Asad Muhammad

Emotional awareness, which consists of individual differences in attention to emotion and emotional clarity, is likely to matter with respect to dynamic components of emotional reactivity. Attending to emotions, in particular, could give rise to emotional reactions that are more reliable, quicker, and/or more intense at peak amplitude. Such components of emotional reactivity were investigated in two studies (total N = 193) in which participants were asked to indicate momentary feeling changes in response to appetitive and aversive images. Participants who scored higher in attention to emotion exhibited a greater frequency of codable reactions and their reactions were more intense at peak. Such relationships were general in nature rather than valence-specific and they were unique to attention to emotion relative to emotional clarity. The results contribute to several literatures and are discussed with respect to theories emphasising the potential benefits of emotion-related awareness and flexibility.

There is an ongoing debate on the migration of doctors, especially psychiatrists, from developing countries. It is argued that these countries, which are already running short of psychiatrists, will further be jeopardised and their health systems will collapse if this migration and subsequent recruitment continue. In this paper the author presents a personal view of the ethics and human rights of this matter. He emphasises the importance of migration of doctors in view of the current situation in developing countries and advises that the Commonwealth Code be followed to address the problem of the shortage of psychiatrists in developing countries and psychiatrists’ basic right to avail themselves of the opportunities in the developed world