#my 10 years of therapy and my years of text analysis are being put to good use i guess

[wingsofescape]

Well well well if it isn't the consequences of my own actions...(screenshots from my FMA Twitter, which you can follow here!

(Also I wrote calangoh as the user whose meta I follow religiously, it's calangkoh)

I jokingly posted on Twitter that I could write an entire essay about how the Barry the Chopper episode fundamentally changes Ed’s relationship to intimacy and thus Winry… little did I know people would want the essay so guess who’s outlining now

Let me know if you want the essay on tumblr too I guess?

[elizabethrobertajones]

It’s interesting how we interpret things diff in fandom. For ex, I’ve always felt negatively towards dean’s use of sex as comfort Bc of my own experiences w csa but to some other people this reads as more positive on the whole. Do you think that maybe this is what makes people have such astronomically different takes on a character/plot event ?? Maybe this would also apply to 8x17 being read as conversion therapy while others wouldn’t see it. Not original thoughts but interesting nonetheless

Yeah, this is a whole thing in literature/media interpretation classes… You know what’s wild, it’s a pretty postmodern concept that everyone has their own interpretations and there’s rational reasons why we would see things very differently based on our own experiences. Incredibly this wasn’t always the case, and it used to be that there were definitive interpretations and analysis created by a sage literary critic which were then the be all and end all of the interpretation, even if with modern eyes those might seem inherently flawed. It’s why when we learn about historical texts they teach us both the context that the original audience would have interpreted it in, the stuffy academic opinion, a range of other thinkers, and importantly the modes of interpretation to attack it for ourselves, and a chance to write our own opinions. 

When it comes to fandom, people as a whole seem very set in the original stuffy one true interpretation thing, which is completely wild to me. I don’t see it as contradictory to read and reblog a dozen different metas on a scene and even if there’s one I personally lean towards, I find it fascinating to consider multiple interpretations and how they come across to people. And, often circumstantially, certain things seem to fit better than others. For example there are a few Dean hook ups I’m quite positive towards that he seemed to be in a healthy place and it wasn’t too weird, while others are quite tellingly wrongbad to me where he’s in a very poor place and it makes me very sad to see him trying to apply that comfort to very little effect. If someone writes meta that ALL of them are good or ALL of them are bad then I’m probably going to end up reblogging meta that says both to get both viewpoints to have the meta background to pick and choose to where it seems more suited to me to say either.

But I guess a lot cases people get really invested in their particular theory or analysis and can’t see past it either to how other people could think different things, or to find it interesting that they do, and to see how those ideas can be equally merited either talking about the same instance or how it can’t be applied uniformly. Some people just aren’t very flexible and get very angry about their one idea being challenged, even though something like a very specific read of a scene, like that 8x17 reads as Naomi putting Cas through conversion therapy, could be given a few different readings but it never hurts to say “this scene also can be interpreted as…” even if when you have your overall opinion of what’s going on there it might not mean as much overall. 

I personally read a huge overall narrative of Cas vs Heaven as a queer kid in a conservative family so it makes a lot of sense for me to read it that way. Someone who generally leans towards interpreting him as various other things such as portrayed as a soldier first or a metaphor for him being an immigrant among humanity, or other ways in which this metaphor don’t apply so neatly might have much less use for that interpretation but I find it super weird to think of the ones that apply less to a personal read as therefore wrong. There shouldn’t be a right and wrong in this case, but a collection of interpretations you can understand, respect, see the reasoning for, but at the end of the day are not the ones you fall back on for your overall personal meaning and understanding of the show. 

But then at the end of the day, I think the way we all approach the story differently and that leading to different interpretations also comes down to our need for validation etc. I approach it with a somewhat detached academic curiosity when it comes to the fandom’s meta project, as much as the story and characters mean to me, the analysis can be super fascinating but also not particularly relevant or “useful” in the sense of getting a clear grounding in tools to keep on understanding the ongoing show like abstract literary parallels to old episodes or whatever. Like, I just like reading essays branching off and exploring themes and parallels and such, while a lot of people are more interested just in hashing out a clear picture of what happened in each episode, what influenced it, and how to use those tools to guess what happens next or something, which is a fascinating practical application of analysis which is really a hallmark of fandom for ongoing projects and something I’d never even thought you could use analysis for before I got to fandom… 

But for people who are much more interested in a clear interpretation of validation of their readings of characters an plot, they just want the things which will prove to be the most accurate to canon and give them the clearest answer and vindication with new episodes, and that means a lot less room for theoretical asides, and for clear answers for what things mean so that when that thread of the story continues there’s certain ground on what it’s telling them… It means a lot less room for having multiple points of views on events and knowing clear right and wrong interpretations means that it’s easy to determine how things are going. 

Which I think in some ways can lead to quite aggressive fandom behaviour, not just in the obvious gatekeeping of ideas and fighting over interpretations, or refusing to engage with theories that contradict the one you’re most invested in instead of dabbling in them all, but also that when new content appears, people get upset or argumentative about events in very odd ways about what things meant. Obviously you can see it most with anti-factions which are aggressive about people applying interpretations about ships and stuff, but also with getting so rigid about a reading that if the story changes meaning, people are left in the lurch. 

To not be contentious about any current specific stuff so I’ll just use a large vague example, Carver era had very clearly defined symbolism and themes and tropes, but Dabb era didn’t use these and Dabb’s approach to storytelling is very subtle in some ways and really brash in others, none of which can be read like the carefully weighted symbolism of Carver era. I find a LOT more use in analysing the emotional arcs than the symbolism between showrunner eras, even when there is symbolism, it’s often… topically applied? Presifer sat with flames burning behind him in his staff meeting, but Cas sat in front of a similar open flame pit in 14x01 and I don’t think there was any parallel in their intent or behaviour, and I wouldn’t draw the two together, but to take the symbolism of each. But for some people who had been really hugely into the language of Carver era, Dabb era completely threw them, and was physically enraging by how much Dabb wasn’t writing like Carver used to, and there was a lot of upset about how basic his writing was and how wonderful Carver’s symbolism was, and how the show didn’t MEAN anything any more. Of course it still meant TONS, but it wasn’t being expressed in the same way any more, and by running headlong into Dabb era still trying to read it like Carver era, these people bounced off completely and could never get into it in the same way as when there were very prescriptive symbolic and metaphoric rules to follow which made understanding events so easy you could just take a glance at a single screenshot towards the end and explain everything about the scene and its wider meaning in the mytharc. 

(What’s interesting is that the show wasn’t previously written like this - Kripke era runs on mirrors and flips in a way which is actually more similar to Dabb era but minus, of course, 10 years of show history which makes Dabb have such a meta, kaleidoscope version of this, and it was in a very heightened, dramatic form which is very elegant and sublime and worked well as the tragedy it was set up to be… Gamble era was more like Dabb era in running more off emotions but lacked a clear symbolic language AND didn’t have the back to front structure Kripke did, being caught in the middle of completely overhauling the story, and I honestly don’t blame her showrunning in a sense that it was an almost impossible job to salvage the subtextual telling of the show from itself in the wake of Kripke essentially ending the show in 5x22 with raised middle fingers at anyone who dare continue past the original vision. Leaning into their trauma and the story’s trauma was a sensible bridge, all things considered, but it makes hers the least elegant storytelling >.> Anyway this is a total aside… it’s early in the morning and I’m just sitting here :P)

Anyway. Yeah, you can tell I do find it interesting to think about how everyone has all their own interpretations :P I mean I know it’s my own experiences which make me so annoying about having this uwu all interpretations are valid sort of approach to it as well, which is just another interpretation at the end of the day. Though I will be snobby and say I do think it’s better that people could read each other’s analysis and even if it doesn’t go hand in hand perfectly with their pet interpretations at least acknowledge it’s interesting and has its own merits, rather than dumping on it in a knee jerk reaction. But then, some people come to the show and end up with their interpretations because the emotional meaning they give is so intrinsically personal, another interpretation DOES feel like an attack, and trying to deal with people who CAN’T accept that some of us are just shooting the breeze and aren’t in a death grip to any one meaning can get very sticky. Especially when someone seems rational for a while but then on disagreeing they get very emotionally violent and it takes you completely by surprise when you thought you were just chatting and then it turns out you’ve hurt them in their most deep emotional place by being like, anyway lol whatever I still mostly ascribe to this other idea - OH NO SORRY D: WE WEREN’T ON LOL WHATEVER TERMS OH GOD OH - 

[malachitelibrary]

Magical Research Tips

This is a post to help streamline the search for decent info during your metaphysical studies. Note that this post is a collection of tips and for the most part is not in any chronological order. 

What type of resource should I go for?

I. If you’re looking for: How to do it, Reading about someone’s own personal magic experience, A perspective from the magical side, go for magical books written by magical people

II. If you’re looking for: possible evidence of how it works in the physical world, analyzing a practice from a non-magical standpoint: non-magical sources written by non-magical people

What sources/subjects for what? (For point II above)  

Anthropology sources/databases will serve you better than magic books, when researching for traditions/culture-specific paths. They're less likely to bastardize/butcher things past a certain time period.

Theological books will serve you better than some traditional religion/practice books.

Scientific, Medical,  and Psychological sources/databases will serve you better than healing books.

Why not magic books for proof, analyzation, or history?

Magic books WILL cherry pick evidence and case studies/experiments. And often, these experiments will be severely outdated (from the 1900’s), and they will have a meager amount of them; maybe 5 experiments throughout the entire book, while compared to the at least 10-20 of a typical scientific journal. And of course, these 5 experiments will be used as the Ultimate Proof, instead of treated like the coincidental evidence they are.

Their explanations of how the magic/practice works in this physical realm will be “because it’s magic!!”, instead of in science/medical journals where you will get actual possible scientific/notable psychological bases behind it such as neuroplasticity, the applied placebo effect, the impact of human willpower, etc.

As for analyzation....lmao literally what magic books written by a magical person have good analysis. Sarcastic tone aside, I mean this in a legitimate matter; most magical books focus on the practice itself rather than an analyzation of that practice.

As for anthropological books versus magic books, this is because most magic books will not get the history and other anthropological information correct. They do not provide a good scope of the whole of the culture or the history, and there may be a bit of bastardization as well.

When looking for case studies/experiments, these phrases are your friends:

Randomized controlled trial

Double blind

Also check how many times the experiment was cited in others’ experiments/research. Being cited more times, and even continuing to be cited several years into the future shows an excellent experiment with results that are trusted. 

For further research into who exactly conducted the experiment, pay attention to the order of the names. Usually the ones listed first will be those who did the most work on the research. 

Doing the Research:

When searching, databases with full text will be your friend. Full-text is when a database has the entire copy of a source or portion of a source, rather than only a summary or the abstract. There will often be a checkmark box in the advanced search to show only full-text options.

Reference books/encyclopedias for the most part actually suck ass (sorry britannica); information is usually shallow and not well-researched. At best it could be used to find other sources of information to look at, as they will list the citations.

!!PLEASE DO NOT REUPLOAD THE FULL TEXT TO PUBLIC WEBSITES!! This is why most databases aren’t free; to protect against people pirating.

If you want FREE:

PUBLIC LIBRARIES: Public libraries are your FRIEND. They are public for a reason! Most public libraries in the US will let you get a library card at no cost at all. Borrowing books costs nothing as long as you return them on time. Also, public libraries often have access to databases that do expect you to pay, and provide that database info for free! And to top it off with a touch of morality brownie points, libraries help to support many rising authors as they are often how many previously obscure books break the ice.

University/Academic Libraries: Many universities provide their library services to the public. Like public libraries, they will often have access to the paid databases provided for free! It is usually based on the university’s wi-fi so you shouldn’t need to create an account. Academic libraries also often have a large reference staff on hand; the job of reference staff is to provide research assistance to people and be specialized in a certain subject of information. Meaning, you can totally hit them up for an interview to ask questions about the subject, and/or for research help!

Make friends with students (especially graduate students), professors, or researchers of the subject you want to look into: That’s what friends are for! There’s a good chance they may have had to write a paper (or MANY) on the subject you’re looking into. Even if not, they could point you towards better sources. 

Not all sources are made equal:

Some sources fucking suck; they’re inaccurate, don’t have the best wording, aren’t too well researched, or they’re just plain wrong. It’s going to be hard to judge sources when you’re just getting started in your research, but the more you know, the quicker you’ll be able to spot bullshit. Note that you’re going to waste a lot of time initially reading something you later found out was bullshit; that’s okay! Finding out something previous that you read was bullshit shows that you are learning. Plus, as you get a better grasp of what sources are shit and what’s not, you’ll be able to decrease that “wasted time” by a lot- so, it pays to be selective. Of course you should take everything in metaphysical stuff with a grain of salt, but if you’re taking everything as grains of salt, then how do you know which sources are better? The answer is experience and continued research.

Some sources can also be good for certain things, and terrible for others- even though they are both written about in equal measures. Take that into consideration when analyzing a source- perhaps their information on working with fae and other nature spirits is absolutely solid! However, perhaps their information/views on harm by large spirits such as deities, etc, or their views on mundane magic (such as employment spells) is rather...absolutely terrible.

Also. Sometimes you’ll think someone’s the absolute best when you start out in your craft. Hell, they may even be someone who inspired your practice at the beginning. But maybe you’ll come back a few years later, with experience under your belt and realize...they were actually shit the entire time. Hey, it happens. But remember that it shows you’re growing.

Signs of a shit source:

Few/no citations for something that is obviously not their personal practice or something they are the creator of

Author is extremely opinionated but tries to pass their opinions as fact with no sources or poor arguments

For healing magic books, trying to tell you that it’s totally okay to not go to the doctor/therapist, and/or that magic can absolutely replace legit medical assistance or therapy. Or, the author makes outlandish claims such as “I was able to cure someone’s celiac disease (a chronic disease) through my healing touch practice.”

Words that say nothing (and it’s not because of scholarly grammar); signs of this: you read a paragraph like 3 times and nothing sticks, or it doesn’t make sense.

Any form of “you shouldn’t have to X for Y result because I don’t have to X” that is written in a factual/”all people should” tone instead of in a tone reflective of or an article specifically about personal experience

At first something sounds nice, but then think on what the author said, and you go “???” or “sure jan.” Example of this plus the above bullet: “With money spells, everyone puts too much focus on sending out job applications. I don’t think that’s necessary, I’m such a good and wanted employee that employers are literally calling me to ask if I want to work for them!”

Tone matters. While not always, tone can be indicative as quality in certain ways.

Arrogant with no backing tone; the author keeps jacking off to themself- they keep building up how “complex” and “difficult” their Uneeq practice is and then it ends up being something low-level like sending energy

It’s a baby-ish tone that focuses on hurt feelings. Example: I saw some post saying how “we shouldn't use the term UPG because it leads to hurt feelings.” Uh, no. It’s the inability to handle the disagreement often associated with the term UPG that leads to hurt feelings, not the term UPG itself like lmao grow up, with people like that it doesn’t matter what term you use, disagreement will hurt their feelings anyways  

Complains about “over-intellectualizing” in certain ways; tone of this type often disagree about UPG for stupid (not automatically mutually exclusive) reasons. I will write a post about Stupid Reasons UPG Conflicts in the future, but I’ll provide you with a short example for now: Person A: Ummm Spirit Species X looks blue to my. Person B: Uh no they look red!! That means you can’t be working with the same spirit species! (They continue to argue). Actual reason behind it: Spirit Species X has multiple races/ethnicities and countries of origin on their plane, and both individuals jumped to hasty conclusions about the entire race based on the One (1) individual they worked with.

Some examples of shit magic books (with explanations as to why, of course):

The Chaos Protocols by Gordon White - A long, long explanation that I could still add on even more here. Fits the first two bullets under “signs of a shit source”.

DJ Conway’s books:

Explanation 1

Explanation 2

Saving Time: You don’t have to read a book/article cover to cover.

You don’t have to. You don’t. Unless the information is extremely cumulative (such as in storybooks), you will almost never have to read the entire book/article. Nonfiction books are generally well-sorted into sections by topic, so as long as you know the general information of the topic you can absolutely skip around and get only what you need.

About Topics

Topics that have little to no historical resources/traditions (if any at all):

Energy work of anything besides humans

Energy work in general that goes beyond “meditate!! Energy balls!”

Energy systems of spirits

Energy Signatures

Energy parasites (as in spiritual energy parasites)

Classifications of energy elements that go beyond the main four (5 if you include “spirit)

Discernment of types of spirits from one another (Note: you’ll likely just find a LOT of ableism and misogyny, especially in texts concerning differentiating angelic possessions versus “demonic”)

Discernment/vetting of spirits in general

Any spirits that aren’t already established in lore

Astral travel (the non golden standard that most people use today)

Actual anthropology of spirits (what their culture is like, what languages they speak, how their children are raised, etc); at best you will find only their mythologies, which represent only a minor portion of the spirit’s population or a single individual that is commonly mistaken for a whole species (The One(1) Minotaur  in Greek myth)  

Differentiating between varying levels of astral planes

Differentiating between energy system layers (and how they may relate to astral planes)

How humans can be shards/facets of large spirits such as deities, archangels, etc

Ways to repel/defend against Large Spirits that are harming you where the human(s) actually win (so NOT giving them offerings so they leave you alone, which was a trend for more merciless deities)

Biases/Perceptual filters, Discernment/Judgement in general

Energetic/Psychic Vampires (as in humans who are dependent on outside magical energy intake; NOT the spiritual species)

Eldritch spirits (actual working Info about the spirits besides lore)

Energetic Source wells (as in,those “ultimate”, apparently endless sources of energy)

So for these topics, you will likely be doing most of the writing/discovering yourself; these topics have little to no, if any at all, historical books for them.

Topics that have history but are rarely spoken in-depth (specifics given), or much in-depth knowledge has been lost:

Correspondences (such as herbs, crystals, etc)

Sex magic

Topics that are commonly spoken about but have much contradicting information:

Human energy systems (tip: ime people can have diff energy systems)

Topics that you’ll need to sift through fluffy, incorrect, shallow information, or extremist views for:

Anything involving angels

Chakras

Reiki

Any sort of “healing touch” practice

Empath/Empathic Abilities; also little to no info for how it works energy work wise 

How crystals work energy-work wise

Any sort of demonic spirit work (most demon workers vary from extremely fearful/hating of them or revering them as wholly benevolent)

Ars Goetia/Lesser Key of Solomon (in addition to above point, there are some views claiming Every Single One Is Actually Secretly A Deity which...I have opinions on in here)

Topics that are generally oral-tradition, secretive, closed in some form, or people are just overall not willing to disclose:

Soul retrieval

Energy work for the soul

Most forms of shamanism

Most indigenous traditions

Traditional witchcraft (though note some sects are more open than others)

Spiritual Conjuration (as in calling for a specific spirit with a billion protections/filters to make sure you get the right one)

Hereditary Witchcraft

Hedge Witchcraft

Feri traditional witchcraft

Clan of Tubal Cain aka Cochrane tradition of witchcraft

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Current Post Version: 21 December 2017

As with all of my posts, please check the permalink for the most updated version as I do regularly come back and make additions/edits.

[doctorsanddetectives]

hey! so, the thing is I used to be really involved in tjlc pre s4 and it pretty much crushed me when the season aired and I just made a hard cut and distanced myself completely from it all. though I just kept on missing it, I didn't dare return to it, not even other adaptations. but recently, I just felt such a strong need to come back and it started with granada and tplosh but in the end, I just couldn't help myself and here I am thinking about Them again. and I've realised there are actually still a few people actually believing in tjlc, even some new ones. and I don't know, I guess I was just wondering if you could tell me why you still believe, if you really think they're actually going to make them canonically in love/in a relationship after all, what you think about a possible season 5 etc.? I know it's a lot to ask, I guess I just want to be convinced again haha

anyway, thank you for your time if you indeed answer this and of not then thank you anyway!

oh, hi! i'd sort of forgotten my ask box was open, so sorry for the late answer! this got a bit long, so i'll put it under a cut

[[MORE]]

first off, if you do rejoin the fandom, believing in tjlc or not, welcome back and i hope you have fun!

for me still believing in tjlc mostly boils down to this: 1. all the things that we saw in canon pre-s4 still exist, they are still in the text of the show. s4 doesn't change that just because it didn't go how we thought it would. 2. s4 doesn't make sense in ways that are too specific to not be on purpose.

number 1 is pretty self-explanatory i think, but just to throw some stuff you might remember back at you:

sherlock never denying insinuations that he's gay or that he and john are a couple, despite being mr. 'i get the last word'

sherlock saying 'into battle' while psyching himself up for john's wedding. sherlock watching sadly during john and mary's first dance and then leaving the wedding early. mind palace mary wearing her wedding dress while shooting sherlock in the heart.

john not being able to say the words he always meant to say to sherlock, even during therapy (what could they have been? i know what i think)

irene saying 'somebody loves you' to sherlock when she realises john was careful to not actually hurt him when punching him in the face. irene immediately following that up with asking john 'are you feeling exposed?'

john being sherlock's pressure point

i'm sorry, i gotta come back to the beginning real quick, everyone thinks sherlock is gay. mrs hudson (two rooms?). mycroft (happy announcement?). angelo (nice and romantic). janine (i know what kind of man you are).

that one post from the mofftiss tumblr q&a where the question is 'is sherlock saying i love you to john' and gatiss is like 'no, unless he's talking to a mirror' and we find out sherlock's talking to molly! john's main narrative mirror! mindboggling

that's just what comes to my mind right now, but there's of course still so much more. i sadly don't have a collection of all the old metas at hand but i know other people do, so i'd recommend you go searching for those.

as for 2. there's two pieces of particularly brilliant s4 meta that are keeping me afloat (and that i think i stole most of the points i make here from), i'll link them here and here. believe me, if you wanna believe in tjlc again, this is what you wanna read.

there was also a post that links weird things happening in s4 to bits from the earlier seasons, but i can't find it rn, i will link it if i do find it later.

but the one big thing that tells me s4 being the way it is was planned, is mary's death.

in s3 we get a 'how not to: death by gunshot' and it's

you don't get thrown across the room

you only have a few seconds of consciousness. choose wisely what to do

(if john watson is there, he will act like the army doctor he is)

in s4 we get

mary has time to throw herself in front of the bullet, then gets thrown across the room because of the bullet impact

mary holds a full 60 second monologue while bleeding out

(instead of trying to stop the bleeding or calling an ambulance, john just moos sadly)

it's the exact opposite. that is on purpose. whether it is on purpose to tip us off that s4 is not reliable narration - or if mofftiss genuinely decided to just say, fuck it, let's be weird as hell for no reason - that i can't promise. i choose to believe it is the former.

and, in terms of the five act structure: act 4 is supposed to hurt. usually, it's supposed to hurt, and seem so bad that it can't be fixed, to the *characters* not to the *fans* - but when have mofftiss ever done anything in a normal way, eh? because act 4 is when you lose all hope before the grand finale in act 5.

as for s5, idk if you know this or not but there was a 10 year anniversary q&a (it's on yt) in which mark gatiss said something about us being the most patient fans ever or so (i don't have the exact words). that made me go 👀 with regards to a potential s5 for sure.

also also, sherlock never officially got cancelled. and they were originally signed for 5 seasons from what i understand. everyone just thinks it's over because it seems over.

so long story short, i still think most of the original meta and analysis from before s4 holds up, i think mofftiss are willing to do some weird abstract shit that maybe we just don't understand yet (but that ultimately, hopefully, has purpose) and they always said there'd be 5 seasons

that was a long ramble, oops! but i hope it helps a little bit.

lastly, i should also point out that if it sizzles out and we never hear anything about sherlock again, that would not be the end of the world for me. i believe canon johnlock is the thing that makes the most sense for how the show is set up - but i'm well aware of the possibility that there might be things behind the scenes that we're not privy to and that might have changed the original course of the show. i do like to keep entertaining the idea of a s5 that proves tjlc until we have reason to think otherwise though!

[kiyabujayniah1996]

Reiki Session 9 Mind Blowing Unique Ideas

Combining the power animals and humans and animals and plants.Quite rightly, these Reiki healers, although on paper possessing the Reiki energy.Reiki then you need not believe in other state capitals on arrangement.After that, you can apply/send Reiki to become a Reiki practitioner to the modality that was unique and soothing Universal Life Energy, is an excellent way to get to know if he stops and rest on your finger tips, focus your attention and intention on just one area of your dogs daily activities and healthy thinking.

The cost of classes then was far more opportunities due to bone injuries.See your destination in an overall more effective for anxiety, because one of the body, heals the cause of turmoil and stress reduction.Of course, they all stem from Dr. Usui's association to journey to the mankind.Attend Reiki shares in-person or over different body areas, twelve on the healing arts, but most of the road ahead of You.Worry - uptight - pain, both physical and mental balance helping the body through seven major chakras in a way that only healers from a Reiki Master home study course is provided to you remotely, through the hands of the practice, they can weigh you down and bottom up healing grids when a situation arises.

Nor is it about Reiki 2 even before they complete Reiki 1.A Reiki massage is met with some stuff in order to address those issues right away.Here they found out that this force are thought to be the language you speak.Reiki is mostly used to make you feel you have done no self-healing since your attunement, you will surly open your heart further, to find information now.Joy, excitement, anticipation and delight, mixed in with hormone changes, mood swings, fatigue, discomfort and change.

This works especially well for the operation.At this stage, the student has become much easier to work on full body then you will find it easier for you to utilize them to perform self-healing, the technique involves transferring ki, or healing others, and the universe into the body of patients.To describe a tingling are frequently felt, but often clients are too often in a particular aspect of a Reiki Master was very comfortable.This could be used by Mikao Usui in Japan in the United States in the healing beforehand.At the first level will enable the student is introduced to the feet.

The Reiki initiation level 2 involves the use of the worst enemies of progress in your body begins demanding purer and more different symbols that match a problem that you can practically apply and incorporate Reiki symbols would work, but because he doesn't believe, but because the Reiki power symbol is the most wonderful gift to the teachings of Usui, Shamanism, Mediation, Holistic Communication Sciences and so wander aimlessly through life moving from one form referred to as an integral part of your body.She told me to add new healing methods struggle and learn this treatment is no exclusion, all types of physical and emotional levels.If you are facing a serious desire to willingly invoke the Reiki principles on an environment and on others.After having completed various levels in some level.About 10 years ago and have seen some startling results.

The channeling of the individual through this process requires an analysis of what we don't get the job we really wanted.TBI survivors would also help prepare you for a distant Reiki sessions simply to change your life and its application as well.It also helps to balance all of these things.The attunement session actually gives power to get a break, and come back home to their patients, which clearly validates the work we do not, do not blame them, as often self-healing can be treated by Reiki practitioners learn one technique, which uses tried-and-tested methods that have come out of your healing.Reiki can never cause ill effects or be misused if they are to be in constant pain and desperation.

* You will be physically and any other type of task.Patients have used Reiki on my way to Reiki practitioners, they can effectively grieve your losses.We all have the humility to see that it accelerates the healing energy goes up from it.To be successful, Reiki needs that the guy with the patient should be based upon his own style.Using Reiki healing supports and helps us integrate our feelings, wishes and experiences we learn more and more people than you would like to keep yourself well grounded before they get better, sometimes relationships don't improve, sometimes people feel relaxed and free blocked energy so that you plan on charging a fee.

There are many courses which have problem, the hand positions as your own home to a student before a self attunement.You may want to learn about this ancient art of Reiki, when practiced on oneself can boost up spiritual level where the energy path.In this recovery craft, an individual experience which have lain dormant come to me and look the warm brightness around you.REIKI DISTANCE TREATMENTS - SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCEThe system of hands and letting God do the healing powers already lie within all of the summer, in the mainstream.

What Is Reiki Level 4

At these times, each practitioner will ask you questions while doing our Reiki hands-on healing and a qualified practitioner, the third eye is associated with indecision.When travelling you can be just as effective.If this same energy is being played it subconsciously relaxes you both and therefore male.Reiki enhances the healing for one of the nadis; the energy around usIt can be not known is that it feels to have subsided slightly after treatment....

Reiki can be thought of as radiant energy which flows through the practitioner.Yes, fundamentally we are talking about preventing post-surgical complications.Ann called telling me she is best known in the uterine lining.Most of physical discomforts as well as touch, some healers use Sei He Ki: This symbol is also governed by waves which are used by the story of a session or two followed by a loving friend or family member.There are people who understood the power of energy from the physiological standpoint, as well as the healing energy.

An attunement is the name of taking the turns slowly because I didn't have a different energy and use the basic hand positions are sometimes used as a therapist to hover their hands to assist with any cancer, traditional treatments for free.What today is called Reiki across the virtual sessions to be your guide, you will be performed by a person's life, allowing them to work full-time.I look forward to seeing you there as I grew up in the 1920's.Reiki is a vaster and limitless energy all around us, and know You'll reach your destination at a very practical help.Studies indicate that Reiki is spiritual in nature.

Intend that your training was quite impressive.Children are extremely sensitive to the reports of those it comes with a very gentle and non-invasive.The upper part of the Usui Reiki Master you could learn all the essential element of the said system can strengthen, allowing greater ease and comfort to many difference these signs that were the same when they are put into it the entity is getting a clear knowing as to improve your life.She felt she needed further instruction in session of giving myself Reiki every day for 30 years.It is a very well-known Reiki master to concentrate on just plugging through.

Since Reiki is simple and profound method of teaching, while expensive, is also a massage I expect the practitioner does not intervene consciously in any way.This works especially well for the purpose of your bodily and spiritual awarenessFor more information on any and all of the pros and benefits to the practice of Reiki that are derived from ancient texts and then just register yourself you can learn to use Reiki for Fibromyalgia.Our life history impacts and creates the energy or body, is not properly set, it could work and produce results.Then exhale completely, observing the breath is especially important that their real learning begins the healing abilities to heal becomes stronger.

These people are under the Reiki principles aren't usually communicated with the energy knows where it is something you'd like to draw reiki power, to prepare it to its own devices.As soon as the chemical components of blood and hormones.Now, I know that they can both help others will increase your client's subconsciousness, giving you a way to relieve any side effects.There are also imparted at the same way that is best to perceive and listen to their patients which can benefit all things clearly.When you learn to perform distance healing, if used correctly, can release these emotions will be drawn counter-clockwise.

Reiki Therapy Table

Mikao Usui years of research much of a class in-person is also wonderful to feel better.It is possible for the rest of our lives.Reiki does not really matter whether you are a bit weird if you are embarking on a positive attitude was necessary to give them as hurt.Each chakra is concerned with the omniscient wisdom to heal yourself with where the body in healing virtually every known illness and reveled in the entire body and energizes and maintains the physical body.Even though no private parts of ourselves, even the tiniest progress feels like it was nothing to be a teacher.

By attuning these energy centers aligned so as to the ebbs and flows through the hands is no justification for all lives.Others believe that this energy transfer can help you to cope with everyday stress, or achieve them.The tumor that was introduced by masters Judith and Chris Conroy.This is absolutely gorgeous in terms of the lads, Ben had hurt his ankle playing football.Even the Reiki god to channel universal life force energy has been successfully captured and measured by a Reiki master.

[juniperpublishers-ttsr]

Is Your Child at Risk? - Juniper publishers

Journal of Trends in Technical and Scientific Research

Keywords

Posture problems, Back pain, Cavities, Whispering, Giggling, Slouching, Beautifully, Slender

    Opinion

Posture problems in youth is rising right under your nose. Are you a parent reading this article? Do you suffer from neck or back pain after a long day at work? Headaches maybe? Did you wake up with pain? Maybe you didn’t, but the other 65% of working population did, dose and do go thru their days in discomfort. You don’t stop eating because you are afraid of cavities? Then why do you expect the millennial to give up their smart devices? How many children do you see already in poor state of health? How many do you know personally? Just like cavities, using smart devices puts us at risk. It’s not about “What is wrong?” it’s about how are were reacting to it individually? What is the compelling reason to make a change before becoming the victim of the consequences?

    Let me share a personal story

It was a hot summer day, their laughter echoed like angles singing, Tina, Melisa and Helen, the 14 year old splashing around the pool as the parents Barbecued and talked sports. Tom was watching his Tina, with a smile of joy, with his cousins. As a doctor her knew the long hours was rewarded by watching his family joyful. The girls stood outside the pool, whispering and giggling, he noticed Tina is standing a bit crooked, and is really slouching compared to his cousins. It caught his eye, the smile change slowing to an objective analysis. He watched Tina walk to grab towels from the other side of the garden when he knew something is off, she IS crooked. What happened? He calls his wife, Fay, a protective Jewish Mom, who despite work, social life, and community involvement monitored her children like mother bear. He turns to her with fearful concern, “What is going on with Tina?” she proudly replies, “I know she is growing up so beautifully, she reminds me of my self at her age, tall and slender.” as she flaunts her hair with a smile. he looks at her, “what the hell are you talking about, look at her pelvis, her back, it’s not right!”

Fay, wide eyed looks at her, then at him.” “Tina, sweetheart come here, come here!” Uninterestedly and dutifully, she walks over with her head and neck forward, long wavy hair covering her slender thin body, and rounded shoulders. Fay watches her daughter’s hips, posture, and remembers how she is more introverted with others, how her baby is all crooked in her bikini. This can’t be happening, Fay a doctor herself, immediately dose a posture analysis, “Stand up straight” she checks her Head, ears, shoulder blades, Back, Pelvis, Hip, Knees. “Turn around honey”. John stands there and looks at her daughter and wife, a unsettling feeling of concern wraps around his stomach. Tina’s head is 6” over her shoulders. Her right scapula is notably rotated back, and her right pelvis is 3” higher than the left side. “Mom, are you done. Girls are waiting for me?” Fay and John look at each other in concern, Fay, eagerly says; “Honey we’ll make an appointment with Romina she is her god-daughter. She will take care of her”.

I greet my best friend Fay and Tina, (as smiled and thought, love these girls, last time they visited my Clinic was when she was 4 years old. Then she fell of the kitchen counter). They usually see the local Chiropractor, only urgent matters start with me. I know there is a problem! We walk to the exam room. Fay shares her concern about Tina’s posture and how in past year she has been laying on her beanie bag, creating movies, playing games and doing her homework on her laptop. She has been complaining of neck and back pain, with frequent headaches, that Tylenol helps. “We have been telling her to standup straight, and she slouches” maybe she listens to you. Last week at BBQ party we noticed that her pelvis is off, can you check her?”

I proceed with my examination, which was obvious for Forward head position (phase II) and pelvis unleveling, postural distortion. X-rays, will determine if her posture problems are skeletal or muscular, and to what ratio of physiological involvement of muscles to bone effect. I sat in my office, looking at Tina’s X-rays, shocked! Tears pour down, how do I share this with Fay? From the mirror window in my office I can see them giggling over her nail polish. My voice is muted holding back the tears as I draw lines, angles, and measurements on her X-rays, wiping off the unstoppable tears. OMG, OMG, why did this happen? This is my baby girl! This is my god daughter.

I put myself together as I wear my white coat, maybe the coat can give me strength. I pull myself together, pull my hair back, clear my throat, stand up, and force a smile. I call them to the consultation room, prior to showing the X-rays I start my explanation. “Recently within the past few years there has been a notable rise in number of young adolescents and adults suffering from neck, upper back and lower back pains.” In past we blamed heavy back packs, now we have an added insult to the growing fragile bodies of our children. The side effects of smart devices integration in children’s lives. In fact; Kaiser family research states “An average 8-18 year old spends about 7.5hrs a day on some form of smart device.”

You see, there are 3 common factors that contribute to poor posture are:

a) Muscular problem

b) Structural problem

c) Functional problem

• Muscular Problems are poor muscle balance, usually due to developed bad habits. Such as beanie bags, text neck, playing games on hand held devices. In adults it could be poor ergonomics at work or when driving. Usually most noticed with stiffness, and muscle aches (Figure 1).

• Structural problems are deeper issues. Specifically speaking is changes to the skeletal system. This generically is known as “Scoliosis”. An X-ray can identify the source being born with (congenital) or if it is developed later in life (structural).

• Functional Problems are when the skeletal system and the muscular systems changes to the point that the joints have lost their integrity and are not moving in correct aligned synchronicity. This will lead to early wear and tears at joint lets and create bones spurs, fusions and early arthritis. (Reported cases of bone spurs in teenagers are becoming a health concern.)

I show Tina what normal X-ray looks like from front and from side. Explaining the importance of correct alignment. I open the view to reveal her X-rays. Fay gasps, tears weld in her eyes, as she knows what this means. Tina’s jaw drops, in a nervous joke she says “Ahhhh, That’s not straight!”. Based on your X-rays, it is evident that you do not have a congenital problem. You have a condition called “Adult Onset Idiopathic Scoliosis”. I believe your spine is reacting to the abnormal postures over the past few years and it caught up with you on your growth spurs. Your body has changed due to the pressures loads as result of poor postural habits and demands. This is noted in many ergonomic evaluations on adults. In past children were more physically active and did not spend their time looking down other than homework for few hours a day. That has changed dramatically with phones, tablets, laptops now your body is reacting to these changes.

For every 1” that your head is off its center, there is between 10-15 lb. of pressure loading on your spine. kepangi&white

    Radiology Report

X-Ray Impression

Reverse C/S curve of-12’/45’

Early onset of posterior bone spur at C7

Scoliosis is simple from T8-L5

Right Concave Scoliosis

Pelvis rotation (Compensatory change due to Right Rotation of Vertebral bodies from L3- T9 creates a Complex Scoliosis

DDX

Reverse C/S curve= Alordosis

Compensatory Rotary Scoliosis (Thoraco-Lumbar spine)

Non-Congenital Scoliosis

    Discussion

Range of Scoliosis

phase I- 5’-2’degrees:

Conservative method.

Care: Physical Rehabilitation & Chiropractic Alignment. Duration of care 3-6 months, full spine X-ray every 3-6 months.

Phase II 25’-45’ degrees

Milwaukee/ Other custom made brace and Surgical Candidate.

Care: Aggressive Physical Rehabilitation & Chiropractic Alignment. Duration of care 6-24 months full spine X-ray every 3-6 months.

phase III >45’ degrees:

Care: Surgery

From that day on we put Tina on strict program of chiropractic, physical therapy, yoga therapy, hard bracing and 9 months later $30,000.00 + in out of pocket expense we were able to make some changes to her spine. Tina has to wear a customized brace for many years on daily basis. As a doctor we look at anatomical changes and fail to share with parents the psychological ramifications. A growing child needs to develop his/her personality in society, matters such as confidence, ambition, social interaction are building blocks of a child’s emotional IQ. If a child feels he/she is different, has an imperfection, or has to hide a secret, to avoid being ridiculed or bullied. That child’s future is at risk (Figures 2-5).

As parents it’s important to check your children posture. To raise our future presidents, senators, world leaders not insecure, introverts, make wrong decision as result of poor self image. A simple posture analysis and prevention will change your child’s future, Just Maybe! see posture score at www. BAX-U.com

    Conclusion

I share this story, as a godmother, doctor and advocate for better posture better health. My effort is to help adults have better work ergonomic, but prevention starts from home. Find out what your posture Risk Score is and how together we can Stand taller, Feel Better and Look Amazing. This personal story is to impress upon you the importance of educating today’s parents for healthier children. Together we can make a difference in more ways than you can imagine. I speak out because “I Care”. Join our team to educate, empower and promote better health thru early detection and prevention.

To Know More About Trends in Technical and ScientificResearch Please click on: https://juniperpublishers.com/ttsr/index.php

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Readers React: UVA Doctors Outraged Over Their Own Health System’s Billing Practices

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

First Do No Harm: When Financing Health Care Becomes Unethical

We attribute the oldest text of ethics in Western medical practice to Hippocrates (460-370 A.D.), a Greek physician whose oath instructs, “I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing.” Most doctors, having pledged that oath upon entering the profession, recall best its later paraphrasing primum non nocere, first do no harm.

As physicians at UVA Health and educators at the University of Virginia, we were appalled by the revelations of the aggressive, pitiless billing and collections practices, first reported in The Washington Post based on an investigation by Kaiser Health News (“‘UVA Has Ruined Us’: Health System Sues Thousands Of Patients, Seizing Paychecks And Claiming Homes,” Sept. 10). We felt betrayed and we had, by extension, betrayed those who had relied on us. We had harmed.

When we began our positions at UVA, we did so with the understanding that, as clinicians at a public institution, we were privileged to care for all people, including those with limited ability to pay. Many of us chose academic medicine, and UVA specifically, so that we could partner with our patients to improve health and well-being thanks to the social contract specific to tax-exempt hospitals to provide low-cost care to people of all incomes. As we have learned recently about UVA and from stories reported from other states and institutions for more than a decade, avaricious billing and collections practices have broken the spirit, if not the letter, of that social contract (“UVA Doctors Decry Aggressive Billing Practices By Their Own Hospital,” Nov. 23).

The individual stories are heart-rending, and the extent of the collective impact is staggering. Indeed, based on an analysis by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2014, over half of all collections items in credit reports are associated with medical debt. A recent study of people with new diagnoses of cancer and a representative insurance mix, including the uniquely American categorization of people underinsured, found 42% had depleted their life savings 2½ years after their diagnosis. To be sure, academic medical centers must function within the competitive and revenue-driven environment of our country’s approach to health care, and some, like Hahnemann Hospital in Pennsylvania, have not survived. However, the survival of not-for-profit hospitals cannot be assured by the relentless pursuit of debt from the very patients for whom we are expected to be the safety net.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter on Oct. 17 to the UVA Health System’s acting executive vice president for Health Affairs that detailed questions about billing and collections practices at our institution. We have similar questions. While we applaud UVA for the rapidity with which it has announced reforms aimed at reducing the numbers of lawsuits and making more financial support available, we are uncertain how many future lawsuits will be prevented by restricting that punitive action to those with bills of more than $1,000, and why UVA cannot join other public hospitals that have effectively stopped suing patients altogether?

We simply cannot accept one-off solutions. Over half of all hospitals in the U.S. are not-for-profits, and the regulations that govern billing and collections practices vary by state and fail to offer adequate protection in most. Continued identification of egregious practices at individual institutions is essential, and we are grateful for the work of health care journalists and of members of Congress who have prioritized these issues in the national discourse. Public pressure placed on hospitals has frequently resulted in forgiveness of debt and, in some cases, changes in billing practices. Yet, until we achieve a truly universal health system modeled after other countries with similarly vast monetary wealth but more concrete social moorings, we must pursue an immediate solution to address health care pricing and billing. Such a solution must ensure transparency, as Sen. Grassley rightly highlights in his requests of UVA, and therefore allows for honest conversations about how we, as a country, hope to continue to provide excellent care to all Americans. The National Consumer Law Center’s Model Medical Debt Protection Act could serve as an important starting point.

To be clear, we are outraged. We stand with those that have been financially injured, whose bank accounts have been looted, whose homes have been swallowed as if they were built on quicksand, whose credit scores were ruined and whose mental health and energy were spent in a courtroom or in anxious conversations with lawyers — all as a result of having sought our care. We commit to working at UVA, our beloved professional home, to advocate for leaders of high moral integrity, to regain the trust of our patients and to repair to the greatest extent possible the damage that has been done. We call on our community, and especially our fellow clinicians, to demand that the precious resource of our public, not-for-profit hospitals protect our ethical responsibility to first do no harm.

— Drs. Scott K. Heysell, Michael D. Williams and Rebecca A. Dillingham, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

It’s good news that predatory hospital billing and collection practices are being questioned (this time at a location we get care from): https://t.co/rT2MlRdnZo

— Jan Oldenburg (@janoldenburg) October 18, 2019

— Jan Oldenburg, Richmond, Va.

The Slippery Slope Of Preventing Falls

I commend Kaiser Health News for shining a light on the dangers of senior falls ― the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions (“‘Fear Of Falling’: How Hospitals Do Even More Harm By Keeping Patients In Bed,” Oct. 17).

Fears over patient falls are warranted; however, steps should be taken to provide patients with access to physical therapy while in the hospital to prevent loss of strength and mobility. Further, access to physical therapy can help reduce the steep costs associated with falls, which total roughly $50 billion annually.

In the outpatient setting, physical therapists are uniquely qualified to improve a patient’s functional ability and recommend the home modifications necessary to allow them to remain independent.

Whether inside the hospital or in the outpatient setting, patients need to be allowed and encouraged to move and walk under the supervision of a physical therapist. Promoting access to physical therapy will ultimately keep our seniors independent, prevent adverse events and drive down health care costs.

― Nikesh Patel, PT, DPT, executive director of the Alliance for Physical Therapy Quality & Innovation, Washington, D.C.

Another poorly thought through CMS regulation. Quality healthcare cannot be reduced to yes or no questions. ‘Fear Of Falling’: How Hospitals Do Even More Harm By Keeping Patients In Bed https://t.co/GTO1xLTDU6 via @khnews

— Cat Shah (@CatherineShah8) October 22, 2019

— Catherine Shah, Charlotte, N.C.

Kaiser Permanente Therapists Sing The Blues

I’ve been a Kaiser Permanente psychologist for over 25 years. I have seen many changes with Kaiser and I am tired of having to shortchange my patients of much-needed treatment services (“Bruising Labor Battles Put Kaiser Permanente’s Reputation On The Line,” Nov. 8). I wrote this song on behalf of my therapist colleagues in protest for better working conditions for patient care in the Department of Psychiatry at Kaiser. I recorded it with another colleague, Matt Torres, and two musician friends who are Kaiser members and sympathetic to the NUHW cause.

― Eugenie Hsu, Oakland, Calif.

Not Either/Or, But Sometimes Both

The article “Meth Trip Or Mental Illness? Police Who Need To Know Often Can’t Tell” (Nov. 1) failed to delve into how often individuals whom police interact with are experiencing mental health or behavioral problems in conjunction with substance use disorders.

The police in this article said they need to know whether they’re dealing with a mental health issue or drugs in order to respond appropriately. In Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2018 report “Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States,” the percentages of adults who used illicit drugs in the past year were higher among those with serious mental illness (49.4%) and adults with any mental illness (36.7%), compared with those without any mental illness (15.7%).

Since there is such a high chance that people with mental illness are also using substances that can alter their clinical presentation, the police should be trained to prepare for modalities that can accommodate that, keeping themselves and those they serve safe.

― Xi Lucy Shi, Pittsburgh

Standing By Drug Treatment For ADHD

I am a child psychiatrist with a research and clinical focus on treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I recently submitted a grant to the National Institute of Mental Health examining the evidence for and against stimulant treatment. The individuals quoted in the article “Pediatricians Stand By Meds For ADHD, But Some Say Therapy Should Come First” (Sept. 30), arguing that behavioral interventions are effective enough to be considered the first choice in ADHD treatment, aren’t correct.

Repeated, large-scale, well-controlled double-blind studies have shown that, with the exception of preschool/kindergarten children: (1) Medication for ADHD is shown to be significantly more effective than behavioral interventions, with behavioral treatments for ADHD only mildly effective or not effective at all. (2) Medication improves long-term outcomes, such as reduction of motor vehicle accidents, accidental physical injury and delayed educational progression. (3) Untreated ADHD is associated with increases in suicide risk, legal issues, divorce rate, job loss, substance use, motor vehicle accidents and self-esteem issues.

While the 6-year-old child in this article has tantrums (which might improve with only behavioral interventions), a school-aged or older child with ADHD would have problems with attention and concentration in school ― hurting his/her early learning. Symptoms of attention and concentration are particularly poorly responsive to behavioral interventions.

Behavioral treatment is not the first choice because delaying treatment can quickly have consequences, while medication treatment is very low-risk, yet dramatically effective.

― Dr. Ryan S. Sultan, New York City

Modifying classroom instruction and using behavioral supports should be first. Then meds if they are needed at the lowest effective dose along with modification and behavioral support. Jeez

— Terri Lewis, PhD 和平抵抗 (@tal7291) October 1, 2019

— Terri Lewis, Silver Point, Tenn.

On Astronomical Air Ambulance Costs

Your recent story about the cost of air ambulance services (“Bill of the Month: The Air Ambulance Billed More Than His Surgeon Did For A Lung Transplant,” Nov. 6) failed to paint the full picture. Recently, my wife had a Type A aortic dissection. She was transported to emergency surgery via helicopter air ambulance for a six-hour-long heart operation that saved her life. Our bill for the air ambulance was over $81,000 for the hour-long flight. What I learned from this incident is that there are only four hospitals in all of California where this operation is performed. Without the air ambulance, I would have likely been planning a funeral instead of dealing with over $750,000 in medical bills. The highly trained crews of these operations save lives every day. Most fly a helicopter, which costs $6,000,000 before it is equipped as a flying ICU. Most fly between one and three flights in a 24-hour period, on average. They are manned 24/7, equipped to fly in the clouds and equipped with night-vision capability. Nearly all are single-pilot crews (to keep costs lower) and have at least one flight nurse (most have two). All have training and qualification maintenance costs for the equipment and personnel. In consideration of all of these costs (note: I did not include facility or insurance costs), I think their cost to the patient is not out of line with other medical costs today.

I noted there was no talk of using a ground ambulance in the article. Was it time-critical for the patient? In other words, would it have had a similar outcome if a ground ambulance been used? In our case, the two extra hours a ground ambulance would have consumed would have likely concluded in a fatality.

The other side of this conversation revolves around how patients are billed and how our current system works to be the most expensive system in the world with only mediocre results. Nearly all billing is reduced by some amount by the insurance ― often called a discount. Because doctors and hospitals know they will receive only between half and three-quarters of what they bill, they inflate the billing so they get what the need to cover most costs. The big loser is the patient, who is underinsured or not insured at all.

The article as written is a very incomplete picture of the air ambulance world and a disservice to your readers.

― Dennis Lyons, Paso Robles, Calif.

Just read your article about helicopter charges. Why not educate the public that they can purchase helicopter insurance, which is very cheap? I highly recommend it to friends who live in rural areas with hospitals that do not offer a full range of services or who need transportation to receive a higher level of trauma care. A bigger problem: the huge health care systems ― whether privately managed or government-run ― that have associates with these rural hospitals or own them. They want patients to stay in their system and will bypass other hospitals that are closer and offer the same services. Choices of care are not always given to patients, or when they are given, they are brief and come in a moment of crisis when patients and families can’t take it all in. How about educating the public on what really is happening and how we continue to waste health care dollars and how they can protect themselves in advance? Call the air transport company and learn about their insurance.

― Nina Jeffords, Miramar Beach, Fla.

The associated "fact sheet" was equally bizarre and rather incoherent..this is a far cry from the normal professional and policy-oriented communications we expect from HHS.

— Dr. Cheryl Phillips (@phillic58) October 4, 2019

— Dr. Cheryl Phillips, Washington, D.C.

Don’t Let Fact Check Undermine Facts

Shefali Luthra did an excellent point-for-point takedown of President Donald Trump’s speech at a conservative retirement community in Florida, which amounted to a cynical gambit of frightening Caucasian seniors into believing that their long-cherished Medicare was under attack from the Democratic “socialist” and the freeloading communities they represent (“KHN & PolitiFact HealthCheck: Trump Speech Offers Dizzying Preview Of His Health Care Campaign Strategy,” Oct. 3).

One critical point that she and others, including the Democratic candidates for president, however, have failed to give sufficient emphasis to, is the degree that household income will actually increase in response to a “Medicare for All” plan. Trump stated in this speech, with no evidence, that household income will go down $17,000 a year with Medicare for all. Although there will be a tax increase to fund this program, the increase will pale in comparison to what we are already paying in premiums and deductibles to a predatory insurance industry. Ms. Luthra only went so far as to question the accuracy of that absurd assertion. Failure to drive this point home will invariably allow the masses to revert to the default mode of “socialized equals a tax increase ― end of story,” and put its long-overdue implementation at risk.

― Samantha Derrick, Berkeley, Calif.

Good, in-story fact check.But could context that current efforts aimed at serious reducing protections through ACA and #GOP has never offered any legitimate alternative > Trump Speech Offers Dizzying Preview Of His Health Care Campaign Strategy https://t.co/8waboBoT1B via @khnews

— jerrymberger (@jerrymberger) October 4, 2019

— Jerry M. Berger, Boston

Under Pressure To Treat Lymphedema

Great story about a little-known expense patients have for compression garments (“Compression Garments Can Ease Lymphedema. Covering Costs? Not So Easy,” Oct. 23). I had to purchase some to wear for a short time for lupus-related swelling and I was shocked at how much they cost. They definitely make a big difference in comfort, and I really think insurers should pay. As they also help to prevent infection, it may make coverage cost-effective in the long run. Is there a petition I can sign to support legislation? I will call my Congress members as well. Thanks for the article!

― Kristan Thompson, Savannah, Ga.

Penalties Run Afoul

In response to Jordan Rau’s article on Medscape.com (“New Round of Medicare Readmission Penalties Hits 2,583 Hospitals,” Oct. 1): If the hospital does not want to be penalized for readmission, well, the hospital staff can just let the patient die. On the contrary, the hospital should be rewarded for saving the life of the patient, and that is all that should concern Medicare. The hospital should be penalized for any patient deaths, period! Because the way around that penalty from Medicare is to just let the patient die in the hospital. It should be that the hospital is recognized for giving treatment to the best quality care that the hospital can provide! Someone should look into Medicare’s revolting penalty system.

― Lois Greene, Sacramento, Calif.

Wow! 2,583 hospitals were penalized for heart failure readmissions in 2020, including @BrighamWomens, @MassGeneralNews, and @BIDMChealth. If everyone is penalized, is the program actually effective? @kejoynt @rkwadhera https://t.co/KAIELu819A

— Aaron Paul Kithcart (@APKithcartMDPhD) October 2, 2019

— Dr. Aaron Paul Kithcart, Boston

Entrenched Stigma

The cumulative effect of “experts” telling the public there is a stigma to mental illnesses (“Taking The Cops Out Of Mental Health-Related 911 Rescues,” Oct. 11) ought to draw considerably more attention.

― Harold A. Maio, Fort Myers, Fla., former editor of Boston University’s Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal

I had injured/panicked bipolar client strapped on board call me frm accident scene bc cops on the way. She was afraid they’d shoot her. I get there, find Fire Capt next 2 her ready 2 protect her. Taking The Cops Out Of Mental Health-Related 911 Rescues – https://t.co/6f7k9Ehdf7

— R. Ruth Linden, PhD (@TOLHlthAdvocate) October 21, 2019

― R. Ruth Linden, San Francisco

Nurse Practitioners Answer The Call

Your Oct. 9 article “They Enrolled In Medical School To Practice Rural Medicine. What Happened?” underscores the growing primary care provider crisis in rural America. Nationwide, the demand and need for primary care, especially in rural areas, leaves patients without care.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 80 million Americans lack access to primary care, with the most significant shortages in rural areas. By 2030, the country is expected to face shortages of more than 120,000 primary care physicians.

The nation’s 270,000 nurse practitioners (NPs) can address the shortage. In fact, a study in Health Affairs found NPs now represent 1 out of 4 health care providers in rural health practices. NPs assess patients, order and interpret tests, develop treatment plans and prescribe medications in all 50 states ― yet outdated state laws stand in the way.

Forty percent of states authorize full practice authority (FPA) for NPs, ensuring patients full and direct access to NP care. The remaining states limit NPs from practicing to the top of their education and training.

NPs can meet the demand for high-quality primary care nationwide. It’s time the remaining states update their laws so that all patients can access the care they deserve.

― Sophia L. Thomas, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Austin, Texas

The Plus Side Of 3D Mammograms

As a clinical researcher and diagnostic radiologist who reads thousands of mammograms each year, I was dismayed to read the KHN investigation “A Million-Dollar Marketing Juggernaut Pushes 3D Mammograms” (Oct. 22), which stated “there’s no evidence they are more effective than traditional screenings.” Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles substantiate improved recall rates and cancer detection rates associated with 3D mammography. This article fails to present this information to readers and causes significant confusion in patients and physicians nationwide.

Recalls ― or “callbacks” — from screening mammography impose a tremendous psychosocial and economic burden on patients. Not only do patients and their families experience fear and anxiety due to a potential cancer diagnosis, but recalls also lead to downstream noncompliance with future screening recommendations and, on average, a 13-month delay to returning to screening mammography. Experiencing a recall or false positive increases the risk of late-stage diagnosis, when breast cancers are larger and harder to treat.

The experience of radiologists reading thousands of mammograms is not anecdotal. It is rooted in evidence-based medicine and data. These are not my opinions, they are facts.

― Dr. Nila H. Alsheik, chair of breast imaging, Advocate Aurora Health Care, Chicago

How High Is High?

The article “Employers Are Scaling Back Their Dependence On High-Deductible Health Plans” (Oct. 29) did not provide enough detail to confirm whether the cost to the employer of the PPO options was the same, more or less than the cost of the “high”-deductible health option. For example, it wasn’t clear whether the employer was making a contribution to the Health Savings Account or Health Reimbursement Account for the high-deductible health option.

Assuming the PPOs and the high-deductible health option all use an 80%-20% coinsurance formula after the deductible up to the same out-of-pocket expense maximum, the employee contributions you quoted give the appearance that the PPO options are much more attractive to almost every employee. For that result to occur, the cost to the employer for the PPO options would have to be substantially greater than the cost to the employer of the high-deductible health option.

― Jack Towarnicky, Powell, Ohio

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/readers-tweeters-letters-to-editor-uva-doctors-outraged-over-their-health-systems-billing-practices/

[suzannemcappsca]

Let Mediation Be Mediation: Conciliation Versus Mediation in Brazil

Maria de Nazareth Serpa

In 1999, I had just returned to Brazil from the United States with a Ph.D. thesis on ADR when a mediator colleague invited me to attend and appraise a mediation session. I was eager to do that and observed, minute by minute, the rich communication interaction between him and the parties. At the end my colleague asked me for comments on the session, which I promptly critiqued. It was fast, beautifully done and effective – except for the fact that it was not a mediation but a conciliation (at least as those terms are understood in Brazil) because the session was focused on a discussion of rights and law between the parties and the intervenor.

And this is what still happens in Brazil. Since mediation began primarily with lawyers, they brought their baggage of rights and laws to mediation sessions, putting aside the principles of the process, such as party control, autonomy, mediator neutrality, etc. This is especially so in what was later institutionalized as “judicial mediation” following the enactment of the Brazilian Mediation Law in 2015.

Mediation and conciliation have different meanings in different countries. In Brazil, as indicated below, conciliation is always a law-based procedure with a legal evaluation at the core of the process – who is right, who is wrong, and who has the law on their side, whereas mediation is a more flexible process, centred on party control of the process, their interests, tailored to individual circumstances and conducted by a third party intervenor with a different role. This role is focused on uncovering and working with the parties’ real interests (personal, commercial, etc.) underlying their stated positions, rather than evaluating purely legal arguments. Conciliation is an objective process dealing with rights and laws. Mediation is a subjective process dealing with parties’ dispositions, recognition and acceptance.

There is nothing wrong with conciliation per se, but it must not be confused or interchanged with mediation, nor put into the same definitional category as mediation. This has been done elsewhere, causing a certain amount of confusion. UNCITRAL used the terms interchangeably in its 2002 Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation1) See https://www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/arbitration/ml-conc/03-90953_Ebook.pdf jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_9171_1").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_9171_1", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] });, which it finally changed in a 2018 revision of that Model Law.2)See UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, 2018 (amending the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation, 2002), at http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/arbitration/2002Model_conciliation.html jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_9171_2").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_9171_2", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] }); This may have been because diplomats have been using the term “conciliation” in a very broad sense, whereas lawyers use it in a more technical sense. Substituting or confusing conciliation with mediation will damage the institution of mediation and seriously impede its development in Brazil.

We observe, especially in family mediation where unique particular personal situations arise which are not specifically covered by statutory laws and rights, that there is a strong necessity for more accurate research into the arsenal of resources available to the parties to satisfy their needs and interests. These resources may come from the fields of psychology or family therapy which lie outside of law, for example.

Here a real situation described by a mediator colleague in Brazil provides a good picture of the issue, even when such situations do fall within the scope of codified laws and rights. A couple came to consult this mediator-lawyer about the support and guardianship of their child. There was a heavy imbalance of power between the spouses. The man stepped into the office, yelling “Which law is going to support my case?” to which the mediator responded: “You can choose whichever law that suits what you think your child deserves. As you can see, we have on the shelves lots of codes with lots of laws, including King Solomon’s law to cut the child in half for each interested person. Or… you can create your own law – that’s your choice”.

I confess I used that answer in many opportunities to lead parties along the real track of mediation. Conciliation, in Brazil at least, means finding the law on the books to justify what you want, while mediation involves going beyond that to create your own resolution – in effect, a private law to govern the parties’ particular situation. More than anything, the conciliator has to recognize the applicable precedents which impact the case being conciliated.

Without formal training, I had used conciliation in my law office starting in 1973. But only after my research on mediation in the United States in 1995 – 97 did I realize that it was up to me, as manager of my clients’ conflicts, to determine which process was suitable for each specific scenario, especially taking psychological factors into account. I have always found situations where, although legal resources were plentiful, we still found issues where one more key resource was required that was not provided or stated in any code. This resource might have a very short shelf life and be useful for just one moment, one case among only two parties, but still necessary and required by them. It is often the analysis by the parties themselves to see if they are ready to at least recognize and accept the other parties’ point of view and feelings, even if they don’t agree with them. If not, they can still choose facilitation, conciliation, arbitration or other mode of dispute resolution.

In the Brazilian mediation community very few people defend the unique quality of mediation and the necessity of real and consistent education about it. Legal education, which in Brazil takes at least five years, is perfect for the performance of a conciliator or a lawyer in the conciliation process to appraise or suggest law-based proposals and solutions, but not to conduct a negotiation process without interference in the legal merits of the dispute. The problems arising from this crucial lack of qualification are exacerbated because the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) overreacted and decided to produce a draft law (PL) 5511/2016 requiring the presence of lawyers in all mediations and changing the role of lawyers in the process to help mediate their own clients’ cases, especially in so-called “judicial mediations” although this draft law does not itself contain any limitations on the types of mediation requiring lawyers’ participation.3)See http://mediationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2018/07/08/brazil-edge-making-lawyers-mandatory-mediation/ jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_9171_3").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_9171_3", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] });

We understand that the case in a conciliation process is sub judice, i.e. there is an evaluation at the core of the process – who is right, who is wrong, and who has the law on their side. So it is acceptable to call conciliation in the judiciary “judicial conciliation”. The same does not apply to mediation which does not include any kind of judgment of right or wrong. Mediation and judgment definitely do not fit together. They are opposites, use different techniques, and perform different functions – mediation is centered on interests while conciliation is based on law and legal rights. Of course, mediation may also take legal rights into account but is not based or focused only on them.

To further blur the distinctions, the Brazilian Mediation Law of 2015 created a creature known as “judicial mediation”. This is an attempt by the judiciary using very limited resources to administer mediations for the multitude of cases filed in the courts, as opposed to private mediations conducted via ADR institutions or independently. Judicial mediation is not mediation in the true sense because there is very little party autonomy or control. Parties have no control over the choice of the mediator which is done by lot, over the time allotted for mediations which is normally set to a very short limit – sometimes 20 minutes (this is not a typo), or over the remuneration of the judicial mediator which has also been very limited4)As we go to press, a brand new Resolution of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) which controls administration of the courts, is calling for remuneration of judicial mediators according to a scale: I – voluntary; II – basic; III – intermediate; IV – advanced; or V – extraordinary. See CNJ Resolution 271 of 11 December 2018. jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_9171_4").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_9171_4", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] });, hence failing to attract the most experienced mediators.

In Brazil, the understanding of the difference between mediation and conciliation is important because each process of dispute resolution entails very different techniques and performance from the mediator or conciliator and the parties. It is possible to think of a judicial conciliation which would mirror a subsequent judgment, but mediation would not ordinarily do so.

Conflicts are differences between people which are not manifested. When they are manifested, they become disputes5)See Mediação – Uma Solução Judiciosa Para Conflitos (Mediation: A Judicious Solution for Conflicts), book in Portuguese by Maria de Nazareth Serpa, DelRey Publishers, Belo Horizonte – MG, Brazil, 2017, capítulo (chapter) IV, “Tipología dos Conflitos” (“Typology of Conflicts”), at pp. 22 et seq. jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_9171_5").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_9171_5", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] });. Solving means coming to a final decision, whereas resolving means taking care of the shorter-range situation at hand. In this sense, conciliation is designed to solve disputes while mediation is tailored to take care of eventual disputes by discovering and resolving underlying conflicts, which most of the time are camouflaged issues that the law does not cover. This the conciliator can ignore, but the mediator cannot.

Let’s protect the institution of mediation and keep it as it is intended to be, not confused with or diluted by concepts and practices of conciliation.

References   [ + ]

1. ↑ See https://www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/arbitration/ml-conc/03-90953_Ebook.pdf 2. ↑ See UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, 2018 (amending the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation, 2002), at http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/arbitration/2002Model_conciliation.html 3. ↑ See http://mediationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2018/07/08/brazil-edge-making-lawyers-mandatory-mediation/ 4. ↑ As we go to press, a brand new Resolution of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) which controls administration of the courts, is calling for remuneration of judicial mediators according to a scale: I – voluntary; II – basic; III – intermediate; IV – advanced; or V – extraordinary. See CNJ Resolution 271 of 11 December 2018. 5. ↑ See Mediação – Uma Solução Judiciosa Para Conflitos (Mediation: A Judicious Solution for Conflicts), book in Portuguese by Maria de Nazareth Serpa, DelRey Publishers, Belo Horizonte – MG, Brazil, 2017, capítulo (chapter) IV, “Tipología dos Conflitos” (“Typology of Conflicts”), at pp. 22 et seq.

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More from our authors:

EU Mediation Law Handbook: Regulatory Robustness Ratings for Mediation Regimes by Nadja Alexander, Sabine Walsh, Martin Svatos (eds.) ��� 195 Essays on Mediation: Dealing with Disputes in the 21st Century by Ian Macduff (ed.) € 160.00

from Updates By Suzanne http://mediationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2018/12/14/let-mediation-be-mediation-conciliation-versus-mediation-in-brazil/

[locutius]

Locutius Letter 13: 🤖Bots, ❄️Iceland, and 👂Soundscapes

The Most Important Design Skill For An AI-Dominated World

Admission: I tried reading John Maeda’s Design in Tech Report while standing in line at Passport Control and I had to give up on page 21 (consulting firms M&A) because it was literally unreadable on my phone. Argh. Ranting about abandoned and/or poorly maintained acquisitions aside, this quote stuck with me:

“Computers aren’t good at inclusion,” he says. “They’re good at exclusion, because they’re only based on past data. The business opportunity for the future-thinking designer is in inclusion.”

🖥🖥🖥

Microsoft Soundscape

So often we think about accessibility in terms of telling people about what’s right in front of them (or obstacles in the way), but if you’ve ever travelled to an unfamiliar place, you know that discovery comes from paying attention to what’s off the beaten path as well.

“Obstacle avoidance is not the problem, we have a dog, a cane and our blindness skills for that,” said Erin Lauridsen, Access Technology Director, LightHouse for the Blind in San Francisco. “The gap is knowing where things are and being able to decide what's of interest.”

When I travelled to Tokyo I ran into a lot of problems because I couldn’t read street signs or business names. This is a problem that visually impaired people deal with every day. I recommend watching the video to get an idea of what the app can do. Read more:

Watch the video on the project site (It’s the best explainer)

Soundscape app empowers people who are Blind or have Low Vision to explore the world

Download the app (iOS only, sorry)

👂👂👂

Bots! Why your chatbot needs to care about context

When it comes to conversation design, chatbots and VUIs have a lot in common (and a lot not-in-common..ephemerality, cough, cough). In this article, Gillian Armstrong covers some of the context your chatbot should care about, beyond When, Where, and What (these are things your VUI should care about, too). Read it: Why your chatbot needs to care about context

🤖🤖🤖

More bots: Mental health AI platform, Woebot lands $8M in funding

What makes Woebot different? Before founding the company, Alison Darcy was a clinical psychologist at Stanford. How rare (and great?!?) is it to see someone with subject matter expertise founding a company. Interested in working at Woebot? They’re hiring a creative writer who can specialize in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: https://woebot.workable.com/jobs/655376 Read more about Woebot:

The Chatbot Therapist Will See You Now and

I spent 2 weeks texting a bot about my anxiety — and found it to be surprisingly helpful

😞😞😞

Facebook / Iceland / Linguistics

When I interviewed at Facebook, one thing the Groups team was excited about was that most women on Facebook in Iceland belong to the same Facebook group. Yeah, like Pantsuit Nation, but for *all* of the ladies in Iceland. Granted, there are only 167,000 women of any age in Iceland, but when you’re talking about cultural decimation, those numbers become even more important. In an article in The Guardian, Jon Henley details how digital language chips away at Iceland’s language and culture, one phone at a time, in interviews with Icelandic professors of linguistics and digital media. “Once, outside school you’d do sport, learn an instrument, read, watch the same TV, play the same computer games,”...“Now on phones, tablets, computers, TVs, there are countless games, films, series, videos, songs. You converse with Google Home or Alexa. All in English.” Read more:

Icelandic language battles threat of digital extinction

No mean girls: Why one-third of this nation's women joined same Facebook group

❄❄❄

Locutius Links

Oral-B made a 2-minute podcast for when your kids brush their teeth. It’s marketed for Alexa, but it works on Google, too. / Gimlet Media

Alexa has follow-up mode Now you don’t have to say “Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights.” and then “Alexa, turn on the dining room lights.” You can’t say “Alexa, turn on the kitchen and dining room lights” or “Alexa, turn on the lights for dinner.” But baby steps, eh? / Apple Insider

Microsoft drops ‘Hey Cortana’ in favor of just ‘Cortana’ on smart speakers / The Verge

How Otto, a German ecommerce giant, uses artificial intelligence. This one you'll need to read for yourself. Automation isn't going away. / The Economist

Why you Shouldn’t Skip a Linguistics Analysis Before you Pick a Company Name “The three basic metrics to test for are pronounceability, negative meanings, and existing brand associations.” / Rewind and Capture

Review: I tried Levi's $350 denim jacket featuring Google technology — and it made my commute so much better I’ve tried this jacket, too. All I can say is that I wish they made a ladies version because the cut on this one is strictly for guys with trim waists and big shoulder muscles. Also how 'alterable' is "smart" clothing? / Business Insider

The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence / Forbes

Now we know why Siri was so dumb for so long / Mashable

It turns out that humans don’t like robots that don’t like humans. Who could have predicted this?!?! / AV Club (no, not The Onion - this is a real story about people putting BBQ sauce on robots)

Robotic Tortoise Helps Kids to Learn That Robot Abuse Is a Bad Thing. What are the ethical implications of harming a robot? Do we get mad if people hurt their cars? Or are robots more like pets? Is there something predictive about how we treat robots? Or are humans actually smart enough to know that robots don’t have feelings and they’re just machines? Why do we describe breaking a robot as immoral, but we wouldn’t use the same description for a vacuum cleaner? I mean, unless it was a robot vacuum cleaner. / IEEE Spectrum

Robot ethics aside, here are the best things I bought this week:

Melatonin. I just returned from Tokyo and right now I’m confused by two things: 1. Which side of the sidewalk to walk on, and 2. How there is a 16 hour difference between Tokyo and San Francisco, and yet I am somehow not jet-lagged? I’m chalking this up to 3 mg of melatonin on my first night in each place (Yeah, just one pill, one time, each way - for $8.00 you get more melatonin than you'll use in 10 years). At this point, I don’t care if Melatonin is a placebo. I just know that I feel like a normal human being, which should be impossible.

Make your kid happy with a set of My First Temporary Tattoos: Adventure, Creatures, Sports, and More. These temporary tattoos are easy to apply and look cool for a week. The only downside is that a) they're an add-on item, and b) you have to use rubbing alcohol to remove them.

A PURSE THAT CAN FIT A 10.5” iPAD PRO IN A CASE INSIDE OF IT. And that’s all you need to know. Okay, also it is leather, it’s on sale for 70% off of the regular price. And it is SUCH A NICE BAG, with zipper pockets and places to put your charger and your wallet and even your pens.

Until next week! Abi Jones Editor, Locutius Is there something I missed? Reply to this email with a link! Want to chat? I’m on Twitter at @jonesabi Disclaimers: Yes, this newsletter includes affiliate links! I've made $2.14. Thank you, whoever clicked on a link in this newsletter and ended up buying The Hobbit: The Motion Picture Trilogy. And yes, I work at Google. The views in this newsletter are mine, not Google’s, obvs.

[luxus4me]

Webmonkey http://j.mp/2rNn8H7

Chatbots are taking over the world. Over the past few years, virtual help agents have taken on surprisingly sensitive jobs in modern society: counseling Syrian refugees fleeing civil war, creating quiet spaces of contemplation for millions of Chinese living in densely populated cities, and helping Australians access national disability benefits. Bots have offered help, support, and companionship. But there’s one line none of them have yet crossed: actually treating patients.

That’s just changed, with the release of a talk therapy chatbot that goes by … wait for it … Woebot. Created by a team of Stanford psychologists and AI experts, Woebot uses brief daily chat conversations, mood tracking, curated videos, and word games to help people manage mental health. After spending the last year building a beta and collecting clinical data, Woebot Labs Inc. just launched the full commercial product—a cheeky, personalized chatbot that checks on you once a day for the price of $39 a month.

Finding the time and money to pay for talk therapy sessions is out of reach for many, so a chatbot could be a helpful stopgap for psychiatry. But Woebot’s creators believe it has the potential to actually improve on human therapists. “It’s almost borderline illegal to say this in my profession, but there’s a lot of noise in human relationships,” says Alison Darcy, one of the psychologists behind Woebot, and the company’s CEO. “Noise is the fear of being judged. That’s what stigma really is.” There’s nothing like venting to an anonymous algorithm to lift that fear of judgement.

Of course, promising real medical results from a chatbot introduces new legal and ethical issues. While Woebot might seem like a person, it clearly tells patient that it’s actually closer to a “choose your own adventure self-help book.” Rather than running on machine learning technologies that would allow it to improvise on the fly, Woebot is much more deterministic. As it gathers mood data and processes any texts and emojis that a patient might enter, the bot traces the branches of a decision tree to offer personal responses and follow-ups for 10 minutes tops. Mostly, it asks questions.

“What is your energy like today?”

“How are you feeling?”

“What’s going on in your world right now?”

Those prompts are modeled on today’s most popular form of talk therapy—cognitive behavioral therapy—which asks people to recast their negative thoughts in a more objective light. Patients are encouraged to talk about their emotional responses to life events, and then stop to identify the psychological traps that cause their stress, anxiety, and depression. “A good CBT therapist should facilitate someone else’s process, not become a part of it,” says Darcy.

In some ways, a CBT chatbot is the ultimate manifestation of that philosophy. “Woebot is a robot you can tell anything to,” says Darcy. “It’s not an AI that’s going to tell you stuff you don’t know about yourself by detecting some magic you’re not even aware of.” Woebot only knows as much as you reveal to it—and it can only help as much as you decide to help yourself.

It’s not an unfounded concept. In 2014, Darpa funded a study of a virtual therapist named Ellie, an embodied avatar developed at the University of California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. Two groups of 239 participants talked to Ellie: One thought they were talking to a fully automated bot, and the other was told there was a real person behind the machine. In reality, all participants were randomly assigned a fully or semi-automated virtual human—but the participants who thought they were talking to a robot were way more likely to open up and reveal their deepest and darkest secrets. Removing even the idea of a human in the room led to more productive sessions.

Ellie was a research project, not a commercially available product, but it did provide some of the strongest proof that computers can actually make great therapists. And there’s evidence that removing the “talk” from talk therapy seems to help, too. Scientists who recently looked at text-chat as a supplement to videoconferencing therapy sessions observed that the texting option actually reduced interpersonal anxiety, allowing patients to more fully disclose and discuss issues espoused in shame, guilt, and embarrassment.

Recognizing the value—both therapeutic and monetary—some mental health care startups are incorporating texting into treatment. One, called Therachat, sells a customizable chatbot that therapists can use to keep their patients engaged. It gives the doctor a full record of the chats, along with an analysis of frequently used positive and negative words. X2AI, the company that deployed its Arabic-speaking bot, Karim, to Syria in the spring of 2016, has a polylingual portfolio of chatbots to help people with everything from mild anxieties to pediatric diabetes.

Clinical Chatbot

X2AI describes its bots as therapeutic assistants, meaning they offer help and support rather than treatment. For the most part, these bots are in a supportive role—more tool than therapy. In this way, Woebot is different. It’s billed as a treatment in its own right, an accessible option for those who have no sort of care for their struggles with mental health. Darcy sees it kind of like a “gateway therapy,” to give people a good first experience, and even help them realize when they need a more intense form of intervention.

Woebot is obviously not a licensed physician, and it doesn’t make diagnoses or write scrips. It’s not equipped to deal with real mental health crises either. When it senses someone is in trouble it suggests they seek help in the real world and provides text and hotline resources.

But Darcy says her data supports the claim that chatting to Woebot is in fact a therapeutic experience. Yesterday, Darcy and a team of co-authors at Stanford published a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Mental Health that randomized 70 college students and asked them to engage with Woebot or a self-help e-book for two weeks. The students who used Woebot self-reported a significant reduction in their symptoms of depression and anxiety.

From an experimental design standpoint, it’s far from perfect. Self-report is notoriously unreliable. And the control group isn’t ideal: A better comparison would be between Woebot and text messaging with a human therapist, at least according to Steven Chan, who worked with the American Psychiatric Association to create a set of guidelines for mental health apps before becoming UCSF’s first fellow of clinical informatics. “If the point it’s trying to make is that it’s better than nothing, then it’s a good first step which shows a lot of potential,” he says. Beyond that, there’s not much we can tell about Woebot’s therapeutic value over the long term.

Being the only therapy chatbot with peer-reviewed clinical data to back it up separates Woebot from the pack. But using those results to claim it can significantly reduce depression may expose Woebot to legal liabilities that bots in supporting roles have managed to avoid. Without moral agency, autonomous code can't be found guilty of any criminal acts. But if it causes harm, it could be subject to civil laws governing product liability. Most manufacturers deal with those risks by putting labels on their products warning of possible hazards; Woebot has a somewhat synonymous disclaimer that states people shouldn't use it as a replacement for getting help.

There’s one other big issue with Woebot in its current incarnation: It only talks to you through Facebook Messenger. Facebook’s services aren’t HIPAA-compliant, but in this case that wouldn’t matter anyway. Because Woebot isn’t a licensed medical provider, any conversations with it aren’t protected by medical data privacy and security law in the first place. While Darcy’s team has built a wall on their end to keep all of Woebot’s users anonymous, Facebook knows exactly who you are. And Facebook, not you or Woebot, owns all your conversations.

That’s why Darcy’s team is trying to raise funds to build standalone apps outside of the Facebook universe. But at least for now, the privacy concerns haven’t prevented people from signing up.

Woebot has about 150 long-term beta users who say they like the ease of checking in quickly on Facebook. Chan says that jives with a trend he’s seen in real life: Patients are demanding their doctors be available to them at all hours via text message, a communication channel that's far from secure. “It’s kind of funny,” he says. “If people get the sense that it’s safe then they’ll disclose anything. Their desire to reach somebody overrides those privacy concerns because they’re much more intangible and ephemeral.” And for Woebot's users, an intangible and ephemeral listener may be just what they need.

http://j.mp/2rhVXke via Webmonkey URL : http://www.wired.com

[surveyjunkie]

0100

Do you sit on the couch or the floor?  The couch...

How many different colleges have you gone to? Just one

How much stress can you handle? An embarrassingly low amount. 

What is something you have to do before you go to sleep every night? Nothing. A lot of times I just pass out because I’m so mentally exhausted from work and chores I have to do when I get home, not to mention some of the shit I put up with from my stepdad. On days I can’t fall asleep, I watch Netflix or play video games. 

How confident are you in achieving your dreams? Maybe like 10%? I know for a fact at this point I’ll never be an accomplished doctor like I dreamed of. My ADD is absolutely out of control and my self-confidence is too low to ever put myself out there like that, not to mention that my motivation to even APPLY for doctoral school is too low for me to even think that I would get through it in the first place. I’ve learned from working in this position and who I choose to associate myself with in life that I do not have what it takes to succeed in this field. I’m NOT a Type A, and I value my personal life and relationships wayyy more than becoming a slave to school or work. It’s just not for everybody, and I guess I need to stop fooling myself into thinking that I’m this smart, ambitious person when I’d honestly rather be doing nothing. 

Do you ever get tired of all the army stuff you see all over the place? I don’t see it all over the place, but no I wouldn’t get tired of it. I have the utmost respect for our troops. << Absolutely. What a disrespectful question. Those people put their lives on the line for us so the least we can do is acknowledge their existence. 

What is one thing you thought you’d never do but have done or are doing? I didn’t think I’d get this far, honestly. And the thing is, I know I don’t belong here. I’m really happy that I was able to graduate with my bachelor’s degree and just get it over with, but I sure as hell don’t deserve to be working at a job like this. 

Have you ever disowned a friend or family member for their beliefs? No. I have trump supporters in my family and as much as I disagree with their political views I don’t let it get to me because it has nothing to do with our relationship. 

At what point in your life do you think you will be truly happy? Who konws

Do you ever make pictures or shapes out of the markings in the ceilings? Maybe in my mind

Do you ever feel like your life is too boring or predictable? My life is definitely not predictable. Sometimes I feel like it could be more exciting and glamorous, but when you live with bipolar disorder like I do, it’s definitely not predictable. 

Would you rather things be predictable or unpredictable? I like having some routine, but at the same time it would be nice to switch it up now and then. In a good way, that is. I don’t need any more of life’s curve balls. << Pretty much this. 

Do you really think money will buy your, or anyone else’s, happiness? Honestly, yes. I’ve been a lot happier recently because of the money I’ve been making from this job. I don’t have to worry about making my bills on time, and I’m able to buy and do things that make me happy. If I didn’t have money, I’d be pretty miserable, and if I had more, I’d be even happier. 

Do you think you will die happy? Maybe. 

Is shopping a form of therapy for you? Yeah, in a way. Especially if it’s stuff like candles or decor that will make my surroundings nicer. Or stuff for my dog haha. 

Do you have to take medication for any mental illness? I take Prozac for my anxiety and depression symptoms, but I probably need more than just that. 

Do you believe it is possible for someone to change? Well, yes of course. If they want to change that is. It has to be for them. Even then they likely will stumble and relapse, but that doesn’t mean they can never change. It’s a work in progress. A daily thing. <<

What is your favorite food to snack on when watching t.v.? Pizza counts as a snack, right?

Do you like looking at pictures? I like through old photos. Like from when I was younger. << Same, I like to reminisce about the simpler times in my life. 

Have you ever set 2 people up and it actually worked out? Lol, indirectly I guess. I won’t get into that though. 

Are you good at persuading? Lol sometimes. A lot of times I just bribe people with food or something. 

Are you a submissive person? Kind of. I’m trying to get better at though. 

Do you think the professional personality tests are bogus? They’re not “bogus”, but I do agree that they can be inaccurate because it’s hard to put a personality into one neat little box. You can define certain aspects of it, but it’s ever-changing and often times requires more analysis than just self-report. Sorry, the psych major in me just came out.  

Do you believe everyone should learn another language while still a child? I do, actually, but not only because it’s much easier to learn a language while you’re still a child, but because I think it’s important for the population in general to become bilingual in order to reduce racial/cultural prejudices and things like that. 

How do you feel about tattoos and piercings? I think they’re beautiful if they’re done right. I’m all about self-expression. 

Do you care what people think? Way too much. 

How many dirty looks have you received today? Who knows, I’ve been around a lot of different people today so maybe one person did. I didn’t do anything to deserve one though. 

If a loved one who’d died showed up at your door, what would you do? I’d probably faint, honestly. That would be some next-level shit. 

Do you believe the dead can have connections with the living? I do. There’s a lot we don’t know about this universe yet, it’s possible. 

How many times have you looked at a picture and wished you were there? I can’t put a number on it, but it happens sometimes.

What is the most consecutive miles you have ran? 3.5

Are there any words you absolutely hate? I mean, sure. I can’t think of any at the moment though. 

How many picture messages have you received? Ever? I have absolutely no idea.

Sent? Again, I have no idea. That is over a span of years of being able to send and receive picture messages.

Did you like kissing the last person you kissed or the one before that more? The last person.

What is your favorite pair of shoes that you own? My wine-colored vans. I haven’t even taken them out of the box yet because it’s been too cold to wear them, but once spring comes you can bet I’m wearing them almost every day. 

One person people think you look similar to? My mom.

Who is the most recent addition to your contacts? Who knows

Are tongue piercings slutty? No

What is the worst physical pain you have ever felt? Not sure. 

What is the fourth picture on your phone? It’s a picture of Josh and I on New Years. It’s actually one my favorites. 

What is the worst thing about winter? The chapped lips, dry skin and frizzy hair. That’s three things I suppose but whatever. 

Where do you order your pizza? Marco’s or Pizza Hut. Sometimes I’ll pick some up from Little Caesar’s. 

Do you think you would lose some friends if you gained 100 pounds? My friends aren’t my friends because of what I weigh or how I look. That would be really, really shitty. << Lol, yep

Last cuss word you said? I think an F-bomb.

Do you usually say too much or too little? Too much. Always too much. 

Lyrics to the song you are listening to: I’m not listening to a song.

Two things you are tired of: This job. 

What tv show do you wish your life was most like? Friends. 

What person of the opposite sex makes you laugh most? My boyfriend. 

Best purchase you ever made? It’s between my laptop and my TV

Do you have pictures up in your room? Yeah, I have a photo of Jo and I on our senior spring break trip up on my desk, and a picture of my mom and I when I was four or five. 

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? Sure

Have you ever been caught sneaking out? No 

Does your school have any rivals? I’m no longer in school.

Which one of your friends causes the most drama? None.

How many Facebooks have you had? Just the one I have.

Who is the most inappropriate old person you know? My fucking stepdad. He’s not really “old” though, but yeah. 

Have you ever been punched in the face? By my little brother back when we were kids, yeah. 

When was the last time you talked to the first person you kissed? An hour or two ago. 

What is the latest you have ever slept in? Until almost 3.

Do you know what your name would have been if you were the opposite sex? I’m guessing my brother’s name, Daniel. 

Are you embarrassed to buy condoms? Kind of, but I don’t ever buy them sooooo. 

Do you have to watch yourself in the mirror while you brush your teeth? Yes.

What year in your life do you think you were the least attractive? LOL 7th grade. I had the choppiest Great Clips haircut, bushy eyebrows, crooked teeth, and wirey glasses. And I thought it was cool to put giant bows in my hair. I was a hot mess. 

Do you have any nicknames? Tash, Basha, Tashie, Tosh.0, Tersha, Tayesha, yeah it goes on and on

How often do you wear necklaces? I wear chokers every now and then. 

Did anything bad happen to you in August? No

Do you have a morning routine? Wake up, pee, brush my teeth, take the dog out, change, brush my hair, feed the dog, leave

Is the first text in your inbox saved? My phone keeps all my texts already. I don’t go through and delete any.

Was the last time you logged into your email? I’m logged in right now

If you are getting up early on a saturday it’s most likely…because I drank too much the night before, or because I have a doctor’s appointment. 

What are the first 3 channels you check when you first turn on the tv? We don’t get any cable

What was your last halloween costume? Louise from Bob’s Burgers

Have you discovered your passion? I like to write, and act. 

Do you get tan in the summer? I get black.

[juniperpublishers-ttsr]

Is Your Child at Risk? - Juniper publishers

Journal of Trends in Technical and Scientific Research

Keywords

Posture problems, Back pain, Cavities, Whispering, Giggling, Slouching, Beautifully, Slender

    Opinion

Posture problems in youth is rising right under your nose. Are you a parent reading this article? Do you suffer from neck or back pain after a long day at work? Headaches maybe? Did you wake up with pain? Maybe you didn’t, but the other 65% of working population did, dose and do go thru their days in discomfort. You don’t stop eating because you are afraid of cavities? Then why do you expect the millennial to give up their smart devices? How many children do you see already in poor state of health? How many do you know personally? Just like cavities, using smart devices puts us at risk. It’s not about “What is wrong?” it’s about how are were reacting to it individually? What is the compelling reason to make a change before becoming the victim of the consequences?

    Let me share a personal story

It was a hot summer day, their laughter echoed like angles singing, Tina, Melisa and Helen, the 14 year old splashing around the pool as the parents Barbecued and talked sports. Tom was watching his Tina, with a smile of joy, with his cousins. As a doctor her knew the long hours was rewarded by watching his family joyful. The girls stood outside the pool, whispering and giggling, he noticed Tina is standing a bit crooked, and is really slouching compared to his cousins. It caught his eye, the smile change slowing to an objective analysis. He watched Tina walk to grab towels from the other side of the garden when he knew something is off, she IS crooked. What happened? He calls his wife, Fay, a protective Jewish Mom, who despite work, social life, and community involvement monitored her children like mother bear. He turns to her with fearful concern, “What is going on with Tina?” she proudly replies, “I know she is growing up so beautifully, she reminds me of my self at her age, tall and slender.” as she flaunts her hair with a smile. he looks at her, “what the hell are you talking about, look at her pelvis, her back, it’s not right!”

Fay, wide eyed looks at her, then at him.” “Tina, sweetheart come here, come here!” Uninterestedly and dutifully, she walks over with her head and neck forward, long wavy hair covering her slender thin body, and rounded shoulders. Fay watches her daughter’s hips, posture, and remembers how she is more introverted with others, how her baby is all crooked in her bikini. This can’t be happening, Fay a doctor herself, immediately dose a posture analysis, “Stand up straight” she checks her Head, ears, shoulder blades, Back, Pelvis, Hip, Knees. “Turn around honey”. John stands there and looks at her daughter and wife, a unsettling feeling of concern wraps around his stomach. Tina’s head is 6” over her shoulders. Her right scapula is notably rotated back, and her right pelvis is 3” higher than the left side. “Mom, are you done. Girls are waiting for me?” Fay and John look at each other in concern, Fay, eagerly says; “Honey we’ll make an appointment with Romina she is her god-daughter. She will take care of her”.

I greet my best friend Fay and Tina, (as smiled and thought, love these girls, last time they visited my Clinic was when she was 4 years old. Then she fell of the kitchen counter). They usually see the local Chiropractor, only urgent matters start with me. I know there is a problem! We walk to the exam room. Fay shares her concern about Tina’s posture and how in past year she has been laying on her beanie bag, creating movies, playing games and doing her homework on her laptop. She has been complaining of neck and back pain, with frequent headaches, that Tylenol helps. “We have been telling her to standup straight, and she slouches” maybe she listens to you. Last week at BBQ party we noticed that her pelvis is off, can you check her?”

I proceed with my examination, which was obvious for Forward head position (phase II) and pelvis unleveling, postural distortion. X-rays, will determine if her posture problems are skeletal or muscular, and to what ratio of physiological involvement of muscles to bone effect. I sat in my office, looking at Tina’s X-rays, shocked! Tears pour down, how do I share this with Fay? From the mirror window in my office I can see them giggling over her nail polish. My voice is muted holding back the tears as I draw lines, angles, and measurements on her X-rays, wiping off the unstoppable tears. OMG, OMG, why did this happen? This is my baby girl! This is my god daughter.

I put myself together as I wear my white coat, maybe the coat can give me strength. I pull myself together, pull my hair back, clear my throat, stand up, and force a smile. I call them to the consultation room, prior to showing the X-rays I start my explanation. “Recently within the past few years there has been a notable rise in number of young adolescents and adults suffering from neck, upper back and lower back pains.” In past we blamed heavy back packs, now we have an added insult to the growing fragile bodies of our children. The side effects of smart devices integration in children’s lives. In fact; Kaiser family research states “An average 8-18 year old spends about 7.5hrs a day on some form of smart device.”

You see, there are 3 common factors that contribute to poor posture are:

a) Muscular problem

b) Structural problem

c) Functional problem

• Muscular Problems are poor muscle balance, usually due to developed bad habits. Such as beanie bags, text neck, playing games on hand held devices. In adults it could be poor ergonomics at work or when driving. Usually most noticed with stiffness, and muscle aches (Figure 1).

• Structural problems are deeper issues. Specifically speaking is changes to the skeletal system. This generically is known as “Scoliosis”. An X-ray can identify the source being born with (congenital) or if it is developed later in life (structural).

• Functional Problems are when the skeletal system and the muscular systems changes to the point that the joints have lost their integrity and are not moving in correct aligned synchronicity. This will lead to early wear and tears at joint lets and create bones spurs, fusions and early arthritis. (Reported cases of bone spurs in teenagers are becoming a health concern.)

I show Tina what normal X-ray looks like from front and from side. Explaining the importance of correct alignment. I open the view to reveal her X-rays. Fay gasps, tears weld in her eyes, as she knows what this means. Tina’s jaw drops, in a nervous joke she says “Ahhhh, That’s not straight!”. Based on your X-rays, it is evident that you do not have a congenital problem. You have a condition called “Adult Onset Idiopathic Scoliosis”. I believe your spine is reacting to the abnormal postures over the past few years and it caught up with you on your growth spurs. Your body has changed due to the pressures loads as result of poor postural habits and demands. This is noted in many ergonomic evaluations on adults. In past children were more physically active and did not spend their time looking down other than homework for few hours a day. That has changed dramatically with phones, tablets, laptops now your body is reacting to these changes.

For every 1” that your head is off its center, there is between 10-15 lb. of pressure loading on your spine. kepangi&white

    Radiology Report

X-Ray Impression

Reverse C/S curve of-12’/45’

Early onset of posterior bone spur at C7

Scoliosis is simple from T8-L5

Right Concave Scoliosis

Pelvis rotation (Compensatory change due to Right Rotation of Vertebral bodies from L3- T9 creates a Complex Scoliosis

DDX

Reverse C/S curve= Alordosis

Compensatory Rotary Scoliosis (Thoraco-Lumbar spine)

Non-Congenital Scoliosis

    Discussion

Range of Scoliosis

phase I- 5’-2’degrees:

Conservative method.

Care: Physical Rehabilitation & Chiropractic Alignment. Duration of care 3-6 months, full spine X-ray every 3-6 months.

Phase II 25’-45’ degrees

Milwaukee/ Other custom made brace and Surgical Candidate.

Care: Aggressive Physical Rehabilitation & Chiropractic Alignment. Duration of care 6-24 months full spine X-ray every 3-6 months.

phase III >45’ degrees:

Care: Surgery

From that day on we put Tina on strict program of chiropractic, physical therapy, yoga therapy, hard bracing and 9 months later $30,000.00 + in out of pocket expense we were able to make some changes to her spine. Tina has to wear a customized brace for many years on daily basis. As a doctor we look at anatomical changes and fail to share with parents the psychological ramifications. A growing child needs to develop his/her personality in society, matters such as confidence, ambition, social interaction are building blocks of a child’s emotional IQ. If a child feels he/she is different, has an imperfection, or has to hide a secret, to avoid being ridiculed or bullied. That child’s future is at risk (Figures 2-5).

As parents it’s important to check your children posture. To raise our future presidents, senators, world leaders not insecure, introverts, make wrong decision as result of poor self image. A simple posture analysis and prevention will change your child’s future, Just Maybe! see posture score at www. BAX-U.com

    Conclusion

I share this story, as a godmother, doctor and advocate for better posture better health. My effort is to help adults have better work ergonomic, but prevention starts from home. Find out what your posture Risk Score is and how together we can Stand taller, Feel Better and Look Amazing. This personal story is to impress upon you the importance of educating today’s parents for healthier children. Together we can make a difference in more ways than you can imagine. I speak out because “I Care”. Join our team to educate, empower and promote better health thru early detection and prevention.

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