What to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone Who’s Grieving

a post by Linda Carroll for the Tiny Buddha blog



“Remember that there is no magic wand that can take away the pain and grief. The best any of us can do is to be there and be supportive.” ~Marilyn Mendoza

My mother, an articulate and highly accomplished writer, began to lose much of what she valued a few years ago. Her eyesight was compromised by macular degeneration, her hallmark youthful vigor was replaced with exhaustion, and many of her friends began to die. Finally, and cruelest of all, her memory began to go, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed.

Her struggle and her suffering in the last two years of life were excruciating to watch, and I was helpless to stop what felt like an avalanche of cruel losses.

Sometimes in that last year, she would call me several times a day with distress and confusion. When she finally died, after five ambulance trips to the hospital in six weeks, my first response was thankfulness that she was out of the struggle and, to my surprise, relief. I had been grieving the mother I had known for the last year of her life, and she had already been gone a long time.

It would be another month before I found my grief, and I suspect that it will be there forever; but my immediate feeling was not sadness.

Continue reading as Linda shares the comments she found helpful, and, perhaps more importantly, those that she did not.

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Teen Depression Groups on Facebook: A Content Analysis

Bethany I. Lerman, Stephen P. Lewis, Margaret Lumley, Greg J. Grogan, Chloe C. Hudson and Erin Johnson (University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada) published in Journal of Adolescent Research Volume 32 Issue 6 (November 2017)

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most frequently diagnosed disorders in early adolescence and can lead to a multitude of negative life outcomes, highlighting the need for early and effective intervention to mitigate depressive symptoms.

Recognizing the preference of youth to seek informal sources of help for mental health issues, which may include the Internet, the social networking site Facebook was investigated as a potential source of support and help for youth suffering depressive symptoms or disorder.

This study examined the content of online Facebook support groups targeting adolescents with depression. A total of 508 posts from six Facebook groups were analyzed. The majority of post content on these Facebook groups consisted of self-disclosure (32.48%), feedback between posters (24.80%), and offers and recommendations of help (24.61%).

Posters seem to utilize adolescent Facebook depression groups mainly to connect with those who might share a similar experience and to share information about mental health resources.

Future studies should investigate the potential to use the information exchange that occurs in these groups to promote traffic to online and offline evidence-based mental health resources.

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10 for today starts by asking where ideas come from and ends at The Vinyl Factory's Great 78 Project

Short film asks &ldqupo;Where Do Ideas Come From?”
via Boing Boing by Andrea James

David Lynch, Chuck Close, Susan Orlean, and a sampling of others describe the mysteries of inspiration that generate their ideas in this short but sweet film by Andrew Norton.
Continue reading

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Chocolate Can Protect Our Brains
via 3 Quarks Daily: Sheherzad Preisler in OliveOilTimes
A research team based at Italy’s University of L’Aquila have published a new study that says cocoa beans contain high concentrations of flavanols, which are naturally-occurring compounds that can protect our brains. The team, whose findings were published in Frontiers in Nutrition, reviewed current scientific literature in the hopes of finding out if the sustained concentrations of cocoa flavanols found in regular chocolate-eaters had any effect on the brain. What the team found was a breadth of trials in which participants that regularly consumed chocolate processed visual information better and had improved “working memories.” Furthermore, women who consumed cocoa after a sleepless night saw a reversal of negative side effects that come from sleep deprivation, such as compromised task performance. This could be great for those who work particularly stressful jobs that compromise one’s sleep as well as those with recurring sleep issues.
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10 facts about fungi
via OUP Blog by Nicholas P. Money

Featured image credit: close up fungi mushrooms by Pexels. Public domain viaPixabay
Fungi play an important role for a balanced life of flora, fauna, and humans alike. But are they important for us humans, and how are fungi related to animals? Nicholas P. Money, author of Fungi: A Very Short Introduction, tells us 10 things everyone should know about fungi, and the role they play in the world.
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Obsolete technology LEGO kits
via Boing Boing by Rusty Blazenhoff

Chris McVeigh of Halifax, Nova Scotia builds all kinds of cool things with LEGO. Recently, he's been creating kits that showcase obsolete office technology. This particular kit, which he calls "My Old Desktop: DOS Edition 2.0," features a few reminders of the 1980s office, including a rotary-dial desk phone and a beige desk computer that can be partially fed one of the miniature 5.25" floppy disk replicas.
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Ambroise Paré’s medical ‘monsters’
via Wellcome Library blog by Sarah Pipkin
In the collected works of Ambroise Paré (c. 1510–90), first published in French in 1575, a ‘Book of monsters and prodigies’ appears alongside other subjects including the setting of bones, the identification of parasites, and the treatment of wounds. Paré, one of the most important surgeons of the early modern period, evidently considered all these topics to be relevant to barber-surgeons. However his work is tarnished by a well-meaning medical tract that was reinvented into something horrifying.
Continue reading but be warned that the image immediately after the above paragraph can be disturbing.

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When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Mammals Took to the Skies
via 3 Quarks Daily: Carl Zimmer in The New York Times

A fossil of a Maiopatagium, one of two newly discovered species of gliding mammals from China that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs. CreditZhe-Xi Luo/University of Chicago
The Mesozoic Era, from 252 million years ago to 66 million years ago, is often called the Age of Dinosaurs. To generations of paleontologists, early mammals from the period were just tiny nocturnal insect-eaters, trapped in the shadows of leviathans. In recent years, scientists have significantly revised the story. Mammals already had evolved into a staggering range of forms, fossil evidence shows, foreshadowing the diversity of mammals today. In a study published on Wednesday, a team of paleontologists added some particularly fascinating new creatures to the Mesozoic Menagerie. These mammals did not lurk in the shadows of dinosaurs. Instead, they glided far overhead, avoiding predatory dinosaurs on the ground – essentially flying squirrels of the Jurassic Period, from an extinct branch of mammals that probably still laid eggs.
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A Short Analysis of Chidiock Tichborne’s ‘Elegy’
via Interesting Literature
A summary of a famous Elizabethan poem
Chidiock Tichborne was only 24 years old when he was executed in the most horrifically brutal way, by being hanged, drawn, and quartered, for his role in the Catholic Babington Plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I in 1586. Tichborne’s Elegy, which he composed on 19 September 1586 on the eve of his execution and sent to his wife Agnes, remains his most famous poem, and an oft-anthologised example of sixteenth-century English verse. Commonly known as ‘Tichborne’s Elegy’, or by its first line ‘My Prime of Youth is but a Frost of Cares’, the poem is worthy of analysis because of the skill it demonstrates but also, of course, because of the circumstances under which it was composed.
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Is there such a thing as sugar addiction?
Given the choice, lab rats favour sugar over cocaine. Does that mean we are all hopelessly hooked – and what is eating too much sugar doing to our bodies?
via the Guardian by Luisa Dillner

Oh, just the three then … Photograph: Tetra Images/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
It comes in a white, crystalline form and gives us a pleasurable high – but refined sugar is as habit-forming as cocaine or nicotine, according to a review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Animal studies show that sugar is the drug of choice for lab rats which, when given a choice of levers to pull, will switch from cocaine to sucrose in the twitch of a tail.
In evolutionary terms, we worked for our sugar fix by eating honey and ripe fruit. We then stored any surplus energy as fat for the lean times when bison were scarce. Now that sugar is available as highly concentrated sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup – both stripped of nutritional value (minerals and vitamins are lost in the refining process) – we’re hooked.
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Benedictine Dreams (And Some Strange Ideas about Counter-Culture)
via 3 Quarks Daily by Leanne Ogasawara
I admit, the only reason I picked the book up off the shelf was because of the photograph of Mont Saint-Michel on the cover.
Ah, Mont Saint-Michel. We had just returned from the legendary floating island, and I had found myself utterly obsessed by the place. A fairy castle rising up out of the mist and waters of the tidal estuary in northern France, the abbey of Mont Saint Michel is sometimes associated with the ancient Breton myth of the submerged cathedral lying underneath the sea. The myth of the sunken cathedral was the inspiration for Debussy's famous piano prelude, La Cathédrale Engloutie. Debussy often frequented Mont Saint Michel, and while the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel never sinks beneath the sea, it does become inaccessible as it is surrounded by waters twice daily. In days past, completely cut off at high tide by the strongest tidal forces in Europe; those strong currents rush in at incredible speed, "like that of a galloping horse," said Victor Hugo.
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How The Great 78 Project is saving half a million songs from obscurity
via Library Link: Will Pritchard at The Vinyl Factory
When Sir Tim Berners-Lee first put digital pen to pad on his world-altering creation – the World Wide Web – he did so with the aim, as stated on the world’s very first website, of kick-starting an initiative that would “give universal access to a large universe of documents.”
In many ways, non-profit digital library The Internet Archive, with its stated mission of “universal access to all knowledge”, is the natural extension of this founding vision.
One of the latest projects undertaken by the Archive is the Great 78 Project. The brainchild of the Archive’s founder, Brewster Kahle, the project is dedicated to the preservation and discovery of 78rpm records. It involves at least three different organisations, including New York’s Archives of Contemporary Music, George Blood Audio, and of course The Internet Archive, working together to manage, clean, digitise and archive around a thousand records a day.
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Employee share ownership and organisational performance: a tentative opening of the black box

an article by Keith Whitfield (Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK), Andrew Pendleton (University of Durham, Durham, UK), Sukanya Sengupta (Royal Holloway College, University of London, UK) and Katy Huxley, (Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods, Cardiff University, UK) published in Personnel Review Volume 46 Issue 7 (2017)

Abstract

Purpose
A range of studies have shown that performance is typically higher in organisations with employee share ownership (ESO) schemes in place. Many possible causal mechanisms explaining this relationship have been suggested. These include a reduction in labour turnover, synergies with other forms of productivity-enhancing communication and participation schemes, and synergies with employer-provided training. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper empirically assesses these potential linkages using data from the 2004 and 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, and provides comparisons with earlier analyses conducted on the 1990 and 1998 versions of the survey.

Findings
Substantial differences are found between the 2004 and 2011 results: a positive relationship between ESO and workplace productivity and financial performance, observed in 2004, is no longer present in 2011. In both years, ESO is found to have no clear relationship with labour turnover, and there is no significant association between turnover and performance. There is, however, a positive moderating relationship with downward communication schemes in 2004 and in 2011 in the case of labour productivity. There is no corresponding relationship for upward involvement schemes.

Research limitations/implications
The results are only partially supportive of extant theory and its various predictions, and the relationship between ESO and performance seems to have weakened over time.

Originality/value
The study further questions the rhetoric offered in support of wider ESO.

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Mad or Bad? Does mental illness make you a danger to others?

a post by Jared Watson for the Mind and Soul blog

In the wake of a number of terrorist atrocities and mass shootings we can find ourselves asking the question: 'Why would someone commit such a terrible crime and cause so much misery and suffering?' – In fact this has became a major focus of media coverage.

A range of public opinions are often expressed in the media and it is surprising how many of them associate with mental illness. Following the Las Vegas shooting their opinions on the shooter’s behaviour was variously described as “deranged”, “disturbed”, “insane”, “demented”, “sick” and “pure evil”. While these responses were emotive and ‘off-the-cuff’ I believe the language used highlights a broader public perception and negative stereotype: that there is a strong link between violence and mental illness and that people who suffer with mental illness are likely to be dangerous.

Progress has been made in reducing the negative perception of individuals with mental illness. Unfortunately, the public response to events such as the Las Vegas shooting highlight the persistence these negative attitudes. The assumption of dangerousness in those with mental disorder is a real part of this problem. Not only does this represent another source of shame for those already stigmatized by mental disorder it also creates social distance – based on fear – from those who are alienated and isolated.

Continue reading

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The King of Christmas

A new [in 2016]Christmas poem by Carol Ann Duffy
Illustrations by Lara Hawthorne
from the Guardian


No more will I say: this you have to read for yourself.

Link here

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Designing computer-based rewards with and for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Intellectual Disability

an article by Aurora Constantin and Denise Lengyel (University of Bath, Department of Computer Science, UK) and Hilary Johnson, Elizabeth Smith and Mark Brosnan (University of Bath, Department of Psychology, UK) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 75 (October 2017)

Highlights

• Children with ASD and/or ID appreciate rewards within digital educational platforms.
• Reward topics are consistent across children groups.
• There are individual differences in the specific instances of preferred rewards.
• Children would like rewards that reflect their progression during tasks.
• Children with ASD and/or ID can be included in the design research.

Abstract

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to have an affinity for digital technologies, often preferring computer-assisted learning to human-assisted learning. Many children with ASD are also diagnosed with Intellectual Disabilities (ID), yet design studies involving children with ASD and ID are scarce.

Rewards can have a positive impact on children's learning and motivation, but little is known about the nature and impact of rewards for children with ASD, and/or ID. Digital technologies are well placed to provide task-based rewards, and in combination with a better understanding of the reward preferences of children with ASD and/or ID this has significant potential to enhance learning.

This paper presents two robust participatory design (PD) studies involving children with:
i) ASD;
ii) ID; and
iii) both ASD and ID.

The studies aimed to identify:
i) the reward preferences of children with ASD and/or ID (RQ1) and
ii) how rewards might develop throughout a task as the child progresses (RQ2).

Results revealed a number of reward categories that were common to all children, as well as children's preferences for how rewards could develop as they progress through computer-based tasks, for the first time. Original implications for designing computer-based rewards embedded within digital intervention/educational technologies for children with ASD and/or ID, are discussed.

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