“But man is not made for defeat”: insights into Ernest Hemingway’s dementia

ABSTRACT Ernest Hemingway is widely regarded as one of the greatest fiction writers of all time. During his life, he demonstrated several signs of psychological suffering with gradual worsening and presentation of cognitive issues over his late years. Some of his symptoms and the course of his disease suggest that he might have suffered from an organic neurodegenerative condition that contributed to his decline, which culminated in his suicide in 1961. In this historical note, we discuss diagnostic hypotheses compatible with Hemingway’s illness, in light of biographical reports.

When the Truth Is Out There: Counseling People Who Report Anomalous Experiences

In this paper, we propose a clinical approach to the counseling of distressing subjective paranormal experiences, usually referred to as anomalous or exceptional experiences in the academic field. These experiences are reported by a large part of the population, yet most mental health practitioners have not received a specific training in listening constructively to these experiences. This seems all the more problematic since nearly one person in two find it difficult to integrate such experiences, which can be associated with different forms of psychological suffering. After having described briefly several clinical approaches already developed in this area, we outline the main aspects of clinical practice with people reporting exceptional experiences, in particular the characteristics of the clinician’s attitude toward the narrative of unusual events. We then present the core components of a Psychodynamic Psychotherapy focused on Anomalous Experiences (PPAE) based on three main steps: phenomenological exploration, subjective inscription and subjective integration of the anomalous experience. Such an approach, based on a non-judgmental and open listening, favors the transformation of the ontological shock that often follows the anomalous experiences into a potential source of integration and psychological transformation.

Application of CRISPR/Cas9 in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive and irreversible neurodegenerative disorder clinically characterized by cognitive impairment, abnormal behavior, and social deficits, which is intimately linked with excessive β-amyloid (Aβ) protein deposition along with many other misfolded proteins, neurofibrillary tangles formed by hyperphosphorylated tau protein aggregates, and mitochondrial damage in neurons, leading to neuron loss. Currently, research on the pathological mechanism of AD has been elucidated for decades, still no effective treatment for this complex disease was developed, and the existing therapeutic strategies are extremely erratic, thereby leading to irreversible and progressive cognitive decline in AD patients. Due to gradually mental dyscapacitating of AD patients, AD not only brings serious physical and psychological suffering to patients themselves, but also imposes huge economic burdens on family and society. Accordingly, it is very imperative to recapitulate the progress of gene editing-based precision medicine in the emerging fields. In this review, we will mainly focus on the application of CRISPR/Cas9 technique in the fields of AD research and gene therapy, and summarize the application of CRISPR/Cas9 in the aspects of AD model construction, screening of pathogenic genes, and target therapy. Finally, the development of delivery systems, which is a major challenge that hinders the clinical application of CRISPR/Cas9 technology will also be discussed.

Paths and detours in the trajectory of the Brazilian psychiatric reform

This article looks at the principles and guidelines of the Unified Health System as well as the current situation and the limitations and possibilities of Brazilian mental health policy. Based on a review of national and international government documents and the scientific literature from 2015-2020, the study observed positive advances in mental health. However, the psychiatric reform has experienced setbacks, and the balance of mental health care has swung towards hospital-centered treatment. These changes have impeded the implementation of the Psychosocial Care Network, as well as the development of therapeutic practices and strategies focused on the person’s experience, their daily life and their relations with the health promotion network. By questioning the supremacy of medical-psychiatric knowledge in the treatment of “mental illness” in the public health care system, the psychiatric reform cleared a path for the construction of new ways of addressing psychological suffering. These gains are currently at risk, making a wider debate on the current trends in mental health care in Brazil essential.

IMPACTOS DO CONTEXTO PANDÊMICO NA SAÚDE MENTAL DOS PROFISSIONAIS DA ÁREA DA SAÚDE

The COVID-19 pandemic reflects in an intense and complex way in social, economic and cultural processes globally, also due to its sanitary nature in the work environment, a phenomenon that impacts and can have repercussions on workers' health. The general objective of this article was to analyze the influence that the pandemic scenario has on the mental health of professionals working in the health area, taking into account their work, quality of life and satisfaction with the organization. The methodology selected for the research was descriptive, qualitative, classified as a bibliographic research, in which the following descriptors were applied: satisfaction and quality of life in the work context, selecting academic sources of information that responded to the proposed objectives and that presented in the context of the pandemic. The results point to the fact that teams from healthcare organizations can be more affected in the context of the scenario, such as the nurses' class. It is portrayed that these professionals are doubly affected by the pandemic, in their work environment, while occupying the front line in the fight against the virus, and in their personal life, when they face the effects of social isolation, the absence of schools as partners, financial insecurity and related issues. Thus, it is concluded that the satisfaction and quality of life in the work environment was significantly affected by the pandemic, contributing to the development even psychological suffering in various spheres, including work stress, especially in environments where professionals from health.

A longitudinal model for psychological distress in the COVID-19 crisis among brazilian graduate students

As most evidence for mental health impacts of the COVID-19 crisis is cross-sectional, the present study aimed to analyze the longitudinal development of psychological suffering among 619 Brazilian adults by assessing mental health outcomes and individual factors in two periods: a year before and a month after the break of the pandemic. As major findings, pandemic psychological suffering was directly explained by previous-year suffering, conscientiousness, and pandemic perceived stress, and correlated with pandemic suicidal ideation. Pandemic perceived stress correlated with pandemic psychological distress, and was explained by previous-year suffering, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, as well as by pandemic life satisfaction and perceived pandemic impact. Finally, pandemic suicidal ideation variance was explained by prior ideation and pandemic life satisfaction. These findings are in line with current models of mental health and highlight the importance of integrating both more stable individual factors and more transient variables towards and explanation for mental health outcomes.

Central American Rivers as Sites of Colonial Contestation

In the introduction to Troubled Waters: Rivers in Latin American Imagination (2013), Elizabeth Pettinaroli and Ana María Mutis have argued that rivers in Latin American literature constitute a “locus for the literary exploration of questions of power, identity, resistance, and discontent.” Many works of testimonial literature and literature of resistance written during and about the Central American civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s as a means of denouncing and resisting various forms of oppression would support their thesis. In the 2004 film Innocent Voices, directed by Luis Mandoki, Mario Bencastro’s 1997 story “Había una vez un río,” and Claribel Alegría’s 1983 poem “La mujer del Río Sumpul,” the traumatic events in the protagonists’ lives that occur in and near rivers create an inversion of the conventional use of rivers as symbols of life, purity, innocence, and re-creation by associating them with violence, death, and destruction. At the same time, the river often becomes a metaphor for the wounds of trauma, which allude to the psychological suffering not only of the protagonists, but to the collective pain of their countries torn asunder by war. Arturo Arias’s 2015 novel El precio del consuelo also features a river as the site of state-sponsored violence against rural citizens during the civil war period. In contrast with Bencastro’s and Alegria’s texts, however, Arias’s novel highlights issues of environmental justice related to the use of rivers in Central America that continue to plague the region to date. In the present essay, I argue that these works are compelling representations of the ways in which rivers have become sites of contestation between colonial and decolonial forces in Central America.

Victimisation-by-ingroup Consciousness: Its Antecedents and Impact on Radicalism

This study proposed victimisation-by-ingroup consciousness as a novel concept, which denotes that intragroup violence or wrongdoings by some group members victimise other members of the same group and may elicit sense of physical, material, cultural and psychological sufferings among the victim members. Applying this concept to the context of religious radicalism, this study revealed that among a sample of Indonesian Muslims ( N = 810), the perceptions of physical, material and cultural sufferings positively predicted psychological suffering. This sense of psychological suffering turned out to motivate participants to perceive intragroup violence as illegitimate. This perceived illegitimacy of intragroup violence ultimately facilitated participants to report less emotional, attitudinal and intentional radical tendencies to support terrorists. Finally, we found as expected that Islamic blind patriotism negatively predicted, but constructive Islamic patriotism positively predicted participants’ victimisation-by-ingroup consciousness. These empirical findings broadly suggest that accepting the deficiency of the ingroup may be beneficial for tackling Muslims’ radical tendencies, but this prospect depends on modes of Muslims’ emotional attachment to their own group. We close by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of those empirical findings, as well as limitations and practical implications of this study.