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Consciousness
Published in Justin Amery, The Integrated Practitioner, 2022
Science, therefore, can be quite helpful in describing what consciousness does. We seem to be able to make some fairly confident suggestions that consciousness is produced by the interplay of many empirically observable factors. These include our physical bodies; the neurons and synapses of our nervous systems; our languages and symbols;28 our families; or our societies. The reason we can make these assertions with some confidence is that we can observe them. For example, we know that brain damage (e.g. coma, disorientation) and chemicals (e.g. psychotropic drugs) can affect consciousness in different ways (e.g. by putting us to sleep, waking us up, making us lose our memories, altering our perceptions of time, vision and hearing). These observations suggest there is a strong connection between the brain and consciousness, even if we don’t know what that is or how it may work.
Psychological Trauma
Published in Aruna Bakhru, Nutrition and Integrative Medicine, 2018
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the quintessential mind/body disorder that alters physiological, biological, and psychological homeostasis. Clinical observation and research point to a complex pattern of dysregulation that impairs physical, affective, and cognitive function. People who have been traumatized often present with distressing and frequently intractable psychosomatic symptoms, often without knowing consciously that the source of their symptoms is the trauma they experienced. This timely ebb and flow of natural rhythms—the polarized dynamic of opposites represented as sleep and wakefulness, inhalation and exhalation, systole and diastole, beta and delta—are severely compromised by trauma. An understanding of the methods that affect consciousness and brainwave function is useful for both the clinician and client in the treatment of trauma.
Chronic Posttraumatic Disorders of Consciousness
Published in Rolland S. Parker, Concussive Brain Trauma, 2016
Partial seizures are considered controversial from the viewpoint of classification (Trescher & Lesser, 1996). They refer to phenomena that arise from a one part of a cerebral hemisphere, may progress to more extensive activity, and have a relatively limited impairment of consciousness—at least initially. The associated phenomena affect consciousness, mood, motor behavior, thinking, sensation, sense of self. They may not be detected by an examiner unless sought for specifically, nor may they be associated with brain trauma or the cerebral dysfunction of a different etiology. Partial seizures may occur with or without impaired consciousness (complex partial).
An exploration of higher-level language comprehension deficits and factors influencing them following blast TBI in US veterans
Published in Brain Injury, 2020
Judith R. Koebli, Venugopal Balasubramanian, Genevieve Pinto Zipp
How do these abnormalities correlate with neurobehavioral symptoms? Bigler (28) stated that slight changes in the upper brainstem and reticular activating system will affect consciousness. Mechanical compression of the perirhinal and entorhinal cortices will affect the input and or output to the hippocampus through the fornix and the connection with the anterior thalamus and cingulated. The medial temporal lobe and basal forebrain are associated with emotional regulation. Stretching of the internal carotid artery is associated with posttraumatic migraines. The symptom of fatigue is associated with hormonal changes from the disruption of hypothalamic-pituitary area. Speed of processing is slowed after a concussion. This is correlated to the compromise of the integrity of white matter pathways. Long-coursing axons are more vulnerable for inter-hemispheric connections (29), such as the corpus callosum and anterior commissure. Finally, autopsy studies found axonal injury in the fornix (30,31). The fornix is a white matter structure that contains projecting axons from the hippocampus. The hippocampus is important for memory. Therefore, disruption in the fronix integrity may cause the disruption in short-term memory (28).
Coloniality and Intersectionality in Social Work Education and Practice
Published in Journal of Progressive Human Services, 2019
Rhea V. Almeida, Lisa Marie Werkmeister Rozas, Bronwyn Cross-Denny, Karen Kyeunghae Lee, Ann-Marie Yamada
Grappling with the matrix of coloniality is critical. Understanding that structural forces affect consciousness is about knowing, recognizing, and controlling all levels of social, economic, and political interaction. Lived consequences are the opus of this endeavor. It is an awareness of both culpability and accountability coupled with a critical sense of how to use individual and systemic agency to intervene in an inequitable system – whether or not we benefit from it. Du Bois (1903/1994), before Freire, first acknowledged the need to free oneself from an “oppressed consciousness” or “double consciousness” to reach a critical consciousness. According to Freire (2000), “attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building” (p. 65). Developing critical consciousness of domination, subjugation, or both in a collective is a powerful learning experience and teaching tool. This allows students in the classroom or clients in a therapeutic context to engage with the collective failures and successes of their own and other lived experiences and histories while working to build solidarity toward collective knowledge on the other side of coloniality. It also offers a fluid channel in which to serve clients. Knowledge building, sharing, and ownership should be the litmus test of erasing the installed project of the Enlightenment and embracing new and alternate histories and knowledge for social work as a branch of the social sciences.
Level of alexithymia as a measure of personality dysfunction in avoidant personality disorder
Published in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 2021
Sebastian Simonsen, Ingeborg Ullveit-Moe Eikenaes, Bo Bach, Elfrida Kvarstein, Matthias Gondan, Stine Bjerrum Møller, Theresa Wilberg
From a broader psychopathology perspective, Semerari et al. [20,21] have formulated the selective impairment hypothesis of mindreading in PD as a method to separate PDs from one another and to differentiate severity within specific PD diagnoses. In support of this hypothesis, Moroni et al. [22] found that, compared to other PDs, AvPD was characterized by a compromised ability to identify one’s own inner states (monitoring) and to correctly identify mental states of others (decentration). Furthermore, Johansen et al. [23] found lower levels of global affect consciousness in AvPD compared to BPD and suggested that psychotherapies for AvPD should focus on emotional experiences and be aimed at improving emotional awareness, tolerance, and expressivity.