Life with The Spirit: A Path to Renewal at Sonrise Christian Reformed Church

The purpose of this project is to reimagine the Reformed theology of Sonrise Christian Reformed Church, to encourage members to embrace a more integrated faith and life perspective through reclaiming a covenantal community identity, such that they will be better equipped to love neighbor and self as they represent Christ in the twenty–first century world. The project was developed and implemented in 2016–2017, with the congregation in Ponoka, Alberta. The project began out of pastoral concerns. The edges of Reformed theology and practice have changed. Traditional structures that helped shape identity have collapsed or been subverted by competing Protestant theologies. The context for ministry has also changed in conjunction with the demise of Christendom. This congregation, like many others, needs a renewed faith formation theology and focus, to resist the pressures it faces. The first stage of the project was to accurately evaluate the current theological and sociological ethos of the congregation. A discernment process ensued, summarizing common themes, traits and doctrinal understandings that still have traction in the congregation. The results specified the two primary themes, which are worship and covenant community, that ought to be the focus of the project. So, to address these themes, a home group program was begun. A year later, a series of messages on the two themes was presented. Closely followed by matching home group material that augments the sermon topics and instigates follow–up discussion. The project concludes that congregation members recognize the need for change and accept the twin focus of the project. Change, however, is a difficult and slow process. Therefore, although the preliminary results are promising, realizing the goal of the project, which was to inspire a desire for change in these areas, will take more time

The effect of anxiety on memory accuracy, response time, and confidence

Anxiety is an emotional state that has been associated with negative outcomes on cognitive tasks, as well as low confidence in responses, specifically in the domain of long-term memory. The following series of experiments explored the effect of anxiety on long-term memory performance as well as on memory confidence, the accuracy-confidence relation, and response times. The purpose was to determine how realistic anxious participants are when making confidence judgments compared to low anxious peers and to attempt to improve the memory accuracy and confidence of highly anxious individuals. In Experiment 1, participants encoded words presented visually, followed by an anxiety induction. Those with higher anxiety scores had poorer memory accuracy for target words as well as less confidence in their memory overall, consistent with much of the literature. Response time (RTs) was slower in the high- relative to low-anxious group when making confidence assessments but not memory judgments, suggesting that rather than slowing cognitive processing, high anxiety individuals may be doubting their memory ability, resulting in more time spent appraising their performance. In Experiment 2, I tested my hypothesis that high-anxious participants are particularly slowed only when asked to critically examine and evaluate their memory decisions. The same procedure as in Experiment 1 was used except that I allowed participants an opportunity to switch their memory responses immediately after making an initial classification. Highly anxious participants made more switches in their memory judgments and this decreased their overall memory accuracy. Interestingly, in this experiment, highly anxious participants did not have lower memory confidence than their low-anxious peers, nor longer RTs when making confidence judgments. They did however take longer when deciding whether to switch an answer. Results are in line with the suggestion that high-anxious individuals defer worry until after a memorial decision is made, and that it is in the post-mnemonic stage that high-anxious individuals differ from low-anxious ones. In Experiment 3, I examined anxiety without induction to determine whether differences in memory accuracy and in response time would remain. I also included a manipulation of encoding duration to determine whether longer encoding time would improve highly anxious participant’s memory accuracy and confidence relative to the low-anxious group. Participants encoded words for either 750 or 4000 ms. High-anxious individuals had poorer accuracy and lower confidence compared to low-anxious individuals: specifically for correct memory responses. Longer encoding duration benefited both accuracy and confidence, and there was no differential benefit across groups. RTs to make memory classifications again did not differ between groups yet, as in Experiment 1, high-anxious participants were slower to make confidence judgments, though only for incorrect responses. Results suggest that high-anxious individuals have unrealistically low confidence in their memory, especially when correct, and that allowing additional encoding time does not alleviate the effect. Taken together, this series of experiments shows that individuals with high levels of anxiety take longer to evaluate their memorial decisions, suggesting that they engage in more post-mnemonic evaluation than their low-anxious peers

Naar een integrale psychiatrie

De realiteit in de psychiatrie is complex, de neiging om deze realiteit te dichotomiseren en vervolgens te reduceren zodat te onderzoeken fenomenen in maar één hokje passen is aantrekkelijk, maar doet geen recht aan de werkelijkheid. Een leidend principe voor het schrijven van dit proefschrift is de zorg om reductionistische tendensen in de hedendaagse Nederlandse psychiatrie, zowel wetenschappelijk als contextueel van karakter. Ik probeer begrippen te vinden die onderscheidingen kunnen overbruggen en reductionisme tegengaan en doe dit alles binnen een bepaald kader; ik ben op zoek naar relevante grondslagen om het dagelijks handelen van de psychiater op te baseren. Met dit in het achterhoofd, analyseer ik in deel I kennis afkomstig uit de (sociale) neurowetenschappen en de genetica die helpt om verschillende, in de psychiatrie gangbare onderscheidingen te overbruggen en mijn pleidooi voor een integrale psychiatrie, gebaseerd op meerdere wetenschappelijke grondslagen, te onderstrepen. In deel II doe ik hetzelfde op het terrein van de context waarin de hulpverlening plaats vindt. Ik richt me daarbij op specifieke, persoonsgebonden grondslagen voor de psychiater, gerelateerd aan de context waarin de hulpverlening plaatsvindt, de visie op herstel, de eigen mogelijkheden, betekenisverlening en waarden van de patiënt. - Reality is complex in psychiatry. It is enticing to dichotomise this reality in order to reduce it, making the phenomena to be studied fit in just one compartment, but it does no justice to reality. A leading principle while writing this dissertation was my concern about reductionist tendencies within present-day Dutch psychiatry, which are both scientifically and contextually in character. I am looking for concepts to bridge those distinctions and to combat reductionism. In doing this, I am operating within a particular framework: I am looking for relevant foundations on which to base the daily actions of the psychiatrist. With this in mind, in Part I, I analyse knowledge originating from (social) neuroscience and genetics that helps to bridge the various distinctions common in psychiatry, and also helps to underscore my argument for an integral psychiatry, based on several scientific foundations. In Part II, I repeat this exercise with regard to the context in which assistance is provided. Here, I focus on specific, personal foundations for the psychiatrist, related to the context in which assistance is given, the view on recovery, personal capacities, the attribution of meaning, and the patient’s values