Hanukkah Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Hanukkah - Research Paper Example This account contains many of the elements that would evolve into the contemporary holiday. During this period it was indicated that a single candle be lit per household a night; a second option being that a candle be lit for each member of the family. This practice would carry on throughout a number of incarnations into the modern holiday.  Ã‚     There are a number of religious practices associated with the Hanukkah holiday. One of these rituals is the daily prayer service that occurs throughout Jewish homes and Jewish temples during the Hanukkah holiday. There is also a special prayer that occurs after nightly meals. Following the nature of the holiday season, Hanukkah is generally accompanied by families visiting each other and celebrating with elaborate feasts, with lots of fried foods (Gur 2008). While not required, each of the eight-days is generally accompanied by gift giving that slightly mirrors the Christmas holiday. Still, perhaps the most overarching ritual is the li ghting of the candles on each of the eight days. The lights can be candles or oil lamps and on each proceeding night a new light is added to the ceremony, until the final night with eight lights. Three main blessings occur during the Hanukkah celebration. The first night all three blessings are recited; however, on the other nights, only two of the blessings are recited. While there are elements of the Hanukkah holiday that are universal among all sects of Judaism, there exists some differentiation.

What are the 3 key factors to consider when buying merchandise for a Essay

What are the 3 key factors to consider when buying merchandise for a high street fashion brand such as Topshop - Essay Example As buying occurs in set periods it’s further necessary to have significant foresight. Another prominent factor that buyers must consider is quality control (Goworek 2005, p. 9). While there is generally a quality control department it’s recognized that they contribute to finalizing the aesthetic aspects of the fit, shape, length and proportion of the garment; additionally, it may be necessary to test the fabric to ensure that it matches the end retailer’s standards. The final factor that buyers must consider when purchasing merchandise for a high street fashion brand is progressive sales of past brands (Goworek 2005, p. 17). This is a slightly complex notion as it necessitates that buyers consider the specific sales of garments in the range and recognize then effectively manage these purchases in the context of future buying patterns. While it may not always be possible to purchase the same garments the buyer can match specific trends within these ranges accordin g to retail tendencies to achieve maximum

A Theoretical Vision of Community Essay Example for Free

A Theoretical Vision of Community Essay Introduction and overview of a theoretical vision of community The following document outlines the defense of my theoretical vision of community. It will address the extent to the vision is informed by my particular beliefs and understandings regarding the nature in which a society can more efficiently function. It will also delve into some of the perspectives of communitarian vision in relationship to this particular theoretical vision, and will look into areas of human personality and agency as mechanism for the success and failure of past and future visions of community. The document will also address some of the more intricate theories of knowledge and moral truths, as well as the details of logistics as to how such a community will function in a democratic fashion. Priorities on rights and morals within the community will be addressed, as well as the general systems of social welfare. The concept of equality will be introduced as a force within this envisioned community, and will be analyzed in terms of its meaning within this vision of community. This vision of community will base itself mainly on Conservativism and the visions of group behavior and community from such philosophers as Allen Bloom, Alasdair MacIntyre and Russell Arben Fox. My particular theoretical view of community is quite simple to state, and yet very difficult to enact. It is a view that believes that the human experience is not sustainable if one only works towards individual liberties. It is important to understand the web of relationships to which we all belong. These webs can consists of our relationship to the environment and the earth, our relationship to our local and global community and our relationship to our families, friends and other social networks. By understanding the complex webs of existence that determine the human condition, we can begin to conceptualize a community that is sustainable. Currently we are functioning within a paradigm of an unsustainable collective reality. My vision of community perceives of a group collective whose members dedicate a minimal amount of attention, energy, and resources to projects that uplift the collective. This brings up one of the other principle understandings in my envisioned group. It is that the exclusive pursuit of individual interests, rights and freedoms places an enormous burden on the social and physical environment. Individual rights and freedoms can only work within the greater paradigm of the collective reality that encases it. And so, my vision recognizes the need for human rights and the existence of human agency, while at the same time it recognizes the existence of the human collective. In this sense, my vision gives equal rights to the collective experience as to the individual experience. When considering the state of institutions and organizations in America, one must reconsider the notion of community and morality within a group paradigm. I envision a theoretical community based on much of the resurgence of communitarian ideas. Disturbing trends towards crime and social disorder, as well as an all-prevailing attitude that gives emphasis towards self-affirmation and self-interest. Communitarian ideas focus on restoring integrity in human community efforts and institutions, especially in the administrative and localized realms. Within communitarian studies, one can begin to perceive a renewed interest in a community that fights for basic ideals regarding the human individual character, integrity, and the virtues and values which manifest themselves in the public sphere. My vision of community calls for the embodiment of communitarian ideals and policy approaches which begin at the micro-level of the human individual experience, branching out to the macro-level of cultural and institutional development. The basis of the vision involves a union of individuals committed to becoming the change that they wish to see in the world. This involves the education of good personal conduct and personal responsibility, a notion that has unfortunately seeped out of the basic frame of reference of many individuals of our modern time. This theoretical vision of community is based on a more Conservative approach to the philosophical notion of morality and human decision-making, as well as the functioning of society as a unit. An important aspect of this theoretical vision for society is an idea that as individuals can work as communities that assert moral standards for conduct, we can reduce a reliance on costly government programs. In an economic sense, there is an underlying moral standard for conduct as well, as the individual may think more towards empowering a group of people instead of his own personal interests for gain. In this sense, the theoretical vision for a community is an optimistic take on the nature of the human being as a capable individual for decision-making, given the right education and values. It is true that humans tend to act in selfish ways, but through the creation of community there can be a mental shift whereby the individual can begin to open in awareness. This opening in awareness comes from the direct experience of the benefits involved in creating a society based on cooperation of common goals for the common good. This can only be ingrained into the mind of the individual through the actual experience and practice of living in a community that strives for the common good. Similarly, the modern 21st century society has inspired the mind to search for individual and immediate satisfaction. The communitarian approach considers itself to be the â€Å"essential optimistic view that has animated Americans throughout our history.†[1] I agree that communitarian policy has brought forth positive change in the creation of social and community awareness, as well as the creation of social action that works towards reversing the trends of self-interest alone. If I had to adhere to one particular form of Communitariansism, it would be the Ideological approach to social wellbeing. This approach bases itself on a perceived observation of deteriorating social networks, and an attempt to correct that deterioration by increasing social capital. In my vision of community social capital can be increased by observing what Robert Putnam calls the collective value of all social networks and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other. To directly quote The Responsive Communitarian Platform:   Ã‚  Ã‚   Many social goals . . . require partnership between public and private groups. Though government should not seek to replace local communities, it may need to empower them by strategies of support, including revenue sharing and technical assistance. There is a great need for study and experimentation with creative use of the structures of civil society, and public-private cooperation, especially where the delivery of health, educational and social services are concerned. The role of the human individual: agency and personality in the community vision The Communitarian approach focuses mainly on the advocating of social capital and the furtherance of the community through an agreement on particular values and morality choices. In my vision of community, this is also one of the strongest aims for the collective. And yet, within that collective import, my vision also holds space for the acknowledgement of human free will, personality or agency. If one creates an ideological or theoretical vision based only on an awareness of the social collective, one misses the duality that exists between the individual and the group as a paradigm of human existence. It is important to understand that human agency is still the motivating force behind all collective vision. Without the personality of the individual, groups would merely consist of collective drones marching to the beat of the loudest drummer. The collective vision of social capital resurgence can only function against the greater backdrop of human individual change and awareness. And so, the basis of this paradigm of collective change is one that acknowledges the need for individual education and the evolution of self. The great irony is that many libertarians or freedom and rights advocates believe themselves to be â€Å"free,† when actually they are merely working within a different paradigm that limits the development of the individual. Allan David Bloom notices this irony in his groundbreaking work The Closing of the American Mind. â€Å"The most successful tyranny,† he states, â€Å"is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside. (p. 249) Bloom’s ideas on human agency and social control are based on preserving certain philosophical truths for later generations. His book is a critique of the contemporary university, and yet we can find within in it the even greater critique of American society. He believes that modern liberal philosophy was responsible for the crisis, stating that the notion that â€Å"a just society could be based upon self-interest alone, coupled by the emergence of relativism in American thought had led to this crisis.† This belief embodies the heart of my vision for a communitarian-based social reality. Here we can clearly see how while the recognition of self-interest, personality and human agency exist and are important, it is through the creation of a solid commitment to the well-being of the whole that the human agency of action can be stimulated to put energy and effort into that ideal. And so, the vision entails a training of the human agency, an education of the individualism and self-interest that, if left unchecked can lead to the social crisis and the void of spirit that we find in America today. In his critique on American universities, Bloom discusses this void of spirit. As it now stands, students have powerful images of what a perfect body is and pursue it incessantly. But deprived of literary guidance, they no longer have any image of a perfect soul, and hence do not long to have one. They do not even imagine that there is such a thing. (p. 67) Bloom discussed how the failure of contemporary education has lead the modern human being to be stunted in the development of self. Modern life in America offers us all the promises of material gain and monetary success, yet these are small mundane offerings being misrepresented as â€Å"success.† The search for commercial gain as the most highly valued element of the human life has poisoned the human soul. I am therefore in full agreement with Bloom that the individual must be educated to search for philosophic truths and self-awareness. In this sense, a huge part of the community vision involves the commitment in each and every individual towards the search for higher truths beyond self-interest and material gain. Macintyre and a theory of morality My theoretical vision of community resonates with the writings of Alasdair Macintyre and his belief that â€Å"the best theory so far† for understanding human morality is the tradition of Thomistic Aristotelianism. Macintyre worked within the tradition of virtue ethics, which states that the most effective way of determining human morality is to actually look into the habits, virtues and knowledge surrounding how one actually lives their life. I am attracted to this particular understanding of moral reason because it resonates with my belief that it is more important to â€Å"be† and â€Å"do,† than to merely come up with lofty ideals that remain in one’s speech and not in behavior. This approach is so elegant in that it focuses on how to make the most out of an entire human life. Many other theories focus on specific issues such as gay rights, abortion, women’s rights and religious debate, but in my vision of community, these issues are merely symptoms of the greater problem. It is more important for each human being to focus on their own good judgment than on the issues that society is debating upon. By focusing on good judgments, meaning honesty, not creating ill will, working to have good speech towards others, non-violence, etc., one creates good character for oneself. The underlying morality of my community, therefore, is not based on anything that any one agency or institution â€Å"decides upon,† but is wholly based on the virtues of life that enable good behavior to emanate naturally from individuals committed to integrity. MacIntyre, who bases himself on the Aristotelian idea of an ethical teleology, believes that right and wrong are more important than the formal rules that attempt to encourage them. MacIntyre emphasizes the need for a community of individuals committed to the highest good. These individuals must be engaged actively in the â€Å"practice† of what he calls â€Å"goods of excellence† rather than any commitment to some exterior moral agent. This, once again, fully parallels my own understanding of an ideal community, whereby the â€Å"proof is in the pudding† of individual action, not within the individual need for rights. Universal morality and truth My vision of community is based on the belief that there is in fact a universal objective moral or truth. At the same time, I am not claiming that I myself can outline what those universals are, nor can I explicitly define a notion of moral truth, but as the saying goes, â€Å"I know it when I see it.† Truth is an experience whereby ones witnesses and experiences. When I speak of morality and value systems throughout this document, it is important to mention that I am not referring to any hard-coded set of rules to be used indiscriminately by force, but am referring to the instilling of values within the individual that actually allow them to become more free. Freedom, in this sense, refers to becoming a more peaceful, aware human being. A part of this peaceful nature entails not harming others, or oneself. And so, when I refer to the education of youth, it does not mean an indoctrination of a group of people, but more an opening of the mind, so as one becomes less and less focused on the individual success, and more and more focuses on the good of all beings. In this sense, I do adhere to the existence of truth as a human universal. This human universal is that we are all looking to lead a life which reduces human suffering, and increases a peaceful existence. The tactics and recommendations provided herein are merely stepping stones to reach that greater freedom. Tradition and traditional values The role of tradition in this vision of community is only tradition-based if that particular tradition works in adherence to the ideals on community up-lifting and the advancement of virtue. Only traditions have the capacity to inspire a community to move forward should be given precedence. Traditions, no matter what ethnic or racial background they come from, are only valuable if they are steeped in the wisdom of the collective reality. This means that traditions that are self-centered or and driven by greed should be avoided. Traditions that work towards special interests of a few very powerful should be ignored. This means that if one were to analyze the current American government or economy, one could determine that much of the tradition of the capitalist society is based on the search for individual material gain. In this sense, the tradition of laissez faire economics and capitalism may be a tradition that could be remedied. On the other hand, there are many American traditions which are based on the spirit of community which should be given space for growth. The value of family and friendship networks, the emphasis placed on spiritual and religious adherence, and the feeling of patriotism towards the country (not government), could be considered as positive traditions. And so, tradition plays a role in my vision of a community inasmuch as the tradition can prove to play a correlating role within the greater scope of the vision. In another sense, my vision of community does take a more conservative approach to ethical matters, and in this sense, may be considered to be steeped in â€Å"traditional values.† Such values include the notion of family, parenting and education. In order to instill a sense of values and morality into the human individual, it is important to start with the new generations. In this way, it is the responsibility of parents to instill certain values of moral education and integrity into their children. This is done by setting an example, not through words alone, but through actions. I believe that most children today are being given an education by teachers or from the mass media. This is an unfortunate fact. The examples that parents are giving it one of the mass consumer, obsessed with acquiring the next technological advancement, or purchasing the latest designer clothes. Most parents are products of the individual-based society. They are so focuses on themselves, that they forget to remind their children of the importance of the greater social reality. Other parents who are less selfish are under huge societal pressures to make enough money to keep up with the current standards of living. These parents, while they may have the desire to educate their children in a good way, simply do not have the time and flexibility to attend to their moral and educational duties. Once again, children are left to be educated by under-paid, over-worked teachers and even worse, the mass media. In my vision of community, workplaces play a crucial role in reestablishing some of the more â€Å"traditional† values involving family life and parenting. Parents, particularly those with young children, need to be given the opportunity for more flexible work schedules. For the sake of the upcoming generations, parents need to be present at the educating forces in the child’s life. Programs such as paid and unpaid parental leave, flextime, shared jobs, opportunities to work at home, and for parents to participate as volunteers and managers in child-care centers, are an integral part of the more traditional vision of family and child education. Furthermore, there needs to be a shift in the collective conscious on how we value parenting. Child raising needs to be given new precedence as one of the most important things that a human being can ever endeavor to attempt. Also, continuing with an adherence to traditional values, it is important that human individual have support with the raising of children. It has been consistently shown that single parent households often have a more difficult time in raising children. This is not to place a moral judgment on single parents, but is just to say that women or men who are left to be single parents should be given more social support due to the sheer lack of resources that they have. Schools represent one of the main areas where the establishment of good morals can be ensued. Because the American family has become so weak, the capacity for parents to provide proper education has been greatly impaired. Schools now play the major role in the character formation of the next generation. Therefore, in the envisioned community, not only do parents and communities play a role in proper education, but also educational institutions would recognize the incredible role that they play in shaping the moral education and value system of students. Tolerance, equality and the creation of peaceful idealism How can a school teach value systems without getting involved in religious issues on morality? Once again, we can come back to the principals discussed earlier in the document, on universal truth. I feel that no one in the community would argue with an organization that teaches us to work for the dignity of all human beings. Nor would anyone be inclined to argue with the teaching of equality, respect and tolerance. Human equality is the highest virtue of this perceived theoretical society. All persons should be treated as equals, and the discrimination of any human being is unacceptable. Of course, these are lofty ideals but we must have some sort of ideal that we can try to work towards. In this sense, we must create an arsenal of peaceful idealism. Peaceful ideals include a peaceful resolution to conflicts. Violence, in any form, should be avoided. Basics such as lying, stealing and killing are universals to be avoided. One could also state that a democratic government which fosters participation from all citizens could be considered as one that works toward peaceful idealism. Totalitarianism and authoritarianism are not. Equal pay for women and men, as well as equal pay for all ethnic groups is another part of peaceful idealism. Much in the same, this ideal can be applied to globalization as well. With the onslaught of the widely spreading mass media and rapid forms of travel and communication, we must also extend our idea of the collective to include the global collective. These same ideals, because they are not religious or culturally or even politically based, can be applied to any group of people. The nature and scope of democracy Like Robert Putnam, I believe that social capital is a key component to building and maintaining democracy. The political setup of society today is a false democracy. The perceived democracy of American society today is actually the an oligarchy of a few very influential, powerful, wealthy corporations. In my envisioned community, there would be much more local participation in politics. Ordered liberty, rather than unchecked, unlimited individual and corporate license would be obtained not through force, but through the cultivation of education which is based on shared values. These shared values are not limited to any particular culture, but are universal values that assure a respect for one another’s rights. In the same, the democracy is based on policies that are accepted as legitimate by the social reality, not policies that are imposed through force. Any political policy that works through force will only be successful at masking the problem. The government of my community would be a real democracy, representative and participant democracy that was responsive to the needs and realities of all community members, regardless of race, gender or religious background. This can be done by creating ways to make citizens of the community feel that they actually have a voice within the decision making process, whether by direct vote or by fostering programs for wellbeing and education. An important part of a democracy is the diffusion of information to the population of citizens. Government needs to be transparent. Similarly, corporations and governments alike must modify their practices to reduce the role of private money, special interests and corruption. Voting is another method for keeping the community constituents involved in the decision making process, but it is not the only method. Being involved in non-political activities such as community volunteering and relief efforts, or social work and fundraising is another way to affect change on the community and be responsible members of society. Economic responsibilities include paying one’s taxes to enjoy social works. Justice In the words of Bloom: The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside. (Closing of the American Mind, 249) Law may prescribe that the male nipples be made equal to the female ones, but they still will not give milk. (Closing of the American Mind, 131) The following quotes embody my vision of the creation of collective community in regard to its attitude towards justice. Law and justice systems are only affective inasmuch as they are working towards the truth, or the embodiment of the human universals and peace principals. The justice system of this theoretical society must therefore work towards correcting behavior through education and persuasion. Most methods of the current justice system involve either coercion or through the fear of punishment. This simply masks deeper hidden social ills. What we end up with is a nation full of costly prisons and uneducated human beings, rather than programs which foster education and reasoned judgment.   The realm of justice lies not in unrestrained individual freedoms, nor in harsh governmental control, but in the balance between the two: the communitarian social space. Social justice is one such area of understanding in the community space. This involves the notion of reciprocity. All members of society feels that it is indebted to the collective, just as the collective society feels that it is indebted to its members. In order for social justice to exist, all members must feel a responsibility towards the community effort. Individual rights and responsibilities towards the collective My vision of community gives priority to the â€Å"good† for the collective over the rights of the individual, only if the collective good is something that has been agreed upon by the social reality. This means, the â€Å"good† has been determined by individuals that are clearly searching for higher truths and values in their lives. These values are based on the uplifting of others as a social collective. This approach embodies the need for balance between the rights of the individual (which it also recognizes) and the responsibility that the individual has towards the collective. This means, if the individual is given a plethora of rights, then there must be an exact correlation of strong responsibilities at hand. In this sense, the age-old saying, â€Å"To whom much is given, much is required,† rings true. If I am committed to ensuring the best for the collective, and I am responsible for looking out for the social well-being, the certainly I am an individual that can enjoy many rights. On the contrary, if I am a self-centered individual, only looking out for my own material gain, my rights need to be limited, as I am certainly likely to do grave harm to the social collective. My vision of rights and the collective good is based on a belief that contemporary society has been too liberal in bestowing rights and individual autonomy. This has come at the price of individual and social responsibility. That said, there are many rights that all individual should have. This includes basic human rights like the right to good healthcare, education, a safe living environment, and basic employment. These are rights that all human beings are entitled to. It is of utmost importance to mention that my vision of community, while placing much emphasis on the collective good, does, in no way, place disregard on human rights. I am of the firm belief that the more and more one works towards collective responsibility, the more one can enjoy the rights and freedoms that one is entitles to. Simply bestowing rights to uneducated, self-interested human beings is no freedom at all. Rights and freedoms are only freedoms according to how each and every individual uses them. And so, all individuals in my theoretical vision of community should enjoy a clean environment, public education and works programs, as well as equality under the law. And in this sense, the community or society works at maintaining the delicate balance between individual rights and the collective enjoyment of agreeing upon certain individual limitations. Many critics of a more conservative, non-liberal approach to the philosophy of community cite the First Amendment as an important right. I believe that the First Amendment is an incredibly important right, but that also we should consider the rights of the victims of such a right. Take for example an extremely racist, sexist person. If they have complete freedom to speak their minds, they are doing so at the cost of the wellbeing of others. In a sense, their freedom is incurring on the freedom of the victim of their words. Imagine that that individual is a member of a college campus, and that his words spark an onslaught of sexist and racist behavior on campus. In this case, a college-wide program educating individuals on the benefits, logic and rationale behind having a more tolerant mind state would be helpful to the community by promoting inter-group understanding. This is an example of how we can work to create awareness, understanding and tolerance as morals and values of the highest level, without sacrificing the First Amendment. This can occur because there are some universals of truth that all humans can live by. And so, we should have complete freedom in all sense, if and only if, that freedom does not cause harm to another being within the collective. This is an aspect of the human universals that have been discussed in his document, and is the cornerstone of the greater vision of my view of a theoretical community. Social welfare I believe that the government should not be the sole institution to provide social welfare programs. This involves caring for the sick and elderly, the homeless, the poor and for new immigrants. I believe that we should work as a community to address these problems on a local level, and that government should only intervene if our social systems (as small collectives) fail. Big government programs have proven time and again to be costly and inadequate at meeting the needs of specific local levels.   In the case where it is absolutely necessary, nationwide programs could be established. But once again, I believe it to be much more effective to work to affect change on a micro-level first. This means that social welfare should be attended to by families first. By educating people more and more, there will be less need for the national government to have to intervene. This is a positive step in actually giving individuals more freedom of choice in their lives. By giving the national government power to create social welfare programs, we are actually taking more and more power out of the hands of the local constituent communities. Social goals regarding welfare can be achieved through a partnership between local groups and institutions. A creative use of structures of both civil and private society could be used to create health, education, and social care systems that empower individuals at a local level. Community and excellence of character Russell Arben Fox speaks of a communal authority in his essay, Activity and Communal Authority: Localist Lessons from Puritan and Confucian Communities. While not very fashionable in today’s modern Western society, Fox urges us to look at some of the lessons we can gain from the communal spirit and the goals of excellence of character in both Puritan and Confucian communities. Both cultures work at understanding human arrangements based on ideals of behavior that work towards a moral character or a universal â€Å"worldview† for correct behavior. As we move more and more towards a more relativistic globalized macro culture, we are losing the role of the overarching harmony that must exist within the global â€Å"melting pot.† We are so focused on relativism and cultural differences that we attempt to function as a collective within a chaotic collective mindset. The notion of harmony in Fox’s work is a pivotal part of my own idea of peaceful idealism and human universals. And while I do not agree with either Confucian nor Puritan communities on their ideas of authority, I do believe that contemporary society could learn very valuable insights into their ideas on boundedness, interconnection and harmony. The, Confucian understanding of communal harmony could be easily applied to the justification of the new trend towards localism in the face of mass globalization. Confucian and Puritan understandings are an attempt at arriving at some of the universals that have been discussed through the paper. My vision of community is contingent upon the notion of excellence of character, and it is within this paradigm that all other aspects of society fall into place. But how can we arrive at this Confucian harmony, this excellence of character for the greater social whole? Excellence of character is based on a human dignity and the respect for all beings. I believe that by instilling this value into humans, we can arrive at a responsive community that will be the best form of human organization possible. Self-inquiry is a huge part of the process, and in this sense, human agency is very important to maintain social wellbeing, but at the same time, shared deliberation among the people is also pivotal. My vision of peaceful idealism and human universals may seem utopian. But how can we being to make a better world if we do not first create an ideal or an utopia with which to work towards? This cannot be achieved through authoritarianism and coercion, but through genuine conviction of change within the individual. My vision may seem utopian, but quite frankly, I believe that it is the only hope for a movement towards peace and wellbeing in the world. The global community, on both a global and local level, must work towards programs that deal with the pressing problems that threaten our lives as human beings. More and more we are plagued by war, environmental degradation, social and political unrest and technological breakdown. It is my belief that through the education of collective responsibility, individuals may actually begin to heal some of the great psychological, emotional, social and physical stresses that they are under. And so, the theoretical vision of community is one that is based on a renewed commitment to the social space, a renewed commitment to human rights and equality, and a new commitment to discovery and healthy intellectual debate on human truths and universals. Within this healthy debate, we can hope to achieve a greater understanding of not only the human individual experience, but also the collective one. Resources    Bloom, Allan. 1987. Closing of the American Mind, New York: Simon Schuster. Fox, Russell Arben. Activity and Communal Authority: Localist Lessons from Puritan and Confucian Communities. Friends University MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, 2nd edn. 1984. MacIntyre, Alasdair. The MacIntyre Reader. (Knight, Kelvin (ed.)) Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998. Putnam, Robert. Communitarianism, National Public Radio, February 5, 2001. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 143. [1] The Communitarian Network, Responsive Communitarian Platform Text. http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/platformtext.html

The Cognitive Models Of Ocd Psychology Essay

The Cognitive Models Of Ocd Psychology Essay The study is aimed to investigate the Quality of Life of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder patients in relation to Severity of the symptoms and Cognitive Appraisal. The study will explore the predictors of Quality of life of OCD patients from variables of Symptom Severity dimensions and Cognitive Appraisal. It is hypothesized that patients having OCD with more Symptom Severity, and Cognitive Appraisal of obsessions will have impaired Quality of life. Correlational research design and purposive sampling will be used. 60 patients with primary diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive disorder, with age range of 18 years and above will be recruited. For assessment, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Symptom Checklist (OCDSC), Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM), and WHOQOL-BREF will be used. Pearson Product Moment will be employed to find the relationship of Symptom Severity and Cognitive Appraisal with Physical health, Psychological health, Social and Environment related Quality of life. In addition, Multip le Regression Analysis will be used to explore the predictor of Quality of life of patients with Obsessive Compulsive disorder. Introduction The study investigates the Quality of Life (QoL) of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients in terms of Symptom Severity and cognitive appraisal. The severity of symptomology and clinically manifested psychological distress exacerbates the functional impairment of OCDs patients. The functional impairment debilitates and gradually leads to poor treatment compliance as psychotherapy include the dysfunction area in treatment plan. The present study is intended to understand the relationship of the associated factors that will help facilitate the better understanding on etiological and therapeutic grounds. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder According to American Psychiatric Association (2000), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OCD) is an anxiety disorder classified into Obsessions and Compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive, unwanted thoughts, id, images, or impulses that and individual experienced as senseless yet anxiety evoking. Compulsions are desires to engage in behavioral or mental acts according to specified rules or in reaction to obsessions (i.e., to lower down obsessional anxiety). However, individuals are unaware of the trigger and may perform stereotyped acts according to idiosyncratic rules (Wells, 1997). Obsessions are persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate. The most common obsessions concern thought about contamination, doubting, aggressive or horrific impulses and sexual imagery (Wells, 1994; Wells Morrison, 1994 as cited in Wells, 1997). A compulsion is a repetitive behavior that is overt or covert. Overt compulsions include hand washing, checking, ordering, or alignment of objects. Covert compulsions are mental acts such as praying, counting, or repeating words. The goal of these overt and covert compulsions is to reduce or prevent anxiety or distress (Wells, 1997). Symptom Severity Severe OCD is characterized by Substantial frequency of obsessions and compulsions (from 4 hours a day to every minute of the patients waking hours), Substantial impairment from the OCD (usually in all domains of life including social, work, and family), Poor insight into the symptoms (or how realistic the patient thinks their fears are), and/or Substantial co morbidity which complicates the presentation of the symptoms (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder or schizophrenia). Severity of symptoms, as characterized by high frequency of symptoms or significant distress, is often measured through self-report measures such as the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R; Foa et al., 2002). Obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms include both obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions often have themes of fear of contamination or dirt, having things orderly and symmetrical, aggressive or horrific impulses and sexual images or thoughts. However, compulsions typically have themes of washing and cleaning, counting, checking, demanding reassurances, performing the same action repeatedly, and orderliness (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2012). Studies indicate that there are clinically meaningful differences among these symptom-based subtypes. It was reported that OCD patients with compulsive hoarding report higher levels of anxiety and depression, greater impairment in occupational, family, and social functioning and poorer response to pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral treatment (Abramowitz, Franklin, Schwartz, Furr, 2003). Despite the documented detrimental effects of OCD on quality of life, evidence suggests that not all individuals with OCD are uniformly impaired. Masellis, Rector, and Richter (2003) found that severity of obsessions, but not compulsions, was related to lower overall quality of life. Similarly, Eisen et al., (2006) reported that severity of obsessions and comorbid depression predicted impairment across eight domains of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction, whereas compulsion severity was related only to impaired work functioning. In contrast, Stengler-Wenzke, Kroll, Riedel-Heller, Matschinger, and Angermeyer (2007) found obsessions to be unrelated to Quality of life ratings, but that severity of compulsions was associated with reduced physical and psychological well-being, as well as impairment in social and family life and leisure activities. Cognitive Appraisal Grinker and Spiegel (1945, as cited in Sincero, 2012), explained appraisal as a process that requires mental activity involving judgment, discriminating and choice of activity based largely on the past experiences of and individual. According to Lazarus (1984), cognitive appraisal occurs in reaction to stress. One is the threatening tendency of the stress to the individual, and second is the evaluation of the resources that is required to minimize, tolerate or eradicate the stressor and the stress it produces. According to Lazarus, appraisal takes two forms, Primary Appraisal and Secondary Appraisal. Primary appraisal has been distinguished into irrelevant, benign-positive and stressful. Irrelevant implies when experiences not stressful, it falls within the category of irrelevant (Lazarus Folkman, 1984). The appraisal of relevancies is not themselves of great concern, but the cognitive processes by which these events are appraised. Benign-positive appraisal occurs if the outcome of encounter is constructed as positive and enhances well-being. These appraisals are characterized by positive emotions. Stress appraisal includes harm/loss, threat and challenge. In harm/loss, damage to the person is suspected. Threat concerns are the anticipated harms or lose. Challenge appraisal focus on the potential for gain or growth inherent in an encounter and they are characterized by pleasurable emotions such as eagerness, excitement, and exhilaration, whereas threat centers on the potential harms and is characterized by negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger (Lazarus Folkman, 198 4). The aim of secondary appraisal is to provide information about the individuals coping options in a situation. It has three components including problem focused coping, emotion focused coping and future expectancy. When an individual is deciding whether a situation is a threat or challenge, or he must do something to manage the situation, secondary appraisal becomes significant in order to figure out what might and can be done. Secondary appraisal activity is crucial feature of stressful encounter (Lazarus Folkman, 1984). When an individual is faced with adverse situation, something needs to be done to control it and avoid any subsequent consequences. Secondary appraisal follows primary appraisal of a situation. This necessarily includes evaluation of the situation and suitable reaction. The person than evaluate what can be done to cope with a particular situation. The reaction to the situation is decided by carefully analyzing what is at stake and what can be done to reduce negative consequences (Lazarus Folkman, 1984). Cognitive Models of OCD According to OLeary (2005), the number of cognitive models describing OCD phenomenon. These illustrate the rate of dysfunctions in general cognitive processing or dysfunction in cognitive appraisal and beliefs. Salkovskis Model (1985; Wells, 1997) based on cognitive and behavioral concepts in the formulation of obsessional problems. It theorized that the importance of appraisal of intrusion as the major source of distress, rather than the content of the intrusion itself. The appraisal of the significance of intrusions is determined by underlying beliefs. Once negative appraisals of responsibility occur, the second process of initiation of neutralizing responses which may be internal or external begins. When a person neutralized the intrusive thought he attempts to reduce responsibility and discomfort. Thus, the recurrences of intrusions become more likely because responses to them result in such cognitions acquiring greater salience. Studies have found significant correlations between responsibility and obsessive-compulsive behaviors in both clinical (e.g., OCCWG, 2001) and nonclinical participants (Freeston, Ladouceur, Thibodeau, Gagnon, 1992; as cited in OLeary, 2005). According to Rachman (1998; as cited in OLeary, 2005), the catastrophic misinterpretation about the importance of unwanted thoughts made by a person increases the range and seriousness of potentially threatening stimuli. In this way numbers of neutral stimuli that were insignificant are interpreted as threatening. This transfer of the neutral stimuli and situation to potentially threatening ones increases the range of threats and therefore increases the opportunities for the provocation of obsessions. This happens with both internal as well as external cues. In internal cues, the person deduces a threat from the fact of feeling anxious. Moreover, when the patient feel anxious he interpret it as if he is losing control of self and thus there is an increased likelihood that he will act upon the unwanted impulse. Hence, the catastrophic misinterpretation of ones anxiety can interact to increase the misinterpretation of the intrusion. Neutralizing prevents exposure to any disconfirming e vidence regarding the personal significance of the intrusive thoughts. This cycle remains until the catastrophic misinterpretation is changed or reduced and the internal or external stimuli are no longer interpreted as threatening. Quality of life The World Health Organization (1994) defines Quality of Life as an individuals perception of his/her position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which he/she lives, and in relation to his/her goals, expectations, standards and concerns. It is a broad-ranging concept, compromising of the persons physical health, psychological state, social relationships, and their relationship to salient features of their environment (Hollar, 2012, p.74). Obsessive compulsive disorder may significantly affect self-care, social relationships, occupational functioning, family and marital relationships, child-rearing capacities, and use of recreations or spare time (American Psychological Association, 2007). Bobes (2001) revealed that patients with obsessive-compulsive illness had definite impairment in all domains of quality of life other than physical functioning. Similar findings emerged from the studies of Moritz (2005) and Eisen (2006), also showed that as compared to general population, OCD patients have poor health related quality of life in all domains except physical health. Few studies, however, have examined whether OCD symptom dimensions are differentially associated with impairment in functioning and Quality of life. Only one study to date has evaluated the impact of different dimensions of OCD symptoms on Quality of life. Fontenelle et al., (2010) found that whereas depression severity predicted impairment across eight domains of functioning assessed by SF-36, only hoarding and washing, but not other OCD symptom domains, predicted impairment in other areas of functioning social functioning and limitations due to physical health problems, respectively. OCD sufferers generally recognize their obsessions and compulsions as irrational, and may become further distressed by this realization. Cummins (2000) suggest that it is difficult to define Quality of Life because it can be characterized in both objective and subjective terms (as cited in Barofsky, 2012). According to Spranger Schwartz (1999), Quality of life is a multidimensional and dynamic concept: perspective can change with the onset of major illness. With the onset of illness, individuals relevant cognitive or affective processes (e.g. in their health or lives) include making comparisons of ones situation, with others who are better or worse off. People may adjust to deteriorating circumstances because they want to feel as good as possible about themselves (Ayers, et al. 2007). According to Salkovskis (1985) the difference between the obsessive compulsive disorder patient who experience prominent distress and disturbance lies in the meaning they make out of their obsessions. However, normal individual tends to view these intrusions as meaningless and benign whereas OCD patient make catastrophic interpretation out to these cognitive intrusions. These maladaptive interpretations discriminates the OCD patients. Cognitive models of OCD implied that a thought will be distressing and repetitive depending on the meaning assigned to it, not because of the content of obsessional thoughts (Teachman, 2005). The Obsessive Compulsive Cognitions Working Group (OCCWG) has shown that symptom severity correlates with appraisals of intrusive thoughts among individuals with OCD. In comparison with individuals who do not have OCD, those with OCD appraise unwanted intrusive thoughts as more important to control and as conveying more responsibility for preventing harm related to the thought (OCCWG, 2001). Purdon and Clark (1994) suggested that high scores on measures of OCD suggest that the individual is more likely to believe that intrusive and unwanted thought will occur in real life and will experience more guilt in reaction to those thoughts. Appraisals that one could act on the intrusive thought as well as appraisals about control, responsibility and the significance of the thought for ones personality also correlate with the OCD symptoms (as cited in Corcoran and Woody, 2007). Thus, models of Obsessive compulsive disorder showed that cognitive appraisal of unwanted intrusive thoughts will produce significant distress in patients having OCD that in turn will affect quality of life. There is evidence suggesting a relationship between Cognitive Appraisal and Psychological and Physical well-being (Coyne, Aldwin Lazarus, 1981; Harris, Heller Braddock, 1988; Jerusalem, 1993; Nezu, 1986). There is a general Conesus among research that an individual appraisal of the significance of the situation in terms of personal well-being will be a major determinant of affect (Carver et al., 1989; Harris et al., 1988; Lazarus Folkman, 1987; Lazarus, 1991; Smith Ellsworth, 1985). The way a person evaluates the significance of an event for him/her produces different emotional reaction, making some people more vulnerable to adverse effect than other (Kessler et al., 1983; as cited in Kausar, 1994). Perceived control experienced by an individual has an effect on outcome (Partridge Johnston, 1989). Increased levels of perceived personal control are associated with more favorable psychological adjustment (Folkman, 1984) and perceived lack of control on the other hand predicts psyc hological symptoms (Prime-Emberry, 1972; as cited in Kausar, 1994). How an individual appraises and copes with the stress is important to his/her well-being (Antonovsky, 1979; Lazarus 1981). According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984), a fit between cognitive appraisal and coping strategies is postulated to produce a better outcome. Johnson and Kenkel (1991) concluded that appraisals of threat (Appraisal of self, holding self back) and use of coping strategies of detachment and seeking social support were associated with emotional distress. Moreover, Felsten (1991) suggested that appraisals of challenges and expectations of successful coping should be associated with lower distress and better well-being. Rassin et al. (2001; as cited in Yorulmaz, 2007) suggested that unwanted and intrusive thoughts are experienced by everyone and the difference between normal and abnormal lies in the appraisal process, frequency and distress. Therefore, the examination symptom severity and cognitive app raisal as the predictors of quality of life of OCD patients may facilitate the understanding if the distress and impairment faced by them. In OCD, primary appraisal occurs in conjunction with the intrusive thoughts associated with obsessions, and secondary appraisal leads to faulty coping (compulsions and avoidance). According to Carr (1971), patients with OCD typically overestimate the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome in the context of primary appraisal (during obsessions) (as cited in Stein, Hollander, Rothbaum, 2009) and they perform compulsive behaviors in order to reduce perceived threat. In term of cognitive domains, studies of patients with OCD have found an exaggerated sense of responsibility, overestimation of threat, perfectionism, over importance of thoughts, need for control and intolerance of ambiguity (Rachman, 1993; Salkovskis, 1985; as cited in Sten, Hollander, Rothbaum, 2009). Individuals with OCD report markedly reduced Quality of life and general well-being, diminished occupational attainment, impaired family functioning, and higher rates of suicidal thought attempts. According to Koran et al. ( 1996), severity of OCD is inversely correlated with social functioning (as cited in Simpson, Neria, Fernandaz Schneier, 2010). According to Teachman (2007), subjective cognitive complaints exacerbate the effects of obsessional beliefs, and promote maladaptive responses to intrusive thoughts thus increasing the severity of the OCD symptoms. In present study, it is intended to explore mediating role of Cognitive Appraisal on Quality of Life perceived by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder patients with Symptom Severity and Cognitive Appraisal of the disorder are expected to impair the patients functioning. Literature Review This section includes the review of the studies that investigated the studied variables that are Symptom Severity, Cognitive Appraisal and Quality of life. Kumar, Sharma, Kandavel Reddy (2012) examined the contribution of cognitive appraisals to the quality of life (QoL) in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. In Cross sectional study, it was hypothesized that cognitive appraisals of obsession contribute to poor quality of life in OCD patients. Sample size was 31 consecutive patients from Behavioral Medicine Unit of the NIMHANS and 30 Normal controls. Exclusion criteria were patients having severe co morbid psychiatric, physical and neurological disorder. The assessment was done by using mini Internal Neuropsychiatry Interview (MINI), the YBOCS severity scale, Clinical Global Impression-severity, the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21, the Interpretation of Intrusive Inventory-31 and WHOQOL-BREF. Data was analyzed using independent t-test and chi-square test. Relationship between the domains of cognitive appraisal and the QoL after controlling for the duration of symptoms was analyzed by using Partial correlation. The resul ts indicated that all the domains of cognitive appraisal have strong negative relationship with psychological domain of QoL. Thought control and inflated personal responsibility also correlated negatively with the total QoL. Cognitive appraisal specifically contributes to poorer QoL in OCD so modification of beliefs and appraisal may be essential for better QoL. Main limitations were small size, patients were recruited from Behavioral Medicine Unit of major psychiatric hospital, and findings may not be easily generalized. Sample was predominantly male so its important to examine gender difference in cognitive appraisal and its relationship to QoL. Fontelle et al., (2010) in a study compared patients with OCD and normal on severity of different OCD dimensions and levels of QoL of patients with OCD. Further, it was also investigated the socio demographic variables and co occurring depressions and anxiety symptoms have significant contribution in impairment of QoL of OCD patient. They hypothesized that universal pattern of impairment in the physical, mental, and social aspects of quality of life of patient will be associated with more significant hoarding symptoms. The patients with the diagnosis of OCD were included; age between 18-80 years and without any other neurological, endocrinological or systematic disorder. The measures used were Saving inventory revised (SI-R), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Obsessive Compulsive Inventory- Revised (OCI-R), Medical Outcome Study 36-item short form health survey (SF-36). Chi-square and independent student t-test was used for the comparison of categorical a nd continuous variables respectively. The patient who met the inclusion criteria was 135 out of which 65 were patients, and 70 were controls. The result supported the hypothesize only partially, the decline in particular aspects of patients QoL was significantly associated with hoarding and washing symptoms for but co occurring symptoms, the most prominent determinant of the impairment of QoL of subject with OCD were depressive and anxious ones. The study had limitations that sample was taken from specialized institutions, second control group was of nonclinical individuals, rating on depression scale and QoL Instrument may be dependent on state and change during continuity of OCD, they applied generic tool for measuring QoL in OCD. Teachman (2007) studied subjective concerns about cognitive decline partially mediate this relationship between obsessional beliefs and OCD symptoms across young and older adult age group in a large community sample. The sample size was 335 including males and females. Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised, Obsessional Beliefs Questionnaire and Memory Functioning Questionnaire were used. This study attempted to evaluate the modification of cognitive model proposed by Rachman and Salkovskis. The results provide support to cognitive models of obsessions and suggest that obsessional beliefs that have been validated in younger adult samples are also important for older adults. It was shown that the relationship among subjective cognitive concerns, obsessional beliefs and OCD symptoms was consisted but older patients showed greater subjective cognitive concerns, Grant et al. (2006) carried out a study to find out the differences of OCD patients with primary OCD and sexual obsessions and OCD patients without sexual obsession on number of clinical variables. They included co morbidity, symptom severity, insight, quality of life, and social and occupational functioning under the clinical domains. 293 subjects, meting criteria for OCD, aged 19 years or older were included and interviewed. Clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis-I disorder, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) to assess OCD symptom severity, Subject Clinical Global Improvement scale was used to evaluate the response towards medication. Rating on the degree to which previous treatments have proved to be effective was taken on 7 point scale. Brown assessment of Beliefs Scale (BABS) was used to evaluate the insight and current Depressive symptom and QOL by were assessed by using 17-item Hamilton Rating scale for Depression and Quality of life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionn aire respectively. The findings supported the hypothesize that earlier age of OCD, presiding entry in treatment, increased rate of aggressive and religious obsession onset was related to having OCD with sexual obsessions, and also with increaser depressive symptoms, longer duration of treatment, and higher rates of impulse control disorder. Teachman, Woody and Magee (2006) attempted to evaluate cognitive theories of obsessions and they experimentally manipulated appraisals of the importance of intrusive thoughts. The design contained both experimental and quasi-experimental elements. Implicit Association Test was used to examine the influence of instructions about the importance versus meaninglessness of unwanted thoughts on reaction time. Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised, Beck Depression Inventory, Interpretation of Intrusions Inventory III, Obsessional Beliefs Questionnaire-Short Form, State Self-Esteem Scale, and Personal Significance Scale were the part of study. Results indicated that the manipulation shifted implicit appraisals of unwanted thoughts in the expected direction, but not self-evaluation of morality or dangerousness. Interestingly, explicit self-esteem and beliefs about the significance of unwanted thoughts were associated wit the measure of OCD beliefs, whereas implicit self-evaluations of danger ousness were better predicted by the interaction of pre-existing OCD beliefs with the manipulation. Libby et al., (2004) studied Cognitive Appraisals in young people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The study had two aims to investigate whether the same pattern of cognitive appraisal found in studies with adults will be observed in the younger population. A secondary aim of the study was to establish the relationship between cognitive appraisal and the extent these predict obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Three groups of young people aged between 11 and 18 years old were recruited for the study. First group were of patients with OCD, second was patient with anxiety disorder and third one was non clinical group. Leyton Obsessional Inventory-Child Version, Responsibility Attitude Scale, thought-Action Fusion Scale, and Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale was used n the study. The young people with OCD had significantly higher scores on inflated responsibility, thought-action fusion, and one aspect of perfectionism, concern over mistakes, than the other groups. In addition, inflated responsibility independently predicted OCD symptom severity. The results generally supported the cognitive appraisals held by adults with OCD to young people with the disorder. Saxena et al., (2010) conducted a research to compare compulsive hoarding and non compulsive hoarding OCD patients across variety of QoL domains. They hypothesized that hoarders would be older and have lower FAF scores than non hoarding OCD patients. Secondly, hoarding patients would be less satisfied with their living situations, given their amount of clutter, and hoarders would have greater victimization/ safety concerns and finally hoarders would have greater financial problems and receive more social service assistance than non-hoarding OCD patients. To study this171 adult patients were selected (84 males, 87 females) with age aged 18-72. They were diagnosed OCD and treated openly between 1998 and 2005. Out of these patient 34 met criteria of having compulsive hoarding syndrome. 137 patients didnt report any hoarding symptoms. Patient presented with a wide range of co morbid diagnosis. Those with active psychosis, mania, dementia, mental retardation or other cognitive impairment were excluded. Standardized rating scales were used to assess symptom severity and level of functioning. YBOCS was used to measure OCD symptom severity. Severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms were measured by 28 item Hamilton Depression rating scale (HDRS-28) and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (Ham-A) respectively. QoL was assessed with Lehman Quality of Life Interview Short. Obtained scores for QoL between 2 groups were compared using Analysis of Variance procedures. ANCOVA were performed with covariates and also for secondary analysis on individual items. Results showed that compulsive hoarders were significantly older that non hoarding OCD patients. QoL scores on victimization and safety factors differed significant between 2 groups. Hoarder felt less safe in streets and less satisfied with protection. Both groups had significant occupational impairment, unemployment and disability. Discrepancy in sample size between 2 patient groups and intensive patient setting were the limitation s of study. Eisen et al., (2006) conducted a study to assess multiple aspects of QoL in individuals with OCD. It was hypothesized that all aspects of QoL would be affected, and that severity of OCD symptoms and depressive symptoms would be associated with impairment in QoL. 5 years prospective naturalistic study was conducted on 197 participants with an age 18 years or older, primary OCD. An exclusion criterion was having an organic mental disorder. YBOCS, Brown assessment of Belief scale, Modified Hamilton rating scale for Depression, Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire, Social Occupational Functioning assessment scale, Medical outcome survey 36-item short form Health Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was conducted to assess relationship between clinical features of OCD and QoL. Results showed that YBOCS score of 20 appeared to be an inflection point where QoL becomes significantly more impaired, suggesting that functioning and QoL, may be preserved in individu als with OCD until threshold of severity is crossed. Limitations of the study were participants seeking treatment and therefore finding may not apply to those individuals who do not seek treatment. Moreover, subjects were evaluated only once. It was suggested that the role of treatment in improving QoL in OCD should be further investigated along with a need to assess which aspect of QoL and psychological functioning. Guraraj et al., (2008) conducted research in which they hypothesized that patients suffering from severe OCD may have comparable level of global functioning, family burden and QoL and disability with patient suffering from schizophrenia. 70 subjects from National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience gave informed consent. Inclusion criteria were (a) a primary diagnosis of DSM IV OCD/schizophrenia (b) continuous illness for the previous 2 year (c) Clinical Global Impression Severity (CGI-S) score of > 4 (d) availability of a primary care giver involved in patient care for 2 years Mini-international Neuropsychiatry Interview was conducted to confirm the diagnosis. Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), World Health Organization (WHO-Quality of life (QOL)(BREF Version), WHO Disability Assessment Schedule-II (WHO-DAS-II). Family Burden Schedule (FBS) were used to assess global functioning, quality of life and disability. ANCOVA was employed with age of onset and duration of illne ss as covariate for comparison of family burden, QoL and disability between 2 groups. Pearson correlation between socio demographic/ clinical variable, family accommodation and functioning with family burden were performed. The results demonstrated that severe OCD is associated with significant impairment in functioning and severe family burden and disability. QoL was poor and severe OCD and schizophrenia are often associated with comparable disability, family burden and poor QoL. Huppert et al., (2009) compared the QoL of OCD patients with functioning of matched healthy controls. They hypothesized that OCD patients in remission would report similar QoL and functioning matched healthy controls (HCs), while individuals with OCD would report poorer QoL and functional impairment. Additional prediction was that OCD patients and comorbid psychiatric disorder would report the worst QoL and functional impairment. Finally, Individuals with a history of OCD (current or past) increased severity of OCD would be related to decrease in QoL and increased functional impairment, even when controlling for depression. 66 comprised the current sample. 36 HCs were included. They were matched on age, sex and ethnicity. Stru

Law and Ethics in Nursing :: Nursing Ethics Research Paper

In every nurse's career, he or she will face with legal and ethical dilemmas. One of the professional competencies for nursing states that nurses should "integrate knowledge of ethical and legal aspects of health care and professional values into nursing practice". It is important to know what types of dilemmas nurses may face during their careers and how they have been successfully dealt with in the past. It is also important for nurses to understand what malpractice is and how they may protect themselves from a malpractice lawsuit. LAW VS. ETHICS It is important to first understand the difference between law and ethics. Ethics examines the values and actions of people. Often times there is no one right course of action when one is faced with an ethical dilemma. On the other hand, laws are binding rules of conduct. When laws are broken, it is punishable by an authority figure. There are four types of situations that pertain to law vs. ethics. The first would be an action that is both legal and ethical. An example of this would be a nurse carrying out appropriate doctor's orders as ordered. A nurse may also be faced with an action that may be ethical but not legal, such as allowing a cancer patient to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. The opposite may arise where an action may be legal but not ethical. Finally, an action may be neither legal or ethical. For example, when a nurse makes a medication error and does not report it. ETHICAL DUTIES Nurses have many ethical duties to their clients. The main ethical duties are: nonmaleficence, beneficence, fidelity, veracity, and justice. The duty of nonmaleficence is the duty to do no harm. The nurse first needs to ask him or herself what harm is. When a nurse gives an injection she is causing the patient pain but she is also preventing additional harm such as disease development or prolonged pain. Therefore, the nurse must ask herself a second question about how much harm should be tolerated. The duty of beneficence is to do good. In a sense, it is at the opposite end of nonmaleficence or at the positive end of the nonmaleficence > beneficence continuum. The duty of fidelity means to be faithful, or to keep to your promises. Therefore, if a nurse tells his patient that he will

Oceans :: essays research papers

Oceans   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The ocean covers Seventy-one percent of our planets surface. Life is concentrated, however, in about four percent of it, and it is this four percent that is being polluted by the tons every day. Everyone needs to understand that the oceans are not endless, and not bottomless. They also much see that the ocean contains much marine life which are essential to our eco-system. And in order to preserve this other world of life, we must stop polluting the oceans, and begin to clean them up. Although using the ocean for a toxic waste dump may provide for a cheap alternative, we must not succumb to these barbaric urges. If we neglect to deal with these ideals, than the world as we know it may not be as great a world for our children as it was for us.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First, we need to understand that the oceans are not the vast resources that we believe them to be, but just vulnerable natural resources. Before Columbus' day, the ocean were thought to be boundless. Although Columbus proved this theory incorrect, the thought still remains in today's societies. â€Å"For we of the 20th century still treat the ocean as the endless, bottomless pit it was considered to be in medieval times.†(Heyerdahl) The majority of the world's population still lives under the misconception that the ocean is a hungry abyss, eager to devour all their waste. These beliefs, however, are all untrue. The average depth of the oceans is only a little more than a mile, when in fact, some lakes exceed this depth rather handily. Although the size of the ocean is often pondered, the thought that it may one day be gone, is never even considered.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The vast majority of all life in the ocean, inhabits only 1/25 of these waters, but it is these surroundings that are in the most danger. In the beginning of the world, marine plankton was vital to the evolution of man. Today, it is even more important to us, being that it provides us with a great percentage of oxygen we receive. â€Å"These minute plant species manufactured so much oxygen that it rose above the surface to help form the atmosphere we have today.†(Heyerdahl) With the disappearance of the plankton through increased pollution, the obvious result will be a total deprivation of our oxygen supply, in turn limiting all people to certain limits. And with urban expansion leading to deforestation, our dependence upon marine life becomes heightened. The importance of marine plankton cannot be emphasized enough, yet most people fail to recognize it as the vital life supply it is.

Early Modern British Literature Essay

The period of British cultural history which saw the brittle gaiety of the 1920s, the social consciousness of the 1930s, the world war followed by the welfare state of the 1940s and the chastened readjustments of the 1950s, is not easy to describe in general terms. The Second World War does not appear in retrospect to have been the cultural watershed that in some respects the First was. The increasing tempo of the reaction against Victorianism in the 1920s did not precipitate the revolution in values which was at one time predicted, nor did the pattern of Left-wing thought which emerged in the next decade as a result of the depression turn out to be an accurate prediction of the mood and method of the great social changes that took place during and immediately after the second war. In the matter of literary techniques, the 1920s proved to be one of the most fruitful periods in the whole history of English literature. In fiction, the so-called ‘stream of consciousness’ method was born, matured and moved to its decline within this single decade. In poetry, the revolution wrought by Pound and Eliot and the later Yeats, by the new influence of the seventeenth century metaphysicals and of Hopkins, changed the poetic map of the country. As far as technique goes, the period since has been one of consolidation. Nothing so radically new in technique as Eliot Waste Land has appeared since, nor have later novelists ventured as far in technical innovation as Joyce did in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The sense of excitement which all this experimentation produced, the battles, the mutual abuse, the innovating exaltation of the little magazines, seem very far away now in the 1950s; and were already lost by the end of the 1930s. A period of consolidation is not exciting, nor is it easy to describe with the literary historian’s eye. (Christopher Ivic, Grant Williams, 2004) It might perhaps be said that in the 1920s the most important writers were more serious as artists than as men, while in more recent years they have been more serious as men than as artists. The Second World War forced a new kind of reflectiveness about human affairs on many British people. This was nothing spectacular, nothing like the dramatic shift from the patriotic idealism of Rupert Brooke to the bitterly disillusioned satire of Siegfried Sassoon or Richard Aldington that took place during the earlier war. It was marked by such things as a sign in a London bookshop in 1942 reading ‘Sorry, no Shakespeare or â€Å"War and Peace†. ‘ There was a surprising amount of re-reading of the classics–partly attributable, it is true, to the paper shortage which resulted in a reduction of the number of new books published–and a great demand for historical works and discussions of general human problems in what might be called semi-popular form; such phenomena as the ‘ Pelican’ books in the Penguin library are indicative of this demand. Even the most sophisticated tended to look for books with something to say rather than for new methods of expression. The problem of the artist in modern society-his ‘alienation’, his inevitable bohemianism–which had so agitated writers in the preceding two decades, suddenly lost much of its interest, and when some interest revived again after the war it was more often than not concerned with the sober question of how the writer was to make a living. The shift in emphasis from technique to content, if one can describe it thus crudely, did not represent a clear-cut movement. Indeed, at times it looked as though the first response of writers and critics to the Second World War was to emphasize their status and integrity as men of letters rather than as citizens concerned with the immediate problems posed by the war. The tone of Horizon, the literary periodical founded early in the war by Cyril Connolly as an assertion of the claims of current literature in the midst of international conflict, was from the beginning more aesthetic, more removed from the immediate pressure of events, even than T. S. Eliot’s Criterion which it can be said to have succeeded. And if we compare the tone of Horizon with that of John Lehmann New Writing the difference between the deliberate aloofness of the writer in the 1940s and his strenuous commitment to the issues of the day in the 1930s is even more striking. New Writing really represented the mid-1930s, even in its war-time forms. Though it proclaimed its devotion to imaginative literature it continued the documentary reporting and social interests of the 1930s into the 1940s. And documentary writing of all kinds flourished during the war. But Horizon represented more fully the tone of literary London in the war days. It did not last, however; Horizon itself closed down a few years after the war ended, and Cyril Connolly’s elegant prose and uncommitted sophistication was suddenly seen to be old-fashioned. A general air of tired seriousness seemed to spread over the face of English letters; writers were no longer mandarins, but people trying to earn a living by their pen. When the London Magazine was founded in 1954, edited by John Lehmann, it was with no clear-cut programme or new artistic creed. From the first its general air was one of mild competence; it was as though the magazine were standing by to transmit any new creative impulse when it came. (Joshua Scodel, 2002). Though ‘little magazines’ continued to spring up sporadically after the Second World War, they no longer played the important part they had done between roughly 1914 and 1935, the great experimental period of modern English literature. These magazines reflected the fragmentation of the audience for literature, so characteristic of our period, in that they were produced by coteries and appealed to particular sectional interests. Perhaps Rossetti Germ was really the first of the little magazines in England; but it was an exception in the Victorian period in its deliberately limited appeal. The Yellow Book, which ran from April 1894 until April 1897, was in a sense the second English little magazine; but it was much more popular than either the Germ or its own twentieth century successors. Arthur Symons’ Savoy, founded in January 1896 to continue and surpass The Yellow Book, was less popular, and barely survived a year. When we come to the Egoist, founded at the beginning of 1914, we are in the true modern tradition of the little magazine. The Egoist was started as a feminist magazine, but under the influence of Ezra Pound and others it became for a time the unofficial organ of the Imagist movement, printing poetry by Pound, Aldington, ‘H. D. ‘, F. S. Flint, John Gould Fletcher, Amy Lowell and D. H. Lawrence. T. S. Eliot also contributed, and in 1917 he became editor, continuing until the demise of the magazine in December 1919. Parts of Joyce’s Ulysses first appeared in The Egoist. The political and literary weekly The New Age, under the editorship of A. R. Orage, printed T. E. Hulme’s series of articles on Bergson in October and November 1911 and, in the course of the next few years, most of Hulme’s important critical pronouncements. The political and literary influence of The New Age on some important critical and creative minds is seen clearly in Edwin Muir’s autobiography. The Little Review, published in New York by Margaret Anderson, was well known in that small group of English avant garde writers and critics who followed its serialization of Joyce’s Ulysses in twenty-three parts from March 1918 to December 1920, when the serialization abruptly stopped as a result of a charge of obscenity brought against the magazine by the U. S. Post Office. (Nicholas Mcdowell, 2004) T. S. Eliot Criterion ran from 1922 to 1939, acting in general as the organ of the new classical revolution. Wheels, an annual anthology edited by Edith Sitwell from 1916 until 1921, published the Sitwells and some prose-poems by Aldous Huxley, and engaged in a species of brilliant verbal clowning which combined virtuosity with weariness. Wyndham Lewis Blast, Review of the Great English Vortex, appeared first in 1914 and once more in 1915; it preached Lewis’s views on art and letters and printed also Eliot and Pound. Far less of a ‘little’ magazine was J. C. Squire’s London Mercury (he edited it from 1919- 1934) which represented the uncommitted traditionalists, reflecting a point of view which its holders would have considered central and its opponents middlebrow. Middleton Murry edited The Athenaeum from 1919 to 1921 and The Adelphi from 1923 to 1930. In the 1930s there were little magazines which responded to the tastes and ideals of the post-Eliot generation. New Verse, edited by Geoffrey Grigson, ran from 1933 to 1939: it was one of the most Catholic of the avant garde anthologies printing new poetry that was original and interesting whether it was by Auden or by Dylan Thomas. More limited in scope and interest were Twentieth-Century Verse, edited by Julian Symons from 1937 to 1939, and Poetry ( London), started just before the Second World War by Tambimuttu to reflect what for a short time appeared to be a ‘new romanticism’. Looking back on all this from the middle 1950s one is aware of a loss of excitement and experiment. There is today in England no literary avant garde. The quiet social revolution brought about by such innovations as the national health service, the Education Act of 1944, high taxation of the middle classes and full employment, produced an inevitable though not always a clearly discernible change in the patterns of English culture. The aristocratic implications, or at least the overtones of expansive middle-class leisure, that could be seen in different ways in the work of Eliot, the later Yeats and Virginia Woolf, had no meaning in the welfare state. Some recent novels show the post-war intellectual as a precarious provincial moving with a combination of bewilderment and sardonic observation in a world which lacks any sort of tradition, a world where the older patterns of behaviour–aristocratic or genteel-are parodied by vulgar and opportunistic pragmatists who get what they can out of each situation in which they find themselves. Social class, the theme which had been the background pattern of the English novel since its beginnings, now for the first time ceases to have meaning in a world where education and income bear no necessary relation to each other. Virginia Woolf had been accused by some critics of developing a kind of sensibility dependent on a certain degree of wealth and leisure; now it seemed that a society of working class prosperity, business ‘fiddles’ to minimize income tax, and a sharp drop in the relative standard of living of the professional classes and ‘intellectuals’, left no room for sensibility. Was this a crisis of middle-class culture? We are too close to it all to be able to say. But we can point to some interesting facts. For example, the London Magazine was originally subsidized by the Daily Mirror, a popular tabloid newspaper, which thus employed some of the profits made out of vulgarity and sensationalism to support ‘culture’. And then there is the influence of radio and television. The BBC recognized the distinction between lowbrow, middlebrow and highbrow in their three programmes, the Light, the Home and the Third. One of the aims was apparently to introduce a few good serious works, in music and drama, on the Light programme, in the hope that some listeners to it might be attracted to the Home, and to introduce on occasion a really highbrow feature on the Home Service in the hope of making a few converts to the Third Programme. The BBC has thus thought of its function as educational and cultural, not merely as the provision of light entertainment. This artificial separation of the different ‘brows’, however, reflects something not altogether healthy in the state of a culture. The Elizabethan groundlings saw Hamlet as a blood and-thunder murder mystery, while the better educated saw it as a profound tragedy–but each saw the same work. In our present culture, the murder mystery and the serious tragedy are represented by different works, the former trivial and merely entertaining, the latter self-consciously highbrow and probably appealing to only a tiny minority of sophisticates. This is one aspect of the problem of the fragmentation of the audience for works of literature which has long been a feature of our civilization. It is significant, for example, that the BBC programme which introduces new poetry is a regular Third Programme feature: interest in new poetry is the mark of the extreme highbrow. (Constance C. Relihan, 1996) The BBC is a force, however, and is probably responsible for the remarkable increase of musical knowledge and musical taste in the country. It is in the more popular forms of art that radio and television most seriously threaten standards, by the very fact that they are catering to the same audience every night. The old music-hall entertainer perfected his act in months of playing it over and over at the same theatre, with a different audience each night, and then took it on tour in the provinces. He had time to develop an art-form of his own, however popular or crude it might be. But with a show going on the air every week, and the same audience listening each time, the situation is radically changed. The standard is bound to fall when there is the necessity of a weekly change of programme, no matter how talented the authors and performers–and the same is true of television and of the cinema. All this has its effect in due course on literature and on the public for literature. Commercial television, which purveys merely entertainment and aims at the largest possible audience, can obviously take no chances and is bound to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It cannot afford to risk losing part of its audience by trying out something difficult. It must entertain first and foremost, and entertainment must be directed at a wholly relaxed and passive audience. Is entertainment as such an important part of the life of a civilization? Few would deny that in some sense it is. But the relation between art and entertainment has always been a shifting and a complex one, whereas the selling of guaranteed mass audiences to advertisers means immediate superficial entertainment at the most popular level at all costs. Is popular art bad art? The answer to that depends on the kind of society that fosters it. Today the answer is often but not always ‘yes’. In the past art has had its own complex relationship with entertainment on the one hand and with religion or at least with ritual on the other. Modern commercial entertainment has re-established contacts with ritual–a strange and frenzied ritual of herostars and ‘personalities’. (Theresa Krier, Elizabeth D. Harvey, 2004) It is not surprising, therefore, if the writer who is concerned with the problem of maintaining a discriminating audience for serious literature does not welcome commercial television even if he sees in it opportunity for improving his economic status. Noncommercial television has its own problems, but there can be no doubt that, like sound radio, it has played a part in the diffusion of culture. Nobody who has seen farm laborers watching television at a rustic public house and observed the thrill with which they have responded to Swan Lake and the half comprehending fascination with which they have watched King Lear (these are two real instances) can deny that television can act, and in some respects in this country has acted, as a remarkable educational and cultural force. There seem to be two quite contradictory forces at work in our culture. When we consider the exploitation of literacy by the ‘yellow’ Press and all the stereotyped vulgarities of, say, the stories in some of the more popular women’s magazines, to go no lower; when we think of mass production ousting individual craftsmanship, the prevalence of bad films, the complete unawareness of even the existence of any such thing as artistic integrity or literary value among so many people; when we think of the loss of that simple but genuine folk lore which the total illiterate possessed, for the sake of a minimal literacy which merely exposes its possessor to exploitation and corruption–when we think of all this, we are in despair about modern civilization. On the other hand, when we see the enormous numbers of relatively cheap paper-bound editions of the classics, as well as of serious works of history and biography, selling daily, or observe the unprecedented numbers of people who appreciate good music and ballet, or reflect that an industrial worker or farm labourer whose grandfather may well have led an almost animal existence has now the opportunity of reading and hearing and viewing works of art of various kinds to a degree hitherto impossible, then one takes a much more rosy view. Which is the true picture? Both are true, and, paradoxically enough, both are sometimes true for the same people. The diffusion of culture is a sociological fact, and, further, diffusion does not always imply adulteration. The real problem seems to be an utter lack of discrimination, a lack of awareness of the absolute difference between the genuine and the ‘phoney’. Where so much in the form of art and of pseudo-art is thrown at people, where the cultural centre of the nation is itself non-existent or at least problematical, discrimination on the part of the individual is most necessary, and lack of it most dangerous. The ordinary reader in Pope’s day, though he belonged to a tiny minority when compared with his modern equivalent, was probably no better able to discriminate between, say, real poetry and imitative sentimental rubbish which followed the conventional forms of the day; but the coherence and stability of his culture and the critical tradition of his time made individual discrimination less necessary. The paradox is that individual discrimination is most necessary when it is least possible. (Cynthia Lowenthal, 2003) References: Christopher Ivic, Grant Williams. Forgetting in Early Modern English Literature and Culture: Lethe’s Legacies; Routledge, 2004 Constance C. Relihan. Framing Elizabethan Fictions: Contemporary Approaches to Early Modern Narrative Prose; Kent State University Press, 1996 Cynthia Lowenthal. Performing Identities on the Restoration Stage; Southern Illinois University Press, 2003 Joshua Scodel. Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature; Princeton University Press, 2002 Nicholas Mcdowell. Interpreting Communities: Private Acts and Public Culture in Early Modern England; Criticism, Vol. 46, 2004 Theresa Krier, Elizabeth D. Harvey. Luce Irigaray and Premodern Culture: Thresholds of History; Routledge, 2004