Mental Health cont....Models of Coping - environmental approaches (notes-psychology).

Examine Life Events, their frequency, complexity, and demands for coping.  Holmes and Rahe (1960's) serial readjustment rating scale.  This scale ranks life events in terms of seriousness or severity.  Each life event is a stressor that demands some adjustment or adaption to many life events in too short a period of time, is correlated with potential for illness of a physical and/or psychological nature.  Thus, the more major changes one faces, the more likely one may become ill.  Humans are seen as reactors.  This approach does not consider people as actors and interpreters of events.  Nor does it consider the timing of events as important.  Nor the lack of sufficient challenge (boredom) as stressful.  Further, health may depend on mastering on-going irritations.  Finally, this model ignores individual differences in stress resistance or diathesis (vulnerability).  

Congruence Model -  This model recognizes that people's needs differ and so do the environments that meet those needs when person and environment are congruent, eg.  An independent person in an environment that requires self sufficiency.  Such a match reduces stress.  Where as a dependant person in such an environment is incongruent or "mismatched" and this leads to stress.

Environmental pressure -  environments make different demands or pressure.  Further, individuals have different competencies or abilities to meet these pressures or demands.  When the person and environment are matched than adaption takes place and the person is comfortable.  Thus, as people age, if their competencies decrease but the pressure of the environment remains the same or becomes more demanding, this may lead to an inability to meet demands and a failure at adaption occurs followed by stress.  Thus, a person must change to meet the demand or the demand must change to be fitted to the person's competencies.

cont......(with Behavioral models)

Mental Health (notes, psychology, personality cont..

Definition of mental health -  Living a meaningful life in a particular set of physical and social circumstances utilizing personal and social resources. 

Mental Disorder (The consequence of living less than a meaningful life) may be defined as personal qualities that interfere with normal cognitive functioning and social roles.  Most common disorders are clinical - depression, substance dependence and anxiety disorders such as phobias.

A.  Social Variables associated with mental disorders - poverty, low-income urban dwellers, men in regards to substance abuse and anti social behavior, women in regards to depression and anxiety disorders. Younger adults are subject to emotional problems and older adults to impaired cognitive functioning.

Models of Coping:  Adaptive thinking and behavior that reduces, relieves stress that arise from demands, pressures, harmful or threatening conditions.  There are four models or approaches to the study of coping.
a.  environmental
b.  behavior
c.  coping styles and cognitive appraisal models.

Each model provides a way of understanding  the relation between the individual and the demands that environmental events place upon the individual  for adaption.

to be continued (a, b and c will be broken down for you)

Problems with Stage Models - Personality -Psychology notes cont......

a.  based on male development.
b.  Cohorts with different experiences; may develop differently.
c.  models have not been tested in other countries.  For example: in studies of male development in India, the emphasis is on spiritual development which is never fully achieved.  Each of the four stages are a preparation for the next stage.  First,  is an obedient student.  Second, a householder.  Third, a retreat from family and civic duties in a quest for self and finally, the fourth stage of a wandering holy beggar casting off all that identifies him.  He enters a stage of harmony with all that is around him.

 

The Pentateuchal Narratives

The Pentateuchal Narratives                Silva Redigonda              

     The study of the Old Testament is not restricted to theology.  The Old Testament is also an historical account stemming from the roots of humanity in literary form.  This paper will explain the documentary hypothesis that accounts for the divergent materials in the Pentateuchal narratives.   This paper will define what the Pentateuchal Narratives is, what the documentary hypothesis is, and provide examples of what these divergent materials are.

        Pentateuch is a common name for what the Jews call the Torah, which is the Law or the Law of Moses.  The Pentateuch is a five-fold book because it encompasses the first five books of the Old Testament that includes Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.[1]  The Pentateuch tells the story from creation to the death of Moses.[2]

     A series of scholars contributed to the development of what became known as the Documentary Hypothesis for the formation of the Pentateuch.  Richard Simon (d.1712) a French Catholic priest was one of the first to question the sole authorship of the Pentateuch by Moses and to propose that it was rather a compilation of diverse documents.  Simon noted inconsistencies such as Moses’ description of his own death and burial in Deuteronomy 34:1-8 (Ceresko, p 59).  Moses could not have written the account of his own death.  Attention was gradually drawn to repetitions and contradictions that the Torah was not the work of one author but of a compilation long after the time of Moses (Collins, p 48).  hHHh

  Internal discrepancies are also found in the creation and flood accounts.  Genesis 2:4b-25 has human beings created first, while Genesis 1:1-2:4 has placed them last.  We now understand the two creation accounts to reflect two sources from different time periods in Israel’s history, representing a different theology of creation that have been interwoven (Ceresko, p 59).  In 1735, Jean Astruc, a convert to Catholicism who became the private physician to King Louis XV, noted that in some passages of Geneses, God is referred to as Elohim, the general Hebrew word for God and in other passages of Genesis, God is called Yahweh.   Some of these passages as in Gen1:1- 2:4 a, and various passages dealing with genealogies were recognized as a Priestly source that is extensive in Leviticus.  The remaining narrative was observed as a combination of the Yahwistic source and an Elohistic one.  For much of the 19^th century it was assumed that the Priestly document was the oldest of the Pentateuch.  In the 1860’s this theory was revised and the Priestly source was viewed as the latest or next to latest.

     Astruc’s early observation was gradually developed by later scholars into a full fledged documentary hypothesis, which addressed the composition of the entire Pentateuch.  The book of Pentateuch was recognized as a distinct source (Collins, p 49).   

     There are also doublets, or various forms of the same story.  Examples are the two versions of the flood intertwined in Genesis 6-9.  Abraham identifying his wife Sarah as his sister to a foreign King in two separate stories and in a third story, Abraham identifies his wife Rebekah as his sister.  There are two different accounts of Abraham’s dealings with Hagar and Ishmael and two accounts of the naming of Beersheba.  These doublets are not confined to Genesis or to the narrative material.  There are also variant accounts of the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus and different accounts of the revelation of the commandments in Exodus 10-20 and in Deuteronomy.  The mountain of the revelation is variously named Sinai or Horeb.  The Ten Commandments is given three times with some variations (Exod 20: 1-17; 34:10 – 28; Deut 5:6-18).  This is to name but a few (Collins, p 50).     

     When it became clear that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, the dates when passages were written was studied.  German scholar De Wette (1780 -1849) demonstrated that the Book of Deuteronomy differs from the preceding books of the Pentateuch and is the product of a different and somewhat later author because Deuteronomy 12 restricts sacrificial worship to the place that YHWH chooses and calls for the destruction of all the places of worship at high places.  This law is in contrast to the historical practice of Israelite religion.  Prophets such as Amos, who condemned cult practice at bethel and other sanctuaries, never appealed to a law forbidding worship at more than one place (Collins, p 59).  Recent debates about the Pentateuch show that the reconstruction of earlier forms of the biblical text is very speculative.  The texts are composite and incorporate layers from different eras; a collection of traditional materials.  Some elements of the Priestly stand were added long after the Babylonian exile.  There were some Deuteronomic additions in the earlier books, but the extent of the editing remains in dispute (Collins, p 64).

      This paper has defined the term Pentateuchal Narratives to be the first five books of the Old Testament.  The documentary hypothesis addressed the composition of the entire Pentateuch and this paper has explained the documentary hypothesis that accounts for the divergent materials in the Pentateuchal narratives which were derived and combined from independent, parallel narratives into current form.  As more scrolls are found and examined from different eras of history, the more we can grow closer to appreciating literature through time, history and our respective theology.  

---

[1] Ceresko, Anthony.  An Introduction to the Old Testament, New York: Orbis, Maryknoll, 2001.  P 57.  

[2]Collins, John J. Introduction to the Hebrew Bible.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004.  P 47.    

Personality....cont....psychology notes - Levinson

The "life structure" model - This emphasizes a plan or design for living organized around family; work.  People go through transitions whereby they re-appraise their life structure and accounts for change.

In the novice phase, a person has a dream or vision and there usually is a mentor who offers guidance and inspiration. 

In the culmination phase, a person settles down, sets his goals and achieves them.

Mid-life phase is where turmoil may ensue due to life changes and re-appraisal.

Easter, School is over!!!!!!!!! TTC, the better way?

     I spent Easter with family.  I found myself blowing bubbles for my mother.  She reminded me that when I was young, she would mix soap with water for me to create the bubbles.  I did not intend to blow bubbles.  It was within a chocolate gift pack I had bought for her.  As I blew the bubbles, I observed the beautiful crystalized colours within, floating into the sky.  I imagined the creation of planets being spewed forth into the universe.  I had a renewed appreciation for my mother who had taught me that I could be who ever I wanted, and who taught me that people were all equal and deserving of love and justice.  I also appreciated that I could also play as a child does and that it is ok.  We all need to play.  What is your version of play and how often do you do it?  Eventually, I gave my toy to a little boy who managed to use up all the bubbles in five minutes to my hour or so.  

     Yesterday, was my last day of my second advance Pastoral Counselling Education.  When I think of how much I have spent on education, I want to hide my head under my pillow and cry.  Yesterday was great as I completed another phase of my journey.  We had a great farewell and another certificate that I file away,  but I know it is not quite the end.  The graduates plan to unite once a month or so.  I will have to eventually update my profile, for the next stage.  I still have another two years of papers to write, since  studying is never over.  Nor should it be when working with clients.
      Now I hope to spend more time writing my own book.  There are just so many hours in a day. 
      Yesterday was interesting as I pondered about my changing city.  On the subway platform, on my way to school a woman shoved me aside, as she raced into the subway train.  I don't quite know why I felt so calm.  I continued to walk into the subway train and the doors closed against my arms.  That hurt!  I wondered how an elderly woman would have fared?  I felt shoved and beaten up and it wasn't even 0830.    Returning home, there was a large lineup for the bus.  We got in after much grumbling among the small crowd who intimidated others to get in first.  The driver was shutting the doors after telling the rest outside that the bus was full.  A man began shouting for the driver to f--k off.  There was a lot of tension and anger floating around.  The driver remained polite and appologized for the lack of buses.
     At another stop, he tried to prevent people from entering, as there was no room.  A woman stood firm, telling him that she was not leaving and there was some more rude banter directed at the driver.  He seemed to handle that well and asked everyone to please move to the back.  Somehow, that happend.
    After a few minutes a woman told another not to shove and that caused another spew of anger.  An elderly woman came in and I offered her my seat.  This prompted a man to offer his seat as well.
    As I left the bus thinking, that if this had been my first experience with the TTC, it would have been my last.  And we need more rails, in a congested city in lieu of subways??????????  I appologized to the driver for all the abuse he had taken and so gracefully.  I really felt bad for him.  "They couldn't pay me enough to do your job" I told him.  He thanked me.  I wondered what had happened to my beloved city.  Who are these people?  I hoped that the tourists did not get a taste of this from the once Toronto, the good.  The sadness of  all this is that there were children learning that it is ok to swear at a driver and to disregard any rules he needs to follow.  Children that day learned that it is ok to disrespect each other and that yelling gets results.
     I wondered why I was still calm and realized that I do not need to take the bus anymore.  I reminded myself that I have a car, as well.  Maybe it was also the satisfaction of having a wonderful Easter with family and a wonderful last day of school.  How was your Holy week?

  

Personality - cont.....notes psychology - Valliant

Valliant:  reporting on the development of members of the Grant study begun in the late 1930's.  Valliant observed a typical pattern of progression, from dependency on parents to autonomy, to career consolidation, to mid life transition, to generativity, tranquility; more expressive and nurturant.  As the participants became older, Valliant noted four kinds of adaptive mechanisms or characteristic ways of coping.

a. Mature - using humour and helping others

b.  Neurotic (normal) using repression and reactive formation

c.  Immature  -  fantasy and imagining symptons

d.  Psychotic (serious) -  distoring or denying reality


to be cont... with Levinson