Welcome to the Making Sense Of: series of projects. These are innovative, cutting-edge inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research forums designed to bring multiple insights and perspectives to bear on the meaning of what it is to be persons.

The main aim of the projects is to examine and explore the impact on our understandings of persons in light of significant experiences and conditions which arise in the course of living in the world. The projects will also seek to begin to assess the implications for our understandings of what it is to be human in relation to other persons, human community, and advances in all areas of technology.

The projects are built around an annual conference which seeks to draw a global audience of people from differing academic disciplines, professions, vocations and organisations to engage in cutting edge dialogue and conversation. The projects are supported via an active publication series, eForum and discussion groups.

For 2005 there will be 5 projects developing a focus on separate yet interlocking areas;

Making Sense Of: Issues at the Beginning of Life will focus on the combined impact of developing technology alongside the culture of progeny at all costs. There will be roughly seven areas of exploration; 1 - technology and pre-birth issues. 2 - pregnancy and rights issues. 3 - the use of human material. 4 - changing concepts of human identity. 5 - issues of human life in the third world and developing countries, e.g., sex ratio. 6 - changing concepts of the person and particularly of the body as machine, body as consumable parts, cosmetic surgery, babies engineered to order. 7 - future agendas for human being - are we choosing our values or are they being imposed on us through the availability of technology? People and organ donation for use after death. Do patients have rights to every possible treatment? Financial and economy considerations, shortage issues, triage etc. Why strive to keep alive? Advantages of the rich?

Making Sense Of: Health Illness and Disease aims to explore the processes by which we attempt to create meaning in health, illness and disease. The project will also examine the models we use to understand our experiences of health and illness (looking particularly at perceptions of the body), and to evaluate the diversity of ways in which we creatively struggle to make sense of such experiences and express ourselves across a range of media.

Making Sense Of: Depress, Stress and Anxiety will identify and explore the rapidly expanding and worryingly increasing conditions of depression, stress and anxiety (DSA) as they affect the way people live and think today. The implications for clinicians, healers, patients and care givers will also be assessed. The project will take as its starting point the view that depression, stress and anxiety are multi-layered phenomena present in all levels and aspects of human living. Understanding these phenomena necessarily involves understanding all the various contexts in which a person lives and works. DSA has components which belong to a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, social group, work place; each component combines to interact with the others.

Making Sense Of: Humour and Healing will explore the creative relationships between humour and healing and examine the implications for clinicians, healers, patients and caregivers. Areas of interest include using humour to promote wellness, healing, quality of life; nursing and humour; humour, care and caregivers; humour, compassion, laughter, tragedy and crisis situations; hostility, anger and humour; the healing power of humour; humour and its integration in the health professions; clowns, comics and other artists as part of healthcare teams; humour as a therapy; humour as a treatment; humour, depression and stress ; humour, pain management and palliative care; the limits of humour in healing.

Making Sense Of: Dying and Death aims to create a forum for examining the links between living and dying, and some of the contradictions and paradoxes which arise that we appear to accept without question. Areas of interest will focus on different kinds of dying and death, the experience of carers and care workers, the changing role of medicine, palliative care, the work of the hospice movement, the work of the funeral industry, and the nature of grief and mourning. Interest will also focus on philosophical, ethical, and legal issues which surround the processes of dying and death, the role of religion, and the diverse range of historical, social, and cultural perspectives and practices.

In building a forum whereby people can meet and encounter perspectives from differing areas and contexts, insights and contributions are sought from

This only an indicative list - all persons with an interest in and who wish to offer an insight into the themes of the project are welcome to become involved.