Anger

This time on the podcast we talked about anger. How can we be with anger and use it to help us to hold our boundaries and mobilize us towards justice? And how can we avoid reacting out of it in ways that manifest as aggression, violence, or hatred (whether turned inwards towards ourselves or outwards towards other people)?


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After a check-in about the situations which we – ourselves – are currently feeling anger about, we started by delineating between ‘non-reactive’ and ‘reactive’ anger…
Anger and reactivity

Non-reactive anger refers to being with the energy of the angry feeling but not acting out of it in ways that hurt us (repressing) or others (reacting). Reactive anger is when we react directly – often quickly – out of the angry feeling. Paradoxically, such a reaction is often an attempt to avoid really feeling the anger (or other tough emotions). If we can learn to feel safe-enough to stay with the anger, and allow the experience, we may well be less likely to engage in reactive anger responses.

Pretty much all conflict advice suggests taking time out in the first rush of anger, or when angry feelings are intense or overwhelming. We’re likely to be reactive at such times and it is best to refrain from doing anything out of it for 20-60 minutes at least, like pressing ‘send’ on that email! This gives an opportunity to return from our sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic one, if we can manage not to escalate or stoke the anger by rehearsing stories about the situation.


Staying with anger

The feeling of anger – like all feelings – is valid and vital. If we try to avoid feeling anger – or attempt to eradicate our capacity for anger – then we’ll damage ourselves and our capacity to feel other emotions as well. This is well depicted in the film Inside Out. When we can feel all emotions then we’re able to flow through them more easily. When we only allow some we can become stuck in certain states, or cut off entirely. There’s more on how to stay with feelings in MJ’s zine on the topic, and our podcast here.

The risk of avoiding or eradicating anger is that it becomes cast out of us and ends up being turned back in on ourselves like some external voice who is angry at us. This is one way of understanding what’s been called the inner critic.

Without the capacity to be angry outwards we may well struggle to hold our boundaries, either letting people walk over us, or hiding behind brittle barriers, or swinging between the two extremes. We may also struggle so much with shame, inner criticism, and self-hatred that other people’s anger with us becomes unbearable, because it feels like it confirms those harsh and toxic beliefs we have about ourselves. This is part of why it’s important to embrace our inner critic and do the work of learning how to stay with feelings of anger-in and anger-out without reacting to avoid or eradicate them. Not that this is easy of course.
Anger and trauma

Reactive anger-in and anger-out can map onto the common trauma responses of fawn and flight, which can be seen as two ends of a spectrum. Those whose childhood survival strategy was fawn, or people-pleasing, often do whatever they can to ensure that people around them will not be angry with them (either in hot raging or cold withdrawing ways). Those whose childhood survival strategy was fight, tend to blame, override, and belittle others. Both are strategies which attempt to control others’ behaviours whether by objectifying yourself or objectifying them.

It can be useful to develop whichever of these strategies comes less habitually to you in order to get more intentional and bring them into more of a balance. Again becoming able to tolerate anger, shame, and other feelings can make it less likely that we’ll act out of our trauma responses.
Being with anger

So the aim with anger, as with all tough feelings, is to learn how to notice it and be with it, rather than repressing it or instantly acting out of it in a reactive way. It can be good to make it our business to really get to know it, and to practice giving it space and warm attention at the ‘flicker’ stage, before it becomes a flame or fire. The aim here is not to get rid of anger – or any other feeling – but rather to be with it as part of the whole of our experience, and to act from it – if and when we do – in ways that are compassionate and respectful both towards ourselves and others (not overriding one for the other).

Check out our ‘make your own user guides’ at our Publications page. Work zines with ideas and activities to help you with your relationships and sex lives. Just £2.50 for an instant download.

Under these circumstances anger has vital functions in helping us to clearly discern when we are being harmed, to hold our boundaries to protect ourselves, and to prevent that from continuing. It also helps us to see injustice on a wider scale, from feeling our own experiences. The energy of the anger can then be channelled into non-violent movements towards change.
Anger as a resource for fighting injustice

Audre Lorde’s essay on the uses of anger is a helpful resource to help us to use anger precisely, as a form of energy that we can tap into for empowerment and fighting injustice. She also speaks about how guilt and fear can block us from experiencing and expressing our anger, and how important it is to address this so we can fight injustice alongside each other as a symphony rather than a cacophony ‘We have to learn to orchestrate those furies so that they do not tear us apart’.

Anger is vital in all contexts where marginalised people are required to take on the burden of the shame of their oppressors. When people speak out about oppression or abuse, the culturally normative response is: denial that it even happened, minimisation of its impact, victim blame, and defending oneself against any culpability. Now the marginalised person – or survivor – bears the weight of both what they went through, and this reaction. In a gaslighting move, they now have to carry the shame of the oppressor or perpetrator, as well as the pain of the initial experience. Seeing how the most marginalised are scapegoated and shamed in this way can ignite our anger in ways that can drive movements for justice as we’ve seen with #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo.
Intersectionality and anger

An intersectional understanding is important here also, because race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, survivor status, etc. all influence who is and is not comfortable around their own – and others’ – anger, and who has access to different modes of expressing anger. For example, #BlackLivesMatter highlights the huge dangers black men face if they express any anger towards authority, and how they may be assumed to be threatening – and killed for it – even if they don’t.

Members of most marginalised groups are easily dismissed as ‘the angry black person, trans person, lesbian, working class person, etc.’ if they speak out about oppression. People frequently respond with anger back towards those who have named oppression, rather than towards the oppression itself, for example being more angry at being labelled racist than at racism itself.

Survivors of all kinds of abuse, and disabled people, may have very real reasons to be highly fearful of anger in others, given what this has meant for them in the past, or how dependent they may be on that person for their survival.

Men are frequently socialised to express no emotions except anger, while women are frequently socialised to be pleasing to others and to hide any anger. However, such socialisation can manifest in different ways from person to person. For example, a boy who was encouraged – but always failed – to be ‘tough’ may struggle to be angry or assertive. A girl who survived by joining the ‘mean girls’ may default to anger and bullying. Class, culture – and other intersections – also have a part to play with anger being a more-or-less accepted part of masculinity or femininity in different places and different communities.

A discussion of your intersections and early survival strategies in relation to anger could be a great relationship conversation to have, to help guide who you develop relationships with and what containers you create for those relationships.
Anger, shame, and kindness

Getting in touch with our anger can be an antidote to the shame we’ve been burdened with, helping us to focus anger outwards towards unjust systems, rather than inwards towards ourselves. It can also help us to find compassion for all of us who are caught up in these oppressive systems and dynamics, which can help when these things play out in our interpersonal relationships. While people often see anger and kindness as polar opposites, we’d suggest that it’s possible – even vital – to find our way towards angry kindness and kind anger.

Resources

In addition to the Audre Lorde essay, we’d recommend:Pema Chodron on how to stay with anger with patience, refraining from reacting.
Judith Butler on rage and non-violence.

© Meg-John Barker and Justin Hancock, 2020

SOURCE:

https://megjohnandjustin.com/you/anger/(accessed 30.6.22)

Fans of horror movies are just as kind and compassionate as everyone else

By Matthew Warren

What kind of person wants to watch a movie where a boatload of people gets gruesomely cut in half by a wire, or where a man saws off his own foot to escape the sadistic games of a serial killer? You’d have to be pretty coldhearted and cruel to enjoy that kind of thing, right?

That’s certainly how horror fans have historically been portrayed, at least by some commentators. But a new study finds no evidence for this stereotype. Fans of horror films are just as kind and compassionate as everyone else, according to the preprint published on PsyArXiv — and in some respects may be more so.

First, Coltan Scrivner from Aarhus University examined whether people really do believe that horror fans lack empathy or compassion. He asked 201 participants to view a series of profiles which each presented information about a person, including their age, name, and favourite genre of movie: action, comedy, drama, or horror. Participants had to judge how kind, empathetic, and compassionate each person was.

Participants did indeed see horror fans in a more negative light: they rated these people as significantly less kind than comedy, drama or action fans, and less empathetic and compassionate than comedy or drama fans.

Scrivner then set out to see whether there was any truth to this stereotype. A new group of 244 participants rated the extent to which they enjoyed five sub-genres of horror film: gore/splatter, monster, paranormal, psychological, and slasher. They also completed measures of cognitive empathy (which is about understanding what another person is feeling) and affective empathy (which concerns the ability to share and experience their emotions), as well as a measure of “coldheartedness”, or disregard for others’ wellbeing.

Participants who reported greater enjoyment of the various kinds of horror didn’t score any lower on empathy or higher on coldheartedness. In most cases, enjoyment of horror films wasn’t significantly related to scores on these measures at all, but there were a few instances where horror fans actually seemed more pro-social. For instance, people who enjoyed gore/splatter films had significantly greater cognitive empathy, while those who liked paranormal films scored higher on both kinds of empathy, and lower on coldheartedness. And overall enjoyment of horror across genres was related to lower coldheartness and higher cognitive empathy.

These results suggest that the caricature of the anti-social, depraved horror fan is false. But, Scrivner reasoned, perhaps horror fans act less compassionately or empathetically, even if they don’t score any differently on scales measuring these traits. So, one to two weeks later, the same participants were each told that there were leftover funds from the previous study, and that they had been selected to receive an extra $0.50, alongside half of the other participants. They could choose to donate any amount of this money to another participant who had not received the bonus.

Just over half of participants opted to donate some of the money — but the amount donated was not related to how much they enjoyed horror, or any of the sub-genres of horror. This suggests that people who like horror films act just as kindly and compassionately as others, Scrivner concludes.

The results are hopefully not that surprising — most of us have moved on from the moral panic over “video nasties”, and recognise that we’re unlikely to become corrupted by the media we consume. But it’s nice to see that demonstrated, empirically.

And this isn’t the only study to do so. Just as horror enthusiasts remain as kind and compassionate as everyone else, players of violent video games don’t become more aggressive, and fans of heavy metal are just as well-adjusted as pop and rock aficionados. If there’s a broader message to all this work, it’s that we should let people enjoy the movies, games, and music that they like, without judging them or blaming them for society’s problems.

– Bleeding-heart horror fans: Enjoyment of horror media is not related to reduced empathy or compassion [this paper is a preprint meaning that it has not yet been subjected to peer review and the final published version may differ from the version this report was based on]

SOURCE:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2022/06/24/fans-of-horror-movies-are-just-as-kind-and-compassionate-as-everyone-else/#more-47877(accessed 26.6.22)

Κορωνοϊός: Γιατί χάνουμε την αίσθηση της όσφρησης – Πόσος χρόνος χρειάζεται για να επανέλθει πλήρως

Πόσο καιρό χρειάζεται για να επανέλθει πλήρως η όσφρηση μετά από μόλυνση με COVID-19 και πώς μπορούμε να «επανεκπαιδεύσουμε» τη μύτη μας.



Ένα από τα πιο χαρακτηριστικά συμπτώματα του κορωνοϊού – το σήμα-κατατεθέν του, θα μπορούσε να πει κάποιος – είναι η απώλεια της όσφρησης και της γεύσης.


Σύμφωνα με έρευνα που δημοσιεύθηκε στο περιοδικό της Αμερικανικής Ακαδημίας Ωτορινολαρυγγολογίας, το ποσοστό των ασθενών με κορωνοϊό που αντιμετώπισαν αυτό το σύμπτωμα ξεπερνάει το 50%.

Είναι γνωστό ότι ο κορωνοϊός προκαλεί τα εξής προβλήματα με την όσφρηση:Aνοσμία: προσωρινή απώλεια όσφρησης
Παροσμία: αλλαγή στον τρόπο που αντιλαμβανόμαστε τις μυρωδιές, πχ. κάτι που κανονικά μυρίζει ωραία μάς μυρίζει άσχημα.
Υποσμία: μειωμένη δυνατότητα όσφρησης
Φαντοσμία: πιο σπάνια επιπλοκή, όταν οσφρίζεται κάποιος μυρωδιές που οι υπόλοιποι δεν αντιλαμβάνονται

Συνήθως, η όσφρηση επενέρχεται πλήρως μέσα σε δύο με τέσσερις εβδομάδες, αλλά για κάποιους χρειάζεται περισσότερος καιρός. Ένα ποσοστό κάτω του 5% χρειάστηκε πάνω από έξι μήνες για να επανακτήσει την αίσθηση της όσφρησης.

Γιατί χάνουμε την αίσθηση της όσφρησης

Ως κύρια αιτία της απώλειας της όσφρησης, θεωρείται η φλεγμονή που προκαλεί η ασθένεια COVID-19 στην οσφρητική περιοχή. Ο κορωνοϊός προκαλεί μια «έκρηξη» από φλεγμονώδεις πρωτεΐνες, γνωστές ως κυτοκίνες, στη μύτη μας. Αυτές προκαλούν προβλήματα στους νευρώνες και μειώνουν τον αριθμό των νευρολογικών κυττάρων που στέλνουν τα σήματα με τις μυρωδιές στον εγκέφαλο.

Για όσους δεν επιστρέψει άμεσα η αίσθηση της όσφρησης μετά τον κορωνοϊό, δεν είναι σπάνιο να παρουσιάσουν παροσμία, δηλαδή να οσφρίζονται παραποιημένες μυρωδιές. Ευχάριστα αρώματα, όπως αυτά του καφέ, της σοκολάτας ή της οδοντόπαστάς, έχουν πλέον δυσάρεστη, ακόμα και αηδιαστική μυρωδιά για αρκετούς ανθρώπους που έχουν αναρρώσει από κορωνοϊό.

Αυτό συμβαίνει λόγω της μοναδικής ικανότητας αναγέννησης των οσφρητικών νευρώνων: νέα κύτταρα δημιουργούνται και επανασυνδέονται με τον εγκέφαλο. Όπως συμβαίνει με οποιοδήποτε πρόβλημα στο νευρολογικό σύστημα, καθώς οι νευρώνες αναγεννιούνται και ωριμάζουν, ενδέχεται να στείλουν τυχαία σήματα στο κέντρο όσφρησης του εγκεφάλου.

Με λίγα λόγια, ο τρόπος που αντιλαμβάνεται ο εγκέφαλος μια μυρωδιά μπορεί να μην ταιριάζει με τον πραγματικό τρόπο που μυρίζει. Οικεία πράγματα έχουν εντελώς διαφορετική μυρωδιά, λόγω των λανθασμένων μηνυμάτων που λαμβάνει ο εγκέφαλος.


Όσο συνεχίζει η διαδικασία αναγέννησης, οι νευρώνες αρχίζουν να συνδέονται με τα σωστά μέρη στο κέντρο όσφρησης του εγκεφάλου, στέλνοντας έτσι τα σωστά ηλεκτρικά σήματα ανάλογα με τα ερεθίσματα που λαμβάνουν.

Η διαδικασία αυτή μπορεί να κρατήσει εβδομάδες ή και μήνες, ανάλογα με το άτομο. Σύμφωνα με πρόσφατη έρευνα, ενδέχεται να χρειαστούν από 10 μέρες έως και τρεις μήνες.

Δεν φταίει, όμως, απαραίτητα η «χαλασμένη» μύτη όσων πέρασαν κορωνοϊό, αλλά και εξωτερικοί παράγοντες. Για παράδειγμα, σύμφωνα με έρευνα του Πανεπιστήμιου του Ρέντινγκ, ο καφές περιέχει κάποια μόρια με ισχυρές μυρωδιές που δημιουργούν αυτό το αίσθημα αηδίας σε όσους έχουν προβλήματα όσφρησης μετά από μόλυνση με COVID-19.
Επανεκπαίδευση της μύτης

Oι έρευνες για ενδεχόμενες θεραπείες των προβλημάτων όσφρησης μετά από COVID-19 συνεχίζονται. Για παράδειγμα, εξετάζεται η χρήση στεροειδών και βιταμινών.

Οι ειδικοί, μάλιστα, προτείνουν μια απλή και φτηνή θεραπεία: να επανεκπαιδεύσουμε τη μύτη μας μυρίζοντας πολλές διαφορετικές μυρωδιές μέσα σε ένα διάστημα μηνών, έτσι ώστε ο εγκέφαλός μας να ξαναμάθει να τις ξεχωρίζει.

Για παράδειγμα, κάποιος μπορεί να μυρίζει τέσσερα διαφορετικά πράγματα που έχουν διακριτή και εύκολα αναγνωρίσιμη μυρωδιά, όπως πορτοκάλια, σκόρδο, καφέ και μέντα. Η «άσκηση» αυτή θα πρέπει να επαναλαμβάνεται δύο φορές την ημέρα για πολλούς μήνες.

Οι ερευνητές περιγράφουν την πρακτική αυτή «φυσικοθεραπεία για τη μύτη», καθώς οι νευρώνες του εγκεφάλου μαθαίνουν μεν να αναγνωρίζουν και πάλι τις διαφορετικές μυρωδιές, αλλά δεν είναι μια γρήγορη διαδικασία.

Σε προηγούμενες μελέτες, η πρακτική αυτή είχε χρησιμοποιηθεί και για περιπτώσεις που ασθενείς έχασαν την όσφρησή τους εξαιτίας άλλων ιογενών μολύνσεων, όπως η γρίπη ή ο ρινοϊός που προκαλεί το κοινό κρυολόγημα.

ΠΗΓΗ:

https://www.kathimerini.gr/life/health/561911656/koronoios-giati-i-myti-mas-den-leitoyrgei-sosta-meta-tin-anarrosi/(accessed 20.6.22)

Showing off your status and wealth makes you seem less co-operative

By Emma Young

People who can afford luxury goods tend to buy them, and to show them off. “This is unsurprising given the myriad social benefits associated with being perceived as well-off and high status,” note the authors of a new study, led by Shalena Srna at the University of Michigan. But in some situations, there might be downsides to conspicuous consumption. After all, as the team writes: “it conveys a boastful self-interest, which is incompatible, in people’s minds, with pro-sociality”.

So what happens when — as is so often the case — it’s in our interests to work with others? Given the opportunity, do we show off, and signal high status — or do we choose to be more modest? The team’s findings, reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, contain some important insights.

In an initial online study, the team adopted a version of the widely used Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game. Participants were told that they’d have to decide whether to co-operate with a partner to do half each of 60 units of work (solving captchas) — or to defect. If both partners chose to defect, they’d have to complete 60 units of work each. If only one did, the co-operator would have to do 90 units, while the defector wouldn’t do any.

Before they made their decision, they were shown an avatar that was purportedly made by their partner. They were informed that their partner had chosen the hairstyle, skin tone and clothing — and also whether to include a luxury logo on the clothing, or to opt for unbranded clothing. In fact, the partners were fictional and the avatars were created by the team. They generated one male and one female avatar (the gender was matched to the participant’s gender), which were identical, except that some wore a shirt featuring a Gucci, Louis Vuitton or Burberry logo, while the other had an unbranded shirt.

The results showed that participants elected to co-operate with partners whose avatars had unbranded clothing 57% of the time, but when the avatar sported a luxury logo, this figure dropped to 45%. A subsequent questionnaire revealed that the participants indeed perceived partners with logo-wearing avatars as trying harder to signal status and wealth (and indeed to have more status and wealth) — and expected them to be less co-operative, and more self-interested.

A second study, in which participants could first choose the design of their own avatar, found that those who chose branded rather than unbranded clothing themselves were still less likely to choose to co-operate with partners with brand-boasting vs logo-free avatars.

The team then switched to a more real-world setting — social network profiles. They found further support for these initial results: participants who saw (fictional) profiles that used status-signalling posts and hashtags were less likely to recommend that individual for admittance into a group that prioritized co-operation, selflessness and generosity.

The work also produced another key result: when it was useful to appear co-operative — when a group that participants wanted to join stressed its desire for co-operative, prosocial people — the participants tended to become strategically modest; when choosing from prewritten social media posts that described various activities, they were less likely to go for posts that signalled status. (It’s worth noting, however, that when the goal was to be perceived as competitive, status-signalling was beneficial.)

This last finding suggests that we’re aware that status-signalling can be counter-productive, and understand when to avoid it. However, we surely all know people who get this wrong. Many people show off their status to “friends” through posts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, the team notes. “Such posts may be beneficial for communicating one’s wealth and status, but as we have shown, they can also have negative effects.” In 2019, Stephen M. Garcia and colleagues even found that people believe signalling status will make them more attractive potential friends — but when seeking friends, we in fact prefer people who are more modest. So while we might have some implicit understanding of when not to signal status, it’s clearly not perfect.

Garcia’s research was in the US and the new work was on participants mostly from Western countries. Clearly, non-WEIRD work in this area is needed. But this new paper certainly highlights a clear disadvantage of status signalling in Western contexts, and suggests that we should be more careful. There are all kinds of environments, including schools and workplaces, where this could clearly have implications for relationships. There’s an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of school uniforms, for example. In schools without uniforms, kids who choose to wear luxury brands might think that they’re benefitting from signalling high status — but if this makes the rest of the class view them as less co-operative and more self-interested, that’s a clear downside for everyone.

SOURCE:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2022/06/13/showing-off-your-status-and-wealth-makes-you-seem-less-co-operative/#more-46394(accessed 18.6.22)

Πώς βλέπουν οι γονείς ΑμεΑ τις ομάδες υποστήριξης;

Μια μορφή υποστήριξης, εμψύχωσης και εκπαίδευσης, σε όλη αυτήν την διαδρομή του γονιού, είναι και οι ομάδες που μπορεί να συμμετέχει, γνωστές ως Ομάδες Γονέων


H αλήθεια είναι πως όταν γινόμαστε γονείς, αναλαμβάνουμε ένα ρόλο που ποτέ, κανείς μας δεν έχει προετοιμαστεί (θεωρητικά ή πρακτικά) γι’ αυτόν. Όταν δε, το παιδί μας παρουσιάσει μια ευπάθεια ή μια αναπηρία, ο ρόλος αυτός γίνεται ακόμα πιο απαιτητικός και πιο δύσκολος.


Καλούμαστε (και είναι αναγκαίο)…να γνωρίσουμε καλά την φύση της αναπηρίας του παιδιού μας,
να αναγνωρίζουμε και να διαχειριζόμαστε τα δικά μας (και όχι μόνον) συναισθήματα, κατά την διάρκεια της ανάπτυξής του.
να σχεδιάζουμε τη ζωή του παιδιού μας σε θέματα υγείας/ εκπαίδευσης/ ψυχαγωγίας/κοινωνικοποίησης/ ένταξη σε Στέγη Υποστηριζόμενης Διαβίωσης(ΣΥΔ) κλπ.
να ισορροπούμε πάντα τις σχέσεις μέσα στην οικογένεια (αδέλφια, σύζυγοι, παππούδες, θείοι/ες) και…
να αναπτύσσουμε σχέσεις με την κοινωνία στην οποία ζούμε και η οποία συχνά είναι αποστασιοποιημένη γιατί απλά δεν γνωρίζει την κατάσταση που αντιμετωπίζουμε.

Όλα αυτά μοιάζουν (και είναι επί της ουσίας) μια πολύ δύσκολη καθημερινότητα, με πολλά εμπόδια που συχνά μοιάζουν να είναι ανυπέρβλητα.

Ναι, είναι αγχογόνα και τα αισθανόμαστε σαν ανυπέρβλητα. Όμως, μόνον όταν είμαστε μόνοι, χωρίς δίκτυα παροχών και υποστήριξης, είτε από φορείς (κρατικούς ή άλλους) είτε από την ίδια την κοινωνία μας.


Μια τέτοια στήριξη των γονιών σε όλα τα επίπεδα, με δυο φράσεις σημαίνει ότι από το: «είμαι μόνος/η, σε όλο αυτό που αντιμετωπίζω», καταλήγω να γνωρίζω ότι: «μπορώ να τα καταφέρω, για το παιδί μου, για εμένα και την οικογένειά μου».

Μια μορφή υποστήριξης, εμψύχωσης και εκπαίδευσης, σε όλη αυτήν την διαδρομή του γονιού, είναι και οι ομάδες που μπορεί να συμμετέχει, γνωστές ως Ομάδες Γονέων. Στην προκειμένη περίπτωση… Ομάδες Γονέων ΑμεΑ.
Οι γονείς απαντούν…

ΧΡΙΣΤΙΝΑ ΥΨΗΛΑΝΤΗ

Πότε ήταν η στιγμή που θέλησες να αναζητήσεις στήριξη, σε Ομάδα υποστήριξης Γονέων ΑμεΑ;


Κατά το στάδιο της αποδοχής της κατάστασης του γιου μου, κάποιους μήνες μετά τη διάγνωση άρχισα να ψάχνω τρόπους να ισορροπήσω το συναίσθημά μου… και έτσι ζήτησα στήριξη σε ομάδες γονέων ΑμεΑ.

Αν μπήκες σε ομάδα, τι προσδοκούσες αρχικά απ΄ αυτήν την συμμετοχή σου;

Συμμετείχα σε ομάδα γονέων του nevronas.gr. Προσδοκούσα να αμβλύνω το συναίσθημα μοναξιάς και απόγνωσης που ένιωθα και να μάθω και από εμπειρίες άλλων γονιών, τρόπους αντιμετώπισης των δυσκολιών.

Από την συμμετοχή σου, ποια ήταν η γενική αίσθηση γι’ αυτό;

Η ομάδα όχι απλά ανταποκρίθηκε στις προσδοκίες μου… αλλά τις ξεπέρασε. Γίναμε όλοι οι συμμετέχοντες μια δεμένη παρέα που μου ξυπνούσε σε κάθε μας συνάντηση τον ενθουσιασμό για ζωή και προσπάθεια για το καλύτερο.

Τι σκεφτόσουν για αυτές τις ομάδες, πριν αποφασίσεις να συμμετέχεις κι εσύ σε αυτές;

Ήμουν θετικά προσκείμενη προς τέτοιου τύπου ομάδες, με μια μια μικρή επιφύλαξη και φοβία για την περίπτωση της δυσαρμονίας και επικοινωνίας λόγω διαφορετικών προσωπικοτήτων.

Βρίσκεις ότι υπήρξαν οφέλη για εσένα; …και με ποια σειρά θα τα κατέτασσες;

Πάρα πολλά οφέλη. Από τις καλύτερες επιλογές που έκανα…αφότου ξεκινήσαμε το δύσκολο ταξίδι της γονεϊκότητας αυτιστικού παιδιού. Αποκόμισα:Αποδοχή.
Έμπνευση και ενθουσιασμό
Εμπειρίες και γνώση
Φιλία

Είχατε μπαμπάδες στην ομάδα σας; Αν όχι, γιατί πιστεύεις ότι συμβαίνει αυτό;

Δεν είχαμε στην κανονικότητα των συναντήσεων, αλλά φιλοξενούσαμε, ως ευχάριστες εκπλήξεις, τους μπαμπάδες των δικών μας παιδιών. Συνήθως οι άντρες δυσκολεύονται να μοιράζονται, με αγνώστους, τα συναισθήματά τους κατ’ αυτόν τον τρόπο… σε ομάδες.

Μέσα στην ομάδα σου, πέραν της ψυχολογικής υποστήριξης, υπάρχει η ανάγκη των γονιών για ενημέρωση και διεκδίκηση δικαιωμάτων των παιδιών τους για θέματα προσβασιμότητας σε υγεία, εκπαίδευση και εργασία; (πχ. Θέματα επιτροπών, Ειδικά σχολεία, Προσωπικός Βοηθός, υποστηριζόμενη εργασία, προσβάσιμη εκπαίδευση σε όλες τις βαθμίδες της κλπ).

Φυσικά καθώς εμείς πια είμαστε διεκδικητές και υποστηρικτές των δικαιωμάτων των παιδιών μας. Θέλει γνώση, για να αντιμετωπίσεις τον γραφειοκρατικό «μισαναπηρισμό» της πολιτείας και την έλλειψη οράματός της.

Από τις ευρύτερες επαφές σου με άλλους γονείς, πώς θεωρείς ότι βλέπουν αυτές τις ομάδες υποστήριξης; Θέλουν να συμμετέχουν; Έχουν ενδοιασμούς; Χρειάζονται κάποιο κίνητρο;

Έχουν κατ’ αρχάς ενδοιασμούς λόγω του αγνώστου των συνομιλητών και της ομάδας. Κίνητρο είναι τα ίδια τα παιδιά μας. Απλά νιώθω πως πρέπει οι καμπάνιες των συλλόγων και των ομάδων γονέων να εστιάσουν στο μήνυμα πως μόνο μαζί και συλλογικά μπορούμε να διεκδικήσουμε και να πετύχουμε .

Αν ήταν να περιγράψεις με μια φράση ή μια λέξη τις Ομάδες Γονέων ΑμεΑ, τι θα έλεγες;

«Την ιστορία την γράφουν οι παρέες»!

Συνέντευξη – Παρουσίαση – Επιμέλεια: Πόπη Μάλεση – B.A, M.A Psychology/ nevronas.gr

ΠΗΓΗ:

https://www.kathimerini.gr/life/health/561884470/pos-vlepoyn-oi-goneis-amea-tis-omades-ypostirixis/(accessed 9.6.22)

Feeling Better About Our Bodies

Content note. We discuss how we might feel better about our bodies. So we touch on the social messages we get about bodies and this includes us talking about fatphobia, diets, ‘health’, disablism, but we don’t go into much detail. It’s a long one — sorry about that.



Around the time of year that we recorded this podcast – early Spring – it’s easy to feel bad about our bodies. Cultural scripts suggest that we should overindulge and hibernate over the Winter, but that after new year we should be follow resolutions to diet and ‘get in shape’ for the summer ‘beach body’.



The media doesn’t help. At the moment there are a number of billboard adverts and makeover TV shows focusing on weight-loss and ‘improving appearance’. Particularly problematic are the links that are made between looking a certain way and ‘health’ and ‘fun’. Not only are we meant to have a certain appearance in order to be attractive and sexy, but also we’re blamed and shamed for being ‘unhealthy’ if we don’t conform to cultural beauty ideals, as well as often internalising the idea that caring about ‘looks’ is a fun and pleasurable thing to do, and to do otherwise would mean being a killjoy.

But the beauty ideal is incredibly limited. Looking around at the aspirational bodies that surround us they’re overwhelmingly young, thin, white, ‘flawless’, non-disabled, and gendered to match the ideals of rugged masculinity and delicate femininity, and a good deal of wealth is required to buy all the products necessary for maintaining such an ideal. We scientifically estimate on the podcast that 97% of people will not match these ideals for one reason or another, and all of us will move away from them as we age of course.
Love your body?

Most of us are likely to feel bad about our bodies if we’re surrounded by such narrow body ideals that we can’t possibly match up to. But what can we do about this? There has been a move among some people to replace the ‘change your body’ message of so much advertising and other media with a ‘love your body’ message.

This is pretty risky because it still locates the problem in us as individuals – rather than wider society. It’s bloody hard to love your body when the whole world is implicitly – or explicitly – telling you not to. If we receive the message that we should be able to easily love our bodies, that gives us yet another thing to feel bad about.

There’s a real tension when we live in a very individualising culture to know how to address things like this without continuing to individualise our struggles. At megjohnandjustin.com, we find the following diagram helpful – for all kinds of things – to think through how they work on multiple levels, and how we might address them on all those levels too. We can’t just try to relate differently to our body on an individual level if the people around us, our communities, and wider culture simply stay the same.

In the podcast we explore what we might do at each of these levels:Society – We could notice the images around us and be critical of them. We could confront fat-shaming remembering that it’s actually poverty, type of diet, and fitness that relate to health – not fatness; that being ‘underweight’ is generally more risky health-wise than being ‘overweight’; that these categories are based on an old model of measurement that doesn’t relate to how bodies are these days; and that shaming people about their bodies makes everything far worse – not better – for them. We could engage in body-related activism. We could seek out different subcultures that incorporate more diversity of bodies or expand our ideas of what is beautiful.
Communities – We could deliberately share materials that are critical of body ideals, or which incorporate a wider range of bodies. We could curate our social media accounts to avoid body-shaming from others, and to put out different messages ourselves, including filters and content notes. We could find communities which are trying to cultivate different ways of engaging with bodies. We could deliberately follow communities online which challenge narrow body ideals, including fat activists, disability activists, dwarf community activists, age activists, etc.
Interpersonal Relationships – We could keep an eye on whether we shame people in our lives for aspects of their bodies or bodily practices and try to stop doing that. We could have consent conversations about how we like to be treated in relation to our bodies, and what we find difficult from others.
Yourself – We could try to incorporate more embodied experiences into our lives where we feel ‘at one’ with our bodies rather than separate to them and scrutinising of them. These can include activities where the body is in motion, being alone, being in nature, etc.


Acceptance and Change

The ‘love your body’ message risks replacing the idea that we should always change our bodies to fit beauty ideals with the idea that we should always accept our bodies as they are and that changing them in any way is a bad thing that’s always about conforming to cultural norms.

Actually each person needs to find their own way of navigating the possibilities of change and acceptance in relation to their bodies (and in other areas). For example bodily changes of various kinds can be extremely helpful in decreasing physical pain and discomfort and/or improving mental health and/or opening up new possibilities in our lives.

Many trans people, disabled people, people with chronic health conditions, fat people, and others face a constant barrage of messages from one group of people telling them they should make changes to their bodies, while another group of people tell them they shouldn’t and that they should accept their bodies as they are. It’s not for anybody else to tell us how we should relate to our bodies, and – as a culture – we should help everyone to navigate these complex decisions about change/acceptance and support them through the various options instead of telling people what they should or should not do with their bodies.

© Meg-John Barker & Justin Hancock, 2018

SOURCE:

https://megjohnandjustin.com/bodies/feeling-better-bodies/(accessed 9.6.22)

Robot touch makes people feel good — especially when accompanied by robot small talk

By Matthew Warren

For many of us, the past two years have demonstrated how important the touch of others is to our emotional wellbeing — and how hard it is to go without it. But in the absence of physical contact from other humans, could robots provide an adequate substitute? Past work has found that robotic touch can elicit positive emotions in people — and now a new study in Scientific Reports finds that the effect is better when the robots talk at the same time.

Taishi Sawabe from Nara Institute of Science and Technology and colleagues tested the effects of robotic touch and speech on 31 Japanese volunteers. In some trials, participants received gentle strokes on their back from a robotic arm. In others, they heard a synthesised voice saying phrases caregivers might use, such as “Hello. How are you doing? Did you sleep well last night?” or “Hello. Please take care of yourself. It has been chilly these days”. And in a third kind of trial, they received the robotic touch and heard the robot speaking simultaneously.

After each trial, participants rated how positive or negative their mood was, as well as their emotional arousal (high arousal refers to feelings like excitement; low arousal to feelings like relaxation), and rated how human-like the robot was. The team also measured participants’ muscle activity in the facial muscles involved in smiling, and recorded their skin conductance, a measure of physiological arousal.

Participants reported an overall positive mood on trials where the robot touched them, and on trials where it talked to them — but crucially their mood was significantly more positive on trials where it did both simultaneously. They also showed greater activity in the facial muscles associated with smiling on these combined trials. There were no differences in participants’ feelings of arousal between trials, though they did have higher skin conductance on trials with both touch and speech than on trials with just speech. They also felt the robots were more human-like when they both talked and touched than when they just did one of these actions.

The findings could help to guide the design of robots made for people who suffer from a lack of human touch — elderly people living alone, for instance. More than a quarter of Japan’s population is over 65 years old, and there are not enough care workers to meet the needs of the ageing population. Greater use of robots has been touted as one solution.

There are various limitations to the study, however. It’s unclear whether an immediate boost in mood from an interaction with a robot translates to lasting effects, for instance, and whether personality or demographic differences could affect how people respond to the robots. And although it seems fairly uncontroversial to suggest that robots could be used to help with household tasks or medical care, there are practical and ethical questions about relying on machines to satisfy human psychological needs, particularly for people who are elderly or lonely. Still, if robots are to be commonplace in these kinds of settings, it’ll be important to know how to make them most effective.

– Robot touch with speech boosts positive emotions

SOURCE:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2022/05/31/robot-touch-makes-people-feel-good-especially-when-accompanied-by-robot-small-talk/(accessed 6.6.22)