Les pertes liées à la capacité fonctionnelle, au réseau social et à l'approche de la mort, sont autant de menaces pour le bien-être en général mais représentent aussi des opportunités de transformation et de croissance par l'intégration des parties de sa vie en un tout cohérent et l'acceptation que la mort représente la fin naturelle de la vie. Ainsi la recherche d'un sens à sa vie est importante à n'importe quel âge et plus encore dans le grand âge. La présente étude s'est intéressée au rôle que joue le sens de la vie dans les stratégies d'adaptation et les attitudes face à une mort prochaine. Elle se divise en quatre chapitres. Le premier chapitre présente la problématique sous-jacente à la recherche, la question de recherche, la recension des écrits sur les principaux thèmes, les objectifs ainsi que le cadre théorique. Le deuxième chapitre traite de la méthodologie utilisée, des stratégies d'observation et d'analyse, des obstacles méthodologiques et des considérations éthiques. Le troisième chapitre présente les caractéristiques des participants, le processus d'analyse, les résultats et leur interprétation. Le quatrième chapitre présente la synthèse des résultats, une comparaison avec les autres études, le modèle exploratoire du lien entre sens de la vie, stratégies d'adaptation et attitudes face à la mort, la portée et les limites de la recherche ainsi que les pistes de recherches. La conclusion comprend des recommandations pour l'intervention tant au niveau du personnel soignant que pour les personnes âgées et leur entourage.

Orientador : Anita Liberalesso Neri / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T16:07:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Santana_MarceloCardosode_M.pdf: 977818 bytes, checksum: 9f6c3cd5890e7e3c94213ac0942dc928 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: Objetivo: Foi conduzido um estudo de levantamento envolvendo idosos residentes na comunidade, com 65 a 103 anos de idade, investigando sua crença religiosa e a importância e os significados por eles atribuídos à religiosidade. Método: Os dados pertenciam ao banco de dados de uma pesquisa sobre condições de velhice bem-sucedida desenvolvido numa cidade brasileira de médio porte. Entre os 956 idosos da amostra, 361 (71% mulheres; idade média = 71,6 anos e DP=8,3) responderam questões sobre sua crença religiosa, e sobre a importância e os significados atribuídos à religiosidade. Os principais temas derivados da análise de conteúdo foram submetidos à análise estatística comparando-os às outras variáveis. Resultados: A maioria eram católicos e atribuíram alto valor à religiosidade em suas vidas. Os principais temas associados à religiosidade foram: fonte de significado existencial, expressão de tradição cultural, regulador moral, e estratégia de enfrentamento. Não foram observadas diferenças estatisticamente significativas devidas a gênero e à idade, com exceção de religião como estratégia de enfrentamento, mais freqüente entre as mulheres, e de religião como expressão de tradição cultural, mais citado pelos católicos. As principais associações apontadas pela análise de correspondência foram: ser católico, ser mulher, ter mais de 70 anos, alta freqüência de menções à religiosidade como fonte de significado e expressão de tradição cultural e baixa em religiosidade como fonte de transcendência; não ser religioso, ser homem, ter menos de 70 anos e enfatizar a religiosidade como regulador moral e fonte de desenvolvimento pessoal; ser espírita e enfatizar a religiosidade como busca de transcendência / Abstract: Objective: There was carried out a survey aimed at investigating the religious belief, the level of importance and the meanings related to religiosity according community-dwelling elderly aged 65 to 103. Methods: Data were gathered from the data set of a survey about conditions of successful aging developed in a middle sized Brazilian town (N=956). Among these, 361 (71% women, mean age = 71,6, DP=8,3) answered questions about their religious belief, as well as about the level of importance and the meanings they associated to religiosity. The main themes derived from content analysis were submitted to statistical analysis comparing them to the other variables. Results: The majority were Roman Catholic and attributed high value to religiosity in their life. The main themes associated to religiosity were: source of existential meaning, expression of cultural tradition, moral ruler, and coping strategy. There were not observed statistically significant differences due to gender and age, with exception of religion as coping strategy, more frequent among women, and religion as expression of cultural tradition, where the catholic scored higher. The main associations showed by correspondence analysis were: being Roman Catholic, women, aged 70 and more, strong beliefs toward religiosity as source of meaning or expression of cultural tradition and low frequency of beliefs on religiosity as a source of transcendence; being non-religious, being men, being aged less than 70, and emphasis on religiosity as moral ruler and as a source of personal growth; being spiritualist and strong beliefs on religiosity as a quest for the transcendent / Mestrado / Gerontologia / Mestre em Gerontologia

This study was inspired by the ever growing need for significance expressed both by my life coaching and pastoral therapy clients as well as the need for existential meaning reported both in the lay press and academic literature. This study reflected on a life that matters with a group of co-researchers in a participatory action research context. The study has been positioned within pastoral theology and invited the theological discourse into a reflection of existential meaning. Adopting a critical relational constructionist epistemology, the research was positioned within a postmodern paradigm. The implications for meaning and research were explored and described. My fellow researchers were invited to reflect on what constitutes a meaningful life or “a life that matters” to them personally. These stories of meaning were explored and situated within personal meaning histories. Meaning discourses introduced to the discussion of “a life that matters” were deconstructed, their effects externalised and embedded in life long meaning stories. In the process outsider witnesses were introduced to these stories, enriching these as we did. Together the research community made up of me and my fellow researchers, reflected on the meaning discourses introduced to the conversation on a life that matters in this way. These discourses included spirituality, purpose, and being meaningful in somebody else’s life. Only then did the group decide that perhaps these discourses were complemented by identity discourses. When we reflected upon the value of the research process as meaning enhancing action in their lives, my co-researchers suggested that it was the reflection process which added most value to their own experiences of meaningfulness. Throughout the research process, the voices of literature were invited into the conversation, exploring their perspectives on existential meaning. These voices acted as outsider witnesses, authenticating the stories of meaningfulness which were introduced by my fellow researchers. This study may serve to revive the conversation both in the practical theology discourse and the pastoral theology discourse. It positions existential meaning within an uncertainty discourse and suggests that reflexive co-construction in the manner suggested previously, can contribute to the meaning enhancing multilogue. Meaning making is introduced in a non-totalitarian way, strongly suggesting that an experience of meaningful living is possible even in postmodern times often described as confusing and potentially relativistically or nihilistically meaningless. This study creates space for spirituality in the existential meaning conversation; perhaps even strongly proclaiming that it should be part of any conversation on meaningfulness. Meaningfulness has been introduced as a local experience devoid of the power discourses of meta narratives and do-it-yourself recipes. Local process rather than universal content was positioned as meaning enhancing in the study, thus opening space for local life knowledges and negating the need to conform to meta-narratives of meaningfulness which may in effect be alienating and disempowering in that they relegate the life knowledges of objectified people into anecdotal and fictional. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The two aims of the study are to describe and analyse: i) how drug abusers have transformed their lives from the time when they did not use drugs, to becoming drug abusers, and finally leaving drugs behind them; and ii) what it means to be socially integrated with one's experience of having been a drug abuser. The study builds on qualitative research interviews with seven women and seven men. With symbolic interactionism as the point of departure the interviewees' lives are described and discussed as existential, meaning-creating processes characterised by modulations in the meaning they have given their lives. Most of the interviewees have grown up under disadvantageous conditions. They began us­ing drugs in adolescence. Over time their lives became very difficult to the point that they occa­sionally questioned their lives as drug abusers. The interviewees faced serious situations when they decided to leave the drug abuse life. No matter what motives they describe for beginning to change their lives, their decisions were influenced partly by negative social consequences gen­erated by drug abuse, and partly by positive social changes. Most of the interviewees went through institutional treatment to cease drug abuse. But their experiences of treatment can be regarded as a part of a prolonged change process which is influenced by many other factors outside of the treatment context. Today the interviewees live "normal lives". They are working or studying. The family is an important part of their lives. Most of them are engaged in different organisations, for example sport clubs, political parties, or Narcotics Anonymous. The fact that they succeed in ceasing drug abuse and today are leaving "normal lives" can not be explained by the possibility that they as group were better equipped socially, by hereditary, or by acquired characteristics, than people who continue to use drugs. Rather, changes in their existential conditions made it possible for them to cease drug abuse. Of decisive meaning was that they took part in social contexts where they built relationships to people who gave them confidence and who were able to see and meet the interviewees during their initial fragile striv­ing for change. The interviewees ambivalence and insecurity about building a life without drugs was reduced by the fact that they felt acceptance and respect from people who assumed the interviewees had resources and knowledge that were important for living "normal lives". / digitalisering@umu

N. Riethof - Burnout syndrome in Health Care Professionals ABSTRACT Burnout syndrome is a state of total exhaustion related to work condi- tions and prolonged stress. While initial phases of burnout resemble stress symptoms, final phases of burnout are characterized by feelings of hopelessness, loss of meaning and desperation that have similar qual- ities as depression as well as existential vacuum described by Frankl in his logotherapy. In addition, the burnout syndrome involves stages in which people detach from their emotions and feelings as a defense mechanism against stress and have decreased ability to experience their own feelings and emotional states. Burnout usually begins with feelings of enthusiasm and idealized visualizations and it is in contrast with sub- sequent disillusionment, disappointment experienced later. After decades of burnout research, there is still a need for better def- inition of this condition including more precise diagnostic criteria and internationally recognized measurement tools, especially within health care system where the risks of unrecognized and untreated burnout are high. This study is focused on examination of potential causes of burn- out and relationships of burnout symptoms with certain personality traits, defense mechanisms and coping reactions including...

<p>This work attempts an answer to two questions. Firstly, is it possible to experience meaning when everything is transient? And secondly, in what way is objectivity possible when it comes to such phenomena as existential meaning? The questions originate from our insideperspective, and it is from what we have experienced ourselves that we try to make intelligible existential meaning. We are to a great extent part of the context in which we live. Our ability to contemplate our situation and our own contemplation is taking place in interplay with others. To make room for the small things meaningful in life, the expression existential meaning is used. In this expression both the meaningless and the meaningful are included, since both are needed for our understanding of meaning. Without the Other and that which is different, the individual person’s formation of existential meaning becomes just more of the same, it becomes an enclosure in the present. The encounter with the Other makes room for that which is different to break through.</p><p>Objectivity is possible when it comes to existential meaning, if one views objectivity as a process between people. It is performed in conversation. Those who converse, refer to their bodily experiences of the Time that remains and help each other, using language as the tool, to formulate their experiences. They compare each others’ manifestations of existential meaning,</p><p>and with the help of language they go further in the formation of what is meaningless and meaningful. Their conversations imply a normative presupposition that they can justify the claims that they make. Because it is actually not possible to make intelligible existential meaning in words other than by doing it as a mix of descriptions of that which is manifesting itself and linguistic rewritings in the form of stories. This expression of objectivity has a normative aspect, namely in relation to the possibility that we can be wrong. Therefore, we need each other in the act of judging, and together we are guided by the fact that it later on can emerge things that show that our judgment has not been fully correct. </p>

The purpose of this essay is to examine how to clarify and emphasize the relationship between emotions and meaning. I have explored how to make an adequate conceptualization of the role of emotions in the experience of existential meaning. To do that I have used a theory of emotion by Martha Nussbaum and an phenomenological theory of meaning by Martin Holmberg. To form an adequate conceptualization I have raised four analytical questions to the choosen material and I have also analyzed the material based to embrace the theories. The theories are the basis for the essay. The four questions I have chosen is; (1) What is emotion and meaning?, (2) What are the conditions for meaning and emotions?, (3) When do emotions arise that are involved in creating meaning and why?, (4) What role can religious emotions play?  Based on the questions and the theories I have come up with a model I consider to be adequate for the role of emotions in the experience of meaning.

This work attempts an answer to two questions. Firstly, is it possible to experience meaning when everything is transient? And secondly, in what way is objectivity possible when it comes to such phenomena as existential meaning? The questions originate from our insideperspective, and it is from what we have experienced ourselves that we try to make intelligible existential meaning. We are to a great extent part of the context in which we live. Our ability to contemplate our situation and our own contemplation is taking place in interplay with others. To make room for the small things meaningful in life, the expression existential meaning is used. In this expression both the meaningless and the meaningful are included, since both are needed for our understanding of meaning. Without the Other and that which is different, the individual person’s formation of existential meaning becomes just more of the same, it becomes an enclosure in the present. The encounter with the Other makes room for that which is different to break through. Objectivity is possible when it comes to existential meaning, if one views objectivity as a process between people. It is performed in conversation. Those who converse, refer to their bodily experiences of the Time that remains and help each other, using language as the tool, to formulate their experiences. They compare each others’ manifestations of existential meaning, and with the help of language they go further in the formation of what is meaningless and meaningful. Their conversations imply a normative presupposition that they can justify the claims that they make. Because it is actually not possible to make intelligible existential meaning in words other than by doing it as a mix of descriptions of that which is manifesting itself and linguistic rewritings in the form of stories. This expression of objectivity has a normative aspect, namely in relation to the possibility that we can be wrong. Therefore, we need each other in the act of judging, and together we are guided by the fact that it later on can emerge things that show that our judgment has not been fully correct.

Syftet med den här uppsats är att undersöka varför människor med barndomstrauma kan finna mytologiska symboliska berättelser i existentiell kultur läkande. De frågor som ställs är: På vilket sätt kan berättelser om superhjältar ge ökad förståelse om barndomstrauma, både för de som själva upplevt det, samt de som inte upplevt det? Hur kan berättelser om superhjältar verka psykiskt läkande vid barndomstrauma? Vilken betydelse har känslor i läkandeprocessen av barndomstrauma? Material som använts är TV-serien Moon Knight och kommentarer från YouTube. Teoretiska perspektiv som används är positiva psykologiska teorier, John P. Wilsons avgrundupplevelse och Viktor Frankls viljan till mening samt analytiska teorier om filmtolkning och hur det digitala samhället kan ge en existentiell kontext, med Jung, Tilander och Duppils forskning. Metoden som använts är grundad teori (GT). Tidigare forskning har visat ett samband mellan meningsskapande och populärkultur, främst berättelser om superhjältar, likaså de psykiskt läkande effekter film och TV-serier kan ha. Barndomstrauma har visat både negativa risker och positiva aspekter och har stor psykisk inverkan även i vuxen ålder. Den här uppsatsen visar ett samband mellan barndomstrauma och en ökad förmåga, förståelse, begär och upplevelse av existentiellt meningsskapande från mytologiska symboliska budskap från populärkultur, i uppsatsen benämns det existentiell kultur som även förklaras närmre. Det ger psykiskt läkande effekter och bidrar till välbefinnande och själslig helhet som kan jämföras med det som kan upplevas i religiösa sammanhang. Dessa resultat är viktiga eftersom barndomstrauma och meningsskapande i populärkultur är relativt outforskade områden men som kan komma till hjälp för barn och vuxna som upplevt barndomstrauma. Det blir ett sätt att både förstå och hjälpa dessa, likaså ett sätt för dem att enklare förstå sig själva för att sedan kunna läka och finna välbefinnande. / The aim of this paper is to investigate why people with childhood trauma can find mythological symbolic stories in existential culture healing. Questions asked: In what way can stories about superheroes provide increased understanding about childhood trauma, both for those who have experienced it themselves, as well as those who have not? How can stories about superheroes have a psychological healing effect following childhood trauma? What is the importance of emotions in the healing process of childhood trauma? Materials used are the TV series Moon Knight and comments from YouTube. Theoretical perspectives used are positive psychological theories, John P. Wilson's the abyss experience and Viktor Frankl's will to meaning as well as analytical theories about film interpretation and how the digital society can provide an existential context with Jung, Tilander, and Duppils’ research. The method used is grounded theory (GT). Previous research has shown a connection between meaning-making and popular culture, mainly stories about superheroes, as well as the psychological healing effects from films and TV series. Childhood trauma has shown both negative risks and positive aspects and has a large psychological impact even in adulthood. This paper shows a connection between childhood trauma and an increase in ability, understanding, desire and experience of existential meaning-making from mythological symbolic messages from popular culture, called existential culture in this paper, a term that will be explained. It provides psychological healing effects and contributes to well-being and a spiritual wholeness that can be compared to some religious experiences. These findings are important because childhood trauma and meaning-making in popular culture are relatively unexplored areas but can be helpful for children and adults who have experienced childhood trauma. It becomes a way to both understand and help these, as well as a way for them to understand themselves more easily, to heal and find an inner peace.