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Papers by Tania Re

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2016

New research on ayahuasca's potential applications in psychiatry have been undertaken in the ... more New research on ayahuasca's potential applications in psychiatry have been undertaken in the last few years. It is relevant to start by pointing out that this south American brew has a very low potential for abuse, having no associated psychiatric or neuropsychological disorders. P.The most studied area in which ayahuasca may be applied is drug addiction. Interest for the understanding of ayahuasca's therapeutic potential in drug addiction is to determine by which mechanism the brew acts in order to promote behavioural and personality changes that allow freedom from addiction. Some authors consider that the benefits provided by ayahuasca may arise from a symbiotic action between pharmacology and altered consciousness state, with some volunteers reporting an understanding of how some life happenings may have contributed to their depression and an achievement of a blissful state, which continued throughout time. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitio...

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2019

Epidaurus was in the antiquity a therapeutic complex which included several buildings to which pe... more Epidaurus was in the antiquity a therapeutic complex which included several buildings to which people came from every part of Greece to be cured by the god Asclepius, a deity venerated from 500 before Christ to the fourth-fifth century anno Domini, when many other pagan cults had already ceased to exist. Epidaurus was a very complex structure, a sort of city-state or sovereign state, able to host thousands of adepts. Here, patients were subject to ablution, purification and sporadic fasting. Asclepius appeared in a dream, in a sort a practice of magic-ritual and sapiential medicine.

Revista de Administração Pública, 2009

Este artigo foi elaborado a partir de uma pesquisa bibliográfica em livros e artigos científicos ... more Este artigo foi elaborado a partir de uma pesquisa bibliográfica em livros e artigos científicos clássicos ou recentemente publicados na literatura de administração pública na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, e faz uma comparação dos quatro modelos organizacionais e relacionais que vêm inspirando o desenho das estruturas e processos nas recentes reformas da administração pública. Os modelos analisados são o burocrático, a administração pública gerencial, o governo empreendedor e a governança pública. Recentemente, reformas administrativas vêm pregando a substituição progressiva do modelo burocrático weberiano por novos modelos de gestão e de relação do Estado com a sociedade. Este artigo mostra que os novos modelos compartilham características essenciais com o modelo tradicional burocrático e, portanto, não são modelos de ruptura. Também é argumentado que reformas da administração pública transformam-se facilmente em políticas simbólicas, e que políticos e burocratas tentam manipular a ...

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2018

In the last decades, one of the psychedelic substances which has gained high attention for its im... more In the last decades, one of the psychedelic substances which has gained high attention for its implications in several para-psychological phenomena (including out-of-body states, deep changes in sensory perception, mood, and thought, travels in "hyperspace", and meetings with disincarnate entities, as well as other "breakthrough experiences") is dimethyltryptamine (N,N-DMT, or simply DMT). High dose DMT-containing plants (like Psychotria viridis , in Quechua language Chacruna or Chacrona) are one of the two principal ingredients of the Ayahuasca, the visionary Amazonian brew reported to induce a range of paranormal experiences, but it can be found as well in a huge number of different natural sources, even some of animal origin - e.g., the Sonoran desert toad, in the form of 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine or 5-MeO-DMT. It was Rick Strassmann (born 1952), a medical doctor, psychiatrist and clinical psycho-pharmacologist, who had the virtue of giving a second bir...

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2018

In the last years, the debate on the therapeutic use of psychoactive drugs and compounds has inte... more In the last years, the debate on the therapeutic use of psychoactive drugs and compounds has intensified and has attracted a progressively growing body of research as well as of conferences and training courses. This is anticipated to revolutionize future mental health care. However, a medieval obscurantist climate remains that hinders further advances in the field. The research field of psychoactive drugs, despite its promises, is characterized by a number of challenges which, in the future, should be addressed, concerning, for instance, their potential therapeutic use. There is a concrete possibility to revitalize the use of these substances by bridging past and present, combining ancient knowledge and modern science to serve new therapeutic paradigms. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99;...

In the last years, the debate on the use of psychedelics in psychotherapeutic settings has intens... more In the last years, the debate on the use of psychedelics in psychotherapeutic settings has intensified, attracting a lot of interest and attention from the scholarly community as well as from clinicians and paving the way for new therapeutic paradigms. Besides classical addictions and addictive behaviors, there exist forms of addictions, the so-called new addictions or behavioral addictions, whose characterization is not linked so much to substances but to widespread and socially accepted activities such as games, shopping, internet use, sex, love relationships, work and exercises, physical activities or sports. Among the various addictions, the gambling disorder is the first form of behavioral addictions officially recognized by the DSM-V, in accordance with a wealth of neurobiological and clinical data showing the activation in patients of the gratification systems (especially dopamine). Orthos, as intensive residential intervention program envisaging a non-moralistic approach to ...

Within the frame of the dissipative quantum model of brain we present a theoretical analysis of b... more Within the frame of the dissipative quantum model of brain we present a theoretical analysis of brain-mind visual experiences made during dreaming, meditation, caused by the action of psychoactive substances, or under conditions of low degree of openness of the brain on its environment. The brain-mind visual experiences we refer to are visual activities not connected to the actual seeing as in the awake state. The movie-like sequences of images in brain-mind visual experiences have their origin in the criticality of the low level of openness of the brain dynamics. They are described as trajectories through the memory space constructed during the subject perceptual experiences. Truthfulness and realism felt in brain-mind visual experiences find a description in terms of the entanglement between the doubled degrees of freedom in the dissipative model. We conjecture that brain-mind visual experiences may be present also in subjects under anesthesia, in some coma states and in general u...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Medicine and healthcare professions are prestigious and valued careers and, at the same time, dem... more Medicine and healthcare professions are prestigious and valued careers and, at the same time, demanding, challenging, and arduous jobs. Medical and allied health professions students, experiencing a stressful academic and clinical workload, may suffer from sleep disturbances. In Iran, several studies have been conducted to explore the prevalence rate among medical and healthcare professions students. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to quantitatively and rigorously summarize the existing scholarly literature, providing the decision- and policy-makers and educators with an updated, evidence-based synthesis. Only studies utilizing a reliable psychometric instrument, such as the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), were included, in order to have comparable measurements and estimates. Seventeen investigations were retained in the present systematic review and meta-analysis, totaling a sample of 3586 students. Studies were conducted between 2008 and 2018 and rep...

Kultur, Religion und Psychotherapie, hg. von Mario Schlegel und Nicola Gianinazzi

Asclépios; Épidaure; médecine sapientiale; médecine des Templiers; sanctuaire à incubation; plant... more Asclépios; Épidaure; médecine sapientiale; médecine des Templiers; sanctuaire à incubation; plantes « master »; chamanisme

Kultur, Religion und Psychotherapie, hg. von Mario Schlegel und Nicola Gianinazzi

Kultur, Religion und Psychotherapie, hg. von Mario Schlegel und Nicola Gianinazzi

Ursprünglich, im Westen, war die Medizin, die die Pflege von Körper, Geist und Seele betraf, eine... more Ursprünglich, im Westen, war die Medizin, die die Pflege von Körper, Geist und Seele betraf, eine divinatorische Kunst. Im Laufe der Zeit hat der Begriff «Weissagung» seine ursprüngliche Bedeutung verloren, im Vergleich zur Antike und insbesondere zur archaischen griechischen Welt, wo er einen enormen Wert hatte. Die Kunst des Asklepios (Äskulap) ist, wie die seines Vaters Apollo, eine göttliche Kunst, die ein Heilritual voraussetzt. In diesem Zusammenhang sei daran erinnert, dass die historisch-anthropologische Forschung in vielen Kulturen des schamanischen Typs (Südamerika, Sibirien, Indien) im therapeutischen Bereich eine sehr alte Verwendung von «Meisterpflanzen» oder Pflanzen aufzeichnet, die es aufgrund ihrer Eigenschaften ermöglichen, «aussergewöhnliche Bewusstseinszustände» zu erreichen. Diese Bewusstseinszustände können durch verschiedene Praktiken wie Meditation, holotropes Atmen, Yoga, sensorische Entbehrung oder sogar spontan wie bei den christlichen Mystikern entstehen....

Frontiers in Psychology

Background: Job satisfaction is largely associated with organizational aspects, including improve... more Background: Job satisfaction is largely associated with organizational aspects, including improved working environments, worker's well-being and more effective performance. There are many definitions regarding job satisfaction in the existing scholarly literature: it can be expressed as a positive emotional state, a positive impact of job-related experiences on individuals, and employees' perceptions regarding their jobs. Aims: No reliable scales in Arabic language to assess job satisfaction in the sports and physical education field exist.This study aimed to trans-culturally adapt and validate the Pepe's "Teacher Job Satisfaction Scale" 9 items (TJSS-9), creating the "Teacher of Physical Education Job Satisfaction Inventory" (TPEJSI) in Arabic language. This scale was administered to a Tunisian population of sports and physical education teachers and analyzed according to the Pepe's theoretical model. More in detail, this investigation systematically tested its factor structure, in terms of internal consistency/reliability, predictive validity, sensitivity and convergent validity. Methods: A total of 417 Tunisian teachers of sports and physical education participated voluntarily in this study. The sample comprised of 258 males and of 159 females. More in detail, 189 were teachers teaching in primary schools of physical education, 105 teaching

Frontiers in Psychology

Background: As an optimal psychological state, flow represents those moments when everything come... more Background: As an optimal psychological state, flow represents those moments when everything comes together for the performer. Flow is often associated with high levels of performance and is a positive psychological experience. Aim: Our study aimed to validate the "Academic Flow Scale" (Flow 4D 16) in Arabic language across Tunisian population, and to test its factor structure, in terms of internal consistency/reliability, predictive validity, and sensitivity. Methods: The population is composed of 320 students (139 men and 181 women) belonging to the University of Sfax, with a mean age of 22.26 years. The students voluntarily responded to the scale of academic flow (Flow 4D 16). Both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses were performed. Results: The four-dimensional alpha coefficients of the Flow 4D 16 indicate an excellent internal consistency, respectively, of 0.902 (Cognitive), 0.959 (Time), 0.974 (Ego) and 0.960 (Well-being). The CFA fit indices were satisfactory. Conclusion: In summary, the 16-items model (original version) showed for all the indices an excellent fit to the theoretical model, confirming the four-dimensional factor structure among Tunisian student population.

Risk Management and Healthcare Policy

Internet represents a major source of information related to health issues, increasingly used by ... more Internet represents a major source of information related to health issues, increasingly used by providers. Indeed, there are numerous websites concerning eating and weight disorders, such as anorexia nervosa. The aim of the current investigation was to systematically perform a reliability and content analysis of Italian language anorexia nervosa-related websites. Methods: Reliability of the anorexia nervosa website pages was assessed using the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct Standards (HonCode ®) certification mark. A comprehensive content analysis (thematic cluster analysis, correspondence analysis of emerging themes and topics, density and degree-centrality analysis, and co-word analysis) was performed using the commercial software T-Lab. Results: 402 unique website pages were included and analyzed in the current study. Statistically significant differences related to the accomplishment or less to the items of the HonCode ® certificate mark were found for all items, except for confidentiality and webmaster/additional contact. From the thematic cluster analysis, four clusters were identified: namely, treatment (26.6%), vomiting (24.7%), weight (24.4%) and onset-age (24.3%). Treatment (in particular, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy) was the most represented theme (with a frequency of 97.76%, recurring in 393 websites). Pro-ana content characterized 147 website pages (with a frequency of 36.57%). Conclusion: The quality of Italian language anorexia nervosa-related websites was rather moderate-poor, being generally inconsistent with the principles of the HonCode ® certification mark. Therefore, physicians and health authorities should be aware of such findings to provide their patients with proper answers and education.

International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology. Revista INFAD de Psicología.

Pathological gambling (GAP) is considered a disorder in which the subject involved can not stop p... more Pathological gambling (GAP) is considered a disorder in which the subject involved can not stop playing despite persistent and evident family, work and social problems. It is listed among the Impulse Control Disorders in the Diagnostic Manuals (DSM, ICD, PDM) because of the significant role that the impulsive trait has in the lives of the players' personalities. Impulsivity is a multidimensional construct denoted by the tendency to act a behavior or to make a choice without reflective mediation. An immediate act in reaction to a physical or psychic stimulus. Numerous researches testify how impulsivity is the structuring characteristic of the conduct of the gamblers. Alexithymia, from the Greek a-lex-thymos, refers to the impossibility of recognizing and expressing one's emotional states. Most often found in psychosomatic patients, the alexithymic construct also emphasizes imaginative poverty and the consequent concreteness of thought (operative thought) of subjects who are mainly directed towards the "material" aspects of their actions, having no reflexive space for the properly psychological aspects of their behavior. The aim of this study is to evaluate the outcomes of the Orthos program over a period of 24

International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology. Revista INFAD de Psicología.

According to the DSM-V, gambling can be defined as a "persistent and recurrent problematic gambli... more According to the DSM-V, gambling can be defined as a "persistent and recurrent problematic gambling behavior leading to clinically significant impairment or distress", not better defined by a manic episode. ORTHOS is a three-week intensive residential intervention program with three follow-up meetings during the year following intensive residential interventions. ORTHOS' philosophy envisages a non-moralistic and prejudicial approach to gambling (Zerbetto, 2002). The findings of the present study confirm the efficacy of ORTHOS treatment compared to the reduction of gambling

Psychology Research and Behavior Management

Background: In the past decades, thanks to the widespread use of the new information and communic... more Background: In the past decades, thanks to the widespread use of the new information and communication technologies, nomophobia has emerged as a contemporary psychological disorder. More in detail, it has been defined as the modern fear of feeling disconnected, being out of mobile phone contact, and being unable to access information and/or communicate with others. Few authors have used an Arabic version of the Nomophobia Questionnaire, even though its psychometric properties are not well known and have been poorly investigated from a formal rigorous standpoint. Materials and methods: Our research objective was to develop and validate the Arabic version, administering it to a sample of adolescents and young adults in a country characterized by a high mobile network coverage. A total of 512 subjects (aged 21.62±4.33 years, median 20 years), equally distributed between males and females, and based in Kuwait, volunteered to take part in the study. Results: The confirmatory factor analysis did not show a completely satisfactory fitting with the original factor structure. The exploratory factor analysis showed that four factors had 57.24% variance. Overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.879. However, the coefficient increased from 0.645 to 0.849 with respect to the original factor structure. Scores (and mean scores) were 4.25±1.59 (21.23±7.95), 2.95±1.33 (17.68±7.97), 4.48±1.78 (8.96±3.56), and 4.98±1.52 (34.84±10.67) for factors I, II, III, and IV, respectively, whereas the overall score (and mean overall score) was 4.14±1.13 (82.71±22.68). Conclusion: In our sample, no subject (0.0%) was without nomophobia, with 92 (18.0%) and 288 individuals (56.2%) reporting mild and moderate nomophobia levels, respectively. Approximately a quarter of the recruited sample (132 subjects, 25.8%) had severe nomophobia level.

Psychology Research and Behavior Management

Background: Depression represents a serious public health concern, imposing a high burden, both i... more Background: Depression represents a serious public health concern, imposing a high burden, both in epidemiological and clinical terms. Crocus sativus (Saffron) is a herbal remedy that has anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-platelet properties. However, the exact mechanisms of Saffron in treating depression are not yet clear. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of Saffron versus placebo and Fluoxetine in the treatment of depressed patients. Methods: Different bibliographic thesauri, namely the Cochrane Library, Scopus, PubMed/ MEDLINE, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), EMBASE, and ISI/Web of Science (WoS) were searched up to May 2018. Effect sizes were computed as Standardized Mean Differences (SMD) with their 95% confidence interval (CI). To evaluate the heterogeneity among the studies, I 2 test was carried out. Results: Eight studies were included. The SMD was −0.86 (95% CI: −1.73 to 0.00) concerning the comparison of Saffron with placebo. The SMD was found to be 0.11 (95% CI: −0.20 to 0.43) concerning the comparison of Saffron with Fluoxetine. In both sensitivity analyses, the results did not statistically change, confirming the stability of the findings. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that Saffron administration was well comparable with Fluoxetine and placebo.

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2016

New research on ayahuasca's potential applications in psychiatry have been undertaken in the ... more New research on ayahuasca's potential applications in psychiatry have been undertaken in the last few years. It is relevant to start by pointing out that this south American brew has a very low potential for abuse, having no associated psychiatric or neuropsychological disorders. P.The most studied area in which ayahuasca may be applied is drug addiction. Interest for the understanding of ayahuasca's therapeutic potential in drug addiction is to determine by which mechanism the brew acts in order to promote behavioural and personality changes that allow freedom from addiction. Some authors consider that the benefits provided by ayahuasca may arise from a symbiotic action between pharmacology and altered consciousness state, with some volunteers reporting an understanding of how some life happenings may have contributed to their depression and an achievement of a blissful state, which continued throughout time. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitio...

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2019

Epidaurus was in the antiquity a therapeutic complex which included several buildings to which pe... more Epidaurus was in the antiquity a therapeutic complex which included several buildings to which people came from every part of Greece to be cured by the god Asclepius, a deity venerated from 500 before Christ to the fourth-fifth century anno Domini, when many other pagan cults had already ceased to exist. Epidaurus was a very complex structure, a sort of city-state or sovereign state, able to host thousands of adepts. Here, patients were subject to ablution, purification and sporadic fasting. Asclepius appeared in a dream, in a sort a practice of magic-ritual and sapiential medicine.

Revista de Administração Pública, 2009

Este artigo foi elaborado a partir de uma pesquisa bibliográfica em livros e artigos científicos ... more Este artigo foi elaborado a partir de uma pesquisa bibliográfica em livros e artigos científicos clássicos ou recentemente publicados na literatura de administração pública na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, e faz uma comparação dos quatro modelos organizacionais e relacionais que vêm inspirando o desenho das estruturas e processos nas recentes reformas da administração pública. Os modelos analisados são o burocrático, a administração pública gerencial, o governo empreendedor e a governança pública. Recentemente, reformas administrativas vêm pregando a substituição progressiva do modelo burocrático weberiano por novos modelos de gestão e de relação do Estado com a sociedade. Este artigo mostra que os novos modelos compartilham características essenciais com o modelo tradicional burocrático e, portanto, não são modelos de ruptura. Também é argumentado que reformas da administração pública transformam-se facilmente em políticas simbólicas, e que políticos e burocratas tentam manipular a ...

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2018

In the last decades, one of the psychedelic substances which has gained high attention for its im... more In the last decades, one of the psychedelic substances which has gained high attention for its implications in several para-psychological phenomena (including out-of-body states, deep changes in sensory perception, mood, and thought, travels in "hyperspace", and meetings with disincarnate entities, as well as other "breakthrough experiences") is dimethyltryptamine (N,N-DMT, or simply DMT). High dose DMT-containing plants (like Psychotria viridis , in Quechua language Chacruna or Chacrona) are one of the two principal ingredients of the Ayahuasca, the visionary Amazonian brew reported to induce a range of paranormal experiences, but it can be found as well in a huge number of different natural sources, even some of animal origin - e.g., the Sonoran desert toad, in the form of 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine or 5-MeO-DMT. It was Rick Strassmann (born 1952), a medical doctor, psychiatrist and clinical psycho-pharmacologist, who had the virtue of giving a second bir...

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, 2018

In the last years, the debate on the therapeutic use of psychoactive drugs and compounds has inte... more In the last years, the debate on the therapeutic use of psychoactive drugs and compounds has intensified and has attracted a progressively growing body of research as well as of conferences and training courses. This is anticipated to revolutionize future mental health care. However, a medieval obscurantist climate remains that hinders further advances in the field. The research field of psychoactive drugs, despite its promises, is characterized by a number of challenges which, in the future, should be addressed, concerning, for instance, their potential therapeutic use. There is a concrete possibility to revitalize the use of these substances by bridging past and present, combining ancient knowledge and modern science to serve new therapeutic paradigms. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99;...

In the last years, the debate on the use of psychedelics in psychotherapeutic settings has intens... more In the last years, the debate on the use of psychedelics in psychotherapeutic settings has intensified, attracting a lot of interest and attention from the scholarly community as well as from clinicians and paving the way for new therapeutic paradigms. Besides classical addictions and addictive behaviors, there exist forms of addictions, the so-called new addictions or behavioral addictions, whose characterization is not linked so much to substances but to widespread and socially accepted activities such as games, shopping, internet use, sex, love relationships, work and exercises, physical activities or sports. Among the various addictions, the gambling disorder is the first form of behavioral addictions officially recognized by the DSM-V, in accordance with a wealth of neurobiological and clinical data showing the activation in patients of the gratification systems (especially dopamine). Orthos, as intensive residential intervention program envisaging a non-moralistic approach to ...

Within the frame of the dissipative quantum model of brain we present a theoretical analysis of b... more Within the frame of the dissipative quantum model of brain we present a theoretical analysis of brain-mind visual experiences made during dreaming, meditation, caused by the action of psychoactive substances, or under conditions of low degree of openness of the brain on its environment. The brain-mind visual experiences we refer to are visual activities not connected to the actual seeing as in the awake state. The movie-like sequences of images in brain-mind visual experiences have their origin in the criticality of the low level of openness of the brain dynamics. They are described as trajectories through the memory space constructed during the subject perceptual experiences. Truthfulness and realism felt in brain-mind visual experiences find a description in terms of the entanglement between the doubled degrees of freedom in the dissipative model. We conjecture that brain-mind visual experiences may be present also in subjects under anesthesia, in some coma states and in general u...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Medicine and healthcare professions are prestigious and valued careers and, at the same time, dem... more Medicine and healthcare professions are prestigious and valued careers and, at the same time, demanding, challenging, and arduous jobs. Medical and allied health professions students, experiencing a stressful academic and clinical workload, may suffer from sleep disturbances. In Iran, several studies have been conducted to explore the prevalence rate among medical and healthcare professions students. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to quantitatively and rigorously summarize the existing scholarly literature, providing the decision- and policy-makers and educators with an updated, evidence-based synthesis. Only studies utilizing a reliable psychometric instrument, such as the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), were included, in order to have comparable measurements and estimates. Seventeen investigations were retained in the present systematic review and meta-analysis, totaling a sample of 3586 students. Studies were conducted between 2008 and 2018 and rep...

Kultur, Religion und Psychotherapie, hg. von Mario Schlegel und Nicola Gianinazzi

Asclépios; Épidaure; médecine sapientiale; médecine des Templiers; sanctuaire à incubation; plant... more Asclépios; Épidaure; médecine sapientiale; médecine des Templiers; sanctuaire à incubation; plantes « master »; chamanisme

Kultur, Religion und Psychotherapie, hg. von Mario Schlegel und Nicola Gianinazzi

Kultur, Religion und Psychotherapie, hg. von Mario Schlegel und Nicola Gianinazzi

Ursprünglich, im Westen, war die Medizin, die die Pflege von Körper, Geist und Seele betraf, eine... more Ursprünglich, im Westen, war die Medizin, die die Pflege von Körper, Geist und Seele betraf, eine divinatorische Kunst. Im Laufe der Zeit hat der Begriff «Weissagung» seine ursprüngliche Bedeutung verloren, im Vergleich zur Antike und insbesondere zur archaischen griechischen Welt, wo er einen enormen Wert hatte. Die Kunst des Asklepios (Äskulap) ist, wie die seines Vaters Apollo, eine göttliche Kunst, die ein Heilritual voraussetzt. In diesem Zusammenhang sei daran erinnert, dass die historisch-anthropologische Forschung in vielen Kulturen des schamanischen Typs (Südamerika, Sibirien, Indien) im therapeutischen Bereich eine sehr alte Verwendung von «Meisterpflanzen» oder Pflanzen aufzeichnet, die es aufgrund ihrer Eigenschaften ermöglichen, «aussergewöhnliche Bewusstseinszustände» zu erreichen. Diese Bewusstseinszustände können durch verschiedene Praktiken wie Meditation, holotropes Atmen, Yoga, sensorische Entbehrung oder sogar spontan wie bei den christlichen Mystikern entstehen....

Frontiers in Psychology

Background: Job satisfaction is largely associated with organizational aspects, including improve... more Background: Job satisfaction is largely associated with organizational aspects, including improved working environments, worker's well-being and more effective performance. There are many definitions regarding job satisfaction in the existing scholarly literature: it can be expressed as a positive emotional state, a positive impact of job-related experiences on individuals, and employees' perceptions regarding their jobs. Aims: No reliable scales in Arabic language to assess job satisfaction in the sports and physical education field exist.This study aimed to trans-culturally adapt and validate the Pepe's "Teacher Job Satisfaction Scale" 9 items (TJSS-9), creating the "Teacher of Physical Education Job Satisfaction Inventory" (TPEJSI) in Arabic language. This scale was administered to a Tunisian population of sports and physical education teachers and analyzed according to the Pepe's theoretical model. More in detail, this investigation systematically tested its factor structure, in terms of internal consistency/reliability, predictive validity, sensitivity and convergent validity. Methods: A total of 417 Tunisian teachers of sports and physical education participated voluntarily in this study. The sample comprised of 258 males and of 159 females. More in detail, 189 were teachers teaching in primary schools of physical education, 105 teaching

Frontiers in Psychology

Background: As an optimal psychological state, flow represents those moments when everything come... more Background: As an optimal psychological state, flow represents those moments when everything comes together for the performer. Flow is often associated with high levels of performance and is a positive psychological experience. Aim: Our study aimed to validate the "Academic Flow Scale" (Flow 4D 16) in Arabic language across Tunisian population, and to test its factor structure, in terms of internal consistency/reliability, predictive validity, and sensitivity. Methods: The population is composed of 320 students (139 men and 181 women) belonging to the University of Sfax, with a mean age of 22.26 years. The students voluntarily responded to the scale of academic flow (Flow 4D 16). Both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses were performed. Results: The four-dimensional alpha coefficients of the Flow 4D 16 indicate an excellent internal consistency, respectively, of 0.902 (Cognitive), 0.959 (Time), 0.974 (Ego) and 0.960 (Well-being). The CFA fit indices were satisfactory. Conclusion: In summary, the 16-items model (original version) showed for all the indices an excellent fit to the theoretical model, confirming the four-dimensional factor structure among Tunisian student population.

Risk Management and Healthcare Policy

Internet represents a major source of information related to health issues, increasingly used by ... more Internet represents a major source of information related to health issues, increasingly used by providers. Indeed, there are numerous websites concerning eating and weight disorders, such as anorexia nervosa. The aim of the current investigation was to systematically perform a reliability and content analysis of Italian language anorexia nervosa-related websites. Methods: Reliability of the anorexia nervosa website pages was assessed using the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct Standards (HonCode ®) certification mark. A comprehensive content analysis (thematic cluster analysis, correspondence analysis of emerging themes and topics, density and degree-centrality analysis, and co-word analysis) was performed using the commercial software T-Lab. Results: 402 unique website pages were included and analyzed in the current study. Statistically significant differences related to the accomplishment or less to the items of the HonCode ® certificate mark were found for all items, except for confidentiality and webmaster/additional contact. From the thematic cluster analysis, four clusters were identified: namely, treatment (26.6%), vomiting (24.7%), weight (24.4%) and onset-age (24.3%). Treatment (in particular, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy) was the most represented theme (with a frequency of 97.76%, recurring in 393 websites). Pro-ana content characterized 147 website pages (with a frequency of 36.57%). Conclusion: The quality of Italian language anorexia nervosa-related websites was rather moderate-poor, being generally inconsistent with the principles of the HonCode ® certification mark. Therefore, physicians and health authorities should be aware of such findings to provide their patients with proper answers and education.

International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology. Revista INFAD de Psicología.

Pathological gambling (GAP) is considered a disorder in which the subject involved can not stop p... more Pathological gambling (GAP) is considered a disorder in which the subject involved can not stop playing despite persistent and evident family, work and social problems. It is listed among the Impulse Control Disorders in the Diagnostic Manuals (DSM, ICD, PDM) because of the significant role that the impulsive trait has in the lives of the players' personalities. Impulsivity is a multidimensional construct denoted by the tendency to act a behavior or to make a choice without reflective mediation. An immediate act in reaction to a physical or psychic stimulus. Numerous researches testify how impulsivity is the structuring characteristic of the conduct of the gamblers. Alexithymia, from the Greek a-lex-thymos, refers to the impossibility of recognizing and expressing one's emotional states. Most often found in psychosomatic patients, the alexithymic construct also emphasizes imaginative poverty and the consequent concreteness of thought (operative thought) of subjects who are mainly directed towards the "material" aspects of their actions, having no reflexive space for the properly psychological aspects of their behavior. The aim of this study is to evaluate the outcomes of the Orthos program over a period of 24

International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology. Revista INFAD de Psicología.

According to the DSM-V, gambling can be defined as a "persistent and recurrent problematic gambli... more According to the DSM-V, gambling can be defined as a "persistent and recurrent problematic gambling behavior leading to clinically significant impairment or distress", not better defined by a manic episode. ORTHOS is a three-week intensive residential intervention program with three follow-up meetings during the year following intensive residential interventions. ORTHOS' philosophy envisages a non-moralistic and prejudicial approach to gambling (Zerbetto, 2002). The findings of the present study confirm the efficacy of ORTHOS treatment compared to the reduction of gambling

Psychology Research and Behavior Management

Background: In the past decades, thanks to the widespread use of the new information and communic... more Background: In the past decades, thanks to the widespread use of the new information and communication technologies, nomophobia has emerged as a contemporary psychological disorder. More in detail, it has been defined as the modern fear of feeling disconnected, being out of mobile phone contact, and being unable to access information and/or communicate with others. Few authors have used an Arabic version of the Nomophobia Questionnaire, even though its psychometric properties are not well known and have been poorly investigated from a formal rigorous standpoint. Materials and methods: Our research objective was to develop and validate the Arabic version, administering it to a sample of adolescents and young adults in a country characterized by a high mobile network coverage. A total of 512 subjects (aged 21.62±4.33 years, median 20 years), equally distributed between males and females, and based in Kuwait, volunteered to take part in the study. Results: The confirmatory factor analysis did not show a completely satisfactory fitting with the original factor structure. The exploratory factor analysis showed that four factors had 57.24% variance. Overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.879. However, the coefficient increased from 0.645 to 0.849 with respect to the original factor structure. Scores (and mean scores) were 4.25±1.59 (21.23±7.95), 2.95±1.33 (17.68±7.97), 4.48±1.78 (8.96±3.56), and 4.98±1.52 (34.84±10.67) for factors I, II, III, and IV, respectively, whereas the overall score (and mean overall score) was 4.14±1.13 (82.71±22.68). Conclusion: In our sample, no subject (0.0%) was without nomophobia, with 92 (18.0%) and 288 individuals (56.2%) reporting mild and moderate nomophobia levels, respectively. Approximately a quarter of the recruited sample (132 subjects, 25.8%) had severe nomophobia level.

Psychology Research and Behavior Management

Background: Depression represents a serious public health concern, imposing a high burden, both i... more Background: Depression represents a serious public health concern, imposing a high burden, both in epidemiological and clinical terms. Crocus sativus (Saffron) is a herbal remedy that has anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-platelet properties. However, the exact mechanisms of Saffron in treating depression are not yet clear. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of Saffron versus placebo and Fluoxetine in the treatment of depressed patients. Methods: Different bibliographic thesauri, namely the Cochrane Library, Scopus, PubMed/ MEDLINE, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), EMBASE, and ISI/Web of Science (WoS) were searched up to May 2018. Effect sizes were computed as Standardized Mean Differences (SMD) with their 95% confidence interval (CI). To evaluate the heterogeneity among the studies, I 2 test was carried out. Results: Eight studies were included. The SMD was −0.86 (95% CI: −1.73 to 0.00) concerning the comparison of Saffron with placebo. The SMD was found to be 0.11 (95% CI: −0.20 to 0.43) concerning the comparison of Saffron with Fluoxetine. In both sensitivity analyses, the results did not statistically change, confirming the stability of the findings. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that Saffron administration was well comparable with Fluoxetine and placebo.