The value of psychological flexibility: Examining psychological mechanisms underpinning a cognitive behavioural therapy intervention for burnout

Little is known of the mechanisms by which interventions for burnout work. Employees of a UK government department were randomly assigned to either a worksite group-based CBT intervention called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; n=43), which aimed to increase participants' psychological flexibility, or a waiting list control group (n=57). The ACT group received three half-day sessions of training spread over two and a half months. Data were collected at baseline (T1), at the beginning of the second (T2) and third (T3) workshops, and at six months' follow up (T4). Consistent with ACT theory, analyses revealed that, in comparison to the control group, a significant increase in psychological flexibility from T2 to T3 in the ACT group mediated the subsequent T2 to T4 decrease in emotional exhaustion in that group. Consistent with a theory of emotional burnout development, this significant decrease in emotional exhaustion from T2 to T4 in the ACT group appeared to prevent the significant T3 to T4 increase in depersonalization seen in the control group. Strain also decreased from T2 to T3 in the ACT group only, but no mediator of that improvement was identified. Implications for theory and practice in the fields of ACT and emotional burnout are discussed

Mindfulness and meditation in the workplace: An acceptance and commitment therapy approach

There is a wide-range and growing body of evidence that mental health and behavioural effectiveness are influenced more by how people interact with their thoughts and feelings than by their form (e.g., how negative they are) or frequency. Research has demonstrated this key finding in a wide-range of areas. For example, in chronic pain, psychosocial disability is predicted more by the experiential avoidance of pain than by the degree of pain (McCracken, 1998). A number of therapeutic approaches have been developed that share this key insight: distress tolerance (e.g., Brown, Lejuez, Kahler, & Strong, 2002; Schmidt, Richey, Cromer, & Buckner, 2007), thought suppression (e.g., Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000), and mindfulness (Baer, 2003). It is also central to a number of the newer contextual cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) approaches to treatment, such as mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2001), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993), metacognitive therapy (Wells, 2000), and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). The purpose of this chapter is to describe how ACT conceptualises mindfulness and tries to enhance it in the pursuit of promoting mental health and behavioural effectiveness (e.g., productivity at work). To this end, we discuss ACT’s key construct of psychological flexibility, which involves mindfulness, and how it has led to a somewhat different approach not only to conceptualising mindfulness, but also how we try to enhance it in the workplace. In so doing, we hope to show that whilst formal meditation practice is valued in ACT, it is only one strategy that is used to promote mindfulness, as well as psychological flexibility more generally

Cosmological Consequences of String Axions

Axion fluctuations generated during inflation lead to isocurvature and non-Gaussian temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Following a previous analysis for the model independent string axion we consider the consequences of a measurement of these fluctuations for two additional string axions. We do so independent of any cosmological assumptions except for the axions being massless during inflation. The first axion has been shown to solve the strong CP problem for most compactifications of the heterotic string while the second axion, which does not solve the strong CP problem, obeys a mass formula which is independent of the axion scale. We find that if gravitational waves interpreted as arising from inflation are observed by the PLANCK polarimetry experiment with a Hubble constant during inflation of H_inf \apprge 10^13 GeV the existence of the first axion is ruled out and the second axion cannot obey the scale independent mass formula. In an appendix we quantitatively justify the often held assumption that temperature corrections to the zero temperature QCD axion mass may be ignored for temperatures T \apprle \Lambda_QCD.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures; v2: References corrected; v3: Assumptions simplified, minor corrections, conclusions unchange

Praxis Mapping: A methodology for evaluating the political impacts of international projects

This report describes the participatory development of a process we have used to consider the political implications of a climate justice project we worked on together from 2010 to 2013, called Strengthening the role of civil society in water sector governance towards climate change adaptation in African cities – Durban, Maputo, Nairobi (see http://ccaa.irisyorku.ca). This project was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) through their Climate Change Adaptation in Africa programme.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centr

Einstein and Jordan frames reconciled: a frame-invariant approach to scalar-tensor cosmology

Scalar-Tensor theories of gravity can be formulated in different frames, most notably, the Einstein and the Jordan one. While some debate still persists in the literature on the physical status of the different frames, a frame transformation in Scalar-Tensor theories amounts to a local redefinition of the metric, and then should not affect physical results. We analyze the issue in a cosmological context. In particular, we define all the relevant observables (redshift, distances, cross-sections, ...) in terms of frame-independent quantities. Then, we give a frame-independent formulation of the Boltzmann equation, and outline its use in relevant examples such as particle freeze-out and the evolution of the CMB photon distribution function. Finally, we derive the gravitational equations for the frame-independent quantities at first order in perturbation theory. From a practical point of view, the present approach allows the simultaneous implementation of the good aspects of the two frames in a clear and straightforward way.Comment: 15 pages, matches version to be published on Phys. Rev.

Computing CMB Anisotropy in Compact Hyperbolic Spaces

The measurements of CMB anisotropy have opened up a window for probing the global topology of the universe on length scales comparable to and beyond the Hubble radius. For compact topologies, the two main effects on the CMB are: (1) the breaking of statistical isotropy in characteristic patterns determined by the photon geodesic structure of the manifold and (2) an infrared cutoff in the power spectrum of perturbations imposed by the finite spatial extent. We present a completely general scheme using the regularized method of images for calculating CMB anisotropy in models with nontrivial topology, and apply it to the computationally challenging compact hyperbolic topologies. This new technique eliminates the need for the difficult task of spatial eigenmode decomposition on these spaces. We estimate a Bayesian probability for a selection of models by confronting the theoretical pixel-pixel temperature correlation function with the COBE-DMR data. Our results demonstrate that strong constraints on compactness arise: if the universe is small compared to the `horizon' size, correlations appear in the maps that are irreconcilable with the observations. If the universe is of comparable size, the likelihood function is very dependent upon orientation of the manifold wrt the sky. While most orientations may be strongly ruled out, it sometimes happens that for a specific orientation the predicted correlation patterns are preferred over the conventional infinite models.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX (IOP style included), 3 color figures (GIF) in separate files. Minor revision to match the version accepted in Class. Quantum Grav.: Proc. of Topology and Cosmology, Cleveland, 1997. The paper can be also downloaded from http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~pogosyan/cwru_proc.ps.g

A Search for Stellar Obscuration Events due to Dark Clouds

The recent detections of a large population of faint submillimetre sources, an excess halo gamma-ray background, and the extreme scattering events observed for extragalactic radio sources have been explained as being due to baryonic dark matter in the form of small, dark, gas clouds. In this paper we present the results of a search for the transient stellar obscurations such clouds are expected to cause. We examine the Macho project light curves of 48 x 10^6 stars toward the Galactic bulge, LMC and SMC for the presence of dark cloud extinction events. We find no evidence for the existence of a population of dark gas clouds with Av > 0.2 and masses between ~ 10^-4 and 10^-2 M_solar in the Galactic disk or halo. However, it is possible that such dark cloud populations could exist if they are clustered in regions away from the observed lines of sight.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Ap

Academics' Experiences of a Respite From Work: Effects of Self-Critical Perfectionism and Perseverative Cognition on Postrespite Well-Being

This longitudinal study examined relations between personality and cognitive vulnerabilities and the outcomes of a respite from work. A sample of 77 academic employees responded to week-level measures of affective well-being before, during, and on 2 occasions after an Easter respite. When academics were classified as being either high or low in a self-critical form of perfectionism (doubts about actions), a divergent pattern of respite to postrespite effects was revealed. Specifically, during the respite, the 2 groups of academics experienced similar levels of well-being. However, during postrespite working weeks, the more perfectionistic academics reported significantly higher levels of fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and anxiety. The greater deterioration in well-being experienced by perfectionist academics when first returning to work was mediated by their tendency for perseverative cognition (i.e., worry and rumination) about work during the respite itself. These findings support the view that the self-critical perfectionist vulnerability is activated by direct exposure to achievement-related stressors and manifested through perseverative modes of thinking