As relativas de grau no português brasileiro : uma abordagem gerativista

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Letras, Departamento de Linguística, Português e Línguas Clássicas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística, 2015.

Étude exploratoire du recours à des interventions médicales de type "lourd' pour soulager la souffrance existentielle en fin de vie

Au cours du siècle dernier, des améliorations au niveau des conditions de vie ainsi que des avancées importantes dans les sciences biomédicales ont permis de repousser les frontières de la vie. Jusqu’au début du XXe Siècle, la mort était un processus relativement bref, survenant à la suite de maladies infectieuses et avait lieu à la maison. À présent, elle survient plutôt après une longue bataille contre des maladies incurables et des afflictions diverses liées à la vieillesse et a le plus souvent lieu à l’hôpital. Pour comprendre la souffrance du malade d’aujourd’hui et l’aborder, il faut comprendre ce qu’engendre comme ressenti ce nouveau contexte de fin de vie autant pour le patient que pour le clinicien qui en prend soin. Cette thèse se veut ainsi une étude exploratoire et critique des enjeux psychologiques relatifs à cette mort contemporaine avec un intérêt premier pour l’optimisation du soulagement de la souffrance existentielle du patient dans ce contexte. D’abord, je m’intéresserai à la souffrance du patient. À travers un examen critique des écrits, une définition précise et opérationnelle, comportant des critères distinctifs, de ce qu’est la souffrance existentielle en fin de vie sera proposée. Je poserai ainsi l’hypothèse que la souffrance peut être définie comme une forme de construction de l’esprit s’articulant autour de trois concepts : intégrité, altérité et temporalité. D’abord, intégrité au sens où initialement l’individu malade se sent menacé dans sa personne (relation à soi). Ensuite, altérité au sens où la perception de ses conditions extérieures a un impact sur la détresse ressentie (relation à l’Autre). Et finalement, temporalité au sens où l’individu souffrant de façon existentielle semble bien souvent piégé dans un espace-temps particulier (relation au temps). Ensuite, je m’intéresserai à la souffrance du soignant. Dans le contexte d’une condition terminale, il arrive que des interventions lourdes (p. ex. : sédation palliative profonde, interventions invasives) soient discutées et même proposées par un soignant. Je ferai ressortir diverses sources de souffrance propres au soignant et générées par son contact avec le patient (exemples de sources de souffrance : idéal malmené, valeurs personnelles, sentiment d’impuissance, réactions de transfert et de contre-transfert, identification au patient, angoisse de mort). Ensuite, je mettrai en lumière comment ces dites sources de souffrance peuvent constituer des barrières à l’approche de la souffrance du patient, notamment par l’influence possible sur l’approche thérapeutique choisie. On constatera ainsi que la souffrance d’un soignant contribue par moment à mettre en place des mesures visant davantage à l’apaiser lui-même au détriment de son patient. En dernier lieu, j'élaborerai sur la façon dont la rencontre entre un soignant et un patient peut devenir un espace privilégié afin d'aborder la souffrance. J'émettrai certaines suggestions afin d'améliorer les soins de fin de vie par un accompagnement parvenant à mettre la technologie médicale au service de la compassion tout en maintenant la singularité de l'expérience du patient. Pour le soignant, ceci nécessitera une amélioration de sa formation, une prise de conscience de ses propres souffrances et une compréhension de ses limites à soulager l'Autre.

La biblioteca juvenil activa

Las bibliotecas son depositarias del conocimiento históricamente acumulado e intermediarias entre éste, y la sociedad. En consecuencia, la función primordial de las bibliotecas ha sido la de proporcionar este conocimiento a las sociedades, comunidades e individuos, para que estos lo utilicen en la solución de los más variados problemas de investigación, educación, recreación o, en general, de relación con su vida y el medio social y natural en que ésta se desenvuelve.Una biblioteca juvenil debe, en consecuencia, tener como función primordial, la de poner a disposición de los jóvenes de una sociedad determinada, el conocimiento que éstos necesitan para resolver sus problemas de educación, recreación o de existencia en general.Esta función puede ser cumplida por la biblioteca juvenil, dentro de los marcos del sistema formal de educación, como biblioteca escolar, o fuera de él como biblioteca pública. En el primer caso, el acento de la función estará puesto en contribuir a la solución de los problemas que plantee al joven la escuela o el liceo. En el segundo, en contribuir a solucionar los problemas de otro tipo, existenciales, o recreativos.En un país como Venezuela, en el que la población es mayoritariamente joven, obviamente, es la biblioteca juvenil la más usada. De hecho, las pocas bibliotecas públicas que existen en el país cuentan con la juventud como principal usuario y, acorde con esta realidad, las prioridad des del Estado en la construcción del sistema nacional de bibliotecas, han sido asignadas a este sector de la población gran parte de los recursos destinados por el Estado al desarrollo de servicios bibliotecarios han sido asignados al desarrollo de redes de bibliotecas públicas para niños y jóvenes y al desarrollo de un sistema nacional de bibliotecas escolares.

Récits du vieillir « actif » et de la citoyenneté au quotidien : l’expérience des femmes aînées au Québec

Taken as a policy framework, active aging ranks high on most supranational bodies’ agenda. The new political economy of aging portrays “active” citizenship amongst seniors as a key challenge for the years to come. Our research focuses on, first, elderly women’s everyday ‘active’ practices, their meaning and purpose, in the context of Quebec’s active aging policy framework; and second, their day-to-day practical citizenship experiences. Informed by discourse analysis and a narrative approach, the life stories of women 60 to 70 years of age allowed for the identification of a plethora of distinctive old age activity figures. More specifically, four activity figures were identified by which respondents materialize their routine active practices, namely: (1) paid work; (2) voluntary and civic engagement; (3) physical activity; and (4) caregiving. Set against Quebec’s active aging policy framework, these patterns and set of practices that underpin them are clearly in tune with government’s dominant perspectives. Respondents’ narratives also show that active aging connotes a range of ‘ordinary’ activities of daily living, accomplished within people’s private worlds and places of proximity. Despite nuances, tensions and opposition found in dominant public discourse, as well as in active aging practices, a form of counter-discourse does not emerge from respondents’ narratives. To be active is normally the antithesis of immobility and dependence. Thus, to see oneself as active in old age draws on normative, positive assumptions about old age quite difficult to refute; nevertheless, discourses also raise identity and relational issues. In this respect, social inclusion issues cut across all active aging practices described by respondents. Moreover, a range of individual aims and quests underpin activity pattern. Such quests express respondents’ subjective interactions with their social environment; including their actions’ meaning and sense of social inclusiveness in old age. A first quest relates to personal identity and social integration to the world; a second one concerns giving; a third centers on the search for authenticity; whereas the fourth one is connected to a desire for freedom. It is through the objectivising of active practices and related existential pursuits that elderly woman recognize themselves as active citizens, rooted in the community, and variously contributing to society. Accordingly, ‘active’ citizenship experiences are articulated in a dialogic manner between the dimensions of ‘doing’, ‘active’ social practices, and ‘being’ in relation to others, within a context of interdependence. A proposed typology allows for the modeling of four ‘active’ citizenship figures. Overall, despite the role played by power relations and social inequality in structuring aging experiences, in everyday life ‘old age citizenship’ appears as a relational process, embedded in a set of social relations and practices involving individuals, families and communities, whereby elderly women are able to express a sense of agency within their social world.

O compromisso de casar e o desejo de amar : experimentos existenciais entre jovens abastados na cidade de Nova Délhi

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Departamento de Antropologia, Programa de Pós-graduação em Antropologia Social, 2015.

Significações de envelhecimento, variáveis relacionais subjectivas e bem-estar psicológico em idosos

O presente estudo pretendia avaliar se as perceções de envelhecimento teriam influência no bem-estar psicológico dos idosos. Procurou-se compreender qual o efeito da influência (moderação ou mediação), das variáveis relacionais subjetivas: apoio social, religiosidade, perceção de saúde e estado emocional. O estudo foi realizado numa amostra portuguesa de 150 idosos, com idades compreendidas entre os 65 e os 99 anos. Foram utilizados dez instrumentos de avaliação. Os resultados mostram, que as perceções de envelhecimento, conjuntamente com a avaliação que as pessoas fazem do seu estado de saúde e dos sintomas psicopatológicos, predizem de forma significativa, a perceção do seu bem-estar psicológico. O apoio social e a religiosidade, são variáveis mediadoras, enquanto, a ansiedade existencial e o estado emocional, são moderadoras. Podemos verificar que existem diferenças significativas entre as diversas variáveis sócio-demográficas. Com o aumento da esperança de vida, pretende-se que este estudo contribua para a compreensão das dimensões pessoais intra e interindividuais do envelhecimento. ABSTRACT: The present study it intended to assess whether the perceptions of aging will impact on psychological well-being of the elderly. We tried to understand, what effect the influence (moderation or mediation), the relational subjective variables: social support, religiosity, health perception and emotional state. The study was conducted in a Portuguese sample of 150 elderly people, aged between 65 and 99 years. Ten instruments were used for evaluation. The results show that perceptions of aging, jointly with the assessment that people make in their state of health and psychopathology predict significantly the perception of their psychological well-being. Social support and religiosity, are mediating variables, while the existential anxiety and emotional state, they are moderating. We can see that there are significant differences between the various socio-demographic variables. With the increase of the life hope, it is intended that this study contributes to the understanding of intra and inter-personal dimensions of aging.

Pespuntes semióticos II

El estudio parte de que todo ser humano accede a la semiosis de la reproducción social, de su entorno existencial. Utilizando la noción de semiosfera (Lotman), y derivaciones conceptuales como la de texto, en un sentido amplificado, se analizan tres aspectos de la experiencia social de un individuo: el fenómeno de la otredad, geográfica y cultural; la ciudad como marca situacional e ideológica, incluido su tratamiento literario; y la conciencia de los contrastes en el devenir histórico de un país.The basis of this study is that all human beings are part of the semiosis of social reproduction, of their existential environment. Using the notion of semiosphere (Lotman), and conceptual derivations such as that of text, in a simplified sense, three aspects are analyzed regarding the social experience of an individual: the phenomenon of geographical and cultural othemess; the city as a situational and ideological sign, including its literary treatment; and the awareness of contrasts in a country's historical future.

Elementos para a rejeição da ética na filosofia de Martin Heidegger : contribuição para uma metaética fenomenológico-existencial

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília,Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, 2015.

The lived experience of volunteering in a palliative care biography service

OBJECTIVE: Many patients approaching death experience hopelessness, helplessness, and a depressed mood, and these factors can contribute to a difficult end-of-life (EoL) period. Biography services may assist patients in finding meaning and purpose at this time. The aim of our study was to investigate the lived experience of volunteers involved in a biography service in Melbourne, Australia, using a qualitative methodology. METHOD: The participants were 10 volunteers who had participated in a biography service within a private palliative care service. Each volunteer was interviewed separately using a study-specific semistructured interview guide. The transcripts of these interviews were then subjected to thematic analysis. RESULTS: Analysis yielded the following themes: motivations for volunteering; dealing with death, dying, and existential issues; psychosocial benefits of volunteering; and benefits and challenges of working with patients and their families. Our results indicated that volunteering gave the volunteers a deeper appreciation of existential issues, and helped them to be more appreciative of their own lives and gain a deeper awareness of the struggles other people experience. They also suggested that volunteers felt that their involvement contributed to their own personal development, and was personally rewarding. Furthermore, the results highlighted that volunteers found that encounters with family members were sometimes challenging. While some were appreciative, others imposed time limits, became overly reliant on the volunteers, and were sometimes offended, hurt, and angered by what was included in the final biography. SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS: It is hoped that the findings of the current study will provide direction for improvements in the biography services that will benefit patients, family members, and volunteers. In particular, our findings highlight the need to provide ongoing support for volunteers to assist them in handling the challenges of volunteering in a palliative care setting.

Socratic ironies: reading Hadot, reading Kierkegaard

This paper examines the seemingly unlikely rapport between the ‘Christian existentialist’, radically Protestant thinker, Søren Kierkegaard and French classicist and historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot, famous for advocating a return to the ancient pagan sense of philosophy as a way of life. Despite decisive differences we stress in our concluding remarks, we argue that the conception of philosophy in Hadot as a way of life shares decisive features with Kierkegaard’s understanding of the true ‘religious’ life: as something demanding existential engagement from its proponent, as well as the learning or recitation of accepted doctrines. The mediating figure between the two authors, the paper agrees with Irina (2012), is Socrates and his famous irony. In order to appreciate Kierkegaard’s rapport with Hadot, then (and in contrast to Gregor, who has also treated the two figures) we first of all consider Hadot’s treatment of the enigmatic ‘old wise man’ who remains central to Kierkegaard’s entire authorship. (Part 1) However, to highlight Hadot’s Socratic proximity to Kierkegaard (in contrast to Irina), we set up Hadot’s Socrates against the contrasting portrait readers can find in John M. Cooper’s recent work on Socrates and philosophy as a way of life. Part II of the essay turns back from Hadot’s and Kierkegaard’s Socrates towards Hadot’s own work, and argues—again moving beyond both Gregor and Irina’s works on Hadot and Kierkegaard—that the shape of Hadot’s ‘authorship’, including his remarkably classical style, can be understood by way of Kierkegaard’s notion of indirect communication. In our concluding remarks, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, we pinpoint the fundamental difference between the two thinkers, arguing that for Hadot in contrast to Kierkegaard, a stress on existential commitment in no way speaks against the philosophical defence of a form of rational universalism. Reading Hadot via Kierkegaard allows us to appreciate Hadot’s novelty as attempting to ‘squaring the circle’ between an emphasis on subjectivity and, as it were, the subjective dimensions of philosophers’ pursuit of rational universality.

Review: 'Collaborative projects: An interdisciplinary study'

When I was asked to review this book, I was immediately intrigued by the title. As someone influenced by the philosophical legacy of phenomenology and existential humanism through Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre, I have always understood the project as a life-project of which I am the author seeking to overcome the facticity, or the inescapable conditions of my existence, in order to realise myself in the world. Such a project takes courage: in pro - jecting myself into the world I simultaneously find and lose myself, but without this attempt I do not exist at all. In recent years I have come to increasingly question this account of the human project. Could the idea of ‘collaborative projects’ be a more positive way of seeing the social world in which I live, as a world where other people are not simply an obstacle to my self-realisation?

A agonia do insecto: Abordagem psicológica à obra de Franz Kafka

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.

A perspectiva do cliente no processo de mudança em psicoterapia existencial

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA – Instituto Universitário para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Psicologia especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.

Características da supervisão existencial

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA - Instituto Universitário

The old and the oldest-old: Do they have different perspectives on adjustment to aging?

Background: Older adults experience varying challenges in old age. This study aims to explore the indicators of adjustment to aging (AtA) and to examine the potential explanatory mechanisms of a correlational model for AtA for the old and oldest-old adults. Methods: This qualitative study comprised demographics and semistructured interviews. Complete information on 152 older adults aged between 75 years and 102 years (mean ¼ 83.76 years; standard deviation ¼ 6.458). Data was subjected to content analysis. The correlational model of indicators of AtA was analyzed using a multiple correspondence analysis. Results: “Occupation and achievement” was the most mentioned indicator of AtA by the old participants (17.7%), whereas “existential meaning and spirituality” was the most verbalized indicator of AtA for the oldest-old participants (16.9%). AtA was explained by a three-factor model for each age group. For the old participants, the largest factor “occupational and social focus” accounted for 33.6% of total variance, whereas for the oldest-old participants, “spirituality and health focus” represented 33.5% of total variance. Conclusion: The outcomes presented in this paper stressed the varied perspectives concerning AtA, contoured in two different models, and the need of considering these when designing and implementing programs in health care for the old and the oldest-old.