Effectiveness of a Multimodal Mindfulness Program for Student Health Care Professionals: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: The effectiveness of a multimodal mindfulness program incorporating traditional and nontraditional forms of active and nonactive meditation practices with a sample of occupational and physical therapy students was assessed in this study. Method: Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. The 8-week mindfulness program consisted of one weekly 40-min in-person group session and four weekly 10-min online guided meditations. Pre and postintervention measures included the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Student Stress Management Scale (SSMS), mindfulness activity log, open-ended qualitative questionnaire, GPA, and counseling visit frequency. Results: Statistically significant differences, with large effect sizes, were found between intervention and control group PSS (Z=-4.291, pd=-1.84) and SSMS (Z=-3.330, pd=-1.27) postintervention scores. Statistically significant differences, with large effect sizes, were found between intervention group pre and postmindfulness activity ratings for each week and all weeks combined (Z=-12.599, pd=1.29). Qualitative data revealed eight themes including greater sleep quality, energy levels, self-compassion, and life-work balance. No statistically significant differences were found between intervention and control group counseling visit frequency and GPA. Conclusion: As this is preliminary data about a novel intervention with a small student sample, effectiveness of this intervention should be further explored in a replication study

The effect of age on the FCSRT-IR and temporary visual memory binding

ABSTRACT: Background:Cognitive markers of early Alzheimer's disease (AD) should be sensitive and specific to memory impairments that are not associated with healthy cognitive aging. In the present study, we investigated the effect of healthy cognitive aging on two proposed cognitive markers of AD: the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Task with Immediate Recall (FCSRT-IR) and a temporary visual memory binding (TMB) task. METHOD: Free recall and the cost of holding bound information in visual memory were compared between 24 younger and 24 older participants in a mixed, fully counterbalanced experiment. RESULTS: A significant effect of age was observed on free recall in the FCSRT-IR only and not on the cost of binding in the TMB task. CONCLUSIONS: Of these two cognitive markers, the TMB task is more likely to be specific to memory impairments that are independent of age

The Museum of Dreams

THE MUSEUM OF DREAMS is a hub for exploring the social and political significance of dream-life. We collect and creatively work with dreams from the historical record and provide a platform for collaborative storytelling projects

Air War and Dream: Photographing the London Blitz

This paper treats Lee Miller\u27s photographs of the London Blitz as a species of dream, which is to say, the Surrealist\u27s images are regarded as a special form of thinking in which the conflicts and horrors of the times are represented in an effort to discharge their destructive force. This treatment calls upon Freud\u27s discussion of dream-work, but also upon Didier Anzieu and Wilfred Bion\u27s later writings, which consider the defensive and protective qualities of oneiric life. Miller\u27s photography, like dream, provides a glimpse into the interior dimension of human existence. The essay argues that this interior dimension provides protection not only from inner psychological and biological traumas, but also from social and political aggression. In the era of air war, photography provides a powerful tool of civil defense

Evocative Objects: A Sexual Violence Primer

This commentary on Nina Berman’s series, “Object Lessons,” examines the photographer’s strategy of photographing trial evidence from cases of sexual slavery and human trafficking as a study in object relations

The Gaze Called Animal: Notes for a Study on Thinking

Over the course of several days in 1997, Jacques Derrida delivered a long lecture to attendees of a conference in Cerisy called “The Autobiographical Animal.” As part of his opening remarks, the philosopher recounted a curious little scene that served to introduce the central theme of the larger address that followed. The scene begins when Derrida reports that each morning, with an almost ritualistic regularity, he is followed from his bedroom into the bathroom by his cat, an unnamed feline, he insists, that is a real little cat, not the mere figure of a cat: “It doesn’t silently enter the bedroom as an allegory for all the cats on earth, the felines that traverse our myths and religions” (2008, 6). The action picks up when Derrida finds himself naked before this little cat, naked in front of the insistent gaze of the animal, an encounter, he reports, that he always has a “bad time” (j’ai du mal) overcoming (4). The regular meeting never fails to flood him with shame, especially if he is caught face-to-face, if the cat observes him frontally naked, as if with a view to seeing. The scene comes to an end when the cat invariably leaves the bathroom, looking for her breakfast or asking to be let out. After the presentation of this strange theme, Derrida begins to weave a remarkable set of variations, not least of which is treating the encounter as a contemporary iteration of the Biblical Fall, that first, painful moment when the human became aware of its own interiority—a coming to know oneself that means knowing oneself ashamed, in short, a consciousness of good and evil—the original primal scene, which the philosopher points out, occurred under the gaze of a rather famous Biblical animot

A note on punctum

A note on Roland Barthes\u27 punctum

An Ode To Reverie

As you might imagine from my title, I would like to make a case for one very special kind of losing touching with reality, namely reverie. What I mean by this word is exactly what you might imagine: the experience of getting lost in thought, daydreams, fantasies, or even bodily sensations; letting mind wander freely; attending to the atmosphere of your inner world. It is perhaps important to distinguish this unique form of thought from the kind of distraction that is all-too familiar in today’s technologically saturated world. Distraction is a state of mind produced by external forces that deliberately seek to manage our attention. Reverie, in contrast, is a mental state in which the mind wanders freely, following it’s own logic of desire

Human Rights In Camera

From the fundamental rights proclaimed in the American and French declarations of independence to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Hannah Arendt’s furious critiques, the definition of what it means to be human has been hotly debated. But the history of human rights—and their abuses—is also a richly illustrated one. Following this picture trail, Human Rights In Camera takes an innovative approach by examining the visual images that have accompanied human rights struggles and the passionate responses people have had to them