Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Psychology, Comparative'

Cartesian dualism is analyzed as a psychological image, instead of as a philosophical proposition. This is done by first arguing that elements of existing commentary are indicative of a psychological complex, acting unconsciously, in contemporary academic communities. As a hermeneutic study, these elements are then further interpreted through a Jungian lens, specifically cultural complex theory. Myth is used to highlight and identify the deep psychological structures that are active in what I am calling the Cartesian Split complex. In this new context, possible origins are explored in cultural history, as well as its purpose, with potential lessons offered for a wide range of academic fields, including depth psychology. Specifically, there is a call to refine terminology used for consciousness, as well as for the overall mind-body dichotomy. Also, a new approach is offered for the history of consciousness. Most importantly, a diagnosis is given concerning the present nature of consciousness, and a potential remedy is offered, in the form of a new reading of the original texts. Such a new reading, however, depends on a new perspective, that which is constructed by the present study.

This qualitative study involved the creation and assessment of a seven-week heart-focused psycho-spiritual inquiry program, Map of the Heart. The program’s curriculum was comprised of heart-based practices and theories designed to develop heart-centered awareness. The purpose of this investigation was to reveal and understand the personal experience and expression of heart intelligence and to define it and its personal meaning while illuminating the clinical relevance of Map of the Heart curriculum in the field of counseling psychology.

The curriculum was organized into six weekly themes based upon core heart feelings associated with the Four Immeasurable Truths, Buddhist virtues, and practices for cultivating the heart. Informed by East-West psychology, the curriculum highlighted perennial philosophy from both Eastern and Western religions and indigenous and psychological traditions, integrating spiritual discipline with Western neuroscience research and psychotherapy practices.

The research design used heuristic phenomenology and co-operative inquiry to explicate the individual and group experience of heart intelligence. Data analysis was primarily derived from a series of one-on-one semi-structured interviews and group dialogue sessions with nine state-registered psychotherapists.

Research findings indicated that Map of the Heart may support psycho-spiritual and clinical skills development and may encourage personal and interpersonal conflict resolution. Co-researchers reported increased experiential awareness of their own heart center and a defined ability to connect internally, reinforcing therapeutic intuition, perception, and sensitivity, subsequently strengthening the therapeutic alliance. Increases in therapeutic presence, empathic listening, attunement, and accurate mirroring were also reported. Co-researchers reported a greater ability to work more effectively with difficult clients and complex mental health issues. As a result, transformative changes in the client were observed. Co-researchers indicated that they were able to effectively use aspects of the curriculum for therapeutic intervention and clinical directives, where the heart became a focal point of the session. For example, the client focused on their own heart center by implementing heart breathing and other heart-related exercises to facilitate self-inquiry and emotional self-regulation.

Map of the Heart offers the beginnings of a theoretical template and experiential basis upon which psychotherapists, psychologists, and mental health care and other professionals can access and integrate the spiritual, psychological, and physiological terrain of the heart for therapeutic process and intervention. Further investigation is necessary to determine a more comprehensive psychology and theoretical orientation of the heart.

Cognitive restructuring is a central component of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and thought records have for decades been a widely used method for helping clients to identify, evaluate, and modify dysfunctional thoughts. The widespread adoption of mobile technology along with changing habits and expectations of therapy clients have led to the development of numerous mobile apps aimed at replicating this core aspect of CBT. This review identifies, describes, and compares current CBT apps that include digitized versions of thought records. Searches of the Apple App Store, Android Google Play Store, published literature, and relevant websites yielded 19 apps that were reviewed and compared with respect to their representation and sequencing of common cognitive restructuring elements. The apps were also compared across a variety of variables of likely relevance to practicing clinicians, including cost, data security, empirical support, user reviews, provision of additional clinical tools, and the involvement of mental health professionals in their development. The review aims to be a resource for practicing clinicians interested in selecting a cognitive restructuring app that replicates paper-based thought records in digital form. Following a discussion of limitations of the current review, recommendations and future directions are described.

The alchemical hermeneutic methodology utilizes a depth psychological understanding of alchemical operations as an interpretive lens. These processes, viewed from a depth psychological perspective, become the hermeneutical foci through which to interpret select spiritual texts. Following Jung and Romanyshyn, this dissertation further develops an alchemical hermeneutic, and utilizes this textual approach in the interpretation of four texts/traditions in order to create new horizons of meaning, expand the reader’s relationship to text and self at personal and transpersonal levels, as well as broaden, deepen, and define a more psychologically sophisticated approach to certain spiritual texts. This multipaper theoretical dissertation discusses this hermeneutic process and uses the alchemical approach in the interpretation of the following texts and traditions: The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, The Dark Night by John of the Cross, and select passages on the heart from the Upanis&dotbelow;ads and Eastern Christian spirituality.

This study is a quantitative research on students' motivations to volunteer in two countries, the U.S. and Nepal, based on six motivational factors identify by Clary and his colleagues (1998). The six motivational factors included following variables: the Values Motive, the Understanding Motive, the Enhancement Motive, the Social Motive, the Protection Motive and the Career Motive. The undergraduate students pursuing different areas of specialization were the sample population for this study. The purpose of this study was to identify the similarities and differences in those motivational factors in two countries and also to understand the relationship between those factors. The study found that there is significant difference in motivations to volunteer between the students in the U.S. and Nepal. The study also indicated that there is a significant relationship between those six motivational factors analyzed for both the countries.

Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs) are devices that replace the traditional paper documents used by pilots for pre-flight planning and in-flight operations. Simulation studies have found faster information retrieval times, higher situational awareness, and reduced workload on EFBs compared to paper resources, but it is unclear whether this is true for all EFB systems in any flight condition. Archival studies have uncovered issues among pilots using performance calculation software and electronic charts due to a lack of training and modification to flight deck procedures with EFBs. This study compared reports from the ASRS across categorical variables such as human factors issues, outcome, function in use, and phase of flight. The results showed that the most significant human factors issues relating to EFBs were a lack of training, distraction/workload, and inhibited access to information. Crew members consistently ran into difficulty with the zooming/panning feature of EFBs, especially on touchscreen displays.

The pervasive perspective of Western culture views spirit as enmeshed or entombed in matter, an interpretive frame that drives us to periodic socio-political disintegration and bourgeoning planetary illness because it neither honors flesh as vehicle for spirit nor tends spirit as animating flesh. Rather, our dominant paradigm emphasizes disdaining the body and lamenting the spirit, thereby either indulging the former or discounting it, while either disempowering the latter as incarcerated in flesh or seeking its "liberation" from flesh. This is an Anti-Life Equation denigrating both body and spirit, and playing a fundamental role in humanity's current crises in faith, politics, and sustainability.

The Myth of Orpheus has traditionally been interpreted as exemplifying this emphasis by portraying him as a failure both of body because attached to his mortal lover and of spirit because unable to refrain from dooming her to eternity amongst the shades of Hades. In this frame, the mythic master of the lyre becomes a proponent of a transcendentalist imperative to free spirit from carnal prison. But what if Orpheus was not a failure – not because he failed in bringing Eurydice's spirit shade back to the day world, but because he succeeded in relinquishing his love from her carnal form and from his attachments to and projections upon her?

From this perspective, that of a Recombinant Mythology, we may reclaim our foundational stories from the anti-life perspectives and interpretations that color them. Thus we may recognize Orpheus as the very image of perceiving, acknowledging, and embracing the spiral gift of life, in which spirit enters body as a journey of experience for the tempering of soul, for transforming or transmuting phenomenal, incarnate being, rather than as a trap of separation, dislocation, and isolation from divinity.

This study analyzes the psychosocial aspects of narcoterrorism reflected by two of the most notorious drug lords in recent Columbian and Mexican history: Pablo Escobar and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. It questions whether the psychological factors which influenced and shaped their criminal identities are, in fact, based entirely on psychoanalytic theory (narcissism, borderline personality, etc.) or if they are also products of cultural ideology. This research examines the social and political concept of “narcoculture” as the main premise to view the context in which criminal psychopathy may be fostered and developed. As part of a historical analysis of the narcoculture phenomenon, Escobar and “El Chapo" will be analyzed, diagnosed and compared in order to clarify the psychological and cultural parallels that reflect a distinct psychological profile. By referencing psychological, social, political, and cultural studies, the aim of this project is to reveal specific psychological characteristics as correlates of extreme and violent criminal behavior.