its first mention in 1979. In this paper, we begin by examining the history and previous attempts at solving the conjecture. Using these previous ideas, we introduce the concepts of minimal sets and minimally-generated families, some ideas related to viewing union-closed families as posets, and some constructions of families involving poset-defined parameters such as height and width

A heuristic study of the meaning of suffering among holocaust survivors

Is there meaning in suffering or ts suffering only a soul-destroying experience from which nothing positive can emerge? In seeking to answer this question, a heuristic study was made of the experiences and views of the famous Auschwitz survivor, Viktor Frankl, supplemented by an exploration of the life-worlds of other Nazi concentration camp survivors. The underlying premise was that if meaning can be found in the worst sufferings imaginable, then meaning can be found in every other situation of suffering. Seeking to illuminate the views of Frankl and to gain a deeper grasp of the phenomenon of suffering, the theoretical and personal views of mainstream psychologists regarding the nature of man and the meaning of hi.~ sufferings were studied. Since the focus of this research was on the suffering of the Holocaust survivor, the Holocaust as the context of the present study, was studied as a crisis of meaning and as psychological adversity. In trying to establish the best way to gain entry into the life-world of the Holocaust survivor, the research methods employed in Holocaust survivor studies were reviewed and, for the purposes of this study, found wanting. The choice and employment of a heuristic method yielded rich data which illuminated the fact that, through a series of heroic choices Frankl, and the survivors who became research participants, could attain spiritual triumph in the midst of suffering caused by an evil and inhumane regime. Hitherto unexplored areas of psychological maturity were revealed by these heroes of suffering from which the following conclusions could be drawn: Man attains the peaks of moral excellence through suffering. Suffering can have meaning. Suffering can call us out of the moral apathy and mindlesness of mere existence. The Holocaust, one of the most tragic events in human history, contains, paradoxically, a challenge to humankind. Resisting the pressure to sink to the level of a brute fight for mere survival, Frankl and the research participants continued to exercise those human values important to them and triumphantly maintained their human dignity and self-respect. Evidence was provided that man has the power to overcome evil with good.PsychologyD. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology

Relationships Between Purpose in Life and Longitudinal Variables in a College Environment

Sociolog

A theoretical model of professional/staff development from a liberation perspective

This investigation described the: (a) personal qualities, (b) teaching realities, and (c) perceptions of teacher education of distinctive physical education teachers. A distinctive teacher was defined as one who stands out from the majority of colleagues with respect to: (a) sincere interest and enthusiasm in teaching, (b) genuine concern for pupils, and (c) self-study and continued striving to improve as a teacher. Subjects studied were six selected teachers of required physical education in public junior high and middle schools in the greater Boston area of Massachusetts. Subjects were in at least their fifth year of teaching. Teacher educators, who participated in a workshop to formulate and clarify indicators of teacher distinctiveness, identified the subjects. A pilot study was conducted to improve the research procedures

Making ethics "First Philosophy": ethics and suffering in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Elie Wiesel, and Richard Rubenstein

This dissertation examines the ethical systems created in response to the crisis of the Holocaust by Emmanuel Levinas, Elie Wiesel and Richard Rubenstein. Prior to the Holocaust, European Jewish philosophers grounded ethics in traditional metaphysics. Unlike their predecessors, Levinas, Wiesel and Rubenstein all make ethics "first philosophy" by grounding ethics in the temporal experience of suffering rather than ontology or theology, deliberately rejecting ethical views rooted in traditional metaphysical claims. With varying degrees of success, they all employ Jewish texts and traditions to do so. Their applications of Jewish sources are both orthodox and innovative, and show how philosophical approaches to ethics can benefit from religion. Suffering becomes not only the first priority of ethics, but an experience that simultaneously necessitates and activates ethical response. According to this view, human beings are not blank slates whose values are informed exclusively by culture and moral instruction alone; nor is human consciousness awakened or even primarily constituted by reason, as argued by deontologists. Rather, consciousness is characterized by affectivity and sensibility as interconnected faculties working in concert to create ethical response. This dissertation argues that if what makes ethical response possible is located in human consciousness rather than in metaphysics or culture, a re-orientation of philosophy toward the investigation of human affectivity and its role in ethical response is in order. All three thinkers examined actively resist categorization and repudiate claims that a single philosophical system can be successfully applied to all aspects of life, and this dissertation does not choose one of the three projects examined here as the most persuasive or significant. Instead, it explores how the work of Levinas, Wiesel and Rubenstein might be combined, built upon and expanded to form an ethics that is deeply informed by human experience and makes human and non-human suffering our greatest priorities

The Peniston & Kulkosky Treatment for Chemical Dependence: a Replication, and Assessment of the Importance of the Electroencephalograph (EEG) Biofeedback Component of the Protocol

This thesis is primarily a replication of Peniston and Kulkoskys' (1989; 1990) treatment (PKT) study which reported successful outcomes for alcoholics using an alpha/theta electroencephalograph (EEG) biofeedback protocol. The PKT protocol consists of 6 temperature biofeedback sessions of training increased hand temperature, followed by 30 sessions of training, via EEG biofeedback, increases in alpha/theta band amplitude. The latter sessions included visualizations of personality and physiology changes, and visualisations of scenes where alcohol is refused. Another aim of this study was to determine whether the EEG biofeedback element of the protocol was superior in outcomes to the subject simply listening to monotonous sounds. In addition to three months of therapeutic community treatment, one experimental group of 15 subjects received the PKT protocol, the other received a modified version excluding EEG biofeedback, and a control group of 14 subjects had no additional treatment. Post-treatment follow up revealed significant improvements for all three groups in key psychometric instruments. These were the Multiaxial Personality Inventory (MCMI-II), Situational Confidence Questionnaire (SCQ), Life Purpose Questionnaire (LPQ), and, at follow up, Addiction Severity Index (ASI). The control group changed in fewer MCMI-II scales, and had a higher treatment drop out rate. At follow up the groups' abstinence rates, using Peniston and Kulkoskys' measure, were also similar. However, when more sensitive relapse measures were applied, the PKT groups' relapse results were about twice those of the control group. This was significant for male subjects' mean number of days using substances, whereas female subjects' abstinence rates were high in all three groups. This therapeutic modality enhances therapeutic community treatment outcomes in a small sample of subjects, a result not common in the literature. It merits further investigation and implementation in a New Zealand setting

The Wounded Healer: Finding Meaning in Suffering

In modern history, no event has more profoundly symbolized suffering than the Holocaust. This novel “Husserlian-realist” phenomenological dissertation elucidates the meaning of existential trauma through an interdisciplinary and psychologically integrative vantage point. I use the testimony of a select group of Holocaust witnesses who committed suicide decades after that event as a lens to examine what their despair may reveal about an unprecedented existential, moral, and spiritual crisis of humanity that threatens to undermine our faith in human history and reality itself. By distinguishing what they actually saw about our condition from what they merely believed about reality, I show there is a reliable hope that can fulfill the highest reaches of human nature in the worst conditions. This I call a Psychotherapy of Hope. To this end, I provide a broad overview of the four main forces of psychotherapy to evaluate the role each plays in healing this crisis. I then provide an elucidation of empathic understanding within an “I/Thou” altruistic relationship having power to transform human personality. The primary barrier to personal transformation is shown to be no mere value-neutral indifference, but “cold” indifference or opposition to an objective good. No one can avoid a faith commitment, and the only solution to this crisis is our love or reliance on a self-transcendent good or benevolent super-ego worthy of our trust. By means of this love we can find meaning in our suffering to become more than we are, better than we are, and even transform human life as we know it. By love we may heal our wounds