Young children's early understanding of emotion was investigated by examining their use of emotion terms such as happy, sad, mud, and cry. Five children's emotion language was examined longitudinally from the age of 2 to 5 years, and as a comparison their reference to pains via such terms as burn, sting, and hurt was also examined. In Phase 1 we confirmed and extended prior findings demonstrating that by 2 years of age terms for the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, (...) and fear are commonly used by children as are terms for such related states as crying and hurting. At this early age children produce such terms to refer to self and to others, and to past and future as well as to present states. Over the years from 2 to 5 children's emotion vocabulary expands, their discussion of hypothetical emotions gets underway, and the complexity of their emotion utterances increases. In Phase 2 our analyses go beyond children's production of emotion terms to analyses of their conception of emotion. We focus especially on when children use emotion terms to refer to subjective experiential states of persons. From their earliest uses of these terms in our data children. (shrink)

One hundred and fifty years ago, a hopeful young researcher reported a recent discovery he had made. Working in the bowels of a medieval castle in the German city of Tübingen, he had isolated a then entirely new type of molecule. This was the birth of a field that would fundamentally change the course of biology, medicine, and beyond. His discovery: DNA. His name: Friedrich Miescher. In this article, the authors try to find answers to the question why—despite the fact (...) that virtually everyone nowadays knows DNA—hardly anyone remembers the man who discovered it. In the history of science, the discovery of DNA was a seminal moment. Why then did it not enter into public memory? Ground‐breaking discoveries can occur in a historical context that is not ready to appreciate them. But that's not all that decides who is remembered and who is forgotten. Scientific pioneers sometimes fail to publicize their findings in a way that ensures that they receive the attention they merit. As discussed here, their personalities and habits may cause discoveries to be “overwritten” by more recent researchers, resulting in distorted cultural memories no longer reflecting the initial event. (shrink)

Taking post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, we present a concept for transdisciplinary cooperation between life sciences and humanities. PTSD is defined as a long-term persisting anxiety disorder after severe psychological traumata. Initially recognized in war veterans, PTSD also appears in victims of crime and violence or survivors of natural catastrophes, e.g., earthquakes. We consider PTSD as a prototype topic to realize transdisciplinary projects, because this disease is multifacetted from different points of view. Based on physiological and molecular biological (...) research to understand the causes of this disease, conventional academic medicine (to Western medicine) and pharmacology can offer a panel of drugs for treatment, albeit only with limited success. Hence, other treatment options are indispensable. Chinese medicine is frequently regarded as alternative to complement Western medicine. In fact, Chinese medicine offers a large array of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for PTSD patients. Narrative therapy represents a non-pharmacological approach combating PTSD both in Western medicine as well as in Chinese medicine to improve quality of life of affected patients. Narratives on traumatic experiences form a new genre of life writing in Asian American literature, whose excitement is considerably fueled by the tension between fictitious and very personal narratives taken from reality. Systematic academic reflections on narratives from PTSD patients in the field of Asian American studies may support the improvement of narrative therapy in medical practice. Chinese medicine has a strong philosophical background and may, therefore, serve as junction between life sciences with their strong rational and reductionistic way to generate new knowledge and more holistic approaches in traditional medicines and humanities. In this regard, Chinese medicine may represent a missing link between life science and life writing. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 111-112, February 2022.

Taking post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, we present a concept for transdisciplinary cooperation between life sciences and humanities. PTSD is defined as a long-term persisting anxiety disorder after severe psychological traumata. Initially recognized in war veterans, PTSD also appears in victims of crime and violence or survivors of natural catastrophes, e.g., earthquakes. We consider PTSD as a prototype topic to realize transdisciplinary projects, because this disease is multifacetted from different points of view. Based on physiological and molecular biological (...) research to understand the causes of this disease, conventional academic medicine (to Western medicine) and pharmacology can offer a panel of drugs for treatment, albeit only with limited success. Hence, other treatment options are indispensable. Chinese medicine is frequently regarded as alternative to complement Western medicine. In fact, Chinese medicine offers a large array of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for PTSD patients. Narrative therapy represents a non-pharmacological approach combating PTSD both in Western medicine as well as in Chinese medicine to improve quality of life of affected patients. Narratives on traumatic experiences form a new genre of life writing in Asian American literature, whose excitement is considerably fueled by the tension between fictitious and very personal narratives taken from reality. Systematic academic reflections on narratives from PTSD patients in the field of Asian American studies may support the improvement of narrative therapy in medical practice. Chinese medicine has a strong philosophical background and may, therefore, serve as junction between life sciences with their strong rational and reductionistic way to generate new knowledge and more holistic approaches in traditional medicines and humanities. In this regard, Chinese medicine may represent a missing link between life science and life writing. (shrink)