The world is too complex to manage without radical functional simplification. Meaning appears to exist as the basis for such simplification. The meaning that guides functional simplification may be usefully considered as consisting of three classes. The first class consists of meanings of the determinate world. These are meanings based in motivation, emotion, and personal and social identity. F...

Objectives To explore patients’ perceptions of the features of personal care and how far these are shared by healthcare providers; whether a continuing relationship between a health professional and a patient is essential for personal care; and the circumstances in which a continuing relationship is important. Design Qualitative analysis of semistructured interviews using the “framework” approa...

The concept of character has always been ill-at-ease in psychoanalytic theory. As an aggregate of traits characteristic of the person, it has been seen as superficial and peripheral to the main concerns of psychoanalysis. The early-instinct versus d.efense model of psychoanalysis explained character as expressions of or defenses against instinctual pressures. As a result, character has usually ...

T raining for and practicing the specialty of medical oncology are stressful endeavors. During the training process, future oncologists often cope with their stress by assuming that “things will get better” after they complete residency and fellowship. This myth often leads physicians to sacrifice many of the personal values and activities that give life meaning. It also may perpetuate a philos...

Five experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that people understand conditional statements ("if p then q") as indicating a high conditional probability P(q/p). Participants estimated the probability that a given conditional is true (Experiments 1A, 1B, and 3) or judged whether a conditional was true or false (Experiments 2 and 4) given information about the frequencies of the relevant...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To explore how women with a hereditary risk of breast cancer experience living with and managing that risk through surveillance. RESEARCH APPROACH Hermeneutic phenomenology guided the qualitative research design. SETTING The Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered online organization. PARTICIPANTS 9 women undergoing breast surveillance for hereditary breast cancer risk recr...