Students who self-harm: coping style, rumination and alexithymia

Counsellors working with students or other young adults may encounter individuals who have self-harmed, either with suicidal or non-suicidal intent. Recent US studies reported rates of self-injury of up to 37% of the student population, but studies in the UK have focussed primarily on younger adolescents. This study examined reported self-harm incidents (scratching, cutting, poisoning, overdose etc) from a sample of 617 university students. A total of 27% reported at least one incident of self-harm, with almost 10% having harmed themselves while at university. Gender differences were not significant but psychology students reported significantly more self-harm than other students. Participants reporting self-harm scored significantly higher on maladaptive coping styles, rumination, and alexithymia (specifically difficulty in identifying emotions) and these differences were most marked for students reporting repetitive and recent self-harm. Rumination and Alexithymia factor 1 (difficulty identifying feelings) emerged as the most robust factors predicting self-harm status. Comments from students who self-harmed at university highlighted the importance of accessible services and academic staff support. The implications of these findings for counselling interventions are discussed, including challenging negative rumination tendencies and developing mindfulness skills.

Towards more sustainable urban forms in the city of Benghazi: a study of urban fragmentation at the neighbourhood level

Urban sprawl is a challenge to the sustainability of many cities around the world. Fragmented urban development and vacant land are widespread problems in many Arab cities (UN-Habitat, 2012) which are, according to Ben-Hamouch, mainly a result of inappropriate modern planning and poor land management (2013). This study addresses the problem of urban fragmentation at the neighbourhood level and examines to what extent the concept of compact urban form can contribute to the improvement of social and environmental sustainability in the Libyan city of Benghazi and Arab cities in general. The objectives and scope of the study have justified a morphological approach, where eleven case studies that present different urban typologies in the city have been investigated. The research strategy and selection of case studies were driven by the availability of data and meant to cover the main urban types and important issues defined within this context. This research, which has been conducted to explore and explain the relationships that exist between local urban forms and their performance in terms of sustainability, has produced valuable knowledge and helped to identify measures which target the improvement of people’s quality of life and environmental sustainability of the city. The research draws on the argument that adopting a type of human scale urban form, which is relatively compact and dense, well-connected and comfortably diverse, coupled with concepts of urban greening and flexible development relevant to the local context, would help to create a high quality urban form that is liveable and accessible, while causing minimum damage to the natural environment. This work is an attempt to respond and add to the ongoing debate on sustainable urban form in the developing countries (see: (Jenks, 2000)). The findings have contributed to the understanding of urban fragmentation and highlighted the relevance of the theory of compact city to sustainable development in Benghazi and the South in general. It is anticipated that this work would raise awareness on the impact of urban fragmentation on the sustainability of the built environment within this context and help to advance research on planning theory and practice based on real-life experience and responses to local circumstances.

Remembering, imagining, false memories & personal meanings

The Self-Memory System encompasses the working self, autobiographical memory and episodic memory. Specific autobiographical memories are patterns of activation over knowledge structures in autobiographical and episodic memory brought about by the activating effect of cues. The working self can elaborate cues based on the knowledge they initially activate and so control the construction of memories of the past and the future. It is proposed that such construction takes place in the remembering–imagining system – a window of highly accessible recent memories and simulations of near future events. How this malfunctions in various disorders is considered as are the implication of what we term the modern view of human memory for notions of memory accuracy. We show how all memories are to some degree false and that the main role of memories lies in generating personal meanings.