O transtorno de pânico é uma das questões preocupantes em termos de saúde coletiva. Pensamos que tal transtorno se configura como uma nova forma de adoecimento psíquico, categoria que tem penetrado em diferentes espaços sociais, e suas descrições vêm sendo incorporadas ao arcabouço identitário dos sujeitos. Problematizar as matrizes culturais da emergência e difusão deste transtorno, no campo da construção de subjetividade e de identidade, é o objetivo deste estudo. Na pós-modernidade, por um lado, nos centramos nas características do que se denomina sociedade de risco, (BECK, 1998) a qual gera sentimentos de imprevisibilidade, desenraizamento e desfiliação; por outro, juntamente com o desprestígio do ideal da interioridade, observa-se um recurso a se recorrer ao registro do corpo e da biologia como âncora subjetiva. (COSTA, 2005). Com a predominância de um cenário de incerteza e de risco permanente, cria-se uma atmosfera em que a previsibilidade e a confiabilidade são constantemente ameaçadas, Ou seja, o valor da confiança no registro da ontologia refere-se à existência de um ambiente suficientemente confiável e previsível para que os sujeitos experienciem uma constância dos ambientes de ação social e material circundante (WINNICOTT, 1963). Verificaremos, em meio a um cenário de risco ambiente, como o pânico emerge e é difundido com base em matrizes desviantes. O transtorno de pânico, pretensamente radicado no cérebro e determinado pela genética, parece ser uma das entidades às quais as pessoas aderem e ao redor das quais se agregam. Nesse sentido, defendendo que os tipos de patologia, nos quais se inclui o transtorno de pânico, podem servir também como redes de pertencimento, formas de sociabilidade que se organizam em torno de predicados físicos, tanto na esfera da normalidade quanto da patologia, entre as quais o corpo anatomofisiológico se destaca como fenômeno identitário, denominado por alguns autores de bioidentidade (ORTEGA, 2000). Humanizar o conceito transtorno de pânico, portanto, é afirmar que tais sintomas já conheceram outras utilizações. Entendendo o sujeito como um conjunto de crenças podem ser alteradas, revistas, repensadas, redimensionadas (COSTA, 1994). Ao sair da esfera da universalidade e essencialidade, típicas de classificações reducionistas no campo da psiquiatria, para a perspectiva de que existem jogos de linguagem diferentes para se referir ao pânico, percebemos que em vez de o transtorno de pânico existem os pânicos, ou seja, são plurais e diversificadas as diferentes gramáticas para se falar daquilo a que se reduz hoje essa classificação psiquiátrica. / Panic disorder is one of the worrying questions in terms of collective health. We believe that such disorder is a new form of mental illness, a category that has penetrated different social spaces, and its descriptions have been incorporated into the identitary framework of subjects. This study aims to question the cultural origins of the emergence and diffusion of this disorder in the field of subjectivity and identity construction. In post-modernity, on the one hand, we focus on the characteristics of what is called risk society (BECK, 1998), which generates feelings of unpredictability, unrootedness, and disaffiliation; on the other hand, together with the lack of prestige of the interiority ideal, individuals tend to resort to the register of the body and of biology as subjective anchor (COSTA, 2005). With the predominance of a scenario of uncertainty and permanent risk, an atmosphere is created in which predictability and trustworthiness are constantly threatened. That is, the value of trust in the register of ontology refers to existence of an environment that is sufficiently trustworthy and predictable so that the subjects experience a constancy of the surrounding environments of social and material action (WINNICOTT, 1963). We shall verify, within a risk scenario, how panic emerges and is diffused based on deviating origins. The panic disorder, which is supposedly rooted in the brain and determined by genetics, seems to be one of the entities to which people adhere and around which they aggregate. In this sense, we defend that the types of pathology in which the panic disorder is included may also function as belonging networks, forms of sociability that are organized around physical characteristics, both in the sphere of normality and of pathology, among which the anatomo-physiological body emerges as an identitary phenomenon, which some authors call bioidentity (ORTEGA, 2002). Humanizing the concept of panic disorder, therefore, means stating that such symptoms have already known other uses. If one understands the subject as a set of beliefs and desires, whose identity is under permanent reconstruction, these beliefs can be altered, revised, rethought, re-dimensioned (COSTA, 1994). When we leave the sphere of universality and essentiality, typical of reductionist classifications in the field of psychiatry, and embrace the perspective that there are different language games to refer to panic, we perceive that, instead of the panic disorder, there are panics, that is, the different grammars used to talk about that to which this psychiatric classification is reduced today are plural and diversified.

O transtorno de pânico é uma das questões preocupantes em termos de saúde coletiva. Pensamos que tal transtorno se configura como uma nova forma de adoecimento psíquico, categoria que tem penetrado em diferentes espaços sociais, e suas descrições vêm sendo incorporadas ao arcabouço identitário dos sujeitos. Problematizar as matrizes culturais da emergência e difusão deste transtorno, no campo da construção de subjetividade e de identidade, é o objetivo deste estudo. Na pós-modernidade, por um lado, nos centramos nas características do que se denomina sociedade de risco, (BECK, 1998) a qual gera sentimentos de imprevisibilidade, desenraizamento e desfiliação; por outro, juntamente com o desprestígio do ideal da interioridade, observa-se um recurso a se recorrer ao registro do corpo e da biologia como âncora subjetiva. (COSTA, 2005). Com a predominância de um cenário de incerteza e de risco permanente, cria-se uma atmosfera em que a previsibilidade e a confiabilidade são constantemente ameaçadas, Ou seja, o valor da confiança no registro da ontologia refere-se à existência de um ambiente suficientemente confiável e previsível para que os sujeitos experienciem uma constância dos ambientes de ação social e material circundante (WINNICOTT, 1963). Verificaremos, em meio a um cenário de risco ambiente, como o pânico emerge e é difundido com base em matrizes desviantes. O transtorno de pânico, pretensamente radicado no cérebro e determinado pela genética, parece ser uma das entidades às quais as pessoas aderem e ao redor das quais se agregam. Nesse sentido, defendendo que os tipos de patologia, nos quais se inclui o transtorno de pânico, podem servir também como redes de pertencimento, formas de sociabilidade que se organizam em torno de predicados físicos, tanto na esfera da normalidade quanto da patologia, entre as quais o corpo anatomofisiológico se destaca como fenômeno identitário, denominado por alguns autores de bioidentidade (ORTEGA, 2000). Humanizar o conceito transtorno de pânico, portanto, é afirmar que tais sintomas já conheceram outras utilizações. Entendendo o sujeito como um conjunto de crenças podem ser alteradas, revistas, repensadas, redimensionadas (COSTA, 1994). Ao sair da esfera da universalidade e essencialidade, típicas de classificações reducionistas no campo da psiquiatria, para a perspectiva de que existem jogos de linguagem diferentes para se referir ao pânico, percebemos que em vez de o transtorno de pânico existem os pânicos, ou seja, são plurais e diversificadas as diferentes gramáticas para se falar daquilo a que se reduz hoje essa classificação psiquiátrica. / Panic disorder is one of the worrying questions in terms of collective health. We believe that such disorder is a new form of mental illness, a category that has penetrated different social spaces, and its descriptions have been incorporated into the identitary framework of subjects. This study aims to question the cultural origins of the emergence and diffusion of this disorder in the field of subjectivity and identity construction. In post-modernity, on the one hand, we focus on the characteristics of what is called risk society (BECK, 1998), which generates feelings of unpredictability, unrootedness, and disaffiliation; on the other hand, together with the lack of prestige of the interiority ideal, individuals tend to resort to the register of the body and of biology as subjective anchor (COSTA, 2005). With the predominance of a scenario of uncertainty and permanent risk, an atmosphere is created in which predictability and trustworthiness are constantly threatened. That is, the value of trust in the register of ontology refers to existence of an environment that is sufficiently trustworthy and predictable so that the subjects experience a constancy of the surrounding environments of social and material action (WINNICOTT, 1963). We shall verify, within a risk scenario, how panic emerges and is diffused based on deviating origins. The panic disorder, which is supposedly rooted in the brain and determined by genetics, seems to be one of the entities to which people adhere and around which they aggregate. In this sense, we defend that the types of pathology in which the panic disorder is included may also function as belonging networks, forms of sociability that are organized around physical characteristics, both in the sphere of normality and of pathology, among which the anatomo-physiological body emerges as an identitary phenomenon, which some authors call bioidentity (ORTEGA, 2002). Humanizing the concept of panic disorder, therefore, means stating that such symptoms have already known other uses. If one understands the subject as a set of beliefs and desires, whose identity is under permanent reconstruction, these beliefs can be altered, revised, rethought, re-dimensioned (COSTA, 1994). When we leave the sphere of universality and essentiality, typical of reductionist classifications in the field of psychiatry, and embrace the perspective that there are different language games to refer to panic, we perceive that, instead of the panic disorder, there are panics, that is, the different grammars used to talk about that to which this psychiatric classification is reduced today are plural and diversified.

Background. Previous studies of the dimensional structure of panic attack symptoms have mostly identified a respiratory and a vestibular/mixed somatic dimension. Evidence for additional dimensions such as a cardiac dimension and the allocation of several of the panic attack symptom criteria is less consistent. Clarifying the dimensional structure of the panic attack symptoms should help to specify the relationship of potential risk factors like anxiety sensitivity and fear of suffocation to the experience of panic attacks and the development of panic disorder. Method. In an outpatient multicentre study 350 panic patients with agoraphobia rated the intensity of each of the ten DSM-IV bodily symptoms during a typical panic attack. The factor structure of these data was investigated with nonlinear confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The identified bodily symptom dimensions were related to panic cognitions, anxiety sensitivity and fear of suffocation by means of nonlinear structural equation modelling (SEM). Results. CFA indicated a respiratory, a vestibular/mixed somatic and a cardiac dimension of the bodily symptom criteria. These three factors were differentially associated with specific panic cognitions, different anxiety sensitivity facets and suffocation fear. Conclusions. Taking into account the dimensional structure of panic attack symptoms may help to increase the specificity of the associations between the experience of panic attack symptoms and various panic related constructs.

Background: The learning perspective of panic disorder distinguishes between acute panic and anxious apprehension as distinct emotional states. Following animal models, these clinical entities reflect different stages of defensive reactivity depending upon the imminence of interoceptive or exteroceptive threat cues. The current study tested this model by investigating the dynamics of defensive reactivity in a large group of patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia (PD/AG). Methods: Three hundred forty-five PD/AG patients participated in a standardized behavioral avoidance test (being entrapped in a small, dark chamber for 10 minutes). Defense reactivity was assessed measuring avoidance and escape behavior, self-reports of anxiety and panic symptoms, autonomic arousal (heart rate and skin conductance), and potentiation of the startle reflex before and during exposure of the behavioral avoidance test. Results: Panic disorder and agoraphobia patients differed substantially in their defensive reactivity. While 31.6% of the patients showed strong anxious apprehension during this task (as indexed by increased reports of anxiety, elevated physiological arousal, and startle potentiation), 20.9% of the patients escaped from the test chamber. Active escape was initiated at the peak of the autonomic surge accompanied by an inhibition of the startle response as predicted by the animal model. These physiological responses resembled the pattern observed during the 34 reported panic attacks. Conclusions: We found evidence that defensive reactivity in PD/AG patients is dynamically organized ranging from anxious apprehension to panic with increasing proximity of interoceptive threat. These data support the learning perspective of panic disorder.

Le but de cette thèse est de développer un absorbant acoustique à base de panic érigé, sur le principe du développement durable, dans le but de l'utiliser pour des applications acoustiques en intérieur et d'être une alternative à la laine de verre. Ainsi, les questions environnementales, économiques et sociétales sont à prendre en compte. Autrement dit, le produit devra être fabriqué localement avec des ressources renouvelables tout en minimisant le transport et l'énergie nécessaire pour son cycle de vie au complet. L'utilisation du panic érigé est une avenue dans la mesure où cette plante pousse sans apport particulier de l'homme et fournit une quantité de paille abondante (c.-à-d.. quatre fois plus que le blé). Son implantation permettrait de valoriser les terrains peu cultivables des agriculteurs. Une extension de la méthode des matrices de transfert a été proposée afin de simuler non plus des empilements de matériaux acoustiques en série (c.-à-d.. l'un derrière l'autre) mais en parallèle (c.-à-d.. l'un à côté de l'autre). Cette méthode permet, ainsi, de modéliser l'empilement de tiges de panic érigé dans une configuration dite ``longitudinale'' par rapport à la propagation sonore et de prédire la réponse de systèmes acoustiques assemblés en parallèle (p. ex. résonateurs quart d'onde) qui peuvent donner naissance à de potentiel concept en panic érigé. Ainsi, le projet se découpe en deux étapes majeures : la caractérisation acoustique de la plante et sa modélisation puis l'élaboration (c.-à-d.. modélisation, fabrication et optimisation) d'un concept acoustique à partir de cette plante.

This thesis considers why some crimes persist beyond the moment of newsworthiness and how they are able to transcend this period of intense reporting to become a feature of popular memory. The central argument is that the popular memory of a crime is built up over time through a synthesis of public discourses, which are predominantly developed in news reporting, people s everyday experience and the normative social frameworks of everyday life. A temporally sensitive analysis of two case studies, the murder of James Bulger and the murder of Sarah Payne, tests this hypothesis by exploring the connections and disconnections between the ongoing reporting of these crimes and the remembering of them. The study finds that the personal past and public discourse intertwine in remembered accounts of these crimes and considers that this is evidence of the ways audiences utilise crime news as an imaginative resource for understanding crime and criminality more broadly. It can thus be said that audiences use the news to frame, but not define their understandings of the world around us.

This study does research on the Swedish media's portraying of an extraordinary crime event in Sweden - the grenades in Malmö 2015. The study focuses on how the media portrays three major participants in the media image: the public, the politicians and the police. The question examined was: How does the media portray the public and the authorities during the grenades in Malmö 2015? I made a framing analysis of 30 news articles from the summer of 2015. The result showed that the public received the role as the victim, where the media image emphasizes on fear from the public. The police received two different images - the safe image where the media emphasizes on the work the police does on preventing crime. The other image was the critical image, where the media emphasized on how the public criticized the police success rate during these incidents. The politicians received a neutral image, where a small amount of critic was portrayed. The results of the analysis diverged from previous studies and theories in the field when it came to the police and the politicians.

Between 1971 and 1999, ParticipACTION, Canada’s Health Promotion agency, reached into Canadian homes, schools, and places of work to “educate, motivate, and mobilize” the public about the perceived need to become physically fit. This dissertation discusses how the agency employed a variety of professional marketing approaches to create compelling prescriptive literature concerning physical fitness to advance a nation-building agenda based in the state directive of individual accountability for the Canadian body. As a result of ParticipACTION's sustained and pervasive influence, Canadians not only remember this prolific brand, but its underlying messaging has become a part of how Canadians view physical fitness and citizenship. ParticipACTION was a project of healthism fostered in an environment of anxiety. The threat of the Cold War, the constructed menace of the Obesity Crisis, and the fear of Quebec Separatism were all used to bolster the message at this semi-public agency over its thirty years of national social marketing. How individual Canadians experienced ParticipACTION varied significantly based on their body type, socio-economic status, gender, language, ethnicity, and region. Through the use of Historical GIS mapping, oral interviews, and archival records, this dissertation offers a history from creation to closure of this national agency and its place in Canada’s social history.

This paper tests Reiss' (1991) expectancy theory of fearfulness. Reiss' moderation model of fears speculates that individual differences in fearfulness and phobic avoidance is a function of the interaction between trait vulnerabilities (i.e., sensitivities) and beliefs about potential outcomes during exposure to phobic stimuli (i.e., expectancies). Four hundred and forty-five undergraduates completed questionnaires related to Reiss' fundamental sensitivities (e.g., "anxiety sensitivity"), expectancies (e.g., "expectancy of physical injury or harm") and the intensity of common fears. Informed by findings concerning fear-related outcome expectancies, a system for measuring expectancies was developed for this study called the Focus of Apprehension Survey Schedule (FASS). Additionally, "disgust sensitivity" and "expectancy of contamination or illness" were included to examine whether they account for fearfulness beyond that predicted by Reiss' sensitivities and expectancies alone. In Experiment 1, hierarchical multivariate regression was employed to test Reiss' moderation model of expectancy theory for four fear subtypes (animal, blood/injection/injury (BII), claustrophobic, social). For each of these fear types, results did not support Reiss' moderation model. However, disgust sensitivity improved the prediction of animal fears and contamination expectancies improved the prediction of BII fears beyond Reiss' fundamental sensitivities and expectancies alone. In Experiment 2, a competing mediation model of expectancy theory was tested in which sensitivities were expected to indirectly influence individual differences in fearfulness through outcome expectancies. Results of path analysis using LISREL 8.54 did not support a mediation model per se. However, expectancies were found to mediate relationships between sensitivities and fears in several predicted instances (e.g., contamination expectancies mediated the disgust-BII fears relationship). The results provide some encouraging replications of prior studies and are discussed in the context of implications for theories of fear as well as for future directions in research.

Student Number : 9208006A - PhD thesis - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / The term ‘ducktail’ was originally used to denote a hairstyle. In the Post World War Two period, ‘Ducktail’ became associated with a rebellious white youth gang subculture, which rose to prominence in the major urban centres throughout South Africa. Societal responses to the subculture’s identity resulted in the generation of a moral panic which demonised the movement branding it as – amongst other things – the ‘eendstert euwel’ [ducktail evil]. The major aim of this thesis is to account for the way in which members of the subculture constructed and practised their class, racial, ethnic, gendered and generational identities whilst highlighting how society responded to them. The relationship of conformity, conflict and control that emerged between the ducktails and more conventional members of society such as the authorities and academics is plotted. This relationship sets the context for the final part of the dissertation, which explores the moral guardians and rule creators that became involved in the designing of youth policies. Particular attention will be given to how the ‘problem of youth’ brought religion, working mothers, morality, the state of the nation and the preservation of white supremacy under question. In this process, the National Party government formulated policies to monitor, shape and construct an appropriate form of South African whiteness.