Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD

Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD

Hodges' model is a conceptual framework to support reflection and critical thinking. Situated, the model can help integrate all disciplines (academic and professional). Amid news items, are posts that illustrate the scope and application of the model. A bibliography and A4 template are provided in the sidebar. Welcome to the QUAD ...

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Hello? Is anyone there? 'The Homeless Mind'

individuality
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   
|
group

'Put differently, the componentiality of the cognitive style pertaining to technological production extends to identity. Again, a specific kind of double consciousness develops. In this case the dichotomy is between concrete identity and anonymous identity. The individual now becomes capable of experiencing himself in a double way: as a unique individual rich in concrete qualities and as an anonymous functionary. This dichotomization in the subjective experience of identity makes it possible for the individual to establish subjective distance vis-à-vis certain features of this identity.9 

For example, the individual will now experience that portion of his identity that contains his anonymization as a 'worker' as being 'less real' than his identity as a private person or family man. Since each portion of identity relates to specific roles, it now becomes possible for the individual to perform some of these roles 'tongue in cheek'. The componentiality of identity, as the componentiality of social relations, makes possible an 'engineering' practice. This time what is involved is the 'engineering' of one's own self. Those aspects of identity that a defined as 'more real' must be protected against threats coming from the 'less real' components of identity.' p.37-38.


Helpful reference to ideas of multi-relational synchronization and institutional vectors and how our mind's became homeless.

Also encouraging, even though 'historic', discussion on life plans and life planning.

'A basic presupposition is that life careers are not firmly fixed but are at least relatively open. Put simply the individual is faced with a number of alternative careers, especially in his " younger years, and therefore must make decisions about these svailable Options. It is possible for the individual to imagine, himself as having different biographies. This possibility has both positive and negative consequences for the emotional economy of the individual. Positively, it may give him a feeling of frees dom to shape at least certain parts of his life. Negatively, it increases the likelihood of frustration regarding specific careers One is, after all, less likely to resign oneself to a particular situation if one believes that other situations are, in principle, possible.' p.67.
'Implicit in this scale of probabilities is a general 'sociology', on whatever level of theoretical sophistication. The individual has a `map of society' within which he can locate and project himself in terms of both past biographical recollection and future projects. The individual's life is perceived as a trajectory across this 'map'. There is also a large body of factual knowledge, most of which is 'weighted' in terms of the individual's life plans. Thus if a particular career appears to the individual as a realistically plausible project, he will have more factual knowledge about it than about a career in which he can participate only in pragmatically irrelevant fantasy. In other words, a good deal of background knowledge is related to 'anticipatory socialization'. p.68.
'However vaguely this may be defined, there is the underlying concept of life plan, both for the individuals and for the a family unit. This life plan is the totalization of all the relevant timetables, their grand sum and their integrative meaning In modern society, such life planning has become a value in itself. Its absence is commonly an occasion for reproach. The family unit thus operates as a life-planning workshop.' p.69.

'There is a general expectation of justice. It is expected that everyone in the relevant category - as, for example, those en-titled by law to a passport - will receive equal treatment. It is, of course, understood that certain persons may be excluded from this relevant category - for example, resident aliens or convicted criminals. It is also understood that the bureaucratic procedures may codify certain preferences, for example, in favour of diplomats or other people travelling on urgent government business. Once the categorial system has been established, however, the presumption of equality holds within each category. In the most general way, bureaucracy is expected to conform to the Roman principle suum cuique. An implication of this is that there will be no favouritism or any other intrusion of personal bias in the bureaucrat's handling of each client's case. The bureaucrat is expected to handle every case sine ira et studio. In other words, there is the general expectation that bureaucracy will operate impersonally and with 'affective neutrality'.2 These considerations bring us to an important point: unlike anything discussed in the preceding chapter, the cognitive style of bureaucracy contains a moral quality, not just as a limiting factor (after all, there are also moral assumptions about technological production - for example, that no one will be killed in the course of it), but as an intrinsic part of its own structure of consciousness. The source for this moral element is probably to be sought in the primary social location of bureaucracy in the political sphere.' pp.52-53.



Berger, P. L., Berger, B., & Kellner, H. (1973). The homeless mind: Modernization and consciousness. Penguin. 

Cover image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3368465-the-homeless-mind

9 This is an amplification, by way of phenomenological description, of what Erving Goffman has called 'role distance'.

2 This term was coined by Talcott Parsons.

See also: 'homeless'

Monday, November 18, 2024

The mask ...

'I will speak from my experience with Balinese masks, but I have to go back one step before that. One of the first, knockout exercises that you can do with actors, which is used in lots of theatre schools where they use masks, is putting a plain, blank, white mask on someone. The moment you take someone's face away in that way, it's the most electrifying impression: suddenly to find oneself knowing that that thing one lives with, and which one knows is transmitting something all the time, is no longer there. It's the most extraordinary sense of liberation.

This is one of those great exercises that whoever does it for the first time counts as a great moment: suddenly to find oneself immediately for a certain time liberated from one's own subjectivity. And the awakening of a body awareness is immediately there with it, irresistibly; so that if you want to make an actor aware of his body, instead of explaining it to him and saying, "You have a body and you need to be aware of it," just put bit of white paper on his face and say, "Now look around." He can't fail to be instantly aware of everything he normally forgets, because all the attention has been released from this great magnet up top.' p.219
self
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   
|
other










Brook, P. (1989). The Shifting Point. London, UK: Methuen. pb.

Secondhand from Reid's, Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, this book was already 'musty'. On October 18th it got 'wet' in a downpour from Sorrento to Capri and back. It smelt even more historic afterwards. It still provided great reading though! I noticed in a new pb edition the images were not included.  https://reidofliverpool.co.uk/

Friday, November 15, 2024

'Emperor' - Aphasia

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   
|
group
'Physical
Reality'

Social Reality

'Political
Reality'?!

See also:
Mammary Mountain

Impulse

Faber, T. Lessons in empathy, Life&Arts, FT Weekend, October 5-6, 2024, p.13.

Podcast: Local green spaces and mental health

Dear CHAIN member,

We would like to draw your attention to the following NIHR alert. Please pass on as appropriate. Thank you.

NIHR

Local green spaces are linked with better mental health

Podcast: Local green spaces and mental health

In this podcast, Helen Saul, Editor in Chief of NIHR Evidence, and study author Sarah Rodgers, Professor of Health Informatics, University of  Liverpool, discuss the impact of local green spaces on people's mental health.

Researchers analysed data on more than 2 million people in Wales over 10 years to explore the impact of green spaces on mental health. They linked information about people’s mental health with information about the greenness of their home’s immediate surroundings and how close they lived to green or blue spaces (such as parks, lakes, and beaches). They found that people had a lower risk of anxiety and depression if:

· their home’s immediate surroundings (within 200-300 metres) were greener
· they could access green and blue spaces nearby.

The researchers say that local authorities could improve the mental health of their community by increasing the greenery in their towns and cities and improving access to green and blue spaces.

Read more at: https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/local-green-spaces-are-linked-with-better-mental-health/?source=chainmail

Regards,

Irina Johnston
CHAIN Administrative Assistant

(and my source.)

Previously: 

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Simplifying universal health coverage to achieve political action

'The narrative on universal health coverage should be centred around four core elements: universality, equity, adequate financing, and preparedness in public health emergencies, write Katri Bertram and Justin Koonin'.
Bertram K, Koonin J. Simplifying the universal health coverage narrative can help to achieve political action BMJ 2024; 387 :q2441 doi:10.1136/bmj.q2441

A RESPONSE* 

Can this be true? Why, this is absolutely marvellous! I?
Yes! Me

I do count! I'm seen, heard and included in the health care system and can have a voice in the service's development (1.). 

Not only that, but everyone in my - our community - has access - too (2.) ...

client - person - individual - self - patient - citizen
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   
|
couple - family - group - community - village/town - city
1. UNIVERSALITY

4. PREPAREDNESS


2. EQUITY

3. ADEQUATE FINANCING

... Now that health and social care are properly funded, they've finally done it! They've taken the key step to include education. This is crucial, critical to preventing poor health. Whenever possible we want people to self-care. The mother of all us has always whispered of the safety net. Now she shouts and rages. We all must listen to the stories of old.  Children should be brought up to be health and media... literate and recognise for them as an individual, the merit, the joy of health and well-being.

At last - the power's-that-be are addressing policy. Not just policy on paper, but implementing it, to assure the quality and cost of food, baby-formula, the air and water (3.).

What does this mean?^ It means health budgets can be better managed. Being prepared does not mean we reach immediately for the technical solution, write the prescription (for antibiotics). No. Being prepared means wising-up too. Together, we are ready to face each other, and right across the world: S-N and E-W. Now we can look to the future, climate change and Gaia: as ONE (4-5).


^O’Connell T, Rasanathan K, Chopra M. What does universal health coverage mean? Lancet 2014;383:277-9. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60955-1 pmid:23953765

(Cited by Bertram & Koonin)

5. Spiritual.

*A response, that is both too simple and too complex. Discuss.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Call for Papers “THE CULTURAL EXPLOSION OF AI: ...

Navigating the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Society, and Culture”


Artificial intelligence has burst into the cultural space with the speed of an explosion. As with any powerful explosion, its initial impact is a spectacular blinding flash, followed by a shock wave with real effects. Perhaps we are still at the very beginning, but often the intensity of the blinding flash is proportional to the real effect that follows, both in terms of sweeping away existing forms and as long-term cultural “radiation”.

According to Lotman, a cultural explosion is a period of transformation when rapid and large-scale changes occur in cultural systems, leading to a significant increase in the creation of new information. It is estimated that artificial intelligence produces as much cultural text in one year as humanity has produced throughout its millennia-long history until the advent of the digital age. More interestingly, this new textual production is entering its most productive phase with the invention of Transformer architecture, which is almost a literal algorithmic realization of Lotman's concept of translation — the main mechanism of semiotic metabolism in the Semiosphere.

Training Large Language Models (LLMs), which is the foundation of AI, suspiciously resembles the way Umberto Eco models culture in the structure of a rhizome, which computer scientists call a "neural network." His encyclopedic model is based precisely on what LLMs extract from huge arrays of existing text—the statistic constancy of sign usage. In a polemic with textual immanentists, Eco postulates as part of the reader's encyclopedic competence the ability to inferentially reproduce the possible contexts of sign usage that make up the text. For many, the “magic” of artificial intelligence in its current form lies in its understanding of our questions to it, achieved with the Attention Mechanism, which, as a principle of cooperation between author and reader, is quite literally described in "The Role of the Reader" (1994).

The hardest to find were a fruitful correspondences between generative semiotics and generative media like Chat GPT, as paradoxical as that may sound, but surely there are such correspondences, and they are likely to be discovered in the future. In any case, as a theory of meaning generation on the one hand and an endless machine for creating meaningful texts on the other, the cultural explosion of AI will not leave this breed of semioticians unemployed.
We welcome contributions on the following key topics, but not limited to them:

- Semiotic models of AI generated cultural content
- Semiotic analysis of AI texts generation
- Semiotic theory of generative media
- Socio-cultural consequences of AI's advent
- Transdisciplinary collaboration between semiotics and informatics
- AI in creative practices in the arts
- AI in creative practices in marketing and advertising
- AI in research and education
- Cultural-economic implications of AI
- AI in pop culture
- AI in videogames and XR

Send here your proposal for papers (200-300 words): DigitASC AT nbu.bg

Deadline for the abstracts : 31 January 2025;

Deadline for full papers: 15 June 2025;

Deadline for the final revised papers: 31 August 2025;

Publication: December 2025

Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication, a journal from the Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies at the New Bulgarian University and founded by Prof. Kristian Bankov, explores the new forms of knowledge, social and linguistic interaction, and cultural phenomena generated by the advent of the Internet and information technologies.

A topic is chosen for each issue by the editorial board, but the topics will be always related to the issues of the digital environment. The working language of the journal is English. It uses double-blind review, meaning that both the reviewer’s and the author’s identities are concealed from each other throughout the review process.

Link to the archive of the first six issues: https://ojs.nbu.bg/index.php/DASC/issue/archive

For more information and submission of papers: DigitASC AT nbu.bg

My source:
--




Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra
3004-530 Coimbra, Portugal

E-mail: iestudosfilosoficos AT gmail.com
Sítio Web: http://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@uidief
Academia: https://coimbra.academia.edu/ief

Monday, November 11, 2024

ii "Nye" | Full Show [now ended] | National Theatre at Home

Watching yesterday on YouTube, I enjoyed NYE and was challenged by it personally and as a grandfather, son, nurse and tax-payer.

It wasn't all sweetness and light regards Aneurin "Nye" Bevin's character. Politically, he clearly pushed boundaries in response to the values he carried on his sleeve. As the family's of many health care professionals may recognise, needs outside the family can be prioritised at the family's cost. The theory-practice gap is expressed in so many ways. 

Whether by intent, or accident, the play points to the timeless challenge of social care and women's role in delivery of this care. This strikes home in the drama not just as care of the elderly, but being confronted (alone) with the slow, painful dying of a loved-one; and the reality of occupational diseases - 'black lung'. Women are exploited as carers, their hearts and feet may as well be bound; in the same way the mine owners exploited the workers. There was a stark reminder for me, of how continuity of care is often lacking today.

Nye becomes personal, as even up to 1970s working class parents would have worried, did worry about the prospect of their (invariably male - with some exceptions?) offspring going down the pit, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Watching and listening to this you can appreciate how education was seen a passport to alternative white-collar work. My paternal grandfather worked in a slate quarry. I recall many invites to punch him in the 'stomach': a slate wall. He walked quite a few miles to work and wasn't that old when he died; although he (soon) followed grandma J.

For quite a while I've been drawn to the theatre. Aged 15 I was Francis Nurse - yes, the irony - in the school play, Arthur Miller's, The Crucible. It was Miss Smith, a drama teacher who first brought my attention to the idea of 'social awareness'. I recall Miss Clayton too who was a student teacher. On visits to London I've been struck by the relevance of Ibsen today. 

If there were to be a play in me, perhaps 'Axes and Crosses' must be-up-there as a working title? For  my father the 11+ exam was the icon to ward off the evil that was work down a mine; or lying under a an excavator / crane at 0400 to get the machine fixed for the shift due to start. The 11+ and need to pass this has provided its own anxiety, burden, and it must be said - motivation not just for me, but many more senior adults. I can see this now. So thank you Tim Price, National Theatre and Nye (2025!) for many further insights into stagecraft. 

See also:
https://www.bohs.org/media-resources/press-releases/detail/deadly-lung-disease-in-uk-kitchen-worktop-workers-is-avoidable/

September 2024: 'The Lightest Element'
https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2024/the-lightest-element/

Previously:
What wright to care?

drama (theatre), arts

Saturday, November 09, 2024

Nye | Full Show | Watch for free | National Theatre at Home

Further to a post earlier this year regarding a play - 

Dramatherapy iii - A Specification for Care: Nye

- the play Nye is available to watch for free UNTIL 11th NOV 

on the National Theatre's YouTube channel (with Michael Sheen as Nye Bevan)

https://youtu.be/hpN--d5bXSY?si=yHiiXn1ZhN2_NDnP


My source: Politics of Health Group Mail List Messages

Visit the PoHG website for lots of interesting links and publications: http://www.pohg.org.uk/

Visit PoHG on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/282761111845400

Follow us on Twitter: @pohguk

I walked by the NT this afternoon on the way to Bankside Gallery.

Wednesday, November 06, 2024

Dear Doctor, I have a list . . .

It seems reasonable to suggest that my trips to see the GP as a child:

"What's the problem Mrs Jones?"
"It's Peter, he's not eating!"
"Well, does he seem ill? ... Is he lying down all the time?"
"No, he's running around all day"
"Well he sounds OK but let's check" ... ... ...
"Say arr!"
 (That's to me - not you reader!)
"Argh!"
"Mmm.. ok, ok. ... What does he eat?"
"Tomato soup, chips, chicken, beans on toast, raw carrot, boiled egg."
"Oh! And jam butties!"
"Well he's of slim build, no doubt underweight, but he's fine. Keep the jam butties rolling, and I suspect he'll keep running around."
- were in the days pre-one-problem-per-visit to the surgery. Even now I wonder is this an urban (rural) myth. But then it rears itself with a comment by family, or overheard. The 1960s and 1970s were a different time, a different age. We always saw the same doctor. Continuity mattered then. Thankfully, I was not a regular 'visitor', or the more derogatory term frequent flyer.

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

Ever since starting in the NHS as a nursing assistant, you became aware of the anxiety provoked by many patients when it is their turn to see the doctor. Being asked to bring the patient and any relative(s) through. It often entailed a walk.


I remember one instance their being 12 professionals. Learners can soon increase numbers and restrictions were imposed. Voices were raised. Patients did see the doctor separately.

Back in 1980s, I became a CMHN (CPN) in 1985, I used to encourage patient's to prepare, to make notes of points - questions they wanted to ask. I framed it as their time, their opportunity. A learning opportunity too.

Of course, humour always needs to be used carefully, but on occasion we would joke about walking into the meeting with a list.*


In case of long-term mental illness families are also greatly involved. Sometimes a case review would take place in the patient's home. If it's care in the community, delivered by the community team then surely the administration can be organised in support? 

At times, I would offer to assist and the team were always responsive. This role of advocacy has changed, transformed over the decades, but it is still there. As a nurse you listen for the voice: but have to be ready to 'pick this up' on another's behalf. Ready 

*Lists: Long a tool for safety and situational awareness.

Tuesday, November 05, 2024

'What Kingdom' by Fine Gråbøl

client - person - individual - self - patient
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group
What Kingdom

'Gråbøl was lucky. Eventually she started seeing a new psychiatrist, who looked at that record "and was like, "Wow, you receive So much more medicine than all the other people who live there. Why is that?'" She didn't know. Gradually, though, she was able to come off the drugs; and two doctors decided that
she didn't, in fact, have borderline personality and bipolar disorders, removing the diagnoses that had shaped her sense of her self. In time, she left the unit and rebuilt her life.

She's no longer on medication today, but the ghosts of her past diagnoses haunt her. She wonders whether the conditions are merely in hibernation and she'll wake up one day and enter another depressive episode. She doesn't wish she'd never been diagnosed, but does feel that her doctors underestimated the effect those labels would have on her development.

At 17, she points out - the age she was diagnosed as bipolar - most teenagers don't yet know who they are. "You want to find a box or language to define yourself, so that you can close yourself in. And one way of getting that sense is getting into the psychiatric system." Since returning to "normal" life, she has also struggled with survivor's guilt: the feeling that while she made it out of the system, others did not.


'Above all, she wishes that the emphasis would shift away from the suffering individual and onto their broader context. We need to become better, as a society, at making room for people who aren't fully functional citizens. Gråbøl's narrator phrases it as a question: "Could we not imagine treatments that are instead externally directed involving the outside world gearing itself towards a wider and more comprehensive emotional spectrum?" Gråbøl's answer, though, is the same as my own: "I don't know."'

the system

citizens?


My source:
Leaf Arbuthnot, Interview. We need to make room for the mentally ill. Review, The Daily Telegraph, 21 September 2024, pp.8-9.

Image:
https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9781953861849