Does ASMR propensity reflect a mentally flexible mindset? Exploring the relationship between ASMR propensity, transliminality, emotional contagion, schizotypal traits, roleplaying ability, and creativity

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is an alternative state of consciousness characterised by changes in affect, feelings of relaxation, and tingling sensations on the body. Online videos designed to stimulate ASMR in viewers have become increasingly popular. Although there is evidence that ASMR may improve sleep, emotion regulation, and relaxation, the current understanding of ASMR propensity remains limited. This study examined whether a mentally flexible cognitive style may underlie the ability to experience ASMR. Undergraduate students (N = 376) completed an online survey involving a series of self-report questionnaires and two performance-based creative ability tasks. Findings did not provide support for an overall mentally flexible mindset, however, transliminality, emotional contagion susceptibility, positive schizotypal traits, and roleplaying ability all significantly positively predicted ASMR propensity. These findings suggest that ASMR propensity represents several possible underlying cognitive styles relating to enhanced imagination and perceptual ability, and cannot be simply characterised by mental flexibility.

Death education for Palliative care: a european project for University students

BACKGROUND

The need to spread the culture of palliative care and to train health care professionals from undergraduate courses is recognised internationally. The article presents the outcomes of a project devoted to palliative care training in university courses in four countries.

AIMS

This article considered the outcomes of a course designed for university students who had the potential to work in a palliative care team. The main aim was to check the efficacy of the course and the motivation to work in palliative care settings, considering the impact of fear and representations of death.

METHODS

The project presented the essential contents related to palliative care, using psychodramatic and photo-voice techniques. Longitudinal measurements were taken using a quantitative method design to detect changes among the students involved. The project involved 341 students at the first administration of the survey consisted of a protocol composed of standardized questionnaires in five countries (Austria, Israel, Italy, Poland and Romania), of whom 276 completed the pre- and post-surveys-165 of them in the experimental group and 111, in the control group.

RESULTS

The experience showed that it is possible to address death-related issues seriously and competently without necessarily causing discomfort and despondency in students. The results of the changes over time in the experimental and control groups highlight how the view of death as annihilation is correlated with the fear of death and the need for avoidance of thoughts concerning dying. The main result is that competence in palliative care facilitates familiarisation with issues of death and dying, as well as the ability to work in this area, thereby enhancing interpersonal skills.

CONCLUSION

The project showed that it is possible to implement death education on palliative care topics in undergraduate courses to increase motivation to work in this field.

Free Your Mind: Creative Thinking Contributes to Overcoming Conflict-Related Biases

Conflicts between groups are difficult to resolve, partly because humans tend to be biased in judging outgroup members. The aim of the current article is to review findings on the link between creativity and conflict-related biases and to offer a model that views creative cognition as an ability that may contribute to overcoming conflict-related biases. Our proposed model conforms to the twofold model of creativity. According to this model, creativity involves a generation phase and an evaluation phase, and these phases correspond to the neural mechanisms that underlie conflict-related biases. Specifically, we contend that the generation phase of creativity affects conflict-related biases by exerting an influence on stereotypes and prejudice, outgroup-targeted emotions, and ingroup empathy biases, all of which rely on the default mode network. Conversely, the evaluation phase of creativity, which is usually associated with activation in the executive control network and action-observation system, may be related to herding behaviors. Building on the shared mechanisms of creativity and conflicts, we propose that studies examining creativity-based interventions may be effective in promoting reconciliation.

Importance of Interprofessional Education for Occupational Therapy

The purpose of this position statement is to provide recommendations for educators on best practices to embed interprofessional education (IPE) into today's occupational therapy curricula, whether entry level or postprofessional, to bridge academic and clinical learning environments.

The Role of Group Sharing: An Action Research Study of Psychodrama Group Therapy in a Psychiatric Inpatient Ward

Numerous studies point to the acute distress associated with the experience of coping with severe mental illness and psychiatric hospitalization. Another strand of research notes the therapeutic benefits of psychodrama and its efficacy in increasing empathy and self-awareness, improving interpersonal relationships, reducing stress and anxiety, and in treating particularly vulnerable populations for whom traditional psychotherapy’s usefulness is limited. The goal of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the potential of group sharing in dealing with the experience of loneliness and distress, and to serve as a space for relatedness and self-expression in psychodrama group therapy. A qualitative action research study following an open inpatients’ psychodrama group in a psychiatric hospital in Israel demonstrates the role of group sharing in creating an accommodating space of self-expression, relatedness, and mutual support, which offers relief for the distress of psychiatric inpatients. Within the inpatients’ group, the participants used sharing to distribute the burden among the group members along with the resources to cope with it. The paper seeks to illuminate the unique contribution of a therapeutic tool rarely dealt with by the existing literature–the group sharing—in dealing with situations of acute mental distress.

Empowering Through Psychodrama: A Qualitative Study at Domestic Violence Shelters

Psychodrama is a therapeutic method in which the stage is used to enact and reenact life events with the aim of instilling, among other positive changes, hope and empowerment in a wide range of populations suffering from psychological duress. The therapeutic process in psychodrama moves away from the classic treatment of the individual in isolation to treatment of the individual in the context of a group. In domestic violence situations, in which abusive men seek to socially isolate their victims from family and friends, the social support that psychodrama provides can positively influence the psychological health and well-being of the participants. This qualitative study examines the manner in which psychodramatic treatment can empower abused women residing in domestic violence shelters and help them regain control of their lives. An action research study of domestic violence survivors living in a women's shelter in Israel, over a 12-month period, demonstrates the role of psychodrama therapy in promoting the reduction of anxiety, stress, guilt, and self-blame, while reinforcing perceptions of self-worth and confidence. These findings contribute to our understanding of the potential of psychodrama in helping reshape life roles and reframe experiences within a creative process, with the aim of facilitating a transition from powerlessness to powerfulness among vulnerable populations.

Expanding the Role Repertoire While Aging: A Drama Therapy Model

Drama therapy has been found to improve various facets of mental health while aging. It provides opportunities for personal growth and creative expression and enhances group relationships. Drama therapy is a widely acknowledged way to explore the life stories in late life. However, only a handful of studies have empirically explored the value of drama therapy for the aging population. This conceptual analysis was designed to address this need by developing a new integrative model of drama therapy. The analysis is based on the review of the results of four studies that explored the integration of life-review and playback theater as a drama therapy approach for older adults. The therapeutic process focused on the exploration of life-crossroads stories, a short unique technique which enables the participants to craft a harmonious view of their life stories in a short-term dramatic creative group process. Combining the four results yielded a multidimensional model which points to three potential transformative routes: the evolution of the life story, the evolution of improvised dramatic expression, and the expansion of social engagement. The transformative routes are described through the lens of role theory in drama therapy.

Playback theatre in adult day centers: A creative group intervention for community-dwelling older adults

The literature indicates that theatre and drama-based interventions have the potential to improve older adults' well-being and health. The goal of the current study was to characterize the process of a creative group intervention in adult day centers (ADCs), which integrates playback theatre and life-review principles. Our objective was to provide an evidence-informed framework for drama therapy interventions, which would allow older adults to bring up and explore their life-stories in a dramatic creative process in their own community. A total of 27 participants ranging in age from 63 to 91, took part in one of three playback theatre groups. The playback theatre group intervention comprised 12 weekly sessions. All sessions were videotaped to capture the lived experience of the creative process and were analyzed in post-intervention interviews. In addition, focus group meetings were conducted with 13 ADC staff members to decipher further the effects of the participation as perceived by people outside the groups. Three types of potential transformation were identified in the qualitative analysis: the evolution of life stories, evolution of playfulness, and expansion of social engagement. The results indicate the potential of the integrative framework to serve as a creative intervention in ADC communities, as well as its potential to bring about a personal transformation and expand it to enable a person's social engagement in the community. The findings imply the potential benefits of using playback theatre groups to supplement the routine care provided in ADCs.

Are you sitting (un)comfortably? Action-based supervision and supervisory drift

Action-based methods such as behavioural experiments, role-play and (by extension) ‘chairwork’ are powerful techniques recommended in core supervisory texts for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Despite this, experiential methods are seldom used by supervisors, suggesting that supervision often drifts from a ‘doing process’ to a ‘talking process’. A number of factors contribute to this divergence from best practice, including limited confidence and a lack of familiarity with experiential procedures amongst supervisors. To address this, the current paper presents a variety of action-based techniques for enhancing supervisees’ technical, perceptual, interpersonal, reflective and personal competencies. Behavioural experiments, empty-chair, multi-chair and role-playing exercises for maintaining treatment fidelity, enhancing empathic attunement, repairing therapeutic ruptures, resolving impasses and working through negative countertransference are described, amongst others. Further research is needed to establish the nature and extent of supervisory drift, as well as the efficacy of action-based methods.

Key learning aims

As a result of reading this paper, readers should:(1)

Different Shades of Beauty: Adolescents' Perspectives on Drawing From Observation

Background

Drawing from observation (DFO) is an art therapy method that entails drawing an object, along with guided reflections on process and outcome. In this qualitative study, we explored adolescents’ perspectives on their DFO experience, and how they perceive it as having influenced their emotional well-being.

Methods

We interviewed 10 adolescents who participated in a DFO group, regarding their perspectives on DFO. Participants were asked to refer to their experience, as well as to provide examples of their drawings. Through a thematic analysis we integrated data from interviews and drawings.

Results

Adolescents experienced three lines of tension in DFO: Between self-acceptance and self-judgment, between merging and separation, and between similarities and differences. Processing these tensions has the potential to increase their emotional well-being.

Conclusion

DFO could make a meaningful contribution to adolescents’ emotional well-being. The unique intersection between object, observation, and drawing in art-therapy addresses adolescents’ emotional-developmental challenges.

A little less talk, a little more action: a dialogical approach to cognitive therapy

Reappraisal strategies such as ‘thought challenging’ and ‘cost-benefits analysis’ are a hallmark of cognitive therapy, but sometimes fail to bring about lasting changes in the cognitive-affective structures underlying psychopathology. Modern theories of information processing suggest that experiential, action-based interventions such as chairwork may be a more efficacious route to cognitive modification. Based upon this hypothesis, a ‘dialogical’ approach to cognitive therapy is presented, which aims to bring about change through evocative, here-and-now interactions with parts of the self (self-to-self dialogues) and other individuals (self-to-other dialogues). Implementation principles and facilitation skills which guide this approach are outlined. To illustrate how dialogical interventions are utilized in clinical practice, chair-based strategies for socializing clients to the cognitive behavioural model, restructuring cognitions, facilitating emotional processing, resolving ambivalence, addressing distressing memories, building character strengths, and overcoming therapeutic impasses are described.

Key learning aims

As a result of reading this paper, the reader should: (1)

Fostering Children and Adolescents' Creative Thinking in Education. Theoretical Model of Drama Pedagogy Training

Drama Pedagogy Training (DPT), as other drama-based pedagogies, has been related to several outcomes, including creativity enhancement. This enhancement is commonly proven through the measurement of different creative processes. In our review we systematize characteristics, activities and techniques of DPT that are assumed to be related to creativity in order to have a more comprehensive framework to identify the specific DPT elements that are involved in the enhancement of some of the creative processes of children and adolescents. To this end, we identified five creative processes in experimental studies using DPT: divergent thinking, fantasy and imagination, associative thinking, symbolization, and problem solving. These processes were cross referenced with DPT characteristics, activities, and techniques that were argued to be related to creativity enhancement. Our review will propose a model with two main categories and six elements as follows: (1) technical drama phases which emphasizes the role of narrative and embodiment through (a) corporal and vocal training and (b) main drama techniques (e.g., storytelling and improvisation and role-play), and (2) psycho-pedagogical framework which emphasizes the role of a dialogic space through (c) playfulness and a (d) collaborative, safe space. We also identified (e) feedback as an important element of DPT which belongs to both drama technical phases and psycho-pedagogical framework categories. Along with the model, we explain the creative outcomes associated to each of these elements as a means to attire the attention to drama-based pedagogies for the development of creativity in the educational setting.

Trust the Process: A New Scientific Outlook on Psychodramatic Spontaneity Training

Human mind is hypothesis-driven and our observations of the world are strongly shaped by preconceptions. This "top-down" principle is biologically driven and contraindicative to spontaneity, which is non-linear, condensed, and initially incomprehensible. My first argument is that spontaneity entails "bottom up" information processing, as articulated in the hierarchical neurocognitive model of perception. My second argument is that changing the balance between these two processes is important and feasible. Insights from psychodynamic transference and savant syndrome are presented to support these ideas. Uniting these contemporary notions with some essentials of J. L. Moreno's philosophy is my third goal. By violating predictions and expectations, psychodrama interferes with top-down "conserved" processing and cultivates here and now, stimulus-dependent spontaneous acts. Further evidence is presented in support of the claim that adult spontaneity leads to enhanced cognition and creativity through imitating the child's brain, as Moreno envisioned. Because spontaneity is formed before having the evidence for its truth or adequacy, it entails, in adults, overcoming apprehensions about acting without a theory in mind. This is what trusting-the-process means and it requires training, which psychodrama fosters on its stage laboratory.

Life-crossroads on stage: integrating life review and drama therapy for older adults

OBJECTIVE

This paper examines the contribution of a new group of therapeutic interventions for older adults, based on a rudimentary life-review intervention. The intervention includes narrative elements together with drama therapy. The current study examines the influence of this therapeutic intervention on key indicators of mental health and psychological well-being among older adults.

METHOD

Fifty-five people (n = 55), ranging in age from 62 to 93, participated in a before-after study design. The following indices - meaning in life, self-acceptance, relationships with others, depressive symptoms, and experience of successful aging - were compared between an intervention group (n = 27) and a care-as-usual control group (n = 28).

RESULTS

Repeated measures analyses of variance showed a significant improvement over time in the experimental group. In addition, results also showed time-group interaction regarding the treatment's effectiveness for self-acceptance, relationships with others, sense of meaning in life, sense of successful aging, and depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSION

Our findings confirm that the new therapeutic intervention, which integrates life-review with drama therapy, increases self-acceptance, relationships with others, sense of meaning in life, and sense of successful aging; in turn, it also decreases depressive symptoms among older adults. The contribution of this research is based on the development of a therapeutic intervention that combines narrative together with drama therapy tools, which can be used in focused and short-term group treatments with the elderly.

The Facilitator's Role in London's Air Ambulance's simulation "moulage" training

OBJECTIVE

This research focused on the facilitator's role in the simulated patient training "moulages" used by London's Air Ambulance (LAA) for their team training. Facilitators are chosen based on their experience and expertise in the field. The aim of this research was to gain insight into the role of moulage facilitator.

METHODS

An ethnographic approach was employed, using the notion of "progressive focusing." Overt observational fieldwork was performed, with the resulting field notes evaluated by content analysis. Semistructured interviews were then conducted with 8 facilitators selected by convenience sampling in order to gain an understanding of the role according to their perspective.

RESULTS

The research revealed the role of the facilitator to be challenging and multifaceted. The moulage process appeared appropriate to its function, and the facilitation methods were largely in accordance with recommended practice outlined in educational literature.

CONCLUSIONS

The London's Air Ambulance moulage facilitators have to prepare trainees for an intense and emotionally demanding job. Their methods are derived from experience, often with a subconscious application of sound educational practice. This research may help the team identify certain areas with scope for further refinement including feedback methods, fidelity, and reducing the burden of multitasking.

Obstruction increases activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus

The right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is involved in intention understanding during interpersonal interactions. To examine how prior experience of cooperation and competition affects one's right IFG activation in the subsequent interaction, using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) we simultaneously measured paired participants' bilateral IFG activations during a turn-taking game. Participant pairs were assigned to either one of two roles: a Builder taking the initial move to copy a target disk-pattern on monitor and the Partner taking the second move to aid in (cooperation) or to obstruct (competition) the Builder. The experiment consisted of two sessions. One participant (B-P) played as a Builder (B-) in session 1 and changed the role to the Partner (-P) in session 2, and vice versa for the paired participant (P-B). NIRS data in competition demonstrated that the Builder (B-) being obstructed in session 1 showed higher right IFG activation when (s)he took a role of obstructor (-P) in session 2 (the obstructed effect), whereas "the cooperated effect" was not revealed in cooperation. These results suggest that prior experience of being obstructed may facilitate understanding of the Builder and/or the obstructor's tactical move, thereby increasing his/her right IFG activation when one is meant to obstruct in subsequent competitions.