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Being Sexual: Existential Contributions to Psychotherapy with Gay Male Clients
Published in Elizabeth Peel, Victoria Clarke, Jack Drescher, British Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Psychologies, 2020
While an existential approach acknowledges both the personal and the constructed aspects of experience, it attempts to study the phenomenon as it is (Husserl, 1977). Merleau-Ponty (1962) notes that when it comes to sexuality, “we are concerned, not with a peripheral involuntary action, but with an intentionality which follows the general flow of existence and yields to its movements. ... sexuality is not an autonomous cycle” (p. 157). In line with a view of people as always in relation, Merleau-Ponty notes that sexuality is not independent of meaning. Thus, while sexuality is seen as influenced by biological phenomena, it is also seen as an aspect of life created and manipulated through intentionality.
The stomach and gastric function
Published in Paul Ong, Rachel Skittrall, Gastrointestinal Nursing, 2017
Prior to birth it is the function of the placenta to ensure that there is adequate exchange of nutrients and waste products which will enable the embryo to grow. This is called passive nutrition. After birth the neonate needs to adapt to active nutrition involving the processes of ingestion, digestion and absorption. Following birth the mechanical functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and digestion are still quite immature. The infant has to go through a number of stages before it can ingest, process and absorb all the dietary nutrients required to sustain growth and development. The mechanisms of sucking and swallowing exist before birth but do not become fully functional until after birth. Sucking and swallowing are complex physiological processes that require neurological and muscular coordination and take time to fully develop following birth. For the first 3 months after birth swallowing is an involuntary action and is governed by an automatic reflex action. Once the connections between the striated skeletal muscles in the pharynx and the associated neural pathways to sensory and motor pathways in the brain are fully established voluntary control can commence. This is normally established by the age of 6 weeks.
The Return Of The Reflex
Published in Andrew P. Wickens, A History of the Brain, 2014
The reflex concept would be more fully developed in the eighteenth century by Scotland’s so-called first ‘neurologist’ Robert Whytt (see Chapter 4). Appointed as Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh in 1747, Whytt was a strong opponent of the Cartesian or mechanist view of physiology. Instead, Whytt believed the body’s mechanical actions were subordinate to a spiritual entity capable of self-motion called the sentient principle – an animistic force diffused throughout the body where it controlled sympathy through its ‘wonderful union’ with the nervous system. Yet, despite having these views, Whytt discovered several types of involuntary action. The first of these appeared in an essay published in 1751 where Whytt discusses how the eye’s pupil gets smaller in the presence of bright light.1 This reaction had first interested Haller who thought it occurred because the iris (the muscle surrounding the pupil) became irritated, which caused it to contract without any nervous intervention. But Whytt came to a different conclusion: proposing it arose when light fell on the highly sensitive retina at the back of the eye. This produced an unpleasant sensation, which was communicated to the sentient principle in the optic nerve and brain. It responded by initiating the ‘motions’ necessary to lessen the offending cause, causing the pupil’s contraction, so less light entered the eye. However, Whytt also noticed something else: the pupil’s response to light occurred in both eyes – even if one of them was covered. This demonstrated sympathy between the eyes, and Whytt could only explain it by assuming the nerve pathway from one eye passed to the brain, where the sentient principle acted to evoke the response in the other eye. In fact, Whytt went one step further by identifying the optic thalamus as the site of this action after undertaking an autopsy in a child whose pupils had been unreactive to light and finding a cyst in this area of the brain.
When Thinking is Doing: Responsibility for BCI-Mediated Action
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2020
Stephen Rainey, Hannah Maslen, Julian Savulescu
Despite Sam’s claim, we would nevertheless hold Sam morally responsible for the harm caused by the punch, since Sam had control over his arm and should have foreseen that punching Alex would cause the harm that it did. Sam’s moral responsibility would only be reduced if Sam lacked full control over his arm (perhaps he suffered from a momentary muscular spasm), or if he was not expected to foresee the harm that propelling his arm would cause (perhaps Alex had snuck up beside Sam, who punched his arm in the air to stretch it out, unfortunately making contact with Alex’s head). For most standard instances of punching, the agent’s claim that they did not intend it would at most be taken to suggest that it was spontaneous rather than pre-meditated action, but would not mitigate their moral responsibility. The high degree of control that agents usually have over their arms makes most claims of involuntary action implausible.
Mindfulness as a Construct in Urban Dwelling Minority Fifth Graders: Psychometric Properties of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM)
Published in Smith College Studies in Social Work, 2018
Donna Wang, Thalia MacMillan, Michael Corke
Involuntary responses to stress is a subscale of the Response to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ), Social Stress Version, which is a 57-item, five-construct self-report questionnaire (Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen & Saltzman 2000). The subscale of involuntary engagement is 15 items and involves unconscious or temperamental reactions, such as rumination, intrusive thoughts, physiological arousal, emotional arousal, and involuntary action. The theoretical and practical relationship between mindfulness and stress reduction has been articulated (Kabat-Zinn & Hanh, 2009). Because mindfulness is believed to help modulate overwhelming emotions and decrease reactivity (Zoogman et al., 2014), this scale was chosen to assess divergent validity with mindfulness. Items were assessed on a 4-point Likert scale for respondents to rate their level of agreement to statements such as, “When I’m having a problem with other kids, sometimes I act without thinking” and “I keep remembering what happened with the other kids or can’t stop thinking about what might happen.” The possible range for the involuntary subscale was 0 to 45, with a higher score indicating a higher level of involuntary engagement.
The lived experience following free functioning muscle transfer for management of pan-brachial plexus injury: reflections from a long-term follow-up study
Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2021
Sara Brito, Jennifer White, Nikos Thomacos, Bridget Hill
Participants were also embarrassed by the reaction of others when they attempted to explain their injury and subsequent surgeries. Challenges were commonly reported with regards to explaining the experience of involuntary action of a recipient muscle following a nerve transfer, such as when hiccuping or sneezing.…if I sneeze [after the muscle transfer]…my arm will move. They [people] just look at you, like, “What?” Asher