Friedrich Nietzsche Essay

Existentialism provides a moving account of the agony of being in the world. The spirit of existen- tialism has a long history in philosophy. But it be- came a major movement in the second half of the 20th century. Existentialism is not a systematic body of thought like Marxism or psychoanalysis. Instead, it is more like an umbrella under which a very wide range of thinkers struggled with ques- tions about the meaning of life. Much of the appeal and popularity of Existential- ism is due to the sense of confusion, the crisis, and the feeling of rejection and rootlessness that Euro- peans felt during World War II and its aftermath. Existentialism’s focus on each person’s role in cre- ating meaning in their life was a major influence on the Phenomenological and Humanistic traditions in psychology and on the â€Å"human potential† move- ment that emerged from them. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) said, â€Å"Conquer your- self rather than the world. †. To modern existential- ists this means that the World itself has no real meaning or purpose. It is not the unfolding expres- sion of Human Destiny or a Divine plan, or even a set of natural laws. The only meaning is that which we create by acts of will. To have a meaningful life we have to act. But we should act without hope. Acting is meaningful but it doesn’t create meaning that lasts beyond the acts themselves or beyond our own lifetime. You are what you do – while you are doing it – and then nothing. (Very depressing. ) In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus (pronounced â€Å"Kam-moo†) (1913-1960) describes life as a kind of hopeless, endless, uphill labor. Hence, the only true problem is that of suicide. Yet, he rejects nihilism; for the human being must fight and never accept defeat. The problem is to be a saint without a God. The last judgment takes place everyday. The human being must do his best, try for what he can within the confinements of his situation. Camus describes Sisyphus condemned by the gods to push a stone up a hill over and over, only to have it roll back down each time he reaches the top. A task that can never be completed. But he finds meaning in the fact that Sisyphus at least gets to decide each time whether to carry on or end it all. Camus says, â€Å"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. † Although there can never be any meaning in Sisy- phus’ task, there is meaning is choosing each time to continue. Despite encompassing a staggering range of phi- losophical, religious, and political ideologies, the underlying concepts of existentialism are simple: Mankind has free will. Life is a series of choices, creating stress. Few decisions are without any negative conse- quences. Some things are irrational or absurd, without explanation. If one makes a decision, he or she must follow through. Notes on Existentialism by Tanweer Akram. The fundamental problem of existentialism is con- cerned with the study of being. The human being’s existence is the first and basic fact; the human be- ing has no essence that comes before his existence. The human being, as a being, is nothing. This nothingness and the non-existence of an essence is the central source of the freedom the human being faces in each and every moment. The human being Notes on Existentialism Compiled for PSY 345 (Fall 2004) Existentialism Notes 2 has liberty in view of his situation, in decisions which makes himself and sets himself to solves his problems and live in the world. Thrown into the world, the human being is con- demned to be free. The human being must take this freedom of being and the responsibility and guilt of his actions. Each action negates the other possible courses of action and their consequences; so the human being must be accountable without excuse. The human being must not slip away from his re- sponsibilities. The human being must take deci- sions and assume responsibilities. There is no sig- nificance in this world, this universe. The human being cannot find any purpose in life; his existence is only a contingent fact. His being does not emerge from necessity. If a human being rejects the false pretensions, the illusions of his existence hav- ing a meaning, he encounters the absurdity, the fu- tility of life. The human being’s role in the world is not predetermined or fixed; every person is com- pelled to make a choice. Choice is one thing the human being must make. The trouble is that most often the human being refuses to choose. Hence, he cannot realize his freedom and the futility of his existence. Basically existence is of two types: authentic and inauthentic forms of existence. Authentic existence is contrasted with dynamic and is the being-for- itself, rising from the human being’s bad faith, by which the human being moves away from the bur- den of responsibility, through this beliefs in dogma and by regarding himself as subject to outside in- fluences and his actions to be predetermined. There is a striking contrast between the authentic and the inauthentic forms of being; the authentic being is the being of the human being and the inau- thentic being is the being for things. Yet, authentic being is only rarely attained by the human being; still it is what the human being must strive to gain. The inauthentic being-in-itself is characteristically distinctive of things; it is what the human being is diseased with for his failure to see himself as and act according as a free agent and his impotency to reject bad faith. Things are only what they are. But the human being is what can be. Things are deter- mined, fixed, and rigid; the human being is free; he can add essence to his life in the course of his life and he is in a constant state of flux and is able to comprehend his situation. The human being does not live in a pre-determined world; the human be- ing is free to realize his aims, to materialize his dreams; hence, he has only the destiny he forges for himself because in this world nothing happens out of necessity. The human being hides himself from freedom by self-deception, acting like a thing, as if he is a pas- sive subject, instead of realizing the authentic be- ing for the human being; this is bad faith. In bad faith, the human being shelter himself from re- sponsibility by not noticing the dimensions of al- ternative courses of action facing him; in bad faith, the human being behaves as others demand of him by conforming to the standards of accepted values and by adopting roles designed for him; in bad faith, the human being loses the autonomy of his moral will, his freedom to decide; in bad faith, the human being imprisons himself within inauthentic- ity for he has refused to take the challenge of re- sponsibility and the anxiety that comes along with his freedom. Anxiety ascends from the human being’s realiza- tion that the human being’s destiny is not fixed but is open to an undetermined future of infinite possi- bilities and limitless scope: The emptiness of fu- ture destiny must be filled by making choices for which he alone will assume responsibility and blame. This anxiety is present at every moment of the human being’s existence; anxiety is part and parcel of authentic existence. Anxiety leads the human being to take decisions and be committed. The human being tries to avoid this anguish through bad faith. But the free human being, in his authenticity, must be involved; for his own actions are only his, his responsibility is to himself, his being is his own. The human being must be com- mitted. To be committed means not to support this in place of that, but to attach a human being’s total- ity to a cause; it is the human being’s existential freedom that leads to total commitment. Existentialist thinkers begin from the human situa- tion in the world; the condition of despair, the modes of existence, the human being’s tendency to avoid authentic existence, his relation to things, his own body, and to other beings, with whom he can- not come into genuine communication, and the sufferings of life. Starting from the study of being, each existentialist thinkers originate their own doc- trines, with their own emphasis on particular as- pects. Very often their viewpoints is conflicting and sometimes contradictory; yet this philosophi-cal attitude of being, as a whole, can be described as the existentialist movement, which stresses upon the â€Å"being† of the human being. Existentialism Notes 3 Additional Notes on Existentialism Existentialism, philosophical movement or ten- dency, emphasizing individual existence, freedom, and choice, that influenced many diverse writers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Major Themes Because of the diversity of positions associated with existentialism, the term is impossible to define precisely. Certain themes common to virtually all existentialist writers can, however, be identified. The term itself suggests one major theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice. Moral Individualism Most philosophers since Plato have held that the highest ethical good is the same for everyone; inso- far as one approaches moral perfection, one resem- bles other morally perfect individuals. The 19th- century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who was the first writer to call himself existential, reacted against this tradition by insisting that the highest good for the individual is to find his or her own unique vocation. As he wrote in his journal, â€Å"I must find a truth that is true for me . . . the idea for which I can live or die. † Other existentialist writers have echoed Kierkegaard’s belief that one must choose one’s own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Against the traditional view that moral choice involves an objective judgment of right and wrong, existentialists have argued that no objective, rational basis can be found for moral decisions. The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche further contended that the indi- vidual must decide which situations are to count as moral situations. SubjectivityAll existentialists have followed Kierkegaard in s tressing the importance of passionate individual action in deciding questions of both morality and truth. They have insisted, accordingly, that per- sonal experience and acting on one’s own convic- tions are essential in arriving at the truth. Thus, the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer. This emphasis on the perspec- tive of the individual agent has also made existen- tialists suspicious of systematic reasoning. Kierke- gaard, Nietzsche, and other existentialist writers have been deliberately unsystematic in the exposi- tion of their philosophies, preferring to express themselves in aphorisms, dialogues, parables, and other literary forms. Despite their antirationalist position, however, most existentialists cannot be said to be irrationalists in the sense of denying all validity to rational thought. They have held that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible, but that the most important questions in life are not accessible to reason or science. Furthermore, they have argued that even science is not as rational as is commonly supposed. Nietzsche, for instance, asserted that the scientific assumption of an orderly universe is for the most part a useful fiction. Choice and Commitment Perhaps the most prominent theme in existentialist writing is that of choice. Humanity’s primary dis- tinction, in the view of most existentialists, is the freedom to choose. Existentialists have held that human beings do not have a fixed nature, or es- sence, as other animals and plants do; each human being makes choices that create his or her own na- ture. In the formulation of the 20th-century French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence. Choice is therefore central to human exis- tence, and it is inescapable; even the refusal to choose is a choice. Freedom of choice entails com- mitment and responsibility. Because individuals are free to choose their own path, existentialists have argued, they must accept the risk and respon- sibility of following their commitment wherever it leads. Dread and Anxiety Kierkegaard held that it is spiritually crucial to rec- ognize that one experiences not only a fear of spe- cific objects but also a feeling of general apprehen- sion, which he called dread. He interpreted it as God’s way of calling each individual to make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. The word anxiety (German Angst) has a similarly cru- cial role in the work of the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger; anxiety leads to the individual’s confrontation with nothingness and with the impossibility of finding ultimate justifica- tion for the choices he or she must make. In the philosophy of Sartre, the word nausea is used for the individual’s recognition of the pure contin- gency of the universe, and the word anguish is used for the recognition of the total freedom of choice that confronts the individual at every mo- ment. Existentialism Notes 4 History Existentialism as a distinct philosophical and liter- ary movement belongs to the 19th and 20th centu- ries, but elements of existentialism can be found in the thought (and life) of Socrates, in the Bible, and in the work of many premodern philosophers and writers. Pascal The first to anticipate the major concerns of mod- ern existentialism was the 17th-century French phi- losopher Blaise Pascal. Pascal rejected the rigorous rationalism of his contemporary Rene Descartes, asserting, in his Pensees (1670), that a systematic philosophy that presumes to explain God and hu- manity is a form of pride. Like later existentialist writers, he saw human life in terms of paradoxes: The human self, which combines mind and body, is itself a paradox and contradiction. Kierkegaard Kierkegaard, generally regarded as the founder of modern existentialism, reacted against the system- atic absolute idealism of the 19th-century German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, who claimed to have worked out a total rational understanding of hu- manity and history. Kierkegaard, on the contrary, stressed the ambiguity and absurdity of the human situation. The individual’s response to this situation must be to live a totally committed life, and this commitment can only be understood by the indi- vidual who has made it. The individual therefore must always be prepared to defy the norms of soci- ety for the sake of the higher authority of a person- ally valid way of life. Kierkegaard ultimately advo- cated a â€Å"leap of faith† into a Christian way of life, which, although incomprehensible and full of risk, was the only commitment he believed could save the individual from despair. Nietzsche Nietzsche, who was not acquainted with the work of Kierkegaard, influenced subsequent existential- ist thought through his criticism of traditional metaphysical and moral assumptions and through his espousal of tragic pessimism and the life- affirming individual will that opposes itself to the moral conformity of the majority. In contrast to Kierkegaard, whose attack on conventional moral- ity led him to advocate a radically individualistic Christianity, Nietzsche proclaimed the â€Å"death of God† and went on to reject the entire Judeo- Christian moral tradition in favor of a heroic pagan ideal. Heidegger Heidegger, like Pascal and Kierkegaard, reacted against an attempt to put philosophy on a conclu- sive rationalistic basis—in this case the phenome- nology of the 20th-century German philosopher Edmund Husserl. Heidegger argued that humanity finds itself in an incomprehensible, indifferent world. Human beings can never hope to under- stand why they are here; instead, each individual must choose a goal and follow it with passionate conviction, aware of the certainty of death and the ultimate meaninglessness of one’s life. Heidegger contributed to existentialist thought an original em- phasis on being and ontology as well as on lan- guage. Sartre Sartre first gave the term existentialism general currency by using it for his own philosophy and by becoming the leading figure of a distinct move- ment in France that became internationally influen- tial after World War II. Sartre’s philosophy is ex- plicitly atheistic and pessimistic; he declared that human beings require a rational basis for their lives but are unable to achieve one, and thus human life is a â€Å"futile passion. † Sartre nevertheless insisted that his existentialism is a form of humanism, and he strongly emphasized human freedom, choice, and responsibility. He eventually tried to reconcile these existentialist concepts with a Marxist analy- sis of society and history. Existentialism and Theology Although existentialist thought encompasses the uncompromising atheism of Nietzsche and Sartre and the agnosticism of Heidegger, its origin in the intensely religious philosophies of Pascal and Kierkegaard foreshadowed its profound influence on 20th-century theology. The 20th-century Ger- man philosopher Karl Jaspers, although he rejected explicit religious doctrines, influenced contempo- rary theology through his preoccupation with tran- scendence and the limits of human experience. The German Protestant theologians Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, the French Roman Catholic theologian Gabriel Marcel, the Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolay Berdyayev, and the German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber inherited many Existentialism Notes 5 of Kierkegaard’s concerns, especially that a per- sonal sense of authenticity and commitment is es- sential to religious faith. Existentialism and Literature A number of existentialist philosophers used liter- ary forms to convey their thought, and existential- ism has been as vital and as extensive a movement in literature as in philosophy. The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky is probably the greatest existentialist literary figure. In Notes from the Underground (1864), the alienated anti- hero rages against the optimistic assumptions of rationalist humanism. The view of human nature that emerges in this and other novels of Dostoyevsky is that it is unpredictable and per- versely self-destructive; only Christian love can save humanity from itself, but such love cannot be understood philosophically. As the character Alyo- sha says in The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80), â€Å"We must love life more than the meaning of it. † In the 20th century, the novels of the Austrian Jew- ish writer Franz Kafka, such as The Trial (1925; trans. 1937) and The Castle (1926; trans. 1930), present isolated men confronting vast, elusive, menacing bureaucracies; Kafka’s themes of anxi- ety, guilt, and solitude reflect the influence of Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche. The in- fluence of Nietzsche is also discernible in the nov- els of the French writers Andre Malraux and in the plays of Sartre. The work of the French writer Al- bert Camus is usually associated with existential- ism because of the prominence in it of such themes as the apparent absurdity and futility of life, the indifference of the universe, and the necessity of engagement in a just cause. Existentialist themes are also reflected in the theater of the absurd, nota- bly in the plays of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. In the United States, the influence of exis- tentialism on literature has been more indirect and diffuse, but traces of Kierkegaard’s thought can be found in the novels of Walker Percy and John Up- dike, and various existentialist themes are apparent in the work of such diverse writers as Norman Mailer, John Barth, and Arthur Miller. Conclusion Existentialists make endless claims. They never bother to show how they reached their claims or if these are, indeed, true. The existentialists when he pretends to present a representation of reality pro- vides no cognition; unverifiable assertions may well express powerful and even necessary emo- tions and passions, but that’s best left to the arts and literature. Existentialism is a highly passionate philosophy and, from the outset, seems to aim at a dynamic and fashionable life-style. Also it is mostly unsys- tematic and pays little attention to logic or science. Whatever one makes of its metaphysical claims, one cannot deny that existentialism was able to provide a moving account of the spirit of the con- temporary world and the nausea and frustration of survival. Indeed, it is basically for its richness in psychological insight and its impact on culture that existentialist philosophy will continued to be stud- ied.

The Great Depresion Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Great Depresion - Research Paper Example Poverty was a major issue of that time as above 60 per cent people lived below the poverty level. The uneven division of wealth between the rich and the poor was the consequence of unequal distribution of funds and resources between agriculture and industry. Hundreds of thousands of Americans became unemployed during the Great Depression. The Great Depression marked the commencement of involvement of the government of America into the society in general and the economy in particular. The decade before 1929 was fairly prosperous and opportunistic for the American people. Then one day, on 29 October, 1929, the Great Depression started with the crash of the stock market. â€Å"During the next three years stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value in 1929† (Nelson n.d.). Panic struck the Americans as the stock prices fell down without any indication of recovery. This caused Americans to start sel ling their possessions in large numbers while the number of purchasers constantly declined. The stock market that seemed an obvious means to gain financial stability, rapidly transformed into the way to bankruptcy. The first and the foremost sufferers of the crash of the stock market were the banks which had taken money from the public and had invested in the stock markets. Crash of the stock market caused those banks to get closed. Closing of the banks added to the panic of the people of America. In an attempt to save their money by withdrawing it from the banks that were still open, Americans rushed towards the banks. The open banks were forced to close by such a massive withdrawal of savings. The banks were left with nothing to do business from. Lack of the ability of people to recover their savings from the bank after it had closed caused many who could not make it to the banks in time become bankrupt. The failure of banks was so immense that above 11000 of some 25000 bank in Am erica had closed between 1929 and 1933. â€Å"[T]hroughout the whole of this period there existed in one of the chief financial centres of the world a lack of balance between long- and short- term investment which was itself conducive to disequilibrium and latent with dangers of extensive catastrophe, should anything occur to disturb the insecure prosperity elsewhere† (Robbins 2007). The Great Depression also affected the business and industry in America. Companies started to downsize and reduce the salaries of their employees after they had lost a major portion of their equity in the bank closures and the crash of the stock market. On the other hand, there was an immense decline in the number of consumers as people controlled their savings, only to spend on things they could not live without rather than things that provided them with luxury. This attitude of the consumers served as a disincentive for the businesses and they were left with no option but to fire the employees and reduce the salaries of the remnants. Some businesses completely shattered and all of the employees were left unemployed. In any of such hard times that preceded the Great Depression, one community that was always able to survive was that of farmers as they at least used to have the stock to feed themselves. The Great Depression was a hard time even for the farmers as their plains were hit by a drought and a lot of powerful storms. The drought is

The Issue of Child Abuse in America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Issue of Child Abuse in America - Essay Example This situation depicts the kind of family dynamics that children today are experiencing in America. The American government should reform its child protection programs to stop child suffering within the family structure. Most American Parents have neglected their parental responsibilities as they pursue their personal goals without minding child welfare. In the Glass Castle, Walls (13) states that Brian had suffered from injury but his parents decided not to take him to the hospital just because there was another kid in the hospital. They said that â€Å"one child at a time in the hospital was enough†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , which depicts their ignorance and unwillingness to take care of the medical needs of their children. From such a careless statement, it is possible to point out that the parents neglected their parental responsibilities to ensure that children are healthy which is in accordance with children right of good health. Also, Brian’s mother, Wall, finds it worthy to engag e in painting rather than cook for the children. Consequently, children have to cook for themselves, without having to worry about the risk of fire that is associated with this task. In America today, most parents have placed more weight on the job and often leave children with the responsibility of fending for themselves. This abuse of children's rights is a manifestation of negative family dynamics that can only be corrected through a proper corrective reform in the children’s rights acts. In modern America, Children have to undergo tough conditions while conforming to the harsh environments that most parents subjected them to. Walls (17-20) notes the kind of life that her family lived due to the conditions of the environment that they lived. Rex, the family head, lives in a desert and keeps moving to ensure that he escapes his debtors. He moves the children in the middle of the night when he cannot be found by his collectors and the children hardly have a peaceful night. T hey have to sleep in the middle of the desert and acclimatize to the cold and the heat fluctuations of the environment. Shifting is a routine they have to keep up with to avoid any kind of misfortune that may befall their greatly indebted father. This makes it tough to live a comfortable life. In America, parents are always moving to new environments in search for better job subjecting their children to harsh living conditions. For instance, when families move, the children have to shift their from their schools every time making their academic life unstable and often unfriendly. In this regard, there is a need to protect children academic life by instituting stricter measures on parental care to safeguard children welfare. Parents who abuse drugs subject their children to physical as well as mental torture that often has a permanent effect on the children. In the glass Castle, Rex drinks a lot and does not mind the welfare of his children at all. When he takes the children to the f orest, he uses a commanding tone that scares them and subjects them to mental torture. When he doesn’t win in his gambling game, the children have to go hungry while he spares nothing for them to sustain his drinking habit.  

Misuse of Media Advertisement by Fast Food Brands Essay

Misuse of Media Advertisement by Fast Food Brands - Essay Example The essay "Misuse of Media Advertisement by Fast Food Brands" presents the outline for a research paper on the misuse of media advertisement by fast food brands. This paper discusses on recent food trends in the US and dwells on the fascination of children towards fast food. It then discusses the trends in media ads by fast food brands. Media plays a key role in the promotion of food products and children are the major target of fast food advertisements. I will use the book by Victor Strausburger and Barbara J Wilson to support my claims in this context. Techniques that fast food advertisers in the media deployed to lure children into consuming their products: TV ads: This portion will contain a discussion of how advertisers use TV as a major tool to attract children. To support the claims, I will use proof as emerging from the article by Chou Yi Shin, Inas Rashad, and Michael Grossman. I will further solidify the evidence through information taken from the article by Sarah E Speers, Jennifer L Harris, and Marlene B Schwartz. The Internet (Websites): Using web sources of Happy Meal and Burger King Crown, I will argue how these brands are using impressive web pages, games cartoons, video clips etc on their sites to grab children’s attention. Magazines: This part will discuss, with examples, on how advertisers use magazines, through promotion schemes and puzzles, to persuade children to buy their products by citing supporting evidence from the article written by Amanda Reid and Sandra C Jones.

Alberta's economic reliance on its energy resources Term Paper

Alberta's economic reliance on its energy resources - Term Paper Example In 1991, the overall industry construction had risen to thirty six percent. In addition, Alberta’s energy companies have also been affected by downsizing among Alberta’s oil and gas firms. The positive news about the energy sector is that their balance sheets are improving through debt reduction. Job insecurity is another factor that is affecting Alberta’s economy2. According to a recent research, statistics show that one out of four Canadians is concerned with the increasing job security. This job insecurity concern extends to both the white collar and the blue collar workers, which in turn reduces economic recovery. More intense research about Alberta’s work force claims that Albertans are the most highly educated workforce in Canada. The research went ahead to reveal that thirty eight percent of these individuals hold on the same job for over two years while the other percentage change jobs within the same period of time. Human resource capabilities are the most important factor that should arise to determine the long-term welfare of Alberta’s work force welfare. This paper will outline Alberta’s diversification progress and review other areas that are still lagging behind that needs improvement. Summary This article presents how Alberta’s economy gradually evolved. ... Ideally, the article presents how these economic set backs are affecting the society and the government has embraced these facts because the government is trying hard to curb these issues. Alberta’s poor economic growth is mainly contributed by poor infrastructure because it is only through proper infrastructure that the other economic sectors will open up. The best change to fix this problem is reconstructing all the necessary transportation roads. This will be possible if the concerned parties pile up pressure on the government to allocate a certain percentage of revenue to fix infrastructure. In contrast, the article â€Å"Alberta’s perspective†, seems to base its facts on the necessity of improving infrastructure because it is the gateway to the other economic developments. However, other alternatives are needed to collaborate with infrastructure to improve Alberta’s economy. Most of Alberta’s economic sectors depend on each other and that is wh y infrastructure alone cannot solve Alberta’s poor economy. For instance, agriculture will depend infrastructure and marketing skills in order to venture into the market. Therefore despite the fact that the author is basing his facts on infrastructure, I believe that other alternatives are needed. Therefore, the government should act fast by forming a delegation that will discuss Alberta’s reforms like, taxation system, reduce government spending and diversify Alberta’s energy global markets. Further, the supply of labor and the wage rate help determine the labor market equilibrium3. All of these strategies will only be a short term proposal intended on regaining back the economy. This is a temporal solution while

Research Process for the Rights of the Mentally Ill to Have Children Paper

Process for the Rights of the Mentally Ill to Have Children - Research Paper Example Literature Review Nicholson et al. (1993) conducted a study to find out whether the state departments of mental health of sixteen states are giving enough healthcare rights to mentally ill women who have preschool aged children. They found that not many states had satisfying policies to provide outpatient services to mentally ill women, and there were no policies regarding the visitation of their children to them when they were hospitalized. This study shows that much improvement is needed in this area and insufficient healthcare is restricting the rights of the mentally ill to look after their children properly. Jacobsen and Miller (1998) conducted their research on mentally ill mothers to find out if they are capable of looking after their children properly. They found that many mentally ill parents are deprived the right of their children’s custody â€Å"due to child abuse or neglect†, due to which the children have to live in foster care. The researchers claim that since parents with long chronic mental illnesses cannot ensure safe parenting, hence they should be denied their parental rights. Feldman, Stiffman and Jung state in their study that children of mentally ill parents are likely to suffer from many behavioral disorders (1987). The researchers studied 306 children of ages between six and sixteen. They found that the children had disturbed relationships with their mentally ill parents because the parents could not provide them with secure family environment. This study supports the fact that mentally ill parents are not able to care for their children properly. Cohler et al. (1980) compared the two groups of participants, one of which consisted of mothers who were discharged from psychiatric hospitals and the other one consisted of normal mothers to find out â€Å"child rearing attitudes and adaptation to adult social roles†. They found that mentally ill mothers were unable to foster healthy relationships with their children and could not differentiate between their own and children’s needs. This hindered with the children’s abilities to adapt adult roles later in life. Gamer et al. (1977) had also reached the same conclusion earlier in 1977 when they conducted their research on three year old children performing an interaction task with their well and mentally ill mothers suffering from psychosis. They found that there were â€Å"differences in the pattern of intercorrelations among these interaction variables between the two groups† (Gamer et al., 1977). Bagedahl-Strindlund (1986) found that acute mental illness was positively related to pregnancy complications. They studied pregnant mothers admitted in psychiatric hospitals and found that delivery complications were also there in those patients who showed prepartum onset of mental illness. Mentally ill mothers also had a history of more abortions than well women. Mohit (1996) supported this research by finding in their research that seriously mentally ill mothers underwent frequent psychiatric hospitalization due to motherhood strain. This study helps prove that mentally ill mothers are not able to cope with motherhood roles efficiently. Stanton, Simpson and Wouldes (1999) found that mentally ill mothers are also involved in filicide. They interviewed mentally ill women who pretended to be very caring toward their children but at the same time regretted the killing of their children under unexplainable intentions. Research Question The research question formulated is that: Are the mentally ill able to bear and

Electronic Healthcare Record Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Electronic Healthcare Record - Research Paper Example As such, the current standards that exist are focussed on ensuring that the EHR are interoperable and they allow the practice to showcase meaningful use. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) is on the forefront to seek ways that will propagate interoperability in vendor’s EHR systems. As such, they have backed up the Clinical Document Architecture (CLA) Continuity of Care Document (CCD) of Health Level 7 International (HL7) (EHR Intelligence, 2013). Other standard’s initiatives include: the standardization of healthcare vocabularies; transport through email protocols that are secure; services through transparent and accessible application programming interfaces (API’s); privacy and security through the implementation of standards set out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It is recommended that EHR systems should be implemented by hospitals and clinics so as to improve on the quality of care. As such, below is the step by step guide while implementing EHR systems (USDHHS, 2013). This step involves: conducting an assessment of the EHR system need; outlining the goals and objectives to be achieved when the EHR system has been implemented and determining the financial capability to implement the EHR system. The second step involves planning how the EHR will be implemented successfully. Moreover, the goals and objectives mentioned in step one should be reviewed so as to ensure that the plan is efficient and effective. Other factors that need to be reviewed include: the information security policy template; EHR workflow process mapping and implementation and the workflow redesign templates. The third step involves selecting the best EHR that suits the practice processes and operations. It is important for the practice to implement an EHR system that has been certified so as to avoid