The Role of Interpersonal Connection, Personal Narrative, and Metacognition in Integrative Psychotherapy for Schizophrenia: A Case Report

The recovery movement has not only challenged traditional pessimism regarding schizophrenia but also presented opportunities for the possibilities for psychotherapy for people with the disorder. Though in the past psychotherapy models were often pitted against one another, recently there have been emergent reports of a range of integrative models sharing an emphasis on recovery and a number of conceptual elements. These shared elements include attention to the importance of interpersonal processes, personal narrative, and metacognition, with interest in their role in not only the disorder but also the processes by which people pursue recovery. This article explores one application of this framework in the psychotherapy of a woman with prolonged experience of schizophrenia and significant functional impairments

The representation of slavery at historic house museums : 1853-2000

Thesis advisor: James O'TooleThis dissertation examines the development of historic house museums in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present to unravel the complex relationship between public presentations of slavery and popular perceptions of the institution. In conducting the research for this project, I examined the historic and contemporary public programming at nineteen separate museums. This sample of museums includes both publicly funded and private sites in both the North and South. By bringing together a diverse group of museums, this project examines national trends alongside regional traditions as well as the role of organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Park Service, and a host of private institutions in determining different interpretive foci.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: History

Research with residential childcare practitioners : early reflections of managing harm in a qualitative diary study

Qualitative audio diary methods are an effective tool to explore emotions in social research as the method helps to elucidate diverse and sequential emotional experiences. Diary methods provide opportunities for research to be conducted over time in hard-to-reach settings, with hard-to-reach groups, producing rich data on sensitive topics. However, diary methods also provide ethical challenges, especially for novice researchers. Residential childcare practitioners are an important workforce that support looked after children and young people in residential children's homes, and this article reflects on the initial ethical challenges of using an audio diary method to study their emotional experiences. By exploring the ethical processes of minimising harm in a diary study with practitioners this article informs future diary research and highlights the potential use of audio diaries in future residential childcare practice

All you need is (a system that supports) love

Following the 2022 publication of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, Chaired by Josh MacAlister, many UK newspapers led with stark headlines about the ‘urgent’, ‘unavoidable’, and ‘fundamental’ need to ‘reform’ and ‘overhaul’ children’s social care. Some of the key recommendations from the report relate to the need for safe and loving relationships, which can be essential anchors for young people through the turmoil of the care system. The report states, “it is loving relationships that hold the solutions for children and families overcoming adversity”. For young people in children’s homes, these loving relationships often come from people within their home staff team. However, practitioners working in residential children’s homes can face significant systemic challenges in forging and maintaining these relationships

OPAL: promoting mental health through friendship, socialisation and physical activity

On 27 March 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) announced the COVID-19 Mental Health and Wellbeing Recovery Action Plan for 2021 to 2022. The aim of this scheme was to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. To operationalise the Wellbeing Recovery Action Plan, the Prevention and Promotion Fund for Better Mental Health was established. The fund was then used by Oldham Council to commission sixteen projects designed to improve the lives of people whose mental health difficulties had been exacerbated by COVID-19. The Oldham Learning Disability Advocacy Service (OPAL), a registered charity providing independent advocacy services and activities for people living with a learning disability, was one of the services commissioned to provide an 8-week physical activity for mental health project in Oldham. As part of the commissioning process, OHID require Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council to evaluate and assess the impact that the OPAL 8-week physical activity programme has made. This report employs Contribution Analysis to examine three key outcomes areas of the OPAL 8-week physical activity for mental health project in Oldham. It illustrates how the Prevention and Promotion Fund for Better Mental Health has been used by OPAL to facilitate physical activities for people living with a learning disability in Oldham. The report concludes by providing an overview of the findings, including three recommendations for scaling up future physical training activities and initiatives

Recovery and serious mental illness: a review of current clinical and research paradigms and future directions

Introduction: Recovery from serious mental illness has historically not been considered a likely or even possible outcome. However, a range of evidence suggests the courses of SMI are heterogeneous with recovery being the most likely outcome. One barrier to studying recovery in SMI is that recovery has been operationalized in divergent and seemingly incompatible ways, as an objective outcome, versus a subjective process. Areas Covered: This paper offers a review of recovery as a subjective process and recovery as an objective outcome; contrasts methodologies utilized by each approach to assess recovery; reports rates and correlates of recovery; and explores the relationship between objective and subjective forms of recovery. Expert Commentary: There are two commonalities of approaching recovery as a subjective process and an objective outcome: (i) the need to make meaning out of one’s experiences to engage in either type of recovery and (ii) there exist many threats to engaging in meaning making that may impact the likelihood of moving toward recovery. We offer four clinical implications that stem from these two commonalities within a divided approach to the concept of recovery from SMI

Characteristics and Treatment Preferences of People with Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: An Internet Survey

Background: Although Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a severe and disabling anxiety disorder, relatively few people with this condition access evidence-based care. Barriers to treatment are multiple and complex, but the emerging field of Internet therapy for PTSD may improve access to evidence-based treatment. However, little is known about the characteristics of people with PTSD who seek online treatment, or whether they perceive internet treatment as an acceptable treatment option. Methodology: An online survey was used to collect information about the demographic and symptom characteristics of individuals with elevated levels of PTSD symptoms, and this was compared to data from corresponding sample from a national survey. Previous treatment experiences, perceived barriers to treatment and treatment preferences for Internet therapy and face-to-face treatment were also compared. Principal Findings: High levels of PTSD symptoms were reported by survey respondents. Psychological distress and disability was greater than reported by individuals with PTSD from a national survey. Half of the sample reported not having received treatment for PTSD; however, 88% of those who reported receiving treatment stated they received an evidence-based treatment. Primary barriers to treatment included cost, poor awareness of service availability, lack of prior treatment response and not perceiving personal distress as severe enough to warrant treatment. Most survey respondents indicated they were willing to try Internet treatment for PTSD. Conclusions: The Internet sample was symptomatically severe and multiple barriers existed to treatment. Internet therapy is an acceptable option for the treatment of PTSD in an internet sample.6 page(s

Comparison of diets collected from esophageally fistulated cows to forage quality estimated from fecal analysis

Differences in forage quality (crude protein and energy) were analyzed between esophageally fistulated diets, analysis of fecal samples with Nutrition Balance Analyzer (NUTBAL) analysis, and analysis of handclipped forage samples. On upland range sites, hand- clipped samples provided forage quality estimates that were closer to esophageally fistulated diets than samples analyzed with the NUTBAL analysis. Aft er one year of data collection, it appears that there may be some inconstancies with the NUTBAL analysis for estimates on rangeland forage quality in the Nebraska Sandhills. More data is needed to verify these results; however, making management supplementations decisions solely on the NUTBAL analysis may not always be accurate on Sandhills rangeland

Vesicular glutamatergic transmission in noise-induced loss and repair of cochlear ribbon synapses

Noise-induced excitotoxicity is thought to depend on glutamate. However, the excitotoxic mechanisms are unknown, and the necessity of glutamate for synapse loss or regeneration is unclear. Despite absence of glutamatergic transmission from cochlear inner hair cells in mice lacking the vesicular glutamate transporter-3

Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy: A Recovery-Oriented Treatment Approach for Psychosis

Recent research has suggested that recovery from psychosis is a complex process that involves recapturing a coherent sense of self and personal agency. This poses important challenges to existing treatment models. While current evidence-based practices are designed to ameliorate symptoms and skill deficits, they are less able to address issues of subjectivity and self-experience. In this paper, we present Metacognitive Insight and Reflection Therapy (MERIT), a treatment approach that is explicitly concerned with self-experience in psychosis. This approach uses the term metacognition to describe those cognitive processes that underpin self-experience and posits that addressing metacognitive deficits will aid persons diagnosed with psychosis in making sense of the challenges they face and deciding how to effectively manage them. This review will first explore the conceptualization of psychosis as the interruption of a life and how persons experience themselves, and then discuss in more depth the construct of metacognition. We will next examine the background, practices and evidence supporting MERIT. This will be followed by a discussion of how MERIT overlaps with other emerging treatments as well as how it differs. MERIT’s capacity to engage patients who reject the idea that they have mental illness as well as cope with entrenched illness identities is highlighted. Finally, limitations and directions for future research are discussed