The use of mindfulness in healthcare is increasing in Sweden. A so-called secular form of mindfulness is also increasing within mediated contemporary psychology and is used in many areas such as schools, workplaces and when giving birth. The method originates from Buddhism and is much more complex than the form of mindfulness marketed in Sweden today. The religious heritage of mindfulness is interesting to study in such a secular society as Sweden, where the material for this study is found. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate whether mindfulness still is a form of religious coping or if it has become completely secularized, and thus free of its religious origin.

The focus of this essay is to further investigate and describe psychological strains experienced by child welfare workers. The method used was qualitative interviews, two group interviews. The research aimed to understand how child welfare workers were affected and handled the psychological strains generated by work through theory of coping and symbolic interactionism where humans are viewed as pragmatic actors. The research showed, as previous studies shown, that the child welfare workers experience a great deal of psychological strains generated by high turnover in staff and pressuring work demands. The child welfare workers felt inadequate and alone in their work tasks and experienced stress and anxiety.

This master thesis in library- and information science is about the intermediary function of the library room from an environment-psychological point of view. Young people are a group in society who often reduce their visits to the library when growing up. There are lots of reasons for this maybe more attractive activities occur outside the library doors, making the young choose not to use the library. But if the library interior is attractive in itself, and has a welcoming atmosphere, there might be a change and the young people may well choose to pay the library a visit. What is important to young people how do they want their library room to look? Our purpose is to see how the physical environment affects young people in libraries.

Essay in Political Science, Advanced Course, by Christoffer Hagström?The Bush Administration´s view on international cooperation and internationallaw and political-theoretical traditions influence on the administration´s foreignpolicy?Supervisor: Jan OlssonThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the American foreign policy, particularly with regard tointernational cooperation and international law. The two following research-questions are used inorder to fulfil the purpose: (1) what is the Bush-administrations´s view of of the place forinternational cooperation and international law in American foreign policy?, and (2) how does theadministration´s foreign policy correspond to dominant political-theoretical thought-traditions? Thetraditions used are: liberalism, realism and neoconservatism. The sources of the study mostlyinclude literature and policy-documents.

This qualitative studie discusses how psychologists can integrate clients' secular or religious philosophies into counseling and psychotherapy, as themes that are psychologically meaningful. The studie also discusses how psychologists can understand and respond to the psychological aspects of clients' existential and religious experiences. Eight psychologists were interviewed and their experiences were analysed using a phenomenological method.The results of the interviews suggested that the eight psychologists could handle the psychological aspects of clients' philosophies, by investigating their own personal philosophies and scientific ontologies. It was also discussed how an awareness of the psychologists' professional boundaries and personal experiences of existential and religious phenomenons, could facilitate an integration of clients' existential and religious experiences..

This study examines university employees? perception of their employment situation and career opportunities. By tradition, fixed term contracts are used in the Swedish research community due to dependency on insecure funding. There is a current debate that questions this use of insecure employments. The employments are said to negatively affect the university?s societal role and international competitiveness.

The aims of the present study were to implement and evaluate a three-session Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) stress management intervention in a non-clinical group of university students (N = 25) and to investigate the importance of practice in an ACT-intervention. A design with pre-test and double post-test was chosen. A comparison was made between a nine-hour ACT-intervention containing practice for the participants, a two-hour lecture on ACT and stress management containing no practice for the participants and a control group. Psychological flexibility was assessed with Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-2 and mindfulness was measured with Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills. Perceived stress level was measured with Perceived Stress Scale.

Syftet med min uppsats har varit att undersöka mitt författarskap, dess litterära språk och plats i den samtida litteraturen, genom att analysera min novell ?När hedningen kom till byn?.Undersökningen består av översikter över de genrer jag tycker min text passar inom: magisk realism, norrländsk litteratur och skräcklitteratur; undersökning av författares verk som har influerat mig och varit representativa för den genre de skriver inom; mina kurskamraters och handledares reaktioner och konstruktiva kritik på novellen.Resultaten av genreundersökningarna visar hur jag använt eller inte använt mig av respektive genres olika särdrag och markörer samt hur min text förhåller sig till dess samtida författare. I undersökningen av skrivprocessen framgick textens styrkor och svagheter.Mina slutsatser är att genrebestämningen av novellen är beroende av med vilken blick man väljer att läsa texten. Jag upptäckte också att jag delvis följer de traditionella skrivmönstren inom respektive genre samtidigt som jag har min egen särprägel och ton samt sätt att framställa en text..

AbstractUniversity of Växjö, School of Social SciencesCourse: PO 5363, Political Science 41-60Title: US and UN, cooperation or conflict?Author: Charlotta BjuvlingSupervisor: Lennart BergfeldtDate: Autumn 2007The international society changed a great deal after the end of the cold war. It gave the United Nations a new oppertunity to act after the deadlock during the war, and it gave the United States a new hegemone role in the world politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate wheter the United States foreign policy action have been accordence to a realistic way of thinking since the end of the cold war. I will do this with the help of my research questions:? Have the United States followed the guidelines of the United Nations in their foreign policy?? Are there signs that show of a change, either towards more or less cooperation between United Nations and the United States?To answer these questions I will use the theories realism and Hedley Bulls concepts of fairness and his ideas of an international system in his book ?An Anarchical Society?.

Media has reported frequently about elder abuse in Sweden during the year of 2011. The authors have found an interest in elder abuse due to the attention about it and the law about the duty to report elder abuse, which is called lex Sarah. The aim was to investigate, due to quantitative method with surveys, the care givers tolerance to elder abuse, attitude and knowledge about lex Sarah. The result of the thesis was analyzed based on two theories, Lipsky?s street-level bureaucracy as well as Svensson?s, Johnsson?s and Laanemets? theory about knowledge.

As a designer, I find myself daily being confronted with choices which eventually can be summarizedas how we experience something. What?s the function, feeling, what colors should there be, shapes,materials, etc. Different parts will be combined to create an entirety. The only question is why we areaffected so differently by the same entirety.In this project I have examined how the relationship between a space and a product affects ourperception of a coherensy and what it is that makes us experience it so differently.I wanted to find a way to methodically explore the importance of the coherency for the experience ofa product and a space in relation to each other, in order to produce a material that can form the basisfor further work on the spatial context.I?ve looked into the psycological term central coherence and formed a scale that shows the humanabilities to perceive a context in various psychological conditions.

Several studies has identified the locker room experience as a potential deterrent for participation in physical education. Both psychological and physical issues arise due to several factors. Psychological issues include different kinds of verbal and physical violations, comparisons between pupils, feeling of vulnerability along with a stressful schedule. The physical environment can contribute to negative experience for pupils in terms of filthy premises and cold showers. These factors may contribute to higher absentee rates in physical education.

Dagens datorspel innehåller en mängd effekter som försöker ge spelaren en känsla av en interaktiv värld. Många av dessa effekter simuleras med hjälp av partikelsystem. Exempel på sådana effekter är explosioner, rök och blodfontäner.Tyvärr är de flesta partikelsystem byggda så att de existerar i en egen ?dimension? med varken uppfattning av dess omgivning eller omgivningens beskaffenhet. Detta resulterar i att partikelsystemen ibland kan verka, i vissa situationer, orealistiska och opassande.Detta arbete presenterar därför en metod att tillfoga realism genom att ge ett partikelsystem och dess partiklar möjligheten att interagera dynamisk med sin omvärld.

I uppsaten analyseras skrävlets narrativa och ideologiska implikationer i enlighet med det Jameson kallar social symbolhandling i Dan Anderssons Amerika-skildring Chi-mo-ka-ma från 1920. Här noteras textens antitetiska relation till den billiga läsning som den vanligtvis vänsterradikale Andersson beskrev boken som i brev till Bonniers, liksom till populära eller reifierade genremarkörer och den ideologi som denna konsumtionskultur är ett uttryck för. Den paradoxala narration som därmed uppstår, främst i bilden av indianerna, kan även tolkas som de textuella följderna av en reell subtext, som, tillsammans med underklassens villkor, kan betraktas som en politiskt undermedveten nivå av realism. Då skrävlets ideologem glider mellan att förvränga verkligheten till sin motsats och mimetisk upplösning i ren verklighetsflykt kan vår förståelse hur detta fungerar inte användas som en säker tolkningskod för att avtäcka den subversiva nivån i en allegorisk läsning. Boken blir därmed ambivalent mellan anti-mimetisk modernism, populism och en indirekt antydd subversiv realism.

Denna uppsats studerar dokusåpan Expedition: Robinson som exempel på en hyperrealitet. Syftet är att förtydliga betydelsen av hyperrealitet som teoretiskt begrepp på ett svenskt sammanhang. Uppsatsen börjar därför med en introduktion av Jean Baudrillards teori om hyperrealitet och därefter en fördjupning i dokusåpagenrens historia, innan dokusåpans bemötande i pressen analyseras. Uppsatsen argumenterar för att det finns ett nära samband mellan dokusåpan som medialt fenomen och hyperrealiteten som teoretiskt begrepp, då båda är fiktioner som utger sig för att vara verkligheter: hyperrealitet är ett slags overklighet som ger intryck av förhöjd verklighet och dokusåpa är ett programkoncept som påstås visa verkligheten men egentligen konstruerar den.Uppsatsen undersöker hur och vad produktionen av dokusåpan betonar som ?verklighet?, dvs.