Πώς τα υψηλά επίπεδα μητρικού στρες κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης συνδέονται με προβλήματα συμπεριφοράς των παιδιών

Η εγκυμοσύνη είναι μια κρίσιμη περίοδος για φροντίδα και υποστήριξη ψυχικής υγείας, υποστηρίζει άλλη μια μελέτη

Κείμενο Αγγελική Λάλου
23 Νοεμβρίου, 2023



Παιδιά των οποίων οι μητέρες έχουν πολύ άγχος, ανησυχία ή κατάθλιψη κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης μπορεί να διατρέχουν μεγαλύτερο κίνδυνο για προβλήματα ψυχικής υγείας και συμπεριφοράς κατά την παιδική και εφηβική τους ηλικία, σύμφωνα με έρευνα που δημοσιεύτηκε από την Αμερικανική Ψυχολογική Εταιρεία.


«Η έρευνά μας υποδηλώνει ότι η ψυχολογική δυσφορία κατά την περίοδο της εγκυμοσύνης έχει μια μικρή αλλά επίμονη επίδραση στον κίνδυνο των παιδιών για επιθετικές, απαγορευτικές και παρορμητικές συμπεριφορές», δήλωσε η συγγραφέας της μελέτης Irene Tung, PhD, του California State University Dominguez Hills.

«Αυτά τα ευρήματα προσθέτουν στα στοιχεία ότι η παροχή ευρέως προσβάσιμης φροντίδας ψυχικής υγείας και υποστήριξης κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης μπορεί να είναι ένα κρίσιμο βήμα για την πρόληψη προβλημάτων συμπεριφοράς στην παιδική ηλικία».

Η Tung και οι συνεργάτες της ανέλυσαν δεδομένα από 55 μελέτες με περισσότερους από 45.000 συνολικά συμμετέχοντες.

Όλες οι μελέτες μέτρησαν την ψυχολογική δυσφορία των γυναικών κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης (συμπεριλαμβανομένου του στρες, της κατάθλιψης ή του άγχους) και στη συνέχεια μέτρησαν τις «εξωτεριστικές συμπεριφορές» των παιδιών τους – συμπτώματα ιδιάζουσας ψυχικής υγείας, όπως η διαταραχή ελλειμματικής προσοχής υπερκινητικότητας ή η επιθετικότητα.

Συνολικά, οι ερευνητές διαπίστωσαν ότι οι γυναίκες που ανέφεραν περισσότερο άγχος, κατάθλιψη ή στρες ενώ ήταν έγκυοι ήταν πιο πιθανό να έχουν παιδιά με περισσότερα συμπτώματα ΔΕΠΥ ή που παρουσίαζαν περισσότερες δυσκολίες με επιθετική ή εχθρική συμπεριφορά, όπως αναφέρουν οι γονείς ή οι δάσκαλοι.

Η έρευνα δημοσιεύτηκε στο περιοδικό Psychological Bulletin.

Η έρευνα έχει υποδείξει εδώ και καιρό μια σχέση μεταξύ της ψυχικής υγείας των μητέρων κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης και των εξωτερικευτικών συμπεριφορών των παιδιών.



Ωστόσο, πολλές προηγούμενες μελέτες δεν έχουν διαχωρίσει τις επιπτώσεις του στρες, του άγχους ή της κατάθλιψης κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης από τις επιπτώσεις της ψυχολογικής δυσφορίας των γονιών μετά τη γέννηση ενός παιδιού.

Στην τρέχουσα μελέτη, οι ερευνητές συμπεριέλαβαν μόνο έρευνα στην οποία μετρήθηκε η ψυχολογική δυσφορία των μητέρων τόσο κατά τη διάρκεια όσο και μετά την εγκυμοσύνη.

Διαπίστωσαν ότι ακόμη και μετά τον έλεγχο της μετέπειτα (μεταγεννητικής) ψυχολογικής δυσφορίας, η δυσφορία κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης αύξησε ιδιαίτερα τον κίνδυνο των παιδιών να αναπτύξουν προβλήματα εξωτερίκευσης.

Το αποτέλεσμα ίσχυε ανεξάρτητα από το αν τα παιδιά ήταν αγόρια ή κορίτσια.

Και ίσχυε για τα παιδιά στην πρώιμη παιδική ηλικία (ηλικίες 2-5 ετών), στη μέση παιδική ηλικία (6-12) και στην εφηβεία (13-18), αν και η επίδραση ήταν ισχυρότερη στην πρώιμη παιδική ηλικία.

Τα ευρήματα συνάδουν με θεωρίες που υποδηλώνουν ότι η έκθεση σε ορμόνες του στρες στη μήτρα μπορεί να επηρεάσει την ανάπτυξη του εγκεφάλου των παιδιών, σύμφωνα με τους ερευνητές.

Η μελλοντική έρευνα θα πρέπει να επικεντρωθεί στην αύξηση της ποικιλομορφίας για να κατανοήσει τις πολιτισμικές και κοινωνικοοικονομικές μεταβλητές που επηρεάζουν το προγεννητικό στρες και να αναπτύξει αποτελεσματικές παρεμβάσεις, σύμφωνα με την Tung.

«Οι περισσότερες υπάρχουσες έρευνες έχουν επικεντρωθεί σε δείγματα λευκών, μεσαίας τάξης και ανώτερης εκπαίδευσης. Όμως οι εμπειρίες ρατσισμού, οι οικονομικές ανισότητες και η έλλειψη πρόσβασης στην υγειονομική περίθαλψη είναι γνωστοί παράγοντες που συμβάλλουν στο άγχος κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης. Η κατανόηση του τρόπου με τον οποίο η ψυχολογική δυσφορία κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης επηρεάζει τις υποεκπροσωπούμενες οικογένειες είναι το κλειδί για να αναπτυχθούν δίκαιες πολιτικές και παρεμβάσεις για τη δημόσια υγεία», είπε.

Αυτή και οι συνάδελφοί της διεξάγουν τώρα δύο μελέτες που επικεντρώνονται στην κατανόηση των τύπων υποστήριξης και πόρων που προάγουν την ανθεκτικότητα και την αποκατάσταση από το στρες κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης, ιδιαίτερα για οικογένειες που αντιμετωπίζουν ανισότητες. Ο στόχος είναι να βοηθήσει στην ενημέρωση των πολιτιστικών συμπεριληπτικών προληπτικών παρεμβάσεων κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης, ώστε να υποστηριχθεί η πρώιμη ανθεκτικότητα και η ευημερία της ψυχικής υγείας για τους γονείς και τα παιδιά τους.

High levels of maternal stress during pregnancy linked to children’s behavior problems | ScienceDaily


ΠΗΓΗ:

https://childit.gr/%cf%80%cf%8e%cf%82-%cf%84%ce%b1-%cf%85%cf%88%ce%b7%ce%bb%ce%ac-%ce%b5%cf%80%ce%af%cf%80%ce%b5%ce%b4%ce%b1-%ce%bc%ce%b7%cf%84%cf%81%ce%b9%ce%ba%ce%bf%cf%8d-%cf%83%cf%84%cf%81%ce%b5%cf%82-%ce%ba%ce%b1/(accessed 30.11.23)

Family dynamics on display

Blanca Piera Pi-Sunyer, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, visits 'Real Families: Stories of Change' at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

13 November 2023


Real Families: Stories of Change is an exhibition curated by psychologist Susan Golombok, former director of the Centre for Family Research. Inspired by an installation from artist Cathy Wilkes, this exhibition includes artworks from 64 artists exploring themes of societal pressures and gender roles, as well as larger family dynamics, which guide us to focus on how family experiences transition in their social and psychological world.

The exhibition starts with an article published in Spare Rib magazine in 1976, which presents a series of legal cases of lesbian mothers who lost custody of their children upon divorce, seemingly no longer capable of being appropriate caregivers. The article continues with a call for research on the psychological impact of family structures on child development. This is a compelling way to set the stage for an exhibition that challenges conceptions of the ‘traditional family’ as a unique form of family structure.

In line with the research that followed, a series of artworks show affectionate families with non-heterosexual caregivers, stories of motherhood through methods of assisted reproduction, stories of mothers experiencing feelings of frustration and loss, and stories exploring stigma related to not having children at all. In a similar light, a series of stories interrogate expectations about gender norms in parenthood, including powerful artworks by artist JJ Levine telling stories of trans and non-binary parents, as well as artist Harry Borden portraying images of families with single fathers. Throughout this theme, families are depicted in quotidian moments which support 50 years of literature highlighting the importance of warmth and affection in family relationships, rather than particularities of family structures. We also pick up on certain elements that evidence the discomfort of stigma that many non-traditional families experience.

Another theme which emerges throughout the exhibition is the role that larger family dynamics play on attachment. Among the stories illustrating attachment experiences with different family members, artists depict secure attachments between caregivers and their children at different periods of life, illustrate complex bonds between siblings, and explore transitions of attachment with caregivers at an older age, including a beautiful piece by artist Celia Paul of her mother. These artworks include many positive but also other more challenging components which we commonly navigate in our relationships. Coming from a large Mediterranean family, I resonated particularly with an artwork by artist Joy Labinjo portraying the loving relationship between a grandmother and her grandchild. This set of stories support contemporary research which explores attachment beyond important dyadic relations and gives space to a more active and adaptive understanding of this developmental process.

Attachment is also explored through other forms of family dynamics, including stories of familial conflict, stories of socioeconomic deprivation, and stories of traumatic experiences. The artworks in this theme invite us to reflect on the transmission of psychological and social trauma across generations and are probably the most thought-provoking elements of the exhibition. Other stories portray the impact of cultural norms and generational boundaries on relationships (e.g., language barriers), which are an important reminder that family experiences occur within a cultural and societal context. This is a message which is carried throughout all the stories presented in Real Families: Stories of Change. The exhibition ends with a spotlight on artists Chantal Joffe, including 10 painting capturing the intricacies of transitioning through different stages of life.

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/family-dynamics-display(accessed 30.11.23)

Feeling Better About Our Bodies

https://megjohnandjustin.com/bodies/feeling-better-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 24.11.23)

Πώς ο αριθμός των παιδιών μας επηρεάζει την υγεία του εγκεφάλου

THE MAMAGERS TEAM20 ΝΟΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ, 2023

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Οι άνθρωποι με τρία ή περισσότερα παιδιά εμφανίζουν μεγαλύτερη γνωστική επιβάρυνση και ταχύτερη γήρανση εγκεφάλου, συμπέρανε μια διεθνής μελέτη που συμπεριέλαβε και την Ελλάδα. Είναι η πρώτη έρευνα που συσχετίζει τη γέννηση πολλών παιδιών και τη δημιουργία πολύτεκνης οικογένειας, με τη χειρότερη υγεία του εγκεφάλου των γονέων αργότερα στη ζωή.


Οι ερευνητές από τις ΗΠΑ (Σχολή Δημόσιας Υγείας και Κέντρο Γήρανσης Πανεπιστημίου Κολούμπια Νέας Υόρκης) και τη Γαλλία (Πανεπιστήμιο Paris-Dauphine – PSL του Παρισιού), οι οποίοι έκαναν τη σχετική δημοσίευση στο περιοδικό δημογραφίας “Demography”, ανέλυσαν στοιχεία της Έρευνας Υγείας, Γήρανσης και Συνταξιοδότησης στην Ευρώπη (SHARE) για 20 ευρωπαϊκές χώρες και το Ισραήλ, τα οποία αφορούσαν άτομα άνω των 65 ετών που είχαν τουλάχιστον δύο βιολογικά παιδιά.


Διαπιστώθηκε ότι από τα τρία παιδιά και πάνω υπάρχει μια αυξημένη πιθανότητα για χειρότερη γνωστική λειτουργία κατά την τρίτη ηλικία, κάτι που αφορά εξίσου τους άνδρες και τις γυναίκες. Η συσχέτιση φαίνεται πιο αισθητή στη βόρεια Ευρώπη από ό,τι στη νότια.

“Η αρνητική επίπτωση της απόκτησης τριών ή περισσότερων παιδιών πάνω στη γνωστική λειτουργία δεν είναι αμελητέα, αλλά ισοδύναμη με 6,2 χρόνια γήρανσης”, δήλωσε ο ερευνητής Ερίκ Μπονσάνγκ. Αυτό, εκτίμησε, σημαίνει ότι, καθώς μειώνεται το ποσοστό των πολύτεκνων Ευρωπαίων στο σύνολο του ευρωπαϊκού πληθυσμού, θα υπάρξει θετική επίπτωση στη γνωστική-νοητική υγεία των ηλικιωμένων στην Ευρώπη.



“Δεδομένου του μεγέθους της επίπτωσης”, δήλωσε ο ερευνητής Βέγκαρντ Σκίρμπεκ, “οι μελλοντικές μελέτες πάνω στη γνωστική υγεία κατά το ύστερο στάδιο της ζωής θα πρέπει να εξετάσουν επίσης τη γονιμότητα ως προγνωστικό δείκτη μαζί με άλλους πιο καθιερωμένους παράγοντες, όπως η μόρφωση, οι επαγγελματικές εμπειρίες, η σωματική άσκηση και η σωματική και ψυχική υγεία. Επιπροσθέτως, μελλοντικές έρευνες θα πρέπει να εξετάσουν τις δυνητικές επιπτώσεις της ατεκνίας ή της απόκτησης μόνο ενός παιδιού πάνω στη μελλοντική υγεία του εγκεφάλου”.



Μέχρι σήμερα η γονιμότητα δεν είχε τραβήξει ιδιαίτερα την προσοχή ως πιθανός προγνωστικός δείκτης της γνωστικής κατάστασης των ηλικιωμένων. Οι ερευνητές ανέφεραν ότι η γονιμότητα μπορεί να επηρεάσει την γνωστική λειτουργία στο ύστερο στάδιο της ζωής μέσω διαφόρων τρόπων. Μια πιθανή εξήγηση είναι ότι κάθε επιπρόσθετο παιδί συχνά σημαίνει έξτρα οικονομική επιβάρυνση, μείωση του οικογενειακού εισοδήματος και αυξημένη πιθανότητα της οικογένειας να βρεθεί κάτω από το όριο φτώχειας, άρα μειωμένη ποιότητα ζωής για όλα τα μέλη της οικογένειας, με συνέπεια την αβεβαιότητα και το άγχος, που επιδρούν αρνητικά στον εγκέφαλο.

Επίσης η ανατροφή πολλών παιδιών μπορεί να αποδειχθεί αφ’ εαυτής πολύ στρεσογόνα, αυξάνοντας έτσι τους κινδύνους για τη σωματική και νοητική υγεία. Οι άνθρωποι με πολλά παιδιά έχουν λιγότερο χρόνο να χαλαρώσουν και να επενδύσουν σε δραστηριότητες αναψυχής που τονώνουν την γνωστική λειτουργία.

Από την άλλη όμως, οι πολύτεκνοι γονείς έχουν μικρότερο κίνδυνο κοινωνικής απομόνωσης και μοναξιάς, που αποτελούν γνωστούς παράγοντες κινδύνου για γνωστική εξασθένηση και άνοια. Οι τελευταίες γίνονται ολοένα συχνότερες όσο οι πληθυσμοί γερνάνε (δηλαδή αυξάνει η αναλογία των ηλικιωμένων).

ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

ΠΗΓΗ:

https://www.themamagers.gr/family/pos-o-arithmos-ton-paidion-mas-epireazei-tin-ygeia-toy-egkefaloy/(accessed 24.11.23)

Friend Break Ups

Back in June we did a couple of episodes about how to make friends. We thought we’d follow up with one for our Patrons about being intentional in ongoing friendships, and one for everyone about friendship endings.

Here’s our podcast https://soundcloud.com/megjohnjustin/friend-break-ups

Here is a summary of our thoughts on friendship break-up.

First we agreed that for anything in life to be consensual we have to know that we don’t have to do it – now or ever. Being able to conceive of breaking up, or leaving, is vital in any kind of relationship, otherwise it’s hard – if not impossible – for it to be fully consensual.

Don’t miss out on episodes and blogs! Every other podcast is for Patrons only. Sign up to our Patreon from just $1 per month.
When might be a sign that we need to break-up a friendship

On the podcast we suggested the following might be good reasons to consider ending or changing a friendship:If the friendship doesn’t feel nourishing and fulfilling for both people. If it’s not good for everybody it’s not good for anybody
If either person in it doesn’t feel free enough to be themselves (in the friendship and their wider life) and/or safe enough that they’ll be treated well – and treat themself well – in the friendship
If you notice that you’re not looking forward to time together and/or feel bad after time together
If someone isn’t ready for the kinds of communication that feel necessary to us to deal with issues or tensions that have come up
If there are stuck dynamics in the friendship which feel tough and are difficult to shift (e.g. one person being very dependent on the other, or one person being controlling)
A big power imbalance between you
A big imbalance in the emotional labour that you’re both doing in the friendship
How can we break-up a friendship?First we might want to think of a spectrum from friendship change to friendship ending. If it doesn’t feel good for one/both of us, are there changes we could make to the structure and/or rhythm and/or understanding of the friendship which might help? Is everyone up for that conversation and able to hear each other? If so, trying to shift it into another form could be a useful thing to try. If not then ending make be easier and/or safer
It’s useful to remember that if the dynamic between you isn’t working for one of you then it’s not good for either of you to remain in it – it’s not good to be the one who is hurting or getting hurt – so staying in it for the sake of the other person isn’t a great idea for you or for them
It’s okay to end things in the way that feels safest for you. Ideally it’s good to get a kind and clear message across to the other person about what’s happening rather than ghosting/drifting, but this can be in whatever form feels manageable to you. You don’t have to explain yourself beyond it not working for you, and you don’t have to receive a response
It’s good to recognise that it’s likely to be hard for both people, rather than trying to minimise the impact on either of you
How can we deal with the aftermath of a friendship break-up?Recognise that friendship break-ups can be just as painful as other kinds of endings, if not more so in some cases, and that our feelings are always valid whatever our role in the break-up
Focus on looking after yourself
Try to allow all your feelings, rather than imagining that only some are appropriate. If you feel it, it’s a sensible, understandable feeling
Get support from compassionate people in your life, letting them know how you’re doing and what helps you
You don’t have to get caught up in thoughts of blame and shame – it’s okay that this happened and that it is painful without believing that they – or you – are a terrible person. However it is useful to recognise where you have been badly treated – or treated another person badly – and work on that part

SOURCE:

https://megjohnandjustin.com/relationships/friend-break-ups-2/(accessed 20.11.23)

Everything is scattered and the tower has collapsed

Exploring the role of art in activism at the Art of Management and Organisation Conference.
Arts & cultureOrganisationsArchive





In telling the story of my journey as an artist with a social practice I always return to the Sea of Galilee (sea of Tiberius, Buḥayrat, Ṭabarīyā, Lake of Gennesaret to name a few) — the geopolitical context of my first experience of Tavistock Group Relations, where the social meaning of the arts became visible as I took part in the large group sessions.

The Christian parables of my rural English childhood were in this ancient landscape — boats, fishermen, (diminishing) water. What I witnessed was the whole group creating images as those within it explored their relatedness to each other, to the world beyond. At one point we fantasised that we had conjured up a rain storm with our narratives and projected this potency onto a young female rabbi. This was the origin for me of art and organisation as the theoretical lens of object relations initially offered meaning to group image making and which I have more recently come to understand as having something to do with the textures and surfaces of organisation created as we react and evolve in context.

It is this that I explore in my studio based research and what in early August I took as one of a group of Tavistock practitioners to the Art of Management and Organisation’s ‘Art and Activism’ conference. We took an activist stance in joining this community by introducing a daily Social Dreaming matrix* to the programme. An organisational intervention that we suggested could be a container to surface and give voice to the unconscious processes of exploring art as activism together.

Nuala Dent drew each matrix as it unfolded – her drawing process leaves both a final image and an animation to the matrix and mirrors an activist practice that she brings to working with clients and organisations. Amongst the dreams and associations in the matrices were hieroglyphic symbols, ancient horses, packs of cards, red, “red wants you to pay attention”, packing and unpacking of suit cases, a poison chalice.

A significant association to the preoccupations and concerns of the conference was to the Tower of Babel:

“The Tower of Babel.

A unified code of symbols.

Everything is scattered when the tower collapsed.

There was panic.

No longer a key for understanding each other.”

The collapsing tower seemed to capture both the nature of our here and now and the task of the conference and the community. The socio ecological within the Tavistock tradition talks to Anthropocene organisations where fragile and sensitive systems adapt and maladapt to the turbulent environment through fragmentation, cold dissociation and fundamental behaviours. Art perhaps is involved simultaneously in deep attunement to our new and emerging ecology and in the creation of new symbols and metaphors for organisation.

Simone Kennedy, who was a TIHR visiting artist in residence, situates herself deep in this sensitive attunement. Through her art Kennedy reimagines a symbolic mother and sees this as a form of activism where her story is a version of many people’s stories.

Antonio Sama and I experimented with telling a different version story about working with the Institute’s archive. We experimented with deconstructing our story into a more aesthetic and fragmentary form to see what understanding it brought to the work a few years on. In doing this it has opened us up to our work with history and archives in organisations as activism – working with the archive giving the possibility of a plurality of identities, what we call our ‘Many Me’s’. The polyphony of actors in history opens us up to the polyphony inside ourselves and toward the rehumanisation rather than dehumanisation of the other.

These are the reflections and sense making as they aided through our role in convening a stream and the social dreaming spaces at the conference. We left the conference struck by a final performance of the ‘The Dead-United’ by Pil Galia Kollectiv. A dark and humorous performance on the exploitation of labour and how it continues long after we are dead. They are artists challenging the organisational forms in which art takes place and working as activists to challenge the social and economic assumptions of ART!

*Social Dreaming is methodology evolved from Wilfrid Bion’s work with groups as it was developed by Gordon Lawrence of the Tavistock Institute. Dreams are brought and shared in a matrix to enable exploration of the unthought and unconscious dimensions of our times.

Juliet Scott
Business Curator

Juliet Scott is one of the programme co-directors for Deepening Creative Practice with organisations, a unique trans-disciplinary programme weaving together the arts and social sciences.

SOURCE:

https://www.tavinstitute.org/news/everything-is-scattered-and-the-tower-has-collapsed(accessed 10.11.23)

Art that reflects us is more enjoyable

New study finds that seeing parts of themselves in the art makes paintings more appealing to viewers.

15 September 2023

By Emma Young


What makes certain visual artworks more appealing to us has been debated for centuries. When considering paintings, particular features certainly play a role; for example, people tend to prefer more natural scenes, and more ordered images, while levels of brightness and colour choice can also affect aesthetic appeal. But given the wide array of responses a single artwork can provoke, it’s clear that what viewers bring to the equation is a vital part of the puzzle.

Recent investigations from Edward A. Vessel at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and colleagues suggest that the personal relevance of an artwork’s subject matter is important to shaping viewer responses. The findings suggest that that whether or not someone finds a work of art beautiful and moving has more to do with how well the subject matter resonates with their sense of who they are and their world-view than any particular features of the image itself.

In an initial experiment, 33 participants viewed 148 images of paintings. These paintings were chosen to reflect a variety of time periods, styles, and genres from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. They were also paintings that had not been widely reproduced, minimising the chance that the participants would have seen them before. Each painting was rated for naturalness and disorder by an independent set of raters.

The participants gave each artwork two ratings: one for how much it ‘moved’ them (this was the measure of aesthetic appeal in this experiment), and another for ‘self-relevance’. ‘Self-relevance’ was defined for participants as the extent to which something in the image related to them, their experiences or their identity — the things and events that define them as a person.

The results showed that the participants had widely varying views on the self-relevance and aesthetic appeal of each painting. However, rating a painting as highly self-relevant was strongly linked to finding it more aesthetically appealing. In fact, self-relevance predicted about 28% of the variance in scores for aesthetic appeal, while levels of naturalness and disorder accounted for only 8% of this variance.

The number of participants in this initial study was small, and it explored just one aspect of aesthetic appeal. So, in order to extend their findings, the team then recruited 208 participants to view and rate a subset of 42 artworks for beauty, as well as how moving they were, and self-relevance. As with the first study, more self-relevant artworks were rated as more moving. Participants also tended to rate highly self-relevant images as more beautiful, suggesting that the more personally relevant a participant considered the painting to be, the more aesthetically appealing they found it.

In a final experiment, the researchers aimed to find out whether greater self-relevance caused, not just correlated with, higher aestheticism ratings. They gave a fresh group of 45 participants a questionnaire that asked about their life experiences, aspects of their identity, preferences, and common activities. They then used this information to create personally relevant synthetic artworks for each participant.

The team did this using a neural network-based technique called ‘style transfer’, in which photos are integrated and modified to look like an artwork painted in a specific style. For example, for a participant who had reported a memorable holiday that started in Helsinki, the team fed the neural network photos of a landmark Helsinki building, plus an image of a colourful oil painting by Bob Thompson. The neural network then generated an artwork of that building and its surroundings in the style of that painting.

Each participant viewed four sets of 20 images: self-relevant generated artworks, created on the basis of their questionnaire responses; artworks that had been generated to be highly relevant to one other participant; a control set of generated artworks (not related to anyone’s questionnaire responses); and real paintings, taken from the set used in the first studies. The participants rated each image for how moving they found it and for self-relevance.

The team’s analysis showed that participants found their self-relevant, artificially-generated artworks more aesthetically pleasing than those generated for another participant. On average, they also slightly preferred their personally generated artworks to genuine paintings. Further analyses revealed that content that related to an individual’s ‘self-construct’ — their past experiences and their identity — was mostly strongly linked to higher aestheticism ratings.

Real artworks, while getting relatively low ratings for self-relevance, received higher aesthetic appeal ratings as a group than the generated artworks. As the team notes, this indicates that there was something about genuine paintings that the style transfer technique did not capture. Quite what that is was unclear.

The study itself does have a few limitations. For example, only one of the experiments asked for ratings of beauty, which is commonly viewed as central to the aesthetic experience. Overall, though, the new work does suggest that when it comes to artwork, the old adage ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is true — and that referencing the beholder is key.

Read the paper in full: https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231188107

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/art-reflects-us-more-enjoyable(accessed 8.11.23)

The principles of good therapy

An extract from 'A Straight Talking Introduction to Therapy: what it is, why it works, how to get it' (PCCS Books) by Matt Wotton and Graham Johnston.

25 September 2023


Once you’ve found a good-enough therapist, how do you know if you’re getting good therapy? One of the best and simplest ways to think about what comprises good therapy is to consider the principles of change that are shared across all the main forms of therapy (Pachankis & Goldfried, 2007).

We list below what many people consider to be the five principles that lead to change in psychotherapy:
Good therapy depends on you and your therapist believing that it will help

One of the key elements of successful therapy is that you believe it will change something about your life for the better. Research finds this to be true time and time again (Bartholomew et al., 2021), most obviously in medicine, where the placebo effect shows how powerful your thoughts and expectations are. Having confidence that something will help you usually means that it does. As we’ve discussed above, in therapy you gain that confidence by working with a therapist who inspires your trust and gives you a realistic sense that they can help you because they have helped others in a similar situation. Your therapist’s job is to convey that optimism to you. Good therapy feels hopeful.
Good therapy requires a good working relationship with your therapist

If you don’t trust or respect your therapist, then it’s unlikely you’ll get much out of therapy. Similarly, if you feel they don’t ‘get you’, or if they speak down to you or confuse you, that will not lead to an effective working partnership. The good news is you can usually tell this very early on. If you detect problems in the first few sessions, don’t ignore them or hope for the best. Whatever the issue is, raise it with your therapist, give them a chance to respond, but if they don’t, it’s time to look elsewhere. It’s not going to be possible to be honest about the most difficult aspects of your life with someone you don’t trust or respect or feel comfortable with.
Good therapy improves your awareness of what’s going on in your life

That includes the way your mind tends to work and how you tend to be in your relationships, whether with bosses, partners, friends, children or parents. Your therapist’s job is to help you see when you overreact or when you are inflexible or impulsive or you assume you know exactly what others are thinking. Your therapist can help you stand back and spot things you can’t see for yourself. It can be uncomfortable to have your views challenged or your ‘flaws’ pointed out. At times, your therapist might make observations or ask questions that feel challenging. Therapy is not always fun. It’s meant to help you change something about your life. And the first step to that is noticing when you do things on autopilot that are not in your best interests. Once that’s in place, you can often make rapid changes (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013).
Therapy is an opportunity to do things differently

Improved awareness of how you think and act is step one, but it’s not enough. In time, it will also mean doing things differently. That might be speaking up at work or asking the guy at the gym to go for coffee. Either way, it’s making a deliberate choice to act differently, in the hope of a better outcome. If you want change, you will have to take a risk and behave differently. Good therapy makes sure those changes are at a speed and intensity you can tolerate. Like a good fitness programme, therapy should feel challenging but not overwhelming. Working with a good therapist is a lot like working with a personal trainer. In both cases, they assess what you are ready for and won’t suggest more than they think you can handle. But they are also in your corner, encouraging you to work hard and sometimes do uncomfortable things. In the end, whether you do them or not is up to you. And, as with physical exercise, outcomes in therapy are largely determined by the effort you put in.
Tie it all together into a virtuous circle

Therapy helps you link increased awareness of the things you want to change with a new experience of doing them differently. This means recognising something that you are avoiding or noticing a pattern that you have been repeating on autopilot, and then doing something differently to break that cycle. Often this produces a different and better outcome, which results in you thinking that it was a risk worth taking. Even when the risks don’t pay off – your boss rejects your proposal or the guy you ask out for a coffee says no – you realise it’s not the end of the world. You might well still feel proud you took the risk, and you might be more inclined to do so again. Good therapy helps you realise that you really do miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. While the stereotype of therapy is that it focuses on your childhood and the pain of your past, good therapy is every bit as much focused on the future and getting on with living. What do you want to do more of and build on? How did you get through previous tough times? Can you identify the smallest change that you can quickly put into practice to improve your life? When you’ve done so, can you recognise those improvements, give yourself credit, and build on them? Over and over?
Summing it up

Good therapy can’t be separated from the therapist who delivers it. Different therapists get very different results. Not only are some better than others, but the worst therapists can make you feel worse. And this has nothing to do with age, experience or training; it’s about their interpersonal qualities.

Research suggests you should be looking for a therapist who is empathic, non-judgemental, validating, genuine, focused on your goals and willing to challenge you to reach them; one who believes in your resilience, builds on your strengths and is committed to guiding you towards solutions that work for you. A good therapist blends and balances those characteristics. Your preferences matter too. If you know that some qualities are more important to you than others, take that seriously when choosing your therapist. Clearly, you also need someone properly trained and registered with a recognised professional body or statutory register. Online directories are the most convenient way of finding them and are a useful first port of call. But don’t let the search for the perfect therapist be the enemy of finding one who is good enough.

The only way to really tell if a therapist is right for you is to go ahead with the first session. Did you feel understood? Did they seem genuine? Have you started to build a rapport? Were there any red flags? If so, don’t be afraid to cut your losses and move on. The aim is not to find the perfect therapist. The aim is to find someone who can help you make changes that enable you to live a better life.

At its best, therapy can change your life. So, it’s important that you get the best therapy you can. In the end, however, its effectiveness depends on the amount of effort you put in. Your therapist can’t and won’t fix you on their own – we’ll look at your own readiness and motivation in more detail in Chapter 9. At the other end of the spectrum, the worst therapists can cause you harm. They can reduce your trust in other people; they can make you leave therapy despite not getting the benefits; they can make you feel you are to blame for your own problems. And there are therapists who are simply just not that good at their job. You’ll end therapy with them feeling no better, having wasted your time and money. So in the next chapter, we discover what bad therapy looks like, why there is so much of it and how you can avoid it.

A Straight Talking Introduction to Therapy: what it is, why it works, how to get it (rrp £12.99) by Matt Wotton and Graham Johnston is published by PCCS Books.

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/principles-good-therapy(accessed 2.11.23)