Resilience and well-being

Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Brown

Resilience and well-being are relatively new to public health and psychiatry, and the research that underpins the concepts is often found in the publications of other disciplines—psychology, neuroscience, physiology, and philosophy. This chapter argues, using ideas from a range of disciplines, that resilience and well-being are integrally linked in that resilience is a product, a marker, and a developer of mental well-being. A level of well-being commensurate with a particular challenge enables a resilient response, and by enabling development in the face of the challenge, resilience enhances well-being. Both resilience and well-being are developmental and the key to successful development is a sensitive, attuned, and trusting relationship, which conditions the self-regulation response. Approaches to enhancing resilience and well-being are therefore very similar. They start with relational support in infancy and childhood, and carry on throughout the life course, with activities and programmes that support the development of self–regulation.

Author(s):  
Laurie McManus

Brahms in the Priesthood of Art: Gender and Art Religion in the Nineteenth-Century German Musical Imagination explores the intersection of gender, art religion (Kunstreligion), and other aesthetic currents in Brahms reception of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, it focuses on the theme of the self-sacrificing musician devoted to his art, or “priest of music,” with its quasi-mystical and German Romantic implications of purity seemingly at odds with the lived reality of Brahms’s bourgeois existence. While such German Romantic notions of art religion informed the thinking on musical purity and performance, after the failed socio-political revolutions of 1848/49, and in the face of scientific developments, the very concept of musical priesthood was questioned as outmoded. Furthermore, its essential gender ambiguity, accommodating such performing mothers as Clara Schumann and Amalie Joachim, could explain why Brahms never married while leaving the composer open to speculation about his health and masculinity. Supportive critics combined elements of masculine and feminine values with a muddled rhetoric of prophets, messiahs, martyrs, and other art-religious stereotypes to account for the special status of Brahms and his circle. Detractors tended to locate these stereotypes in more modern, fin-de-siècle psychological frameworks that scrutinized the composer’s physical and mental well-being. In analyzing these receptions side by side, this book revises the accepted image of Brahms, recovering lost ambiguities in his reception. It resituates him not only in a romanticized priesthood of art but also within the cultural and gendered discourses overlooked by the absolute music paradigm.


Author(s):  
Israel Escudero-Castillo ◽  
Fco. Javier Mato-Díaz ◽  
Ana Rodriguez-Alvarez

As a consequence of the Spring 2020 lockdown that occurred in Spain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people lost their jobs or had to be furloughed. The objective of this study is to analyse the influence of the latter changes in labour market status on psychological well-being. For this purpose, an ad-hoc questionnaire featuring socio-demographic and mental health criteria was created. Granted that the pandemic can be viewed as an exogenous shock, the bias caused by the bidirectional problems between the work situation and mental well-being can be tackled. Results indicate that the lockdown exerted a greater negative effect on the self-perceived well-being of unemployed and furloughed persons than on those in employment. Moreover, among those in continuous employment, teleworkers experienced a lesser degree of self-perceived well-being post lockdown as compared to those people remaining in the same work location throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, the lockdown provoked worse effects on the self-perceived well-being of women as compared to men, a result that appears to be related to gender differences in household production. In conclusion, these results could be especially relevant given that the evolution of the pandemic is having ongoing effects on employment and, therefore, on the mental health of workers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 073401682095770
Author(s):  
Kate Kelly ◽  
Nai Soto ◽  
Nadi Damond Wisseh ◽  
Shaina A. Clerget

Although often left out of public health efforts and policy decisions, prisons, jails, and detention centers are integral to community health. With an average of 650,000 citizens returning home from prison each year in the United States, and thousands of correctional staff members returning home every night, there are millions of touchpoints between outside communities and carceral settings. For this reason, carceral communities should be central to planning and policy making in response to the spread of the COVID-19 illness. As social workers and clinicians, we are urgently concerned that efforts to prevent COVID-19 infections in prisons are underdeveloped and inadequate in the face of a fast-spreading virus. In this commentary, we outline a set of public health, policy, and clinical recommendations based upon the existing literature to mitigate various risks to the well-being of carceral communities.


Author(s):  
P. Sevostianov

 The article is devoted to the substructures of the personal component of individual experience research. In the framework of theoretical analysis, the structural organization of individual experience is reviewed. The author's position consists in sticking to the O.M. Laktionov three-component model of the experience. During the theoretical analysis contemporary studies devoted to the study of individual experience are reviewed. Several substructures of the personal component of individual experience, that require attentive study, are defined. The self-concept notion is analyzed. For the first time, an analysis of the features of relationship between the feeling of self-concept well-being and the personal experience substructures are presented. The analysis, described in this article, is a continuation of the research, which devoted to the study of self-concept in the framework of the structure of the students` personal component of individual experience, during which on the basis of analysis the substructures of personal experience formation features the self-concept profiles were received. Four self-concept profiles were taken into consideration out of the results of the study: the "Conflict profile": persons for whom the simultaneous inclusion of the prosperous and problematic types of self-perception is inherent; "Prosperous profile": persons for whom the prosperous self-concept perception, that combines with low level of problem self-concept perception, is inherent; "Tendency to well-being": persons who are characterized by the tendency to decrease the negative evaluation of their self-concept, having the average indicators of their self-concept well-being; "Tendency to conflict": individuals, who are characterized by average indicators of their self-concept perception in a problematic context in a tendency to decrease the assessment of their self-concept well-being. Directly in the course of the work, described in the article, a comparative analysis of students with different profiles was performed, that was based on the degree of representation of individual experience personal component substructures. The comparison was made using the rank criterion of Kruskal-Wallis. During the comparison, the following results were obtained: for the students with different self-concept profiles was not revealed any differences in the indicators of self-esteem, neuroticism, extraversion, cooperation, conscientiousness, planning self-regulation, self-regulation flexibility, goal purpose in life orientation, and such values as conformance, traditions, kindness, universality and security. Openness to experience, modeling, results estimation, independence, general level of self-regulation, process and result orientation, locus of control myself, general life meaningfulness and independence as a value were the most expressive for students with a prosperous self-concept profile, and the least expressive – for students with a conflict profile and profile with a tendency to conflict. Programming, as well as the stimulation, achievement and power values were the most expressive for the students with a tendency to a prosperous self-perception. The locus of life control and hedonism as the value was found the most expressive among the students with a tendency to a conflict in their own self-perception; the least expressive it was for students with a prosperous profile.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley H Curtis ◽  
Laura M Dember ◽  
Miguel A Vazquez ◽  
David Murray ◽  
Lynn DeBar ◽  
...  

While conducting a set of large-scale multi-site pragmatic clinical trials involving high-impact public health issues such as end-stage renal disease, opioid use, and colorectal cancer, there were substantial changes to both policies and guidelines relevant to the trials. These external changes gave rise to unexpected challenges for the trials, including decisions regarding how to respond to new clinical practice guidelines, increased difficulty in implementing trial interventions, achieving separation between treatment groups, and differential responses across sites. In this article, we describe these challenges and the approaches used to address them. When deliberating appropriate action in the face of external changes during a pragmatic clinical trial, we recommend considering the well-being of the participants, clinical equipoise, and the strength and quality of the evidence associated with the change; involving those charged with data and safety monitoring; and where possible, planning for potential external changes as the trial is being designed. Any solution must balance the primary obligation to protect the well-being of participants with the secondary obligation to protect the integrity of the trial in order to gain meaningful answers to important public health questions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Rodrigues ◽  
K Nicholson ◽  
P Wilk ◽  
G Guaiana ◽  
S Stranges ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Global studies have demonstrated consistent associations between sleep problems and mental health and well-being in older adults, however Canadian data are lacking. We investigated associations between sleep quantity and quality with both mental illness symptoms and well-being among older adults in Canada. Methods We used cross-sectional baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, a national survey of 30,097 community-dwelling adults aged 45 years and older. Self-reported sleep measures included average past-week sleep duration (short [<6h], normal [6-8h], long [>8h]), and sleep quality (satisfied or dissatisfied vs neutral). Mental illness outcomes included depressive symptoms and psychological distress. Mental well-being outcomes included self-rated mental health and satisfaction with life. We used modified Poisson regression models with adjustment for sociodemographic, behavioural, and clinical factors, and stratification by sex and age to explore effect modification. Results In the unadjusted analysis, short and long sleep duration and sleep dissatisfaction were associated with higher mental illness symptoms and lower well-being across all outcomes. Sleep satisfaction was associated with a lower likelihood of mental illness symptoms and better well-being. Short sleep duration was associated with the largest effects on mental health outcomes. Self-rated mental health and depressive symptoms had the largest associations with sleep measures. Effects were larger in males and the 45 to 54 year age group. Conclusions Preliminary evidence suggests sleep duration and quality are associated with symptoms of depression, psychological distress, and poor mental well-being among older adults. We are unable to determine whether sleep problems are a cause or consequence of poor mental health. Nonetheless, sleep may be an important target for public health initiatives to improve mental health and well-being among older adults. Key messages Our findings contribute further evidence that sleep difficulties are associated with adverse health outcomes including higher mental illness symptoms and lower well-being among older adults. Sleep disturbances are an unmet public health problem, and may be an important target for public health initiatives to improve mental health and well-being among older adults.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-518
Author(s):  
Sammia Poveda ◽  
Melinda Gill ◽  
Don Rodney Junio ◽  
Hannah Thinyane ◽  
Vanessa Catan

Purpose This paper aims to explore how stable employment, company culture and tailored health, digital and core skills training provided by a social enterprise (SE) in the Philippines affect survivors of exploitation. Research shows survivors experience adverse social conditions and physical and mental health outcomes caused by their exploitative experience. Stable, decent employment has been identified as critical to their recovery and reintegration. This paper discusses the SE’s impact on the employees’ physical, mental and social health and behaviour. Based on our findings, the authors discuss the contribution of SE in improving health outcomes and providing health services and conclude that SEs should not replace but complement public health government programmes. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses mixed methods, presenting data from a longitudinal survey (household income, mental health and social well-being) and a follow-up qualitative study, which uses in-depth interviews and participatory videos to explore survey findings. Findings The quantitative analysis demonstrates positive, but gradual, changes in sexual and reproductive health behaviour; personal empowerment; and trauma, anxiety and depressive symptoms. The qualitative findings show how improvements in executive functioning, self-regulation and self-esteem occur incrementally over time. As their self-efficacy improves, employees need to avoid being overly dependent on the SE, to support their autonomy; therefore, access to complementary public health services is fundamental. Originality/value This paper focusses, to the authors’ knowledge, on a unique SE, which hires survivors of exploitation, without losing their competitiveness in the market.


1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Carey ◽  
J. P. Fry

Although mental well-being has long been accepted as an important aspect of animal welfare, the subjective feelings of farm or laboratory animals are regarded as lying beyond the scope of scientific enquiry. We now report that pharmacological conditioning of pigs with a drug, pentylenetetrazole, known to induce anxiety in man, permits investigation of the presence or absence of this psychological state during exposure to a variety of environmental stimuli encountered during normal husbandry. Such pharmacological conditioning therefore provides a valuable means to assess and improve elements of animal welfare and should be applicable to other species that show operant behaviour.


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