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"A global mental health crisis" was sparked by the pandemic, especially for the youth as it exposed them to serious existential crises related to grief, loss, death and dying, deep psychological insecurities, etc. Additionally, this crisis came as a call for greater meaning in the personal and professional lives of youth. To deal with these issues in youth, Improv intervention is being used as an effective contemporary psychological technique to improve holistic perspective‐taking. This pilot study investigated the efficacy of Improv intervention in enhancing Meaning in Life in youth using an explanatory sequential design. The sample comprised 80 youth (age range 18–25 years). The study was carried out in two phases—quantitative and qualitative. In the quantitative phase, a randomised control trial design was used to assess the efficacy of the intervention; this was followed by semistructured interviews to identify crucial themes that highlighted participants' perceptions of Meaning in Life and the benefits of the intervention. Results revealed potential usefulness of Improv in Meaning enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The burden on counselors has tremendously amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Isolation, contactless work settings, work overload and economic shutdown vividly imposed a drastic change in counselors work environment. It is assumed that the COVID-19 pandemic would have greater adverse results for early-in-career counselors as they have not fully acquired personal agencies of protection against unprecedented stressors otherwise acquired through experience. From amongst the obvious challenges, counselors in the early phase of their careers are also facing discrepancies between their abilities and workload, ethical conflicts of providing services to the most needy over others (due to limited personal capacities), unsatisfactory acknowledgment and ill defined work outcomes due to the pandemic. An imbalance in self-care and personal stress management could create the risk of burnout in counselors .The present study focused on the role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies in predicting burnout among early career counselors during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample for the study comprised of 64 counselors (Males=17, Females=47) who were in the early stages of their career. The Counselor Burnout Inventory by (Lee et al., 2007) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire by (Garnefski et al., 2002) were used for gathering information related to the psychological indices. Regression analysis revealed that the indices of Positive reappraisal and Other-blame negatively predicted Burnout. Implications of the study point towards counselors strengthening their cognitive emotional regulation strategies to evade burnout and provide high quality services to clients during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how World Health Organization proclaimed the COVID-19 upsurge as a worldwide pandemic on January, 30 2020. Topics include virus has impacted major aspects of human existence from physical to mental health across the globe; and COVID-19 epidemic has prompted depressive symptoms, social isolation, and a decreased sense of well-being contributing to increased psychological distress for people.

Kaschak (1992) has aptly expressed the origin and implications of self-objectification in the quote, "It is in the eye of the beholder, in which women's appearance is reflected, evaluated, and given meaning”. There's an increasing trend of reducing women's bodies as objects of marketing in contemporary media. More concerning still is the documented increase over time in the objectification and an increase in body image consciousness in younger girls. The study focused on reducing detrimental effects of self-objectification on teenage girls using Self Enrichment skill training. It comprised of 4 sessions for the N=60 adolescent females high on self-objectification. (age ranging 15-19 years). The Self-Enrichment training is based upon the principles of self-awareness and self regulation. A pre post experimental design was used to assess efficacy of the training. The Self-Objectification questionnaire by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997 to determine the level of objectification and its psychological impact. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences between the pre-and post-treatment scores of the participants. Implications of the study point towards effectiveness of the Self-Enrichment skill training in helping young girls overcome media induced self-objectification thereby paving way for greater self-discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An individual's personality provides him/her with a unique set of experiences by virtue of specific personological traits that attune him towards characteristic choices and reaction patterns. Alongside the enormous array of life sustaining adaptive decisions that an individual makes by using the capacities endowed by his personality, he/she is fueled to strive for autonomy and yearning for excellence. In the same light the present study aimed to assess the specific association of personality traits of middle aged Punjabi men as mapped by the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and Personal Growth indices of Inner Directedness and Time Competence using the Personal Orientation Inventory (Shostrom, 1964). Correlational analysis provided clear linkages between Openness to experience and Conscientiousness dimensions of personality with Personal Growth indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data provided by Indian Census 2011 point to a staggering population of 18 million deaf people in the country. It becomes imperative to explore how the deaf integrate religious spiritual development in their lives since disability of hearing and speech adds an extra brunt on the psyche by limiting its linguistic expression. The essence of religious spiritual development can be understood as the faith that drives a person and guides him or her in times of happiness and grief. Religious spiritual development has been mostly studied amongst the able-bodied and it becomes essential to understand how the congenitally deaf integrate it in their lives. The participants in the study were 40 deaf children and 40 able-bodied children age ranging (10–16 years). The main aim was to explore the religious spiritual development of these children via theme-based content analysis of drawings. Results reveal unique patterns of symbolic manifestations for the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity has been a topic of ever increasing interest in view of its significant contribution to every domain of life. Personality traits have been periodically knit together and researched with creativity. The present paper is an endeavour to study the personality patterns of Creatively Gifted. The present study was designed to affirm the uniqueness of personality traits of the 40 creatively gifted and 40 average creative Indian youth. TTCT (figural) by Torrance (1990) was used to screen in the Creatively Gifted in Fine Arts and Average Creatives (scoring criterion set by Georgia board of Education Rule 160-4-2-.38). Creatively Gifted in other domains i.e. Department of Dance, Department of Fine Arts, Department of Music, Department of Theatre and Department of GurmatSangeet were screened in using Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile, 1982). Alongside scores were obtained on the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Difference of scores between the Creatively Gifted and Average Creatives were significant on Big Five personality traits. These findings have pertinent implications for parents and teachers of creatively gifted students with regard to providing them with the kind of environment required to excel. They need to be challenged in new ways and given the opportunity to explore their innate gifts.Differentiating curriculum to meet the needs of our talented students is critical for developing a stimulating learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]