The relationship between marital quality and coronary artery bypass graft surgery as experienced by 3 couples.

Purpose: Marital quality is a key factor in the lived experiences of couples in which one of the partners has undergone coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Previous research about marital quality has been largely quantitative, and few studies have explored more holistically the marital couple and their experience of a major medical procedure. The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between marital quality and the ongoing dynamic of a couple's experience of bypass surgery.

James F. T. Bugental (1915-2008).

James F. T. Bugental died peacefully at age 92 at his Petaluma, California, home on September 18, 2008.

The experience of imagery as a post-treatment intervention in patients with breast cancer: program, process, and patient recommendations.

Purpose/objectives: To better understand the common themes of women participating in an imagery program designed to improve quality of life (QOL).

Research Approach: Qualitative.

Setting: Classroom setting at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage.

Social cognition in nursing home residents with and without cognitive impairment.

Dementia affects the specific cognitive abilities underlying social functioning in ways that are just beginning to be understood. This pilot study compared the performances of 15 nursing home residents with cognitive impairment and 25 without cognitive impairment on a broad range of measures of social-cognitive functioning. The cognitively impaired group scored significantly lower than the unimpaired group on tests of face processing, person perception, and social reasoning but not on tests of affect recognition and the representation of social situations.

Trance and the trickster: hypnosis as a liminal phenomenon.

This paper makes the case that hypnotic phenomena are liminal in nature and that hypnotic practitioners (such as Milton Erickson) share many traits with traditional societies' "tricksters." The ambiguous nature of hypnosis has been apparent since the days of Mesmer's animal magnetism. Hypnotized people often report hallucinations that confound their ordinary distinctions between reality and illusion, external and internal processes, and many other binary oppositions, including time and space as well as mind and body.

Evaluating personal health care and health promotion web sites.

Objective: An exemplary sample of web sites relevant to personal health care and health promotion was chosen and evaluated.

Methods: Both quantitative and qualitative data were converged to assess and rank the sites on nine attributes.

Results: The sites provided a definitive range of value and variety of presentations, health care and health promotion information, and services covering the virtual choices currently available to users of the Internet.

Effects of imagery, critical thinking, and asthma education on symptoms and mood state in adult asthma patients: a pilot study.

Objective: To compare biologically targeted imagery (BTI) and critical thinking asthma management (CTAM) outcomes.

Design: Participants were randomized to BTI (group 1, G1) or CTAM (group 2, G2) in a 2 x 2 x 4 design (BTI/CTAM x pretest/post-test x weeks [3 week averaged intervals of symptoms and peak flows]). Interventions were asthma education plus treatment (BTI or CTAM for two 2-hour sessions per week for 6 weeks).

The phenomenological movement and research in the human sciences.

Phenomenology, as a modern movement in philosophy, has focused discussion upon human subjectivity in new and critically important ways. Because human participants can relate intentionally to objects of the world consciousness manifests relationships to things and others that are other than cause-effect relationships. Consequently, the concepts and practices of the natural sciences are not the best model for the human sciences to follow.

Conflicting perspectives on shamans and shamanism: points and counterpoints.

Shamans' communities grant them privileged status to attend to those groups' psychological and spiritual needs. Shamans claim to modify their attentional states and engage in activities that enable them to access information not ordinarily attainable by members of the social group that has granted them shamanic status. Western perspectives on shamanism have changed and clashed over the centuries; this address presents points and counterpoints regarding what might be termed the demonic model, the charlatan model, the schizophrenia model, the soul flight model, the degenerative and crude technology model, and the deconstructionist model.

Focusing on the positive, focusing on the negative: implications for psychotherapy.

Each of the contributions in this special section challenges some of our preciously held notions. We are challenged to be aware that an overfocus on positivity and optimism can be tyrannical, see the positivity in the negativity, realize that some pessimism can be adaptive, see that complaining has positive value, and be aware that false hope is not necessarily bad. Through an examination of these, I have suggested that (a) we have to be careful to deeply respect the individuality of our clients and to take seriously the possibility that there is some "ecological wisdom" in their apparently dysfunctional behavior, and (b) what is more important than optimism-pessimism, complaining versus not complaining, or false versus realistic hope is the degree to which the client adopts a task-focused orientation towards problems.

The status of Husserlian phenomenology in caring research.

In a recent article, Paley criticized nursing research that claimed to be phenomenological and recommended that all reference to Husserl be dropped by nurses following certain qualitative procedures. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that Paley is wrong in his recommendation by showing that Paley (i) does not distinguish scientific phenomenology from philosophical phenomenology; (ii) is severely limited with respect to scholarly references that legitimate and articulate the scientific phenomenological method; (iii) seems to be unaware of the precedents for attempting scholarly analyses of the experiences and behaviors of others; and (iv) seems to be unaware of the internal history of the development of the scientific phenomenological method, which would show its close relationship to Husserl. Although deficiencies in nursing phenomenological research can be found, the solution is not to drive the researchers away from phenomenology, but to encourage them to apply the scientific phenomenological method in a better way.

Concerning the application of phenomenology to caring research.

When phenomenology is adopted as a framework for conducting nursing research, confusions sometimes arise because the researchers do not clarify their understanding of phenomenology. One of the biggest confusions is whether to follow philosophical phenomenological guidelines or scientific guidelines. While phenomenology began as a philosophy, it is argued here that the guidelines of scientific practice should be followed when conducting caring research.

A job and a home: social networks and the integration of the mentally disabled in the community.

Formerly hospitalized psychiatric patients participated in a program including skills in apartment living and employment. Contrasted to a comparison group, program graduates showed more multifunctional and more reciprocal relationships with other people. Results highlight the importance of work, housing, and the utilization of community services, and suggest the quality of supportive interpersonal relations as a criterion of program success.

Multiple-case depth research: bringing experience-near closer.

The term "experience-near" has become associated with a variety of alternatives to mainstream clinical research. These alternatives converge on one basic methodological goal-faithfulness to clinical phenomena as lived. This article presents one approach to lived clinical phenomena that I term multiple-case depth research or MCDR.

How does biofeedback reduce clinical symptoms and do memories and beliefs have biological consequences? Toward a model of mind-body healing.

Changes in the magnitude and direction of physiological measures (EMG, EEG, temperature, etc.) are not strongly related to the reduction of clinical symptoms in biofeedback therapy. Previously, nonspecified perceptual, cognitive, and emotional factors related to threat perception (Wickramasekera, 1979, 1988, 1998) may account for the bulk of the variance in the reduction of clinical symptoms.

Religious and spiritual case reports on MEDLINE: a systematic analysis of records from 1980 to 1996.

Objective: To undertake a systematic analysis of case reports involving religious or spiritual issues published between 1980 and 1996.

Data Sources: MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and the preclinical sciences.

Study Selection: A search of 4,306,906 records indexed on MEDLINE from 1980 to 1996.

The case study as a scientific method for researching alternative therapies.

This article argues that the case study design is a research method capable of providing valuable data and insight into alternative therapies. The background and roots of the case study in medicine and clinical practice are covered, and the status of the case study as a scientific method is examined. The highly regarded randomized controlled clinical trial--though often powerful and useful--is neither feasible nor ideal for understanding the effects of many unconventional treatment approaches.