ABSTRACTS

Christophe AndréMindfulness Meditation

Keywords: mindfulness meditation, Mind-ful Based Cognitive Therapy, MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction, Dialectical Beha-viour Therapy, Vittoz Method, Open FocusTherapyThe aim of this article is to argue for theadvantages of mindfulness meditation inthe psychological praxis. As the firstexample of word therapy, the mindful-ness meditation has his origins inBuddhist philosophy, it designs in thisprimal context the attitude of openness tothe world and the simple observation ofthe processes around us (in contrast tothe concept of meditation in occidentalphilosophies mostly based on reflexivethinking). The author analyses a fewcases in which the method of theMindfulness Meditation can be success-fully applied, dissolves some stereotypesabout meditation, traces the history ofmindfulness meditation, explains itsneurobiological basis and presents themain types of scholarly approved mind-fulness meditation therapies.

Attila Forgács“The whole vast Universe serves for

a Restaurant” In memoriam LouisSzathmary.Keywords: gastro-psychology, media, ea-ting disordersThe author was one of the students of theworld famous gastronomist professor,Louis Szathmary in Chicago in the late80’s. He overviews the present state of ea-ting psychology and his most importantresults in the field: (1) Cognitive aspects ofbreast-feeding. (2) The author content-analyses downloadable, digitally mana-geable, archaic and folkloristic texts rela-ted to the psychic layers of eating. (3) Healso content-analyses the main messagesof media related to eating: 1. “Buy andeat!” 2. “Be thin!” 3. “Beware of dangerousfood!” 4. “Food will become exhausted!” 5.“You are not feminine / masculineenough!” Double-bind communication ofmedia-marketing is pathogenic: “Buy andeat more, but remain thin!” (4) He recom-mends the development of a new ITdevice: customers could be informedabout the ingredients of food products bydecoding the bar code on the packaging

with the help of their mobile phones. Sucha device could process the data and basedon the body mass index (BMI) and othernutrition-related personal characteristics(e.g. diabetes, food allergy), it could makerecommendations for an ideal diet.

László Galántai The Cultural Logic of Late-capitalism

in the Perspective of the Film Atomisedbased on Michel Houellebecq's NovelKeywords: cultural logic, late-capitalism,adaptationThis article outlines the differencesbetween Michel Houellebecq’s controver-sial novel, Atomised and its film adaptationdirected by Oskar Roehler. The authorargues that – as a typical example of badadaptation – the film cannot interpret thevast psychological problems of the maincharacters due to the socio-cultural con-text of late-capitalism. The fine differencesof the two brothers – very finely drawn byHouellebecq – are reduced to some visualand interpretative clichés of the movie.

Zoltán Kovács The Conscious Learning – Condition

for a Meaningful ExistenceKeywords: critical thinking, metacogni-tion, self-regulated learningThis year’s disastrous graduation examresults in Romania clearly indicate thecrisis of the education system. Less thanhalf of the students managed to pass theexams and we may identify several fac-tors to explain the situation. Instead ofproposing a detailed analysis, this studyoffers a few suggestions at the level ofteachers and students that may solve theproblem. Besides coherent and continu-ous learning, effective study requirescritical thinking, metacognitive and self-regulated learning. Students shall betaught to think rather than what to think.It is quite obvious that many aspects ofthe Romanian education policy shall bereconsidered, particularly from the pointof view of the students’ motivation tolearn and the attitude of teachers towardsmetacognitive thinking.

Liiceanu AuroraCatalina’s Metamorphosis

Keywords: case-study, culture of over-statementThis essay presents a case study from theRomanian post-revolutional period pub-

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lished in the author’s volume Throughthe Curtain (2009). Catalina’s case isexemplar for women’s education in theRomanian culture – without a solid baseof autonomous behaviour, women caneasily found themselves in situations ofmoral, financial and existential defence-lessness. Catalina’s evolution is psycho-logically positive one: from a situation oftotal abuse she finds the necessary forceto reconstruct her life and opts for a dif-ferent side of her personality. The case-study is also a parabola of the hard tran-sitional period in post-communistRomanian society.

Lipovetsky, GillesNarcissus or the Logic of Emptiness

Keywords: individualism, narcissim, late-consumer societyThis article is an excerpt from GillesLipovetsky’s 1983 book The Age ofEmptiness. Essays about contemporaryindividualism. After a short presentationof Christopher Lasch’s work, The Cultureof Narcissism, the author makes a concisesurvey of the passage of occidental manfrom homo politicus to homo psychologi-cus. The socio-psychological diagnosisargues that at the age of late-consumersociety presentism and individualism arekey features of occidental culture, but

their existence is due to a fundamentaldespondency. After the war of Vietnam,Watergate, and after the events of interna-tional terrorism, the future could behardly viewed in an optimistic manner.Our personal problems are cast in aprocess of self-protection.

Csaba PléhCognitive Consequences of the Net-

work Culture. Getting clever or stupidbecause of the Internet?Keywords: architecture of knowledge,human knowledge, info-communicationtechnologies, hypertext-readingThe main topic of this article is toanalyse the cognitive consequences ofinternet-use for human knowledge. Aftera short presentation of the scholarlyopinions on the human-machine rela-tion, the author presents the main thesesof a human knowledge architecture theo-ry. From this background emerges themain question: what are the conse-quences of the network culture? Theauthor proposes here to avoid both opti-mistic and pessimistic approaches.Bringing a few examples to differentiatetypes of hypertext-reading, this articleconcludes to the pedagogical and cultu-ral importance of academic research inthis scientific field.

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