BACKGROUND:Perinatal depression is reported in 15-20% of women (Marcus, 2009), 8-16% of men (Paulson and Bazemore, 2010) and low-SES, diverse populations are particularly at risk (Sareen, 2011). Trauma symptoms are commonly comorbid with depression, especially when individuals are exposed to risk factors such as community violence and poverty (Kastello et al., 2015; WenzGross et al., 2016). Parental mental illness places infants at risk for negative outcomes (Junge et al., 2016). Evidence supports that dispositional mindfulness is linked to mental health in many populations, however, a gap lies in the understanding of the relationship between mindfulness, trauma and depression in risk-exposed, pregnant populations, especially with fathers. We hypothesize that dispositional mindfulness is negatively associated with lower depression and trauma symptoms in pregnancy, in mothers and fathers.
METHODS:
Dispositional mindfulness, depressive and trauma symptoms were examined in women and men, exposed to adversity who were expecting a baby (N = 102). Independent t-tests, and bivariate correlations examined the relationships between these variables. Hierarchical regression was utilized to understand how mindfulness and trauma symptoms may contribute to antenatal depression symptoms.
RESULTS:
Significant differences were observed with mindfulness and depressive symptoms, with no differences reported across gender. Mindfulness, depressive and trauma symptoms were associated in the expected directions. Total mindfulness, specifically being non-reactive to one's own thoughts and trauma symptoms predicted depressive symptoms.
LIMITATIONS:
Limitations include small sample size, cross-sectional data and self-report measures.
CONCLUSION:
Mindfulness and trauma symptoms were found to be significant predictors of depressive symptoms in parents-to-be. Those with lower mindfulness exhibited higher levels of depression. These findings may be helpful in disseminated mindfulness-based interventions aimed at treating antenatal depression in both expectant mothers and fathers who are exposed to adversity. Further research is necessary to understand the mechanisms of mindfulness in risk-exposed, expectant parents.
BACKGROUND:Perinatal depression is reported in 15-20% of women (Marcus, 2009), 8-16% of men (Paulson and Bazemore, 2010) and low-SES, diverse populations are particularly at risk (Sareen, 2011). Trauma symptoms are commonly comorbid with depression, especially when individuals are exposed to risk factors such as community violence and poverty (Kastello et al., 2015; WenzGross et al., 2016). Parental mental illness places infants at risk for negative outcomes (Junge et al., 2016). Evidence supports that dispositional mindfulness is linked to mental health in many populations, however, a gap lies in the understanding of the relationship between mindfulness, trauma and depression in risk-exposed, pregnant populations, especially with fathers. We hypothesize that dispositional mindfulness is negatively associated with lower depression and trauma symptoms in pregnancy, in mothers and fathers.
METHODS:
Dispositional mindfulness, depressive and trauma symptoms were examined in women and men, exposed to adversity who were expecting a baby (N = 102). Independent t-tests, and bivariate correlations examined the relationships between these variables. Hierarchical regression was utilized to understand how mindfulness and trauma symptoms may contribute to antenatal depression symptoms.
RESULTS:
Significant differences were observed with mindfulness and depressive symptoms, with no differences reported across gender. Mindfulness, depressive and trauma symptoms were associated in the expected directions. Total mindfulness, specifically being non-reactive to one's own thoughts and trauma symptoms predicted depressive symptoms.
LIMITATIONS:
Limitations include small sample size, cross-sectional data and self-report measures.
CONCLUSION:
Mindfulness and trauma symptoms were found to be significant predictors of depressive symptoms in parents-to-be. Those with lower mindfulness exhibited higher levels of depression. These findings may be helpful in disseminated mindfulness-based interventions aimed at treating antenatal depression in both expectant mothers and fathers who are exposed to adversity. Further research is necessary to understand the mechanisms of mindfulness in risk-exposed, expectant parents.
The purpose of this project is to research the effectiveness of a condensed and modified social and emotional (SEL) learning curricula based on the Strong Kids 3-5 (Merrell, 2007a) materials. The goal is to provide school communities and teams (teachers, school psychologists, principals, and other school-based mental health providers) with an evidence-based, condensed SEL curricula that is easy to administer and still effectively targets key social and emotional learning skills. This goal will be met by researching SEL curriculums and garnering feedback from a pilot study to develop a condensed, modified curriculum that addresses the five core SEL competencies. In addition to addressing these core competencies and condensing the lessons, this project will also increase the opportunity for students to learn the concepts via hands-on activities, thereby aiding student learning and practice. The six-week modified group SEL curriculum is created for school psychologists and special education program specialists to utilize at their school sites. Also provided as part of the project are the following materials: Parental consent form (English and Spanish versions), child assent form (English and Spanish versions), Strong Kids Symptoms test, Strong Kids Knowledge test, and informal pre- and post- test qualitative teacher feedback form. Genre/Form: Academic theses.
Background and Objectives: Affect tolerance factors, including anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and emotional distress tolerance, have been implicated in the exacerbation of health anxiety. Therefore, identifying methods to improve affect tolerance in health anxious populations is imperative. Despite the link between mindfulness and greater affect tolerance in non-clinical populations, no work has examined the role of mindfulness skills in terms of affect tolerance among individuals with elevated health anxiety. The aim of the current study was to examine the unique contribution of mindfulness skills in terms of distress tolerance, anxiety sensitivity, and intolerance of uncertainty.Methods: Participants were 218 undergraduates with clinically elevated levels of health anxiety (75.7% female; Mage = 19.53, SD = 3.16, Range = 18–45) who completed self-report measures for course credit.Results: Findings indicated that, after controlling for theoretically relevant covariates, greater acting with awareness, non-judgment, and non-reactivity were uniquely associated with greater distress tolerance, and greater non-reactivity was associated with lower levels of intolerance of uncertainty. Though none of the mindfulness skills emerged as specific individual predictors of anxiety sensitivity, these skills collectively accounted for unique variance in anxiety sensitivity.Conclusions: These findings suggest that mindfulness skills may be helpful in targeting affect tolerance factors among individuals with elevated health anxiety.
<p><strong>Creator's Description</strong>: This article examines a relatively recent (1974) inscription from a Ma ṇi gdung 'khor lha khang near U rgyan phug, Bhutan, and connects it to a much older site in Lho brag, Tibet – the La yag Gu ru lha khang of Gu ru chos kyi dbang phyug (1212-1270). The relationship exists due to the efforts of two men, a father and son, both of whom are sacred artisans. The father, Slob dpon chos grags (1889-1967), was commissioned to perform renovations at La yag in the mid 1940s and, in 1949, upon his return to Bhutan, brought both texts and relics of Gu ru chos dbang out with him from Tibet. The son, master (slob dpon) u rgyan 'gyur med bstan 'dzin, is currently one of the preeminent sacred artists in Bhutan; he created the Ma ṇi gdung 'khor lha khang at U rgyan phug when he was twenty-four years old. The inscription within the temple details his motivations, the construction process, and the sacred relics installed therein. (2013-07-01)</p>
Health anxiety is characterized by the misinterpretation of body sensations as signs of an illness, leading to health-related worry and increased healthcare utilization. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of severe health anxiety, yet mechanisms of this association remain unexplored. Therefore, the present investigation sought to examine the indirect effect of mindfulness on health anxiety through intolerance of uncertainty (IU) or fear of the unknown. Undergraduate psychology students completed a series of online self-report measures for course credit. Bias-corrected bootstrapping (k = 10,000 samples) was used to generate a 95 % confidence interval to test the significance of the indirect effect. There was a significant indirect effect of greater levels of mindfulness on lower levels of health anxiety through decreases in intolerance of uncertainty. Higher levels of mindfulness may lead internal experiences to be perceived as less threatening, thereby increasing one’s ability to tolerate uncertainty and decreasing the need to worry and engage in safety behaviors that maintain health anxiety.
Here I establish my focus and rhetorical approach—literature as persuasive. Foremost, this chapter lays out the scientific but also cultural, theoretical, and religious contexts for the literary texts discussed in subsequent chapters. I provide definitions of anthropocentrism and its alternatives (“soft” anthropocentrism, ecocentrism); show my work’s relationship with the Anthropocene; comment on some of the implications of my research for the growing field of posthumanist studies; discuss the relationship of the works I discuss with scientific predictions of human extinction; and comment on popular conceptions of the apocalypse in popular culture and in Western religions.
Within the last half century, our agriculture and food has changed more than it has changed before in several thousand years. New technologies and scientific ingenuity have given rise to genetically modified organisms (GMO) and other novel foods. Some people have raised concerns about the safety of GMOs in our food supply, given their incredible dominance in the majority of our diet. Traditional,...
We examined coping self-efficacy as one potential mediator of the relationship between four specific mindfulness skills (observing, describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment) and emotion regulation difficulties. Participants were 180 undergraduate students (M age = 21.13; 71 % female; 82 % Caucasian) who completed self-report measures for course credit. Pearson correlations, independent samples t test, and ANOVAs were used to examine bivariate relationships between study variables. Simple mediation was examined in a path analysis framework by testing the indirect effect of mindfulness skills on emotion regulation difficulties through coping self-efficacy. Results indicated that a greater use of describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment were associated with greater coping self-efficacy, and coping self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between each of those skills and emotion regulation difficulties (indirect effects: b weight = −0.26 to −0.29, p < 0.01). The mindfulness skill of observing was not related to coping self-efficacy or emotion regulation difficulties. Findings suggest that coping self-efficacy partially explains the relationships between mindfulness and emotion regulation difficulties. Clinicians administering mindfulness-based interventions should be aware of the role of coping self-efficacy in the relationship between mindfulness and emotion regulation.
<b>Publisher's Description</b>: This volume focuses upon the relationships between the past and the present evoked in Tibetan historiography, ritual literature, and Buddhist esoteric writings. It offers diverse perspectives on a critical period in Tibet's history when Tibetans found themselves caught up in the tides of political turmoil and forced into the center of a much larger Central Eurasian struggle for power and territorial control between the Manchu rulers of the Qing empire and the Mongols of the north. The volume highlights the various ways Tibetan historians, biographers, and Buddhist scholars during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries succeeded in the task of reinventing and reinforcing their respective traditions.
<b>Publisher's Description:</b> This volume focuses upon the relationships between the past and the present evoked in Tibetan historiography, ritual literature, and Buddhist esoteric writings. It offers diverse perspectives on a critical period in Tibet's history when Tibetans found themselves caught up in the tides of political turmoil and forced into the center of a much larger Central Eurasian struggle for power and territorial control between the Manchu rulers of the Qing empire and the Mongols of the north. The volume highlights the various ways Tibetan historians, biographers, and Buddhist scholars during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries succeeded in the task of reinventing and reinforcing their respective traditions.
<p>Bryan Phillips provides an in-depth review of Alexander Studholme's <em>The Origins of Oṁ Maṇipadme Hūṁ</em>. (Ben Deitle 2006-08-09)</p>
<p>Bryan Cuevas provides an in-depth review of Per K. Sørensen and Guntram Hazod, with Tsering Gyalbo, <em>Thundering Falcon: An Inquiry into the History and Cult of Khra 'brug, Tibet's First Buddhist Temple</em>. (Steven Weinberger 2007-12-16)</p>
<p>Bryan Cuevas provides an in-depth review of by Per K. Sørensen et al., <em>Rulers on the Celestial Plain: Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet. A Study of Tshal Gung-thang</em> (Bill McGrath 2009-03-30).</p>
BACKGROUND:The aim of the current study was to examine the associations between the specific mindfulness skills of observing, describing, awareness, nonjudgment, and nonreactivity in terms of anxiety sensitivity (AS), distress tolerance (DT), and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) among college students with problematic alcohol use.
METHODS:
Participants were 202 (69.3% male; Mage = 18.96, SD = 2.24, range = 18-45 years) undergraduate college students with problematic alcohol use who completed self-report measures for course credit.
RESULTS:
Results indicated that after controlling for the effects of gender, smoking status, marijuana use status, and negative affectivity, greater use of the mindfulness skill of observing was associated with higher AS, greater describing was associated with lower AS and higher DT, greater nonjudgment was associated with lower AS and IU and higher DT, and greater nonreactivity was associated with increased DT. Awareness did not significantly predict any of the examined risk factors.
CONCLUSIONS:
These results suggest that specific mindfulness skills are associated with a greater tolerance of physiological, emotional, and uncertain states. An important next step will be to examine whether mindfulness skills are associated with decreased problematic alcohol use due to improvements in these anxiety-related risk factors.
Using the iterative process of action research, we identify six portals of understanding, called threshold concepts, which can be used as curricular guideposts to disrupt the socially constituted separation, and hierarchy, between humans and the more-than-human. The threshold concepts identified in this study provide focal points for a curriculum in transformative sustainability learning which (1) acknowledges non-human agency; and (2) recognizes that the capacity to work with multiple ways of knowing is required to effectively engage in the process of sustainability knowledge creation. These concepts are: there are different ways of knowing; we can communicate with non-human nature and non-human nature can communicate with us; knowing is relational; transrational intuition and embodied knowing are valuable and valid ways of knowing; worldview is the lens through which we view reality; and the power of dominant beliefs (represented in discourse) supports and/or undermines particular ways of knowing and being as in/valid.
For over 30 years, researchers have studied the social-emotional side of learning disabilities (LD). This article highlights the science-based research on three domains of social skills of children with LD: characteristics, interventions, and the impact of policy. The article concludes with concerns regarding the translation of research on social-emotional factors into practice and the likelihood that social-emotional problems are being adequately addressed in public schools.
A fun-filled adventure that infuses children with an eco-conscious message. Two unique stories, Save the Whale and Condor Trek, engage a child's imagination through storytelling. Kids learn yoga postures by becoming a part of the story and imitating animals. By connecting with nature and gaining respect for their own health and well-being, children become empowered to create solutions for the health and sustainability of our planet.
<p>What can we expect in 2016 from the intersection of technology and education? Here I'd like to identify trends from 2015 which seem likely to persist or grow over the next year. I'm building on pr...</p>
<p>Comprehensive bibliography on death and dying in Buddhist countries, including Tibet.</p>
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