Psychotropic Medication Experiences of Incarcerated Women: A Qualitative Inquiry into Conundrums of Access and Identity

The study examines narrative data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 25 women in a medium security prison with the hope of deepening the knowledge base related to women’s beliefs about their mental health problems, mental health care during incarceration, and especially their experiences with psychotropic medication. The findings highlight the functional role of psychotropic medication in the lives of incarcerated women, while also emphasizing problems with limited access to prescribers, preferred medications, and other forms of mental health treatment. Trauma, substance use, and the impact of medication use on sense of self all emerged as interfacing with quality of life.     

Indebted life and money culture: payday lending in the United Kingdom

Critical social scientific research holds that credit–debt is a principal economic and governing relation in contemporary economy and society, but largely neglects money’s role in indebted life. Drawing on qualitative research in the payday loan market in the United Kingdom, the paper shows that borrowers typically relate to loans in monetary rather than financial terms and incorporate them into practices of payment, spending and online banking. To analyse how indebted life is variously experienced and enacted through money, the concept of money culture is developed to refer to money’s culture, money’s meanings and money’s affects. Borrowers enter into and negotiate payday loans through a digitally mediated money culture that both mobilizes and runs counter to money’s powerful fictions as circulating universal equivalent and calculative means of account.     

Trace element fingerprinting of Australian ocher using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for the provenance establishment and authentication of indigenous art

The expansion of indigenous art and the interest it has generated both at a domestic and international level means large monetary transactions are taking place between art galleries or centers and purchasers. As such, an accurate and conclusive method for provenance determination of traditional indigenous artistic materials must be established that can, if necessary, be used to assist in authentication of artworks. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was utilized for elemental differentiation and provenance establishment of ocher samples. This research was used to develop a robust scientific protocol which facilitates definitive and accurate determination of provenance of Australian ochers and the artworks created using them. Analysis of the results obtained through this study show that the trace metal distribution patterns alone appear to be sufficient evidence to establish provenance of specific ochers, although additional differentiation between ocher samples, using major element distribution patterns, was achieved through the utilization of X-ray analytical techniques.     

The detection of sedatives in hair and nail samples using tandem LC-MS-MS

Drug screening methods were developed to detect alprazolam, clobazam, clonazepam, diazepam, midazolam, oxazepam, temazepam, triazolam, zopiclone, and selected metabolites in human hair and nail samples employing liquid-liquid extraction and tandem liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS). Hair and nail samples were obtained from patients who had recently discontinued or were currently prescribed one or more of the targeted drugs. Prazepam was used as the internal standard for all compounds. Some components in the hair matrix gave the same transitions as some of the analytes but did not compromise the analyses because their retention times differed from those for the target compounds. The analytical run time was 8-10min. Results of the hair analysis of a DFSA victim are also presented.     

Betrayal trauma: associations with psychological and physical symptoms in young adults

Betrayal trauma, or trauma perpetrated by someone with whom a victim is close, is strongly associated with a range of negative psychological and physical health outcomes. However, few studies have examined associations between different forms of trauma and emotional and physical symptoms. The present study compared betrayal trauma to other forms of trauma as predictors of young adults' psychological and physical symptoms, and explored potential mediators. A total of 185 university undergraduate students completed the Brief Betrayal Trauma Survey, the Trauma Symptom Checklist, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, and the Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness. For each set of symptoms, simultaneous multiple regressions assessed the relative contributions of low versus high betrayal trauma to psychological and physical health reports. Structural equation models examined traumatic stress symptoms and alexithymia as mediators of the relationship between betrayal trauma and physical health symptoms. A total of 151 participants (82%) reported exposure to at least 1 of 11 forms of trauma queried (M = 2.08, SD = 1.94); 96 participants (51.9%) reported at least 1 betrayal trauma. Traumas characterized by high betrayal predicted alexithymia, anxiety, depression, dissociation, physical health complaints, and the number of days students reported being sick during the past month, whereas other traumas did not. Structural equation modeling revealed that traumatic stress symptoms and alexithymia mediated the association between betrayal trauma and physical health complaints. These results indicate that betrayal trauma is associated with young adults' physical and mental health difficulties to a greater extent than are other forms of trauma. Results may inform assessment, intervention, and prevention efforts.     

Risk for Partner Victimization and Marital Dissatisfaction Among Chronically Depressed Patients

The link between marital dysfunction and depressive symptoms has been well established, but the link between partner violence and depressive symptoms is less clear. Further, little is known about partner violence and marital satisfaction in chronically depressed patients. In this multi-site treatment sample of chronically depressed patients (N = 316), approximately 17% of men and 12% of women reported experiencing physical victimization from their partner in the past year. However, physical victimization was not associated with the severity of depression for men or women. Cross-sectional path analyses indicated that depressive symptoms predicted marital dissatisfaction, which in turn, predicted psychological victimization. Further, psychological victimization predicted physical victimization. With chronically depressed individuals, interventions that address both depression and marital dissatisfaction may prevent psychological and physical victimization.     

The Ultimate Shopper

Using the example of a fictional shopper from the early twentieth century, Bowlby looks at how the notion of mobility as characteristic of the modern subject intersects with notions of femininity and masculinity. Valéry Larbaud's ultramobile imaginary shopper is compared with Freud's portrait of the woman sadly fixed for all time in her character once she has reached the age of thirty. The concluding section looks at the way that mobility of identity has become a norm for both sexes in the last part of the century, making the very idea of a self into a kind of rational shopping, a 'choosing' of different identities.