Thursday, January 30, 2020

Issues and help seeking behavior Essay Example for Free

Issues and help seeking behavior Essay According to Fallon and Bowles (1999) the area of adolescent help seeking behaviour is an under-researched area. Since the cognitive and critical thinking of adolescents are still developing, their behaviours toward issues concern them may vary case by case. The purpose of this report was to investigate issues concern adolescents and their help seeking behaviour toward those issues, especially seek professional helps. The report analysis was based on secondary information obtained from various researchers by scholars. The participants in the researchers were students with different demographic background, such as gender, ethnicities. Fallon et al (1999) investigated the major and minor problems concerned the adolescents and their help seeking behaviours toward those problems. The major problems were identified to be more severe and would cause participants distress, while minor problems would not distress the participants. The participants were 1,022 secondary school students from Melbourne Metropolitan area, 585 of them were male, and 419 were female. Total 297 of them were in year 7 and 8, 333 were in year 9 and 10, others were in year 11 and 12. Their ages ranged from 11 to 18 years. Each of the participants completed a survey comprised of three parts to define the adolescents concerns and help seeking behaviours. The first part contained demographic questions. The second part  contained mainly rating and categorizing questions to identify the major problems of concerns, nature of the concerns, and sources of help to the concerns. While the third part focused on the minor concerns. The nature of the both concerns was defined into five categories, family, interpersonal, health, education and others. And the sources of help were in the domain of friends, parents and professionals. The findings show that problems concerns different levels of students were very similar. About 50% of the participants sought help for their major problems, 40% sought for minor problems and 25% would seek help for both problems. The problems associated with family and interpersonal skills were often identified as major issues. For minor issues, family and education problems were frequently reported. Therefore the adolescents would differentiate major and minor problems and react differently toward the problems. For major problems, females were more willing to see k help than males, but there was no gender difference towards minor problems. And males preferred to ask parents and rather than friends, while females were inversely. However, on both minor and major problems, respondents were preferred to seek help from parents and friends over professionals, this may probably due to the easy access to nonprofessional sources. Gim, Atkinson, and Whiteley (1990) conducted an investigation which focuses on the issues concerns Asian-American and the relationship between acculturation and willingness to see a counsellor. The study was down through 816 Asian-American students from West Coast University. 399 of the respondents were male, 417 were female. And 291 of them were freshmen, 191 were junior, 159 were sophomores, 174 were seniors, which ranged in an age group of 16 to 37. The survey questionnaire comprised of three sections. The respondents were asked to report their demographic information and rate the seriousness of 24 issues in eight domains of concern and their wiliness to see counsellors on these concerns. Among the 24 issues, the respondents scaled highly for issues like financial, academic, relationship, conflicts with parents. The results show that for those Asia Americans, they were most willing to seek counsellors for issues like financial, academic, career, but least willing to seek help about concerns such as ethnic identity confusion, roommate, and health. The respondents attitudes towards seeking counsellors would be affected by acculturation, ethnicity, and gender. Asian Americans with higher level of acculturation would be more willing to seek  professional counsellors. In a similar study, Kim and Omizo (2003) generated respondents of 242 Asian American college students from mid-Atlantic and Hawaii universities ,140 of them were female and 102 were male, with an age range of 18 to 57 years. Fifty-nine of the respondents had had sought counselling before. And there were mainly from China, Korea, Philippines, and Japan. Similar conclusion was obtained that Asian Americans who were highly adhered to Asian cultural values, their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help would be less positive and they were less willing to seek counsellors in general problems. But the sample size of the Kim and Omizo (2003) was relatively small, which may not be a strong support. In another research Eisenberg, Golverstein and Gollust (20 07) investigated the help-seeking behaviour and access to mental health service. The participants are students from Midwestern, public university. The initial sample size was 5,021 students aged above 18 years. And 2,495 were undergraduates, the remaining were graduate and professional students. Since the survey was web-based, total 2,785 students completed the survey and their demographic profile was similar to national student population. The survey used Patient Health Questionnaire-9(PHQ-9) as the key measure to identify the symptoms of depression. The result shows that 15% of Students obtained psychotherapy or psychotropic medication. About 50% respondents aware that there was free counselling service on campus and where to access the mental health care. Among participants who experienced major depression, only 36% received treatment which demonstrated a low level usage of cheap university medical service. For students who did not seek help, they often held the perception that stress was normal in school, or did not realise there is a need, or having the thou ght that problems would get better as time goes by. Limitations of the research include the reliability of web survey results and the survey ignored the informal sources of help like friends and family. The investigations above all show that female is more open to seek help for issues concerns them, however, comes to the issue of dating violence, male perpetrators and victims were more likely to seek help than female (Ashley Foshee, 2005). Ashley et al investigated the adolescents help-seeking behaviour and helping sources when experienced of dating violence. The analysis was based on secondary data collected in a longitudinal study of adolescent dating violence. A sample size of 365 out  of 1814 survey participants collected in 1996 was chosen in their investigation. There were 225 dating violence victims and 140 perpetrators and all the participants were public school students from rural North Carolina country. The results show that over 60% respondents did not seek help for dating violence, especially perpetrators. Among those w ho sought help, friends and family members were more frequently chosen as their help sources than professionals. But males were more willing to seek professional help than females. The possible reasons are higher social acceptance to male hitting female than female hitting male and male will cause more serious and dangerous consequences in the dating violence than female. The findings also demonstrate that older perpetrators were more likely to seek help than younger ones. Researchers suggested that as the adolescent mature, they may have in-depth cognitive on dating violence and the potential consequences of their behaviour which compelling them to seek help. In conclusion, issues concerns or distress adolescents will vary due to their levels of education, gender, ethicises, age, nationality. And adolescents issues usually fall in the domains of family, interpersonal, education, and health. Most of them are not willing to seek help, especially male. But for certain issues, like dating violence, male are more willing to seek help. Easy accessibility made informal sources of help like friends and family common and popular than professional counsellors when adolescents experienced psychological issues. The other reasons cause low frequency of counselling professional help will be like social norms, lack cognition or unaware of benefits from professional help. So the society should promote more benefits of professional counselling and increase the acceptance of it. For adolescents, they are still at growing stage, abilities like perceptions, cognitions, abstract thinking are also developing. It is very important to guide them have a positive thinking of seeking professional help when facing issues concern them, in the end, may also help them develop a positive attitudes in their lives. References Ashley, O. S., Foshee, V. A. (2005). Adolescent help-seeking for dating violence:prevalence, sociodemographic correlates, and sources of help_. Journal of Adolescent Health 36,_ 25-31. Eisenberg, D., Golverstein, E., Gollust, E. (2007). Help-seeking and access to mental health care in a university student population. _Medical Care. 45 (7)._ Fallon, B. J., Bowles, T. (1999). Adolescent help-seeking for major and minor problems. _Australian Journal of Psychology, 51 (1),_ 12-18. Gim, R. H., Atkinson, D. R., Whiteley, S. (1990). Asian-American acculturation, severity of problems, and willingness to see a counselor. _Journal of Counseling Psychology, 37 (3)_, 281-285. Kim, B. S., Omizo, M. M. (2003). Asian culture values, attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and willingness to seek a counsellor. _THE COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGIST, 31 (3),_ 343-361.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Subversion And Perversion In Two Gentlemen Of Verona and The Jew Of Mal

Subversion and perversion are both prominently conveyed in both Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Jew of Malta through numerous mediums. Subversion entails the opposition to societal standards and authority whereas perversion occurs when morality and religious views are contradicted. The use of religiously symbolic objects, mockery, sexual innuendo, hypocrisy and irony are the focal matters used to express perversion and subversion in this essay. Often when a reader or the audience is shocked by themes and incidents occurring in plays, it is due to a feeling evoked when one is confronted with overt opposition to religion, morality, politics and society. Two Gentlemen of Verona make use of the mockery of upper-class pretentiousness, crude and inappropriate sexual innuendo to subvert and perverse the topic of marriage. Launce continually speaks disrespectfully of his master, subverting the social class order of classical Europe by which servants must speak of their superiors with deference and hold them in highest regard. This subverts the social hierarchy by the utilisation of mockery that belittles his master’s class. My interpretations lead me to believe that the staff in this scene, may well be in fact a metaphorical staff. That is, the staff is code for Launce’s phallus. This is a subversion in that it is socially unacceptable to speak in such a manner, therefore it contradicts societies’ etiquette, and it also is a perversion because it is morally incorrect and sacrilege to use a typically religiously significant tool as a phallic symbol. When Launce declares: â€Å"My staff understands me†, he compa res his masculinity in sexual terms to intelligence. He tells Speed that his sexual drive and desire understands what he is saying, ev... ...The crucial element drawing these plays together is the mutual use of a symbolically significant object. That is, the staff. The staff is disgraced in the manner in which role it had been given in the plays. Although it is ambiguous, the staff appears to be a metaphorical phallic symbol in the Two Gentlemen of Verona used to convey to crudity of Launce’s views on marriage. Conversely, in The Jew of Malta, it is used in a most blasphemous sense – for the purpose of mocking the Christian faith. The faith is ridiculed when the staff is used satirically to ‘support’ the dead Friar and when Jacomo uses it with the intention to murder. This is explicitly ironic. Thus this essay has shown how irony, hypocrisy, mockery and sexual innuendo all serve the same purpose in these plays – to challenge the society by the subverting and perverting moral, religious and political codes.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Diet plays an important role in dental health

Tissues of the oral cavity which include the teeth as well as the soft tissue known as the gums or the gingival have nutritional requirements in much the same way as the rest of the body. We often neglect this aspect, and our ignorance of certain very basic issues, may lead onto severe oral problems such as caries (Kumar & Clarke, 2002), which is a very painful condition, which may eventually require tooth extraction. In addition, there may be other gingival problems which lead to halitosis, making the patient a social outcast, and bleeding, which can result in anemia.Teeth may be affected by nutritional deficiencies, nutritional excesses, and also the absence of oral hygiene following any eating process (Gussy, 2006) . Scurvy is an important example of the first condition, while in heavily industrialized states the dental region is badly affected by repeated high calorie food, which is injurious to teeth, as well as the ill effects of diabetes. The diet affects not only the developm ent of caries, but is a significant contributor to development of periodontal disease (gum disease). Undernutrition and Oral HealthThe lack of specific nutrients in the diet (vitamin C, niacin, etc. ) produces characteristic oral manifestations, which are often diagnostic signs for their deficiency. A typical example is the presence of glossitis in typical B-vitamin deficiency, ( tongue is red and swollen which â€Å"burns†), with other features in that the taste of food has changed, with development of ulcers at the lip commisures and labial margins (angular cheilosis) (Kumar and Clarke, 2002, Gussy, 2006). A second typical example is that of vitamin C deficiency.Here petechiae (small, hemorrhaging red spots) are seen in the oral cavity, apart from easy bruisability in other areas of the party due to poor collagen. In addition, the gums bleed upon brushing or by examination by dental instrument (Bruno, 2006). Nutritional deficiencies as a cause for dental problems is not the only problem, that affects teeth. Oral lesions are common in women and children with HIV/AIDS and may decrease the overall quality of life in these patients because of pain, dry mouth, and difficulty in eating.With advent of new diseases like HIV (Gennaro, 2008), but post cancer radiation affects dental hygiene adversely also, by reducing the saliva production which is a reason for caries also (Scrimger, 2006) Nutritional excesses Sugar-containing foods and beverages promote dental caries which is even worse when fluoride is provided in reduced quantity (like non usage of fluoridated toothpaste). On the other hand these foods also promotes dental erosion by not allowing restoration of dental ph.The reason for this problem can be clearly defined by understanding what a dental plaque is. This is a sticky substance containing bacteria, present on the surface of teeth. Its presence can be minimised by regular brushing with fluoride containing toothpaste Gussy, 2006) Plaque bacteria pro duce acids by fermentation of sugars ( from the diet which we have consumed, hence the role of excess sugars), decreasing the pH at the tooth surface. The production of these acids dissolve minerals in the enamel (calcium and phosphorus) by a process called demineralization (Gussy, 2006).But these acids produced by bacteria in the mouth nearly completely neutralised by saliva, which allows the ph in this region to become more than the critical pH. This increase in pH causes a return of the dissolved calcium and phosphate back to the tooth enamel (remineralisation). Therefore foods or drinks containing carbohydrate give hardly any time for the process of remineralisation to occur (Gussy, 2006). However, even if 2-3 hours of time is available between carbohydrate meals, the reparative capacity of the teeth allows self repair.Some foods protect against caries. Milk and dairy products, especially cheese raises the pH values in the mouth. They are both rich in calcium and phosphate and p romote remineralisation. They are also rich in protein which buffers the acid produced. Their consumption allows an increase saliva production which increases the pH level in the mouth, and encourages remineralisation (American Dental Association). Fibre rich foods also increase the flow of saliva as does sugar-free chewing gum, helping to clean the surface of the tooth (American Dental Association).Fluoride is a known protectant against tooth decay. Fluoride makes the enamel surface of the tooth more resistant to acid; it also allows a reduction in the production of acids by bacteria in the mouth, which thereby hastens the remineralisation process (Gussy, 2006, Boggess, 2008). In summary, dental hygiene is affected by both nutritional excess, nutritional deficiencies as well as general ignorance. Most of these problems are easily preventable by proper knowledge.

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Who Is Art As Something We Create - 1037 Words

An Artist One reason why I wonder is that we consider art as something we create. Making characters, their lives and their conflicts, would be an art, does not it? When we think about an artist first three topics come to mind are a painter, musician, and dancer. I get the impression that writers are further down the list of potential artists. When you search for the word artist in google search, you would find it as one who professes skills and practices an imaginative art. Nevertheless, when you look at the Merriam-Webster dictionary you will find it as one who is adept at something. In this way, if the writer is very good, writing can be an art. Experiences with combination of skills is your ability to do or produce work. Art is the†¦show more content†¦The artist understands life by creating his or her own edification as anyone else. Each artist has his personal path of thinking about the nature of vision. Therefore, a writer can also be an artist. By observation and with experience Virginia Woolf develops focus. The ability to focus is a key skill developed through work. This skill makes her change the ending of Clarissa Dalloway at the end of the book. As a writer, she has an insightful, evaluative eye that gives her an intense of understanding her surroundings. She tries to decide whether have her character, Clarissa Dalloway, kill herself. As stated in â€Å"The Hours† by Michael Cunningham â€Å"Clarissa will not die, not by her own hand. How could she bear to leave all of this? Someone else will die. It should be a greater mind than Clarissa’s; it should be someone with sorrow and genius enough to turn away from the seductions of the world†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (153-154). Ultimately, Virginia decides to make her character Clarissa into the English society that she never could be. We know that Virginia ends her own life, so her deliberations about Clarissa reflects her personal struggle with the idea of suicide. In my opinion, Virginia’s illness had an impact on her writing, which made her focus, more and developed her creativity in writing. In Addition, problem solving can create accountability that develops an artist’s skill. Artistic creations are born through the solving of problems also, they form accountability for other chances. When