Farming in rural Ireland

In Ireland it is common for rates of depression to be highly prevalent in rural areas of the country. One population that are vulnerable are men, particularly farmers who may spend much of their time in isolation tending to their lands and livestock. A tough job to be involved in especially considering the long hours involving little human interaction.

 

Many middle-age men living in rural Ireland who spend the majority of their time farming may often have inherited the farm from their parents. Consequently, they may never have got married due to the amount of time they had to invest in the duties of farming life. Although no one is too old to find a partner, bachelors like these may feel that their time has passed and that there is little chance or time to pursue meeting someone.

 

The 'pickings' may be slimmer if a farmers only dealings with other people are other local farmers, employees in cattle marts and creameries, or vets making visits to the farm to check on animals and so forth. So much so has this combination of depression and isolation been recognised that some veterinarians are even being trained to spot the signs of depression in people they deal with. 

 

It's an extremely relevant issue in Ireland today and has been for a long time. The topic was recently examined in a 2013 film called Pilgrim Hill . It depicts the life of an Irish cattle farmer, living alone with his invalided father in a remote Irish location.

I'd highly recommend a viewing. It captures the forgotten side of rural Ireland and the tragic sense of what is often involved for some men working in the Irish farming industry today.

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The Irish Times (in a four-star review): "Barrett's debut feature is a quietly stunning slice of rural naturalism. A masterful debut."

Compassion Fatigue in Funeral Directors

“The funeral director operates in a market with a seemingly endless source of supply – death will always occur and this service will always be required” (Parsons, 2003, p. 70).

This "endless source of supply" gave me the idea of examining the possibility that some funeral directors in Ireland may be susceptible to compassion fatigue. Thus formed the main hypothesis around my undergraduate psychology dissertation.

 

"One of the primary caregivers to the newly bereaved is the funeral director (Parsons, 2003). In their work with the bereaved and through body handling, they are among a group of occupations that witness death on a regular basis (Harrawood, White, & Benshoff, 2008). It is estimated that there are 600 funeral service providers in Ireland (Irish Hospice Foundation, 2011), who are responsible for the burial or cremation of up to 30,000 people a year. Some undertaking for the funeral director may be simply about guiding a family through proceedings and ensuring everything runs smoothly (Holloway et al., 2013), however more difficult situations may also present. Individuals who are bereaved by homicide can experience overwhelming emotions and intense suffering beyond the imagination of some (Malone, 2007). In organising funeral arrangements for these mourners, what is presented to the funeral director is most certainly a negotiation with a traumatised population. As Ireland has one of the highest rates of homicide in Europe (O’Keefe, 2014), and with 83 recorded cases in 2013 alone (Central Statistics Office, 2014), it is reasonable to suggest that some funeral directors are operating in an environment at risk of secondary traumatic stress."

It managed to get published in the Student Psychology Journal of Ireland and additionally received the best submission award. So all a whirlwind and proud venture for me. Aside from the results of the study, I think what I learned most is the actual arduous process that goes into research work and I tip my hat to those who work in research positions on a daily basis. So with a Masters dissertation about to begin, all I can do is sweat the thoughts of it. But it'll be fun...right?

I attached the link to the complete manuscript below if this is your cup of tea / can't sleep etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to full manuscript here
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''The very act of being compassionate and empathic extracts a cost under most circumstances. In our effort to view the world from the perspective of the suffering we suffer. The meaning of compassion is to bear suffering. Compassion fatigue, like any other kind of fatigue, reduces our capacity or our interest in bearing the suffering of others.''
                                                                         ~ Charles Figley, ''Compassion Fatigue: Psychotherapists’ Chronic Lack of Self-Care'' (2002)

Applied Behaviour Analysis

Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is an effective behavioural treatment programme widely used with children with autism to improve socially significant behaviours.

 

ABA makes meaningful changes in people's lives through the use of procedures that have been demonstrated to work. The goal of an ABA teaching environment is to build socially significant behaviours in a meaningful way and to a meaningful degree. Generalisation, spontaneity and fun are essential components of successful intervention.

  

A few years ago, Ireland was in the fortunate position of having 12 ABA schools that had been set up and staffed in a way that made possible comprehensive programmes for children with autism (Leslie, 2013). However, the changes implemented from 2010 mean this is far from being the case now. Members of the Division of Behaviour Analysis are either in or in close touch with these schools. They are now termed special schools and, because of the rules they operate under none of them can meet the specifications for an ABA school.

ABA aspires to help with serious behavioural problems. A serious behavioural problem is one that impairs the quality of life of the person to a significant degree, impacts negatively on the lives of others, is persistent (thus rarely goes away of its own accord), and is not readily removed by some simple or brief treatment or intervention.

Some of the problems of many children with autism meet these criteria. If help is not provided or not adequate, their behavioural problems may leave them trailing far behind their peers of the same age in personal, social and educational development.

 

For more information see the following links:

 

AutismIreland.ie

RainChild.ie

AbaSupport.ie

ABA Schools in Ireland & UK

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''If they can't learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn''  ~   O. Ivar Lovaas

The McGurk effect

A phenomenon that occurs when a speech sound does not match the shape of the lips producing it, as when the sound corresponding to the usual pronunciation of the word gay is dubbed on to a video image of a person uttering the word bay, causing the listener to hear a word intermediate between the two (day).

The effect shows that the visual channel conveys important information not just to deaf people but also to listeners with normal hearing. For those with minor hearing loss, speech reading can be a very valuable way to maximize the hearing they still do have. Also, this reveals more about why watching the mouth is so important in intense language learning.

The phenomenon is named after the Scottish psychologist Harry McGurk (1936-98) who co-authored the first article on it, entitled 'Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices' in the journal Nature in 1976.

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Learned Helplessness and Depression

One cognitive account of depression is the Learned Helplessness Theory (Seligman, 1975). It argues, that depression occurs when people expect that bad events will occur and that there is nothing they can do to prevent them, or cope with them.

Learned Helplessness Theory emerged through Martin Seligman's work with laboratory dogs. He designed an experiment which consisted of three individual dogs, all restrained by harnesses. Dog group (a) was the control group, receiving no electric shock. Dog groups (b) were paired up. One dog in a pair was administered with a mild electric shock and at any time the dog could cease the electric shock by stepping their paw upon a lever. Dog group (c) were too paired up, however one of the dogs was a wired up to a dog in group b and the shocks they received were in congruence with that of group (b). The idea of this was that the group (c) dog would receive a shock that was erratic in timing, unavoidable and inescapable. The tests resulted in groups (a) and (b) recovering quite promptly from the experience. As predicted however, group (c) dogs were left meek and subdued; portraying symptoms similar to those of clinical depression and thus conforming to Seligman’s predictions: that helplessness can be learned. 

Learned helplessness results from being trained to be locked into a system. It can involve a state of apathy or passive behaviour induced by negative conditioning. People may believe that their personal 'defects' will render them helpless to avoid negative events in the future, and their sense of hopelessness places them at significantly greater risk for depression.

Although Seligman theorized that learned helplessness and depression had similar origins, the theory was widely criticized and he has since revised his ideas in his 'Explanatory Style'. This proposes that depression is linked to how we attribute causalities of certain events in our life or traits of our existence (i.e. whether we attribute events to internal, stable or global aspects) (Yen, 1998). Therefore, it is interesting to ask whether learned helplessness is in fact a cause of depression or a correlated side effect of becoming depressed.

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"Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better" ~ Martin Seligman