Work is a semiotically oriented activity, that is, when working, individuals anticipate aspects of their activity using a network of signs and meanings and project themselves in time with the aim to ...achieve certain goals. This study proposes a discussion on the relationship between purpose and work and distinguishes purpose as objective, related to actions aimed at goals, and purpose as a glimpse or a hyper-generalized sign. Both of these purposes are related to other dimensions of an individual’s relationship, with their work that are not contained in their actions aimed at situated ends. From a methodological viewpoint, the arguments are developed based on the analysis of two fictional characters, inspired by the cultural psychology of semiotic orientation: Sisyphus, extracted from classical literature, and Bartleby, the scrivener of the novel of the same name written by Herman Melville. Based on this analysis, we propose considering the purpose–work relationship on two axes: (1) what articulates sense-meaning in the process of meaning-making, and (2) the axis of action potency and its relationship with the concepts of emptiness and contingency based on a human agent’s experiences in culture. The paper aims to contribute both to the cultural psychology of semiotic orientation and to the literature on the meaning of work.
This paper extends Being-centered and spiritual leadership theory using non-self from the Buddhist philosophy to further our understanding of how inner life functions as the source of spiritual ...leadership. While spiritual leadership theory has received widespread acceptance and considerable empirical support, its developmental process and potential for being used to pursue self-centered ends remain underdeveloped. Drawing on non-self from the Buddhist emptiness theory, we identify different egoistic forms of attachment at each level of being that can lead to forms of suffering in spiritual leadership. Then we show how leaders operating at lower levels of being can fall into the trap of practicing a form of pseudo-spiritual leadership that is overly focused on self-centered or instrumental purposes and economic rationality. We then introduce mechanisms to move beyond pseudo-spiritual leadership practices and discuss implications for future theory, research, and practice.
The article is devoted to an analysis of the terminology used to support a psychiatric diagnosis. Using linguistic approaches, the author draws attention to the presence in psychiatry of semantically ...filled and semantically empty terms that denote certain psychopathological symptoms/signs.
It is concluded that for a number of terms used in the diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, a revision should be revised and those that are vague, ambiguous, not included in international diagnostic systems and recognised as archaic should be removed from the psychiatric lexicon. In particular, we are talking about symptoms such as emasculation of emotions, pretentiousness, paradoxicality, eccentricity, ambivalence.
This paper focuses on the notions and images of the Arab Spring in the novel The Republic of False Truths by the contemporary Egyptian writer Ala'a al-Aswani. The paper primarily analyzes the main ...and secondary characters, as well as the heroes and anti-heroes of the revolution, who are grouped into narrative types, and then structured further into representatives of contemporary collectivities of power. The paper also considers the perspectives of the Arab Spring, the consequences of this uprising on Egyptian society, as well as the phenomena of the overemphasized openness of certain concepts, and the destabilizing significance of the absence in the novel.
Purpose
This study investigates the feeling of emptiness in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and patients with eating disorder (ED) and its relationship with suicidal behaviour and ...childhood traumatic events.
Methodology
One hundred three BPD patients and 107 ED patients were assessed with the Feeling of Emptiness Scale (FES) and the Traumatic Experiences Questionnaire (TQ). Suicidal behaviour was assessed with a specific interview for frequency and intensity of suicidal behaviour.
Results
Significant differences were found between the different factors of the FES between BPD patients and ED patients. A significant relationship was observed between Factors 1 and 4 of the FES and suicidal behaviour scores in both groups. Traumatic experiences were more strongly related to Factors 1, 2 and 4 in BPD patients.
Conclusions
BPD patients and ED patients show similar scores in the global construct of feeling of emptiness. However, results suggest some qualitatively difference between the nature of feeling of emptiness in BPD and in ED. As expected, suicidal behaviour is most frequently in BPD patients, and is significantly associated with Factors 1 and 4 of the FES in both groups. Therefore, feeling of emptiness could be a predictor of suicidal behaviours in patients with emotional and behavioural instability.
Psychiatric patients are affected by diseases and mental symptoms that may worsen their ability to adjust emotionally. Being unable to respond to the emptiness, increases the risk of suicidal ...behaviors.
This study was designed to translate the Experienced Level of Existential Emptiness (ELEE) scale, developed by Hazell in 1984, from the original English into Chinese and then to test its reliability and validity.
This research adopted a cross-sectional design and collected data using convenience sampling and a structured questionnaire. The subjects of this study were psychiatric outpatients in the acute and chronic wards of a psychiatric hospital in Taiwan. The instruments used in this research included a demographic datasheet; the ELEE; the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, version 3; the Beck Depression Inventory-II; the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Y form; and the Oxford Happiness Inventory. After the data were obtained, the reliability and validity of the Chinese-version scale was te
Intersubjectivity refers to one person’s awareness in relation to another person’s awareness. It is key to well-being and human development. From infancy to adulthood, human interactions ceaselessly ...contribute to the flourishing or impairment of intersubjectivity. In this work, we first describe intersubjectivity as a hallmark of quality dyadic processes. Then, using parent-child relationship as an example, we propose a dyadic active inference model to elucidate an inverse relation between stress and intersubjectivity. We postulate that impaired intersubjectivity is a manifestation of underlying problems of deficient relational benevolence, misattributing another person’s intentions (over-mentalizing), and neglecting the effects of one’s own actions on the other person (under-coupling). These problems can exacerbate stress due to excessive variational free energy in a person’s active inference engine when that person feels threatened and holds on to his/her invalid (mis)beliefs. In support of this dyadic model, we briefly describe relevant neuroimaging literature to elucidate brain networks underlying the effects of an intersubjectivity-oriented parenting intervention on parenting stress. Using the active inference dyadic model, we identified critical interventional strategies necessary to rectify these problems and hereby developed a coding system in reference to these strategies. In a theory-guided quantitative review, we used this coding system to code 35 clinical trials of parenting interventions published between 2016 and 2020, based on PubMed database, to predict their efficacy for reducing parenting stress. The results of this theory-guided analysis corroborated our hypothesis that parenting intervention can effectively reduce parenting stress if the intervention is designed to mitigate the problems of deficient relational benevolence, under-coupling, and over-mentalizing. We integrated our work with several dyadic concepts identified in the literature. Finally, inspired by Arya Nagarjuna’s Buddhist Madhyamaka Philosophy, we described abstract expressions of Dependent Origination as a relational worldview to reflect on the normality, impairment, and rehabilitation of intersubjectivity.
We have previously argued that the current borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis is over-inclusive and clinically and conceptually impossible to distinguish from the schizophrenia spectrum ...disorders. This study involves 30 patients clinically diagnosed with BPD as their main diagnosis by three BPD dedicated outpatient treatment facilities in Denmark. The patients underwent a careful and time-consuming psychiatric evaluation involving several senior level clinical psychiatrists and researchers and a comprehensive battery of psychopathological scales. The study found that the vast majority of patients (67% in DSM-5 and 77% in ICD-10) in fact met the criteria for a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, i.e., schizophrenia (20%) or schizotypal (personality) disorder (SPD). The schizophrenia spectrum group scored significantly higher on the level of disorders of core self as measured by the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experiences Scale (EASE). The BPD criterion of “identity disturbance” was significantly correlated with the mean total score of EASE. These findings are discussed in the light of changes from prototypical to polythetic diagnostic systems. We argue that the original prototypes/gestalts informing the creation of BPD and SPD have gone into oblivion during the evolution of polythetic criteria.
A two-dimensional automaton has a read-only input head that moves in four directions on a finite array of cells labeled by symbols of the input alphabet. A three-way two-dimensional automaton is ...prohibited from making upward moves, while a two-way two-dimensional automaton can only move downward and rightward.
We show that the language emptiness problem for unary three-way nondeterministic two-dimensional automata is NP-complete, and is in P for general-alphabet two-way nondeterministic two-dimensional automata. We also show that the language equivalence and inclusion problems for two-way deterministic two-dimensional automata are decidable, while the language universality, equivalence, and inclusion problems for two-way nondeterministic two-dimensional automata are undecidable. The deterministic case is the first known positive decidability result for a language equivalence problem on two-dimensional automata over a general alphabet.
Finally, we discuss the notion of row and column projection languages. We show that the row projection language of a unary three-way nondeterministic two-dimensional automaton is always regular, and that there exists a unary three-way deterministic two-dimensional automaton with a nonregular column projection language. For two-way nondeterministic two-dimensional automata, on the other hand, both the row and column projection languages are always regular.
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