This review is an exploration of evolutionary theories with the aim to investigate emotional states, well-being and ill-being from an evolutionary perspective. Functional evolutionary theories of emotional states, posit that emotions have evolved as behavior modifiers responding to specific situations that provided fitness benefits in our ancestral past. Exploring this theory gradually uncover clues towards practical, hands-on suggestions as to how to increase life satisfaction and quality of life. Specifically, these suggestions include interacting with kin, reaping stress-reducing and health effects from letting nature be a part of your life, developing deep friendships, and not comparing yourself with the best or most successful individuals in the world.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:11:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 978442 bytes, checksum: 7411b2c34ae2f7a349a842819e8f49d6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The purpose of this project is to portray a particular trait combination between guilt and fear and establish a connection between the analysis of Freud and Bauman on the notion of ill-being . Our reading of Freud's literature on the ill-being of civilization points to guilt as being a key element in the civilizing project, which transgresses the authenticity of the values of life and leads the subject to live continually immersed in a state of hardship. From this perspective, to be protected of threats of any kind, everyone is bound to sacrifice freedom and convert pleasure into guilt. In a civilized dimension obsessed with security, more freedom is akin to less ill-being. Bauman attempts to analyze the issue from the aspect of uncertainty and undetermination, which according to you are striking features of contemporaneity. According to the author, in the postmodern condition we find a deep lack of certainty, protection and security. The fearfulness is very numerous and inseparable from human life. He presents the foundations of social fears that plague individuals in liquid modernity, seeking to identify their common origins. In his view all that human beings have always sought was happiness and that it could only be obtained through communion between security and freedom, irreconcilable throughout history, incompatible in the modern civilization but apparently viable for consumption. / O propósito do presente trabalho é estabelecer um diálogo entre as análises de Freud (O mal-estar na civilização) e Bauman (O mal-estar da pós-modernidade) acerca da noção de Mal-estar, a fim de mostrar um traço específico da combinação entre culpa e medo, que seria a vida para o consumo. Nossa leitura sobre o Mal-estar na civilização de Freud aponta para o sentimento de culpa como um elemento fundamental dentro do projeto civilizatório, que fere a autenticidade dos valores da vida e conduz o sujeito a viver continuamente mergulhado numa incômoda condição. Nessa perspectiva, em nome da proteção contra ameaças de qualquer tipo, todos são convocados para sacrificar a liberdade, convertendo prazer por culpa, ainda que na dimensão civilizada obcecada pela segurança, mais liberdade seja sinônimo de menos mal-estar. Bauman procura analisar a questão sob o aspecto da insegurança e indeterminação que, no seu entendimento, são traços marcantes da contemporaneidade. De acordo com o autor, na pós-modernidade encontramos um momento profundamente carente de certezas, proteção e segurança, os medos são inúmeros e inseparáveis da vida humana. Ele apresenta os alicerces sociais dos medos que assolam os indivíduos na modernidade líquida, procurando identificar suas origens comuns. Na visão dele tudo o que o ser humano sempre buscou foi a felicidade, que só poderia ser obtida através da comunhão entre segurança e liberdade, inconciliáveis ao longo da história, incompatíveis na civilização moderna, sólida ou líquida, mas, aparentemente, viáveis no consumo.

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In the present study, we examined whether social problem-solving processes would add predictive utility over loneliness in accounting for unique variance in ill-being (viz., depressive symptoms and suicide behavior) and well-being (viz., life satisfaction and positive affect) in a sample of 230 females. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that social problem-solving processes added significant predictive utility in accounting for unique variance in depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Moreover, negative problem orientation emerged as a significant unique predictor of both ill-being and well-being. In contrast, positive problem orientation emerged as a significant unique predictor of well-being and only one index of ill-being. Some implications of the present findings are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate breast cancer patients’ experiences of their illness and of traditional nursing care (TNC) or supportive nursing care (SNC) respectively, as well as nurses' experiences of support and of caring for cancer patients. An intervention including extended co-operation between the surgical ward and primary health care, shorter waiting times, and changed routines concerning the information about the diagnosis, as well as training and systematic clinical supervision for the nurses, was implemented. Newly diagnosed breast cancer patients (n=47) from two county councils in the south-east of Sweden were interviewed (IV, V). Thirty-four of them completed scales about well-being, burnout, hopelessness, anxiety and depression (VII). The women who had TNC reported lack of professional support during the initial phase of the disease and suggested changes in the care similar to those implemented in the SNC. In the SNC group the women expressed feelings of safety and security after the professional support and the organizational changes in the care. There were significantly more single women and women who had had breast conserving surgery in the SNC group than in the TNC (VII). The hopelessness scores in the SNC group were significantly higher than in the TNC group. Thirty-nine district nurses (DNs) were interviewed at baseline (I), and thirty-three of them completed scales about burnout, empathy, and sense of coherence (SOC) before and after systematic clinical supervision (VI). Twenty-three of the 39 DNs, as well as 9 hospital nurses (HNs) who participated in the clinical supervision, were interviewed about their experiences of this intervention (III). Twenty-nine tape-recorded supervision sessions in three groups of DNs (n=23) were analysed (II). Baseline interviews and analyses of the content of the supervisory sessions strongly emphasized that DNs experienced problems in the home care of seriously ill cancer patients. Deep human contacts were a source of both strain and enrichment. The clinical supervision was said to provide relief from undesirable thoughts and feelings, confirmation of themselves both as individuals and in their professional role, a broader and deeper knowledge and increased self-confidence. There were no significant differences in the burnout, empathy, and SOC scores between the supervisory group (n=21) and a comparison group (n=12) at the first and second measures, nor over time within the groups. There were some correlations between these phenomena and the Karolinska scales of personality, as well as cor­relations between burnout, empathy and SOC. The groups of women were not entirely similar as regards demographic and medical characteristics, and the sample size of patients and nurses was small. It is obvious that patients in the TNC missed those factors that were implemented in the SNC, at the same time the latter women expressed hopelessness more often than those who had received TNC. This result may be due to the fact that support from nurses had made the women more prepared to express their feelings, that support had not been provided to an adequate extent or in the right way, or that the applied scales were not appropriate. The finding that the nurses experienced the clinical supervision as very positive but that, despite this, there were no significant differences in attitudes measured by scales within or between the groups, can be interpreted in a similar way. Consequently, further research is needed to judge the effects of intervention. The study has, above all, produced qualitative descriptions of patients' experiences of the nursing care after discharge from hospital, and of DNs’ experiences of the care of cancer patients in their homes, and of systematic clinical supervision. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1995, härtill 7 uppsatser.</p> / digitalisering@umu

En ce début du XXIème siècle, un nombre d’auteurs sans cesse plus important développe un véritable enthousiasme pour des thématiques féminines. Plus précisément, il s’agit pour eux de mettre en exergue la quête identitaire des femmes dans notre société. Cette littérature révèle une omniprésence du corps et de la sexualité en lien étroit avec la société et les schémas culturels imposés tenant ainsi un discours novateur sur les femmes. Le but de cette recherche est de montrer comment un discours littéraire, en reprenant les discours socioculturels, féministes et psychanalystes du moment, conçoit la question de la femme et quelle représentation de la femme il produit. Face à cette réflexion sur la question de la femme et son identité, cette thèse centre son étude sur les romans de trois auteurs, Virginie Despentes, écrivain français, Lucía Etxebarria, écrivain espagnol et Maïssa Bey, écrivain algérien francophone. L’être femme est représenté dans un rapport avec la violence masculine mais aussi avec sa propre violence, dans son rapport au corps et à la sexualité, par des relations humaines conflictuelles ainsi que par une aliénation sociale et culturelle. Le personnage féminin est un personnage seul, enfermé dans une identité dans laquelle il ne se reconnaît plus et qu’il rejette. La quête de soi et de la reconnaissance de soi laisse apparaître leurs aspirations, en contradictions avec leurs attributions. A la fin de chaque roman, l’individualisation de la femme est envisagée par la reprise de parole. La reconstruction de soi ne peut être permise que par la maîtrise de la parole sur soi, et la quête d’individualisation doit se poursuivre / In our early 21th century, an increasingly number of writers gets a real enthusiasm for woman-related themes. More precisely, their purpose is to underline the identity quest of women in our society. This kind of literature uncovers a constant involvement of body and sexuality closely linked to society and to cultural schemes that society imposes - thus leading these authors to hold an innovative discourse about women. Our research aims to show how a literary discourse, drawing from actual sociocultural, feminist and psychoanalytic discourses, conceives the Woman issue and which representation of woman it can create. At the hands of this reflection about the Woman issue and her identity, the study focuses on three female authors’ novels, Virginie Despentes, a french writer, Lucia Extebarría, a spanish writer and Maïssa Bey, an algerian French-speaking writer. The woman being is portrayed in her relations with male violence but also with her own violence linked to her relation to body and sexuality, and through human struggles and a social and cultural alienation. The female character is lonely, confined to an identity in which she does not recognize herself anymore and that she rejects. The quest for self-knowledge and for self-recognition lets its longings emerge, in contradiction with their remit. In the end of each novel, woman’s individualization is imaged through a takeover of speech. Self-reconstruction can only be possible thanks to a control of speech about oneself and the individuation quest has to keep going

The main purpose of this study was to explore the impact of organisational change on the lived experiences of employees’ well-being. A sample of six employees participated in the study. The requisite data was obtained using semi-structured interviews. The literature review aimed to conceptualise organisational change and its related constructs, to explore employee well-being and its related constructs, and to understand the impact of organisational change on employees’ well-being in organisational contexts. The specific aims of the empirical study were to explore the impact of organisational change on employee well-being, to provide a basic framework that may assist organisations in managing change initiatives directed at enhancing employee well-being, and to formulate recommendations for possible future research on the impact of organisational change on employee well-being. The findings of this study indicated that the impact of organisational change on employees’ well-being is generally negative owing to the uncertainty of moving from the known to the unknown. All employees are impacted by organisational changes. The findings further indicated that the adverse impacts of organisational change may be moderated by communication, participation in the organisational change process and support. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com (Industrial and Organizational Psychology)

Cette recherche s’intéresse au soutien à domicile des personnes âgées dites « en perte d’autonomie » dans un contexte où, d’une part, les inégalités socioéconomiques parmi ce groupe sont marquées et, d’autre part, les services à domicile tendent vers une standardisation et une marchandisation. L’autonomie a été mobilisée comme concept pour mieux appréhender les conditions de vie et les rapports sociaux qui nuisent ou contribuent au bien-être des aînés à domicile, de leur propre point de vue et de celui des auxiliaires familiaux et sociaux qui interviennent auprès d’eux. Ce groupe d’acteurs est généralement évoqué dans la littérature comme ayant une vision sociale et globale des personnes qu’ils visitent, de par leur proximité et intrusion dans l’espace de vie de ces dernières. Le discours dominant par rapport au bien-être des personnes âgées (bien-vieillir ou, en anglais, successful aging) dans la littérature en gérontologie ou dans les documents institutionnels s’articule autour d’une conception fonctionnelle de l’autonomie, au détriment des dimensions plus sociales et relationnelles. Cette recherche a ainsi cherché à investir une perspective sociorelationnelle de l’autonomie, qui se retrouve en sciences sociales chez des auteurs tels que Druhle, Sen, McAll, Honneth, Guillemard et Castoriadis. Ce cadre conceptuel au cœur duquel se trouvent notamment les notions de reconnaissance et de rapports sociaux inégalitaires a servi de porte d’entrée pour analyser 10 entrevues semi-dirigées avec des auxiliaires familiaux et sociaux (qui ont évoqué, chacun, la situation des trois dernières personnes visitées, pour un total de 30 exemples de cas) et 14 entrevues semi-dirigées avec des personnes âgées recevant des services à domicile. Au croisement de ces regards, les résultats de cette recherche suggèrent que les conditions de vie matérielles et relationnelles ont un impact déterminant sur la possibilité pour les aînés de « se sentir vivants » et que pour les personnes les plus défavorisées et/ou isolées, le soutien à domicile se traduit le plus souvent en une situation de « confinement », de « maintien » à domicile. Par rapport à la relation avec les auxiliaires, il apparaît que l’amélioration du bien-être des aînés recevant de l’aide à domicile passe, entre autres, par la création d’un espace relationnel autonome dans lequel la personne existe non seulement comme « corps », mais également comme « esprit ». Par-delà des services offerts, c’est ce type d’interaction (attentif et respectueux des habitudes, intentions et projets qui ont rempli la vie des personnes aidées) qui retient le plus leur attention et mobilise l’essentiel de leur discours sur le soutien à domicile. Il semble également que ce soit parfois en se faisant marginal dans la vie des gens et en créant simplement des espaces favorables à une autonomie collective que le réseau de services peut avoir les impacts les plus positifs sur les personnes, de leur propre point de vue. / This study aims to explore the elder’s home support, more narrowly the experience of people characterized as « in loss of autonomy » in a context where, on one hand, socioeconomic inequalities in this group are important, and, on the other hand, home support services tend toward a standardization and a commoditization. The concept of autonomy has been used to better apprehend the living conditions and the social relations that positively or negatively affect the wellbeing of elders at home, from their own perspective or from those of the visiting caregivers who work with them. The latter are generally mentioned in the literature has having a social and global perspective on the people they visit, as they are closely tied to them and intrude in their own living space. In the gerontology literature and in institutional documents, the dominant discourse related to wellbeing of the elderly (« successful aging » or, in French, « bien-vieillir ») is articulated around a functional conception of autonomy, depriving it of its more social and relational dimensions. This research has developed a social perspective on autonomy grounded in social sciences and based on authors such as Druhle, Sen, McAll, Honneth, Guillemard and Castoriadis. This conceptual framework relies on notions of recognition and social inequality and was used in analyzing our 10 semistructured interviews with caregivers and 14 more with elders receiving homecare. Each of the 10 caregivers were asked to relate their last three visits, adding up to a total of 30 case studies. At the crossroads of these narratives, the results of this research suggest that material and relational living conditions do have a decisive impact on elders’ possibility to « feel alive ». For those most disadvantaged and/or isolated, home support most often translates in situations of containment, of retention at home. With regards to relationships with caregivers, it appears that improvement of elders’ wellbeing receiving home support is related, among other things, to the creation of autonomous relational space where the person exists not only as a « body » with needs, but also as a « spirit ». Beyond the provided services, it is the kind of interaction (careful, mindful, respectful of habits, intentions and projects that fulfill the life of the assisted individuals), that occupies most of their narrative on home care services. According to the elders, from time to time, it seems that the health care system can have more significant positive impact by creating spaces propitious to collective autonomy and with marginal intervention.

Cette recherche s’intéresse au soutien à domicile des personnes âgées dites « en perte d’autonomie » dans un contexte où, d’une part, les inégalités socioéconomiques parmi ce groupe sont marquées et, d’autre part, les services à domicile tendent vers une standardisation et une marchandisation. L’autonomie a été mobilisée comme concept pour mieux appréhender les conditions de vie et les rapports sociaux qui nuisent ou contribuent au bien-être des aînés à domicile, de leur propre point de vue et de celui des auxiliaires familiaux et sociaux qui interviennent auprès d’eux. Ce groupe d’acteurs est généralement évoqué dans la littérature comme ayant une vision sociale et globale des personnes qu’ils visitent, de par leur proximité et intrusion dans l’espace de vie de ces dernières. Le discours dominant par rapport au bien-être des personnes âgées (bien-vieillir ou, en anglais, successful aging) dans la littérature en gérontologie ou dans les documents institutionnels s’articule autour d’une conception fonctionnelle de l’autonomie, au détriment des dimensions plus sociales et relationnelles. Cette recherche a ainsi cherché à investir une perspective sociorelationnelle de l’autonomie, qui se retrouve en sciences sociales chez des auteurs tels que Druhle, Sen, McAll, Honneth, Guillemard et Castoriadis. Ce cadre conceptuel au cœur duquel se trouvent notamment les notions de reconnaissance et de rapports sociaux inégalitaires a servi de porte d’entrée pour analyser 10 entrevues semi-dirigées avec des auxiliaires familiaux et sociaux (qui ont évoqué, chacun, la situation des trois dernières personnes visitées, pour un total de 30 exemples de cas) et 14 entrevues semi-dirigées avec des personnes âgées recevant des services à domicile. Au croisement de ces regards, les résultats de cette recherche suggèrent que les conditions de vie matérielles et relationnelles ont un impact déterminant sur la possibilité pour les aînés de « se sentir vivants » et que pour les personnes les plus défavorisées et/ou isolées, le soutien à domicile se traduit le plus souvent en une situation de « confinement », de « maintien » à domicile. Par rapport à la relation avec les auxiliaires, il apparaît que l’amélioration du bien-être des aînés recevant de l’aide à domicile passe, entre autres, par la création d’un espace relationnel autonome dans lequel la personne existe non seulement comme « corps », mais également comme « esprit ». Par-delà des services offerts, c’est ce type d’interaction (attentif et respectueux des habitudes, intentions et projets qui ont rempli la vie des personnes aidées) qui retient le plus leur attention et mobilise l’essentiel de leur discours sur le soutien à domicile. Il semble également que ce soit parfois en se faisant marginal dans la vie des gens et en créant simplement des espaces favorables à une autonomie collective que le réseau de services peut avoir les impacts les plus positifs sur les personnes, de leur propre point de vue. / This study aims to explore the elder’s home support, more narrowly the experience of people characterized as « in loss of autonomy » in a context where, on one hand, socioeconomic inequalities in this group are important, and, on the other hand, home support services tend toward a standardization and a commoditization. The concept of autonomy has been used to better apprehend the living conditions and the social relations that positively or negatively affect the wellbeing of elders at home, from their own perspective or from those of the visiting caregivers who work with them. The latter are generally mentioned in the literature has having a social and global perspective on the people they visit, as they are closely tied to them and intrude in their own living space. In the gerontology literature and in institutional documents, the dominant discourse related to wellbeing of the elderly (« successful aging » or, in French, « bien-vieillir ») is articulated around a functional conception of autonomy, depriving it of its more social and relational dimensions. This research has developed a social perspective on autonomy grounded in social sciences and based on authors such as Druhle, Sen, McAll, Honneth, Guillemard and Castoriadis. This conceptual framework relies on notions of recognition and social inequality and was used in analyzing our 10 semistructured interviews with caregivers and 14 more with elders receiving homecare. Each of the 10 caregivers were asked to relate their last three visits, adding up to a total of 30 case studies. At the crossroads of these narratives, the results of this research suggest that material and relational living conditions do have a decisive impact on elders’ possibility to « feel alive ». For those most disadvantaged and/or isolated, home support most often translates in situations of containment, of retention at home. With regards to relationships with caregivers, it appears that improvement of elders’ wellbeing receiving home support is related, among other things, to the creation of autonomous relational space where the person exists not only as a « body » with needs, but also as a « spirit ». Beyond the provided services, it is the kind of interaction (careful, mindful, respectful of habits, intentions and projects that fulfill the life of the assisted individuals), that occupies most of their narrative on home care services. According to the elders, from time to time, it seems that the health care system can have more significant positive impact by creating spaces propitious to collective autonomy and with marginal intervention.