Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis studies the relationship between subjective experience and social environment during recovery from alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). As a result of participation in AA meetings, many alcoholics undergo healing transformations involving a sense of acceptance of themselves, others and the world. In early sobriety these experiences often remove an alcoholic’s desire to drink. Outside AA, however, alcoholics frequently experience subjective unravelling – a sense of conflict with themselves, others and the world. For many, this subjective state is associated with actual or potential craving for a drink. Regular participation in AA meetings alleviates these states. This thesis construes the relationship between subjective experience and immediate social environment in terms of ‘experiential stakes of relevance’. This conceptual category can be used to characterise both the structural properties of the social environment and the key attributes of the subjective experience of agents within this environment. Listening to stories at AA meetings results for many alcoholics in a radical change in ‘experiential stakes of relevance’. It is argued that the process of spontaneous re-connection with one’s past experiences during AA meetings is akin to the process of mobilisation of embodied dispositions as theorised by Bourdieu. Transformation in AA takes place in the space of a mere one and a half hours and involves processes of intensification of experience. These are analysed in terms of Bourdieu’s notion of ‘illusio’ and Chion’s notion of ‘rendu’. The healing experiences of acceptance presuppose a social environment free of interpersonal conflict. This thesis argues that the need to structurally eliminate conflict between alcoholics has turned AA into a social field which is sustained by the very healing subjective experiences that it facilitates. In the process, AA has developed structural elements which can best be understood as mechanisms inverting the social logic of competitive fields. The fieldwork entailed a detailed ethnographic study of one particular group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Sydney’s Lower North Shore as well as familiarisation with the more general culture of AA in Sydney. Methods of investigation included participant observations at AA meetings and interviews with a number of sober alcoholics in AA.

Empirical studies focusing on the subjective experience of health among patients in contact with the mental health services are rare and most questionnaires are based on a medical model that emphasizes objectively observed disease-oriented health indicators. In studies I and II perceptions of the concept of health among patients and nurses in mental health services were explored and described using a phenomenographic approach. The perceptions and description categories that emerged from these studies were transformed into a number of items forming a questionnaire intended to measure subjectively experienced health among patients in mental health services. In study III, a randomly selected sample was used to test the psychometric properties of the new Health Questionnaire. A factor analysis revealed three factors labelled Autonomy, Social Involvement and Comprehensibility. The purpose of study IV was to examine the construct validity of the Health Questionnaire. The hypothesis was that subjectively experienced health would be positively associated to self-esteem, empowerment and quality of life, and negatively associated to psychiatric symptoms, perceived stigmatization experiences and perceived attitudes of devaluation and discrimination. This hypothesis was mainly confirmed insofar that overall health was positively correlated to self-esteem, empowerment and quality of life and negatively correlated to symptoms, attitudes of devaluation and discrimination and rejection experiences. The results of this thesis show that health is more than just an absence of disease and support a focus on health promotion interventions in mental health care. / <p>Medicine doktorsexamen</p>

This thesis explores the practices, motivations, and sensorial experiences of Montreal’s metro buskers. By examining the lived experiences of ‘street’ performers in the stations and connecting passageways of Montreal’s underground transit system, I consider what it ‘means’ to be a metro busker from the perspective of the performers. Informed by my ethnographic fieldwork among metro buskers, I detail their performance practices, ‘staging’ strategies, uses of technology, bodily dispositions, and subjective perceptions in relation to the public, each other and the spaces of performance. In the process, I make visible—and audible—the variable and improvisational nature of busking practices, and how these are constituted in relation to the physical features of the performance sites. More broadly, I explore the co-productive relations between body and space, the sensorial experiences and spatial practices of everyday urban life, and the potential for moments of micro-social encounter and appropriations of spaces that are not designed to foster conviviality and creative engagement. I locate ‘the busker’ within these questions not as a fixed identity or subject-position but as an embodied assemblage-act that is socially and materially situated and subjectively enacted through highly variable practices, perceptions and experiences. In detailing the moments of social encounter precipitated by metro buskers, I propose understanding busking as a form of Gift-performance that finds certain parallels in sensory ethnographic videography. I show how the influences of diverse participants—human and material—on the filming, editing, and distribution processes changed the course of the audio-visual production in this research. Finally, I introduce a notion of ‘expanded trajectory’ that links performer and space, researcher and participant, and may enable new acts of encounter and exchange, new processes of social and material circulation, new forms of Gift. / Graduate / 2018-05-15 / 0326 / nick.wees@gmail.com

This thesis combines phenomenological and neuroscientific research to elucidate the effects of psychedelic agents on the human brain, mind and psychological well-being. Psychoactive plants have been used for thousands of years for ceremonial and ritual purposes. Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that affect cognitive processes and alter perception, thoughts, and mood. Illegalization of psychedelics in the 1960s rendered them impossible to study empirically but in the last couple of decades, relaxed legal restrictions regarding research purposes, renewed interest in the effects of psychedelic drugs and new brain imaging techniques have started to reveal the possibilities of these mind-altering substances. Psychedelics mainly affect the serotonin receptor 5-HT2A which in turn affect the functioning of largescale cortical areas by changing cerebral blood flow, alpha oscillations, and functional connectivity. These cortical changes not only induce immediate alterations in perception and cognition but have been shown to have positive effects in therapeutic interventions for depression, anxiety, and addiction, and also positively affect well-being in general. Although the pharmacology and neurobiology of psychedelics are still poorly understood, the potential benefits justify empirical research on psychedelics in humans.

This essay explores how the reader cognitively reacts to reading H. P. Lovecraft’s horror story “The Shadow Out of Time” (1936). I analyse the text to see how it invites readers to beaffected by it. I specifically look at invitations to envisionment, subjective experience andintersubjectivity. The literary horror terms uncertainty and uncanniness are used inconjunction with cognitive theory to explain how the readers may react to readingLovecraft’s stories. These are in turn reinforced by the reader's ongoing envisionment of thestory, and their sharing of the character’s experiences via subjective experience. For example,the separation between the mind and body of the protagonist creates an uncanny dissonanceto his own identity, which disrupts the reader’s understanding of the character. This maycause distress in the reader due to the subjective experience that connects the reader to thecharacter. Additionally, the disrupted sense of reality in the book affects the narrator'sperceptions of both his surroundings and his own mental faculties. Subsequently, the reader’sunderstanding of the text is also in a state of flux which affects their envisionment of thestory. This disrupts understanding and may enhance feelings of unease. My theory istherefore that unease is invited by certain horror techniques, such as uncertainty anduncanniness, which in turn influence the reader specifically through subjective experienceand envisionment.

There have been many attempts to explain the experience of anxiety during different types of performance situations. There are several different views on the brain mechanisms of anxiety. The traditional view has its focus on amygdala but recent research questions this view. In this essay the focus is on how two recent theories, namely the two-system model (LeDoux &amp; Pine, 2016) and the attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos &amp; Calvo, 2007) has changed the theoretical landscape of the brain mechanisms behind the experience of anxiety. The two-system framework model claim that the subjective experience of anxiety uses the same cortical circuits as executive functions involved in attention and working memory. Whereas the attentional control theory argues, that due to the limited attentional capacity, increasing the subjective experience of anxiety would result in less capacity for executive functions involved in working memory and attention resulting in impaired performance. This review shows that research on the relationship between the subjective experience of anxiety and performance is inconsistent and researchers possess different views on what gives rise to the experience. Some data indicate that the amygdala is crucial for the subjective experience of anxiety while other data suggest that other cortical circuits have a much more prominent role. If the cortical circuits are strongly involved in the subjective experience of anxiety, this would be strong support for the attentional control theory and the two-system framework model.

Csikszentmihalyi's (1975b) 'flow' theory has been extensively developed and utilised, providing the leading explanation for positive subjective experiences in the study of leisure. The prescriptive tenets along with the archetypal descriptive characteristics of the flow state have been well documented. What is less explicit, however, is what occurs within experience in the instances immediately prior to the onset of flow and those immediately following: in what the author has come to term as pre-flow and post-flow experience (Elkington, 2006 and 2007). This research approaches the dearth of knowledge concerning pre- and post-flow experience from the perspective of existential-phenomenological psychology with the aim of bringing clarity to the experiential, conceptual, and theoretical uncertainty surrounding what goes before and after a state of flow and with it a more complete and holistic understanding of flow experience. The research explores the intricacies of flow experiences of participants from one activity characteristic of each of Stebbins' (2007a) amateur, hobbyist, and career volunteer serious leisure categories, namely: amateur actors, hobbyist table tennis players, and volunteer sports coaches. Using narrative meaning as an interpretative tool to generate descriptions of the specific experiential situations and action sequences that comprise pre- and post-flow produced a single representative narrative of pre- and post-flow experience, and the first empirical insights into the phenomenology of such phases of experience. Examining flow in the context of serious leisure has revealed there to be significantly more to the act of experiencing flow than depicted in Csikszentmihalyi's (1975b) original framework, re-conceptualising flow as a focal state of mind in a broader experience-process model comprising distinct, intricate, and highly-personalised phases of pre-flow, flow-in-action, and post-flow experience. Combining flow and serious leisure has evoked the affinity of serious leisure activity for flow experience and the discovery that serious leisure and flow are not two disparate frameworks, but are structurally and experientially 'mutually reinforcing' of one another, revealing an explanatory framework of optimal leisure experience. The newly-emerged process view of flow was used to provide insights into the phenomenology of flow in serious leisure, adding to the explanatory capacity of Stebbins' serious leisure theoretical framework. Conflating flow and serious leisure in this way provides for significant and exciting opportunities for knowledge transfer between these two established leisure-related frameworks and signifies new vistas for future research in both fields.

Ištirti motinų, uaginančių vaikus suraidos sutrikimais, vyraujančių vidinių reprezentacijų apie vaiką pobūdį, jų empatiškumo lygį bei vaiko įtaką šeimai. Nustatyti motin��, auginančių sutrikusios raidos vaikus, vyraujančių reprezentacijų pobūdį bei empatijos lygį, gautus rezultatus palyginti su motinų, auginančių sveikus vaikus, vyraujančių reprezentacijų pobūdžiu bei empatijos lygiu. / Purpose of the Work: to evaluate the nature of the prevailing internal representations about the child experienced by the mothers raising children with development disorders, their empathy level and the child’s influence on family. Tasks of the Work: to determine the nature of the prevailing representations experienced by the mothers raising children with development disorders, and their empathy level, and to compare the obtained results with the nature of the prevailing representations of mothers raising normally developing children, and their empathy level; to determine the dependence between the empathy level and nature of representations; to determine the influence that the children with development disorders have on family, and to compare the obtained results with the influence that normally developing children have on family; to determine the dependence between the level of influence on family and the style of representation, as well as the level of influence on family and empathy level.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-22T20:50:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-04-28 / A esquizofrenia é um dos principais transtornos psiquiátricos, cujas causas são ainda amplamente desconhecidas. O objetivo deste estudo é descrever as concepções socioculturais relacionadas à experiência subjetiva de pacientes esquizofrênicos e seus familiares, nos seguintes aspectos: a) estudar modelos explicativos e significados formulados por pacientes, familiares e comunidade para entender a esquizofrenia; b) descrever comportamentos e práticas populares de familiares utilizadas no processo do cuidado do paciente esquizofrênico; c) explorar a interação entre a família, o paciente esquizofrênico e a comunidade próxima. Foi realizada uma etnografia utilizando a observação participante e entrevista semiestruturada em profundidade, abordando questões referentes às experiências e crenças de pacientes crônicos com diagnóstico de esquizofrenia e seus familiares, em tratamento no Ambulatório de Saúde Mental da cidade de Montes Claros. Foram entrevistados 46 indivíduos: 16 pacientes, 23 familiares e 07 membros da comunidade. Familiares e pacientes vivem em precárias condições socioeconômicas. Pacientes, familiares e a comunidade compartilham crenças semelhantes quanto à etiologia e curso da doença. A esquizofrenia, para pacientes e familiares, não é reconhecida como uma doença; ela é um transtorno de causa espiritual e tem como principais modelos explicativos o resguardo quebrado, os espíritos, o encosto e os feitiços. Os espíritos geracionais são vistos como responsáveis pela transmissão e manifestação da doença por hereditariedade. A doença passa de um membro para o outro por maldição. Pacientes e familiares buscam ajuda terapêutica, principalmente nos “curandeiros”, no espiritismo e nas igrejas evangélicas, o que nem sempre resulta em melhora. As “vozes” que os pacientes ouvem são interpretadas pelos familiares como vozes espirituais, possibilitando a perspectiva de um aspecto positivo na relação entre familiares e pacientes. A loucura, para pacientes, familiares e comunidade, está associada à inconsciência dos acontecimentos e atitudes em torno de si. Ser “louco” está relacionado ao uso de medicação antipsicótica, o que é uma barreira para a adesão ao tratamento. Não poder participar socialmente do mundo é uma fonte de sofrimento para os pacientes. O relacionamento familiar é permeado de agressividade e violência de ambos os lados. As famílias usam a violência: a) por medo; b) como defesa das agressões recebidas; c) para controle do comportamento do paciente; d) por acreditarem que as agressões dos pacientes são premeditadas; e) por não compreenderem o que acontece com os pacientes. O comportamento violento do paciente é visto como um problema de caráter moral. Na perspectiva da comunidade, o paciente esquizofrênico é perigoso e ameaçador. O contexto sociocultural deve ser considerado ao se pensar políticas de intervenção que priorizem a melhoria de vida para pacientes e familiares. As políticas públicas de saúde mental precisam lidar com os desafios das realidades locais, da dinâmica familiar e da violência, que estão inseridos no contexto do cuidado terapêutico. A etnografia realizada com pacientes, familiares e vizinhos mostrou a complexidade do cuidado do paciente esquizofrênico e necessária articulação de várias áreas do conhecimento para se ter uma aproximação mais realista da vida cotidiana dos participantes. / Schizophrenia is one of the major psychiatric disorders, whose causes are still largely unknown. The aim of this study is to describe the socio-cultural concepts related to the subjective experience of schizophrenic patients and their families in the following aspects a) to study the explanatory models and meanings formulated by patients, families and communities in order to understand schizophrenia b) to describe behaviors and popular practices of the patient’s family used in the process of the schizophrenic care c) to exploit the interaction between the schizophrenic patient, his family and the community. An ethnographic research was conducted using participant observation and semi-structured in-depth interview approaching issues related to experiences and beliefs of chronic patients with schizophrenia diagnosis and their families undergoing treatment at the Mental Health Clinic in the city of Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, Brazil. A total of 46 individuals were interviewed: 16 patients, 23 family members and 07 members of the community. Patients and their families live in poor socioeconomic conditions. Patients, families and the community share similar beliefs towards etiology and the course of the disease. Schizophrenia is not recognized as a disease both by patients and their families; it is considered a spiritual disorder and its main explanatory models are lack of post natal care, spirits, spells and spiritual obsession. Generational spirits are seen as responsible for the disease transmission and manifestation by inheritance. This disease is transmitted from one member of the family to the other by curse. Patients and family members seek therapeutic help mainly in "spiritualist healers" and evangelical churches which does not always bring improvement. The "voices" patients hear are interpreted as spiritual voices by the family, suggesting the prospect of a positive aspect in the relationship between family and patients. The concept of madness for the patients, their families and communities is associated with attitudes and unconsciousness towards what is happening around. Being "crazy" is related to the use of antipsychotic medication presenting a barrier to treatment adherence. The fact of not being able to participate socially in the world is a source of suffering for the patients. The family relationship is surrounded by aggressiveness and violence on both sides. Families use violence; a) for fear b) in order to defend from the aggression received, c) in order to control the patient’s behavior d) because they believe the attacks are premeditated e) because they do not understand what patients are going through. The patients’ violent behavior is seen as a moral character problem. Under the community view, the schizophrenic patient is dangerous and threatening. The sociocultural context must be considered when thinking of intervention policies that prioritize the patients’ and families’ life improvement. Mental health public policies have to deal with the challenges of local realities, family dynamics and violence, which are inserted in the context of therapeutic care. The ethnography with patients, family members and neighbors showed the complexity of the schizophrenic patient care and the articulation needed for several areas of knowledge in order to have a more realistic approach of the participants’ daily life. / TEDE / BV UNIFESP: Teses e dissertações

Fundação Centro de Ciências e Educação Superior a Distância do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Esta tese de doutoramento tem como objeto as experiências de atores e atrizes na criação e apresentação de monólogos no Rio de Janeiro, a partir de 2006. Esta experiência artística é refletida aqui a partir de questões clássicas das Ciências Sociais sobre o indivíduo moderno, tais como as da singularidade, autenticidade e originalidade. A questão da autoria de tais monólogos é relacionada a perspectivas ligadas à ideologia individualista ocidental, tais como as da autonomia artística e construção de si, nas complexas imbricações entre o artista (ator/indivíduo criador) e sua obra (monólogo/performance/encenação/texto). O monólogo visto como um amplo projeto artístico, que abrange a experiência de sua elaboração, produção, apresentação e repercussão torna-se um objeto processual de autorreflexão do artista sobre si mesmo e sobre o mundo. O monólogo pode ser visto como uma experiência artística pessoal, onde a perspectiva autoral é posta em primeiro plano, dinamizando e realimentando aspectos associados à crença em um modelo de indivíduo que se expressa por um sujeito capaz de se autodefinir, mas que, neste contexto, encontra expressões particulares. Para esta abordagem, analiso três experiências monológicas: O Animal do Tempo, protagonizada pela atriz Ana Kfouri; A Alma Imoral, adaptada e protagonizada por Clarice Niskier; e Anticlássico: uma desconferência ou o enigma vazio, concebida e encenada pela atriz Alessandra Colasanti. / This Doctorate thesis has as object the experiences of actors and actresses in the creation and presentation of monologues in Rio de Janeiro, from 2006 to 2010. The analysis of this artistic experience is based on classic topics of Social Sciences concerning the modern individual, such as singularity, authenticity and originality. The matter of authorship concerning such monologues is related to perspectives on the western individualistic ideology such as the artistic autonomy and the construction of self, in the complex interweavement of the artist (actor/creative individual) and his/her artwork (monologue/performance/mise-en-scène/text). The monologue seen as an ample artistic project, including the experience of its elaboration, production, presentation, critics and commentaries is an object in progress from which the artist reflects upon him/herself and the world. The monologue can be seen as a personal artistic experience, where the authorial perspective is privileged, stressing and reinforcing aspects regarding the belief in an individual model that express itself as a person capable of self definition. For this research, I analyze three monological experiences: O Animal do Tempo, starred by Ana Kfouri; A Alma Imoral, adapted and starred by Clarice Niskier; and Anticlássico: uma desconferência ou o enigma vazio, created and staged by Alessandra Colasanti.