Diasporic Identity in Contemporary Sinophone Literature: The Role of Language and Cultural Elements

Amidst the contemporary diasporic landscape in Sinophone literature, this research critically examines the nexus of language, culture, and identity. The study aims to analyze literary pieces composed in Sinophone languages across diverse diasporic communities and uncover the impact of language and cultural elements on the articulation and comprehension of diasporic identity. This paper used the following. comparative and typological research, an in-depth analysis of three Sinophonic texts, and contextual analysis. The subject of the study was three texts: The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan), Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie), and The Woman Warrior (Maxine Hong Kingston). The results showed that In The Joy Luck Club, language and cultural facets unveil the characters' dual identity struggles due to living abroad, exemplified through code-switching's psychological tension. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress utilizes language and cultural details to underscore the significance of preserving heritage within the diaspora, with literary allusions amplifying this endeavor. In The Woman Warrior, language and cultural elements reflect the heroine's inner conflict as she navigates her dual cultural allegiance. This scholarly revelation deepens comprehension of how these aspects influence identity formation in the diaspora. These findings broaden the understanding of Sinophone diasporic literature, spotlighting shared trends in identity portrayal through language and culture. The research has theoretical value for literary, cultural, and anthropological studies and practical significance, potentially informing educational initiatives on diasporic literature and cultural diversity. This study's outcomes hold relevance for students, researchers, and cultural scholars exploring the role of language and culture in diasporic identity expression.

Lysosome identity crisis: Phosphoinositides and mTORC1 negotiate lysosomal behavior

Ebner et al.1 discovered a nutrient-dependent molecular feedback circuit that employs mTORC1, lipid kinases, and phosphatases to generate phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate [PI(3)P] or phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate [PI(4)P] in a mutually exclusive manner on lysosomes, which respectively convert lysosomes into organelles that support anabolism or catabolism.

Who am I? The identity crisis of mental health professionals living with mental illness

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Large numbers of mental health professionals live with their own mental health challenges. Despite working in mental health care, they can experience stigma in the workplace. Mental health professionals with lived experience of mental illness can find it a challenge to integrate their identities as both mental health professional and mental health service user. There are currently limited options available to them. WHAT THE PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: This is a personal reflection from a mental health nurse and lecturer, who lives with a severe and enduring mental illness. It offers a lived experience account of the identity struggles of a mental health professional living with a mental illness. This article attempts to redefine the identity of professionals with personal lived experience in a more positive manner. They can be valued and celebrated for their unique perspective on mental illness and mental health care. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: There remains a stigma attached to people living with mental health conditions. This article challenges some of this stigma. It will empower and encourage other health professionals with lived experience to embrace all aspects of their identity with authenticity and courage. ABSTRACT: There are growing numbers of mental health professionals with their own lived experience of mental illness. This is both in part due to increased visibility and openness, and students embarking on professional courses motivated by their own personal mental health history. The somewhat limited research in this area highlights the difficulty practitioners have in navigating this distinct identity. There are limited options, including a wounded healer, an impaired professional and professional survivor. All have their limitations. We need to revise the conceptualisation of mental health professionals with personal lived experience of mental illness. Our identity needs to be celebrated and valued, as are the roles of peer support worker and expert by experience. Through personal reflection, I describe my own challenges in negotiating my identity as a mental health nurse, lecturer, and service user. My solution is to embrace authenticity and have the courage to stand in vulnerability and strength, embracing all aspects of myself. I call for others to do the same.

Psychotherapy's identity crisis: opening reflections on the historiographies of psychotherapies

This article introduces the work of the transcultural histories of psychotherapies network. Reflecting on the comparative lack of work here, it traces psychotherapies' identity crisis, focussing on nodal points such as the rise of the term, failed attempts to unify the field from Forel to Jung, and the rise of outcome studies. Finally, it situates histories of psychotherapies within the context of adjacent fields: the relation of the history of psychotherapy to the history of science, to Freud studies, to the history of religion and religious studies, to intellectual history, to the history of psychiatry, to the history of medicine, and its place within cultural history.

Senescence: An Identity Crisis Originating from Deep Within the Nucleus

Cellular senescence is implicated in a wide range of physiological and pathological conditions throughout an organism's entire lifetime. In particular, it has become evident that senescence plays a causative role in aging and age-associated disorders. This is not due simply to the loss of function of senescent cells. Instead, the substantial alterations of the cellular activities of senescent cells, especially the array of secretory factors, impact the surrounding tissues or even entire organisms. Such non-cell-autonomous functionality is largely coordinated by tissue-specific genes, constituting a cell fate-determining state. Senescence can be viewed as a gain-of-function phenotype or a process of cell identity shift. Cellular functionality or lineage-specific gene expression is tightly linked to the cell type-specific epigenetic landscape, reinforcing the heterogeneity of senescence across cell types. Here, we aim to define the senescence cellular functionality and epigenetic features that may contribute to the gain-of-function phenotype.

Overcoming Past Perceptions and a Profession-Wide Identity Crisis to Reflect Pharmacy's Future

The profession of pharmacy has come to encompass myriad identities, including apothecary, dispenser, merchandiser, expert advisor, and health care provider. While these identities have changed over time, the responsibilities and scope of practice have not evolved to keep up with the goals of the profession and the level of education of practicing pharmacists in the United States. By assuming that the roles of the aforementioned identities involve both product-centric and patient-centric responsibilities, our true professional identity is unclear, which can be linked to the prevalence of the impostor phenomenon within the profession. For pharmacy to truly move forward, a unified definition for the profession is needed by either letting go of past identities or separating these identities from each other by altering standards within professional degree programs and practice models. Without substantial changes to the way we approach this challenge as a profession, the problems described will only persist and deepen.

The identity crisis of ecological diversity

Developing the ecological scientist mindset among underrepresented students in ecology fields (Bowser and Cid, this Forum) provides timely and compelling strategies to broaden inclusion in ecology and environmental biology. Chronic underrepresentation of minorities in ecology and environmental disciplines (EE) is a crisis that is surprising to many, and even more surprising that, for African-Americans, this underrepresentation is more severe compared to other STEM disciplines. It is beyond irony that a discipline that values diversity as a cornerstone of ecological practice continues to struggle to achieve diversity in the ranks of its practitioners.

Attachment processes following traumatic loss: A mediation model examining identity distress, shattered assumptions, prolonged grief, and posttraumatic growth

OBJECTIVE

Sudden or violent death of a loved one poses unique challenges for the bereaved. Research has found such losses to be associated with higher levels of chronic psychological distress. The present study explored underlying mechanisms and risk and protective factors for both prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth, considering both human and divine attachment.

METHOD

In a mixed college and community sample of 374 traumatically bereaved adults, we examined associations between adult attachment to close others, adult attachment to God, identity distress, and shattered assumptions with the outcome variables of prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth.

RESULTS

Correlations indicate that religious individuals' attachment patterns in close adult relationships were partially mirrored in their relationship with God. Regression analyses indicate a curvilinear relationship between prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth. Path analyses indicate significant associations between insecure attachment strategies and prolonged grief symptoms through the mediators of identity distress and shattered assumptions. Specifically, attachment anxiety in relation to close others and God, and attachment avoidance in relation to close others, were indirectly associated with prolonged grief. Attachment avoidance in relation to God was negatively associated with prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth, but there was no evidence for mediation.

CONCLUSION

Faced with the traumatic loss of a loved one, the ability and desire to effectively access relationships facilitating emotional processing and cognitive reorganization is predicated on survivors' internal working model of attachment. These results inform the assessment and treatment of individuals bereaved through sudden or violent means. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Narrative Study of the Significance of Infertility and Its Treatment for Maternal Identity

OBJECTIVE

To explore how women who experienced infertility and underwent fertility treatments constructed maternal identities after they successfully gave birth.

DESIGN

Narrative qualitative study.

SETTING

Finland, Scandinavia.

PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-six previously infertile Finnish women who later conceived were recruited via social media, health clinics, and relevant informal support organizations.

METHODS

Narrative analysis was used to process written accounts and individual episodic interviews with each of the 26 women.

RESULTS

Four different identity stories emerged from the data: Fractured Maternity, Pursuing Maternity, Learning Maternity, and Discovering Maternity. Infertility, its treatment, and childbirth were narrated as turning points in the participants' life courses, but the significance of these turning points for maternal identity varied across the four stories.

CONCLUSION

These findings have important implications for nursing practice. Health care professionals should be aware of the effects of previous long-standing infertility on the subsequent experience of motherhood so they can provide women with understanding, sufficient support, and appropriate interventions throughout the transition to motherhood.

Extracellular polymeric substances of biofilms: Suffering from an identity crisis

Microbial biofilms can be both cause and cure to a range of emerging societal problems including antimicrobial tolerance, water sanitation, water scarcity and pollution. The identities of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) responsible for the establishment and function of biofilms are poorly understood. The lack of information on the chemical and physical identities of EPS limits the potential to rationally engineer biofilm processes, and impedes progress within the water and wastewater sector towards a circular economy and resource recovery. Here, a multidisciplinary roadmap for addressing this EPS identity crisis is proposed. This involves improved EPS extraction and characterization methodologies, cross-referencing between model biofilms and full-scale biofilm systems, and functional description of isolated EPS with in situ techniques (e.g. microscopy) coupled with genomics, proteomics and glycomics. The current extraction and spectrophotometric characterization methods, often based on the principle not to compromise the integrity of the microbial cells, should be critically assessed, and more comprehensive methods for recovery and characterization of EPS need to be developed.

[Pain and disease as a transformation. An analysis from phenomenology and narration]

Pain and disease are life experiences difficult to be understood due to different reasons: they both fall under subjective limits; the sufferer feels imprisoned in his own pain and perceives a radical rupture within himself, and the sufferer feels he is alone to himself, unable to communicate. All these reasons explain that suffering is a transforming element in life. In modern scientific medicine, regarding the treatment of pain, the physiological approach is the preponderant one. Therefore, other intrinsic dimensions of the person, like the psychic, the spiritual, the relational or the identity are not viewed as detrimental. This is an oversimplification of the reality which implies that the person is treated as an object. This can be interpreted as an attempt to the dignity of the person. This paper is aimed to contribute to a broader understanding of pain and a better patient care. The author lays out the results of combining two different approaches of pain: the story that a writer invents about his own pain and the phenomenological analysis of Toombs and Carel. Four eidetic categories of pain are presented in this paper: the otherness, the metamorphosis and the identity crisis, the placement in the present time and the loneliness and loss of relations. As a conclusion, this paper gives a definition of disease that includes the previous four elements. Moreover, it proposes the ways of narration and expression as a complement to the pharmacological treatment in order to healing and care.

A canine identity crisis: Genetic breed heritage testing of shelter dogs

Previous research in animal shelters has determined the breeds of dogs living in shelters by their visual appearance; however the genetic breed testing of such dogs is seldom conducted, and few studies have compared the breed labels assigned by shelter staff to the results of this testing. In the largest sampling of shelter dogs’ breed identities to-date, 459 dogs at Arizona Animal Welfare League & SPCA (AAWL) in Phoenix, Arizona, and 460 dogs at San Diego Humane Society & SPCA (SDHS) in San Diego, California, were genetically tested using a commercially available product to determine their breed heritage. In our sample, genetic analyses identified 125 distinct breeds with 91 breeds present at both shelters, and 4.9% of the dogs identified as purebreds. The three most common breed signatures, in order of prevalence, American Staffordshire Terrier, Chihuahua, and Poodle, accounted for 42.5% or all breed identifications at the great grandparent level. During their stay at the shelter, dogs with pit bull-type ancestries waited longer to be adopted than other dogs. When we compared shelter breed assignment as determined by visual appearance to that of genetic testing, staff at SDHS was able to successfully match at least one breed in the genetic heritage of 67.7% of dogs tested; however their agreement fell to 10.4% when asked to identify more than one breed. Lastly, we found that as the number of pit bull-type relatives in a dog’s heritage increased, so did the shelter’s ability to match the results of DNA analysis. In total when we consider the complexity of shelter dog breed heritage and the failure to identify multiple breeds based on visual identification coupled with our inability to predict how these breeds then interact within an individual dog, we believe that focusing resources on communicating the physical and behavioral characteristics of shelter dogs would best support adoption efforts.

Incorporation of an invasive object

The author discusses the experience of 'being invaded' that is sometimes communicated by certain severely disturbed patients. The complaint can sometimes be couched in terms of bodily suffering and such patients may state that they have the experience of a 'foreign body' inside. It is suggested that these patients have suffered severe early failure of containment of their projections, while at the same time they have incorporated primitive characteristics of the object that have been powerfully projected into them. An object that invades in this way, it is suggested, experiences a compulsive need to expel unbearable states of mind using others as a repository. The infant incorporates these violent projections as part of his own mental representational system, and normal identification processes are disrupted. There follows impairment of the development of the sense of self. Clinical examples of how the invasive experience manifests itself in the analytic setting and in the transference and countertransference are presented. It is argued that this highly complex form of early subject-object interaction (prior to the differentiation of psyche-soma) is more likely to be found in severely narcissistically disturbed individuals. Some reflections on the origins of invasive phenomena are given.

The centrality of affective instability and identity in Borderline Personality Disorder: Evidence from network analysis

We argue that the series of traits characterizing Borderline Personality Disorder samples do not weigh equally. In this regard, we believe that network approaches employed recently in Personality and Psychopathology research to provide information about the differential relationships among symptoms would be useful to test our claim. To our knowledge, this approach has never been applied to personality disorders. We applied network analysis to the nine Borderline Personality Disorder traits to explore their relationships in two samples drawn from university students and clinical populations (N = 1317 and N = 96, respectively). We used the Fused Graphical Lasso, a technique that allows estimating networks from different populations separately while considering their similarities and differences. Moreover, we examined centrality indices to determine the relative importance of each symptom in each network. The general structure of the two networks was very similar in the two samples, although some differences were detected. Results indicate the centrality of mainly affective instability, identity, and effort to avoid abandonment aspects in Borderline Personality Disorder. Results are consistent with the new DSM Alternative Model for Personality Disorders. We discuss them in terms of implications for therapy.

[Jihadi radicalisation, legal definitions and reference points]

Since the terrorist threat has become part of daily life in France, two terms are systematically used in the public debate: radicalisation and deradicalisation. It is essential to understand exactly what these words encompass, and to know the legal framework associated with them, in order to limit all sorts of interpretations which serve to add to the confusion related to the current context.

[Terrorism, youth, ideals and paranoia]

Adolescence is a period of initiation during which individuals learn to free themselves from the hold of their impulses. Fanaticism prevents this process: the subject regresses into a paranoid-type sectarian and murderous way of functioning. The fanaticism of the adolescent could thereby be related to a distorted spiritual search for his or her purpose.

Identity: Recent Findings and Clinical Implications

After a review of foundational contributions to the concept of identity, including Erikson's, the author discusses the research methods and findings of the Personality Disorders Institute of the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University regarding the concepts of normal identity and identity diffusion, toward an elucidation of the psychopathology of personality disorders--their etiology, diagnosis, and treatment. The application of an object relations theory model to analyze the development of identity clarifies the relationship of individual identity with the social and cultural frame that influences identity formation and may amplify the effects of pathological identity development. Detailed excerpts are presented from a diagnostic structural interview at the Personality Disorders Institute.

The Aging Work Force—Helping Employees Navigate Midlife

The baby-boom generation is aging and workplace demographics are changing. Employees in this age group are now middle-aged. Occupational health nurses are in a unique position to guide these individuals through decisions that can affect the years ahead. Individuals in midlife may experience both physical and psychological changes, including changing physical appearance, decreased stamina, loss of family or friends, and altered vision. In the workplace, annual assessments can include evaluations to address normal changes, personal expectations, and needed support, counseling, or referrals. Middle-aged men and women are at a predictable turning point in life that offers an opportunity for growth. Education in the workplace can assist these individuals as they adjust to changes in relationships, make health care decisions, and plan for retirement.

Identity Processes and Statuses in Patients with and without Eating Disorders

Problems with identity formation are associated with a range of psychiatric disorders. Yet, the mechanisms underlying such problems and how they are refined into specific diagnostic presentations require further investigation. The present study investigated identity processes among 123 women with eating disorders (ED) and age-matched community controls via a newly developed identity model. Several clinical outcome variables were assessed. Patients with ED scored lower on committing to and identifying with identity-related choices and scored higher on maladaptive or ruminative exploration, identity diffusion and identity disorder. They also experienced less identity achievement as compared with controls. The identity disorder status was associated with the highest scores on anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder symptoms, and non-suicidal self-injury and the lowest scores on need satisfaction. Results indicate that patients with ED experience more identity problems than community controls and those captured by an identity disorder status experience the most problematic psychosocial functioning. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Assimilating South African medical students trained in Cuba into the South African medical education system: reflections from an identity perspective

BACKGROUND

In terms of the Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro Medical Collaboration programme, an agreement between the governments of South Africa and Cuba, cohorts of South African students receive their initial five years medical training at a Cuban university before returning to South Africa for a six to twelve months orientation before integration into the local final year class. It is common for these students to experience academic difficulty on their return. Frequently this is viewed merely as a matter of a knowledge deficit.

DISCUSSION

We argue that the problem arises from a fundamental divergence in the outcomes of the Cuban and South African medical curricula, each of which is designed with a particular healthcare system in mind. Using the discrepancy theory of identity proposed by Higgins in 1987, we discuss the challenges experienced by the returning Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro Medical Collaboration students in terms of a potential crisis of identity and suggest interventions which may prove valuable in promoting academic success and successful integration.

CONCLUSIONS

Though providing additional training to address the gap in skills and knowledge in returning students is an important part of their successful reintegration, this could be insufficient on its own and must be complemented by a range of measures designed to ameliorate the discrepancies in identity which arise from the transition from one educational model to another.

``Struggling with life'': Narratives from women with signs of postpartum depression

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore and describe how Swedish women with signs of postpartum depression two months postpartum experience the first months with their child. Method: A grounded theory approach was chosen. Twenty-two women who showed signs of depression, i.e. scored 10 or more on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), were interviewed at an average of 80 days after the delivery. Results: The new mothers were struggling with life related to the self, the child, and the partner. They expressed feelings of loss of who they are, felt overwhelmed by the responsibility for the child, and were struggling with feelings of abandonment, worries, and breastfeeding problems. They often felt like ``bad mothers'' but they never blamed the child. Most mothers were reluctant to speak about their feelings and they assigned their depressed mood to personal weakness rather than illness. In relationship to the partner the mothers were struggling to keep their equality in the new situation and to get him involved in childcare. Conclusions: The findings suggest that depressed feelings postpartum may be explained in terms of losses and changes. However, postpartum depressive symptoms remain hidden and it is important to understand the complexity of postpartum depressive mood, described here as struggling with life related to three different dimensions: the self, the child, and the partner.

Construction and initial validation of the Multiracial Experiences Measure (MEM)

This article describes the development and validation of the Multiracial Experiences Measure (MEM): a new measure that assesses uniquely racialized risks and resiliencies experienced by individuals of mixed racial heritage. Across 2 studies, there was evidence for the validation of the 25-item MEM with 5 subscales including Shifting Expressions, Perceived Racial Ambiguity, Creating Third Space, Multicultural Engagement, and Multiracial Discrimination. The 5-subscale structure of the MEM was supported by a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Evidence of criterion-related validity was partially supported with MEM subscales correlating with measures of racial diversity in one's social network, color-blind racial attitude, psychological distress, and identity conflict. Evidence of discriminant validity was supported with MEM subscales not correlating with impression management. Implications for future research and suggestions for utilization of the MEM in clinical practice with multiracial adults are discussed.

Occupational identity crisis of professionals dealing with difficult adolescents

This study tests the hypothesis of vulnerability in health and social care professionals dealing with difficult adolescents. This vulnerability appears to be underpinned by an occupational identity crisis that seems to diminish the ability of these professionals to recognize the suffering of these adolescents. A questionnaire was developed and then distributed during a network day bringing together members of various institutions and bodies working with difficult adolescents. Ninety-three professionals responded. Occupational identity weaknesses were identified: inadequate basic training, experiences of solitude, feelings of powerlessness and exposure, inadequate personal and institutional resources. Actors involved express their need for inter-institutional and inter-sectoral network but find it uneasy to implement. Some changes can be recommended to reduce this occupational identity crisis: increased efforts towards continuing training, development of possibilities of reflection within institutions, and more structured partnerships and actions.

[Religious conversion, psychological construction and holy violence]

The adolescent process is the theatre for the confrontation of oneself with the formation of identity, the learning of limits and psychological compromises as attempts at psychological regulation. Religious radicalisation appears on stage, offering ways of responding to anxieties fuelled by the global socio-political context. Adolescent vulnerability is studied through the prism of all these different conflicting tensions.

Suicide in adolescence: attempt to cure a crisis, but also the fatal outcome of certain pathologies

BACKGROUND

Teen suicide is an alarming public health issue. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the reasons behind attempting/committing suicide. Our research focuses on adolescent psychopathology and on pathologies that are considered as adolescent suicide risk factors.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

We conducted literature-based research. The first part of this research was based on adolescent psychopathological traits, whilst the second concentrated on the most frequently made diagnoses in the case of adolescents who had attempted suicide.

RESULTS

Adolescence is a period of life characterized by great instability, where everything is called into question. We can observe a high propensity towards taking action, which allows the adolescent to bypass certain questions that they cannot answer. This takes place against a background where the body, which is undergoing change, becomes the scene, the means and the purpose to answer these questions, once and for all, through suicide. Notwithstanding, the studies also show that, setting aside these psychopathological considerations that characterize every adolescent, certain diagnoses are commonly related to adolescent suicide and, as such, constitute risk factors. These pathologies are as follows: depression, adjustment disorder and personality disorder. We can, however, include some precisions as regards the frequency of these diagnoses, given that adolescence is inherently a period of life characterized by depression and that the future adult is obliged to adjust.

CONCLUSIONS

Teen suicide is, therefore, conditioned by pathological behaviour, which is part of a necessary and normal transition, but one which is occasionally stimulated by certain pathological instabilities.

Initial development of the Coach Identity Prominence Scale: a role identity model perspective

The focus of this multiphase research was to generate and test the psychometric parameters of the Coach Identity Prominence Scale (CIPS). First, a pilot study was conducted with context (n = 10) and construct (n = 6) specialists, who evaluated the technical quality and content validity of 20 items developed from semistructured interviews. Thirteen items were selected for Study 1, which tested the factorial validity and reliability scores of coaches' (n = 343) responses to the CIPS items. An eight-item structure, consisting of two factors (centrality and evaluative emotions) was selected as the final CIPS measure, which was examined with a final sample of coaches (n = 454) in Study 2 to evaluate the factorial validity, group invariance, concurrent validity, and nomological validity of respondents' scores to the CIPS. Initial evidence for the various types of validity and reliability tested across the studies was provided.

[Difficult teenagers: the challenges of interdisciplinarity]

The adolescents in great distress, because of ruptures in the course of their lives and of their chaotic family environment, need educational and social actions. The consensual point of view is that responding to the needs of the so called "difficult adolescents" implies the involvement of educational, therapeutic and judicial services. Nevertheless, the usual tendency to categorize the users with the idea it will permit to guide them to the appropriate skill field and the transgressive characteristic of these adolescents' behaviours lead all these services to reject them and send them to the two other services.

[Changes in adolescence and changes in care]

Adolescence is a period renowned for giving rise to changes, the outcome of which is unknown or uncertain. It is necessary to take into account the malaise, resulting from a problem of intersubjectivity and social bonds. Excesses of individualism as a response to the weakness of the being are conveyed by risk-taking behaviour. Caregivers must stay on course, not be discouraged and favour creative approaches, either individually or in a team.

[Partnership around difficult teenagers in Brest]

The issues surrounding difficult teenagers results in professionals formalising a partnership. Certain areas of focus are identified such as getting to know each other better in order to understand each other better, working in a "common language", understanding professional identities, or embracing long term partnership. Pressure to assess and rationalise spending, as well as political challenges, must be taken into consideration.

An experiential, game-theoretic pedagogy for sustainability ethics

The wicked problems that constitute sustainability require students to learn a different set of ethical skills than is ordinarily required by professional ethics. The focus for sustainability ethics must be redirected towards: (1) reasoning rather than rules, and (2) groups rather than individuals. This need for a different skill set presents several pedagogical challenges to traditional programs of ethics education that emphasize abstraction and reflection at the expense of experimentation and experience. This paper describes a novel pedagogy of sustainability ethics that is based on noncooperative, game-theoretic problems that cause students to confront two salient questions: "What are my obligations to others?" and "What am I willing to risk in my own well-being to meet those obligations?" In comparison to traditional professional ethics education, the game-based pedagogy moves the learning experience from: passive to active, apathetic to emotionally invested, narratively closed to experimentally open, and from predictable to surprising. In the context of game play, where players must make decisions that can adversely impact classmates, students typically discover a significant gap between their moral aspirations and their moral actions. When the games are delivered sequentially as part of a full course in Sustainability Ethics, students may experience a moral identity crisis as they reflect upon the incongruity of their self-understanding and their behavior. Repeated play allows students to reconcile this discrepancy through group deliberation that coordinates individual decisions to achieve collective outcomes. It is our experience that students gradually progress through increased levels of group tacit knowledge as they encounter increasingly complex game situations.

Identity disturbance in distant patients

Chronically distant, emotionally isolated patients often present with identity disturbance. Identity, it is argued, develops as a thematic pattern of narcissism, shaped by the nature of the mother's early libidinal influences on the child's sense of self. Identity provides a form of self-definition that addresses the question, Who am I? In the treatment of these patients, resistances to narcissistic vulnerabilities (narcissistic resistances) provide an illusory sense of security and induce the analyst to avoid attention to a central pathological problem: primitive and frightening needs for, and unconscious fantasies of, dependence on, and functionality for, another. Patients' avoidance of material and therapeutic interactions that deal with their dependencies are aspects of a tacit contract with the analyst to foreclose examination of their considerable problems with inner stability. Among these problems are anxieties regarding intrusion and loss of separateness. As analysis proceeds, elements of such a patient's identity become clarified and are used to understand and organize the material for both analyst and patient. This can allow the patient to articulate a more embodied and vital experience of individuality. A case is presented to illustrate the analysis of a patient using this approach.

Young women's management of victim and survivor identities

Images of child sexual abuse survivors have been strongly mediated by professional and self-help ideologies that espouse 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' responses to trauma. Drawing on interviews taken with five self-identified survivors of child sexual abuse, this paper maps the impact of psychological and popular discourses on victim/survivor identities and, in particular, the centrality of themes such as disclosure and 'healing' in accounts from survivors. Investment in these particular versions of recovery has operated to shift the focus of the survivor movement away from its political beginnings, such that private healing has replaced public discontent. As the excerpts from survivors in this paper suggest, the language commonly captured in both therapeutic and popular accounts of trauma may guide and delimit the subject positions available to survivors. Utilising the concept of 'wounded attachment', this paper identifies some of the outcomes associated with internalised notions of healing for survivors, as well as the dilemmas that might be impeding disclosure.

[Being a nursing home resident--a challenge for one's identity]

When entering the nursing home, elderly people are afraid of losing their independence and identity. That is why the entry into a nursing home turns out be a critical experience for the people affected. A systematic literature research on this topic illustrates that the impacts of a nursing home entry on the identity of these people have only scarcely been investigated so far. In the present study, 20 problem-centred interviews with residents of three different nursing homes were conducted and analysed according to the summarizing content analysis developed by Mayring (2007). The result shows that moving into a nursing home is accompanied by a strong emotional burden as these people have to leave behind their friends, families, pets, long-time neighbours and property. Moreover, other residents of the nursing home create fear through their need of care. The test persons participating in the present study do not want to have their decisions and actions imposed from outside because of their need of nursing care. They protest against it. They draw enough strength from the social network they maintain, from conversations and from their faith in order to fight for their independence. They develop a new identity close to their former identity by maintaining autonomy and mobility, and they stay future-oriented.

Resurrecting the buried self: fairy tales and the analytic encounter

The author uses the lens of myth and fairy tales to examine the narratives generated by the analytic experience. Fairy tales are understood as representing fundamental developmental conflicts, accounting for their enduring power over time. The analytic encounter is seen as an analogue of the fairy tale in which the hidden self, damaged by loss and abandonment, reemerges only through the redemptive power of [an] other's love. Clinical material is presented in which hidden parts of the patient's self are projected into the analyst for safekeeping; these hidden parts resonate with the analyst's own lost, unrealized potential and form an intersubjective experience which the author believes is transformative. The patient's dormant powers emerge in a newly experienced atmosphere of recognition, and in this way, the analytic encounter resembles the fairy tale in providing an identificatory bond and a protective space for the patient's hidden vitality.

[A young girl with an inconsistent identity]

Lola experiences herself as "too beautiful" and attemps to invest a body that she ignores, the meaning of which she gauges only through the adornment. In her quest of men that might teach her being as a woman, this teenager ends up loosing herself. Lola acts "as if" in placing herself in the posture of object of the mother or object of men.

[An adapted relational approach to hospitalised adolescents]

The treatment of an adolescent hospitalised in paediatrics often poses difficulties. The relational aspect of the nurse's work in this period of development between childhood and adulthood remains delicate in a context of institutionalisation. What is the interaction between the relational approach and the adolescent's experience of hospitalisation in paediatrics?

[The treatment of depression in adolescents, a multi-layered challenge]

BACKGROUND

It is generally accepted that the clinical-psychotherapeutic treatment of severely depressed adolescents is a difficult and complicated undertaking.

AIM

To gain insight into the various factors, often present simultaneously, which block or undermine the adolescent development phase of separation-individuation and lead to depression, and to find out how the situation can be remedied.

METHOD

The multi-layered hypothesis is developed with the help of case-material and takes exogenous as well as endogenous factors into account.

RESULTS

The investigation has demonstrated that in the treatment of depressed adolescents every possible factor needs to be taken into account if a long-lasting result is to be achieved.

CONCLUSION

This result is not surprising in view of the crucial developmental stage involved which is focused on the formation of identity. This developmental process cannot be consolidated until all the necessary elements have fallen into place.

[Does trauma help teenagers to "grow up"?]

Traumatic events may give rise to invalidating and chronic situations of distress. The concept of post-traumatic growth suggests that trauma may help people who have experienced it to mature and make positive changes in their lives, especially teenagers. This concept and its limits deserve to be studied in greater depth.

Moral agency, identity crisis and mental health: an anthropologist's plight and his Hmong ritual healing

During anthropological fieldwork, the author had a serious accident on the outskirts of a Hmong village in the highland of Laos. However, this dramatic incident turned out to be the occasion of his ritual initiation into the local village community. An analysis of narratives of the incident reveals Hmong conceptions of the anthropologist's physical, mental and moral affliction, its causative concomitants and his ritual healing. Hmong mental health and identity are situated in a moral space of exchange relationships to significant others, challenging basic assumptions of concepts of the person widely held in psychiatry and beyond. The healing ritual transformed the author's being from indeterminate "other," in a life-threatening state of identity crisis, to a wholesome Hmong "self," in a state of health and moral agency. This exemplary rite de passage highlights the affinity of ritual healing and constitution of self in a moral space. The underlying relational concept of the person is in sharp contrast to psychiatry's concepts of the person, which are deeply shaped by values of individualism. Psychiatric services must accommodate substantial differences in the concepts of the person when treating Hmong migrants from Laos.

The body as a simulacrum of identity: the subjective experience in the eating disorders

This study aims at better understanding the subjective experience, the so-called Erlebnis, in individuals diagnosed with Eating Disorders (ED). We shall highlight the particular way in which people with such disorders perceive their own bodies and specifically how they perceive their bodies in the presence of other people. To this end we shall analyze the subjective experience by means of two concepts as described by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: "body-self" and "body-forothers". Our hypothesis is that some people suffering from eating disorders, especially those with a diagnosis of Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS), experience their body mainly as body-for-others. Rather than a diagnostic category, EDNOS could be conceived as an anthropological configuration vulnerable to ED. Eating disorders appear as an "identity disorder" characterized by a suspension of the experiential polarity between self and other-than-self.