Experiences of Professional Helping Relations by Persons with Co-occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders.

Recovery in co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders often involves relationships with professional helpers, yet little is known about how these are experienced by service users. The aim of this study was to explore and describe behaviour and attributes of professional helpers that support recovery, as experienced by persons with co-occurring disorders. Within a collaborative approach, in-depth individual interviews with eight persons with lived experience of co-occurring disorders were analysed using systematic text condensation. The analysis yielded four categories of recovery-supporting behaviour and attributes of professional helpers and the ability to build trust cuts across all of them: Building trust through (a) hopefulness and loving concern, (b) commitment, (c) direct honesty and expectation and (d) action and courage. Services should allow for flexibility and continuity, and training should recognise the importance of establishing trust in order to reach out to this group.

Frequency characteristics of far-detuned parametric four-wave mixing in Rb.

We have investigated the frequency characteristics of the coherent 420 nm beam generated via parametric four-wave mixing (FWM). A single, high-power 778 nm laser is directed through a high-density rubidium cell with a detuning of 1 THz from the intermediate state, generating fields at 420 nm and 5.23 µm through FWM. The frequency of the 420 nm light has been found to shift as the excitation laser is tuned. The measured frequency shift ratio of 1.87±0.04 corresponds with the selection of a different velocity class at each excitation frequency, implying that the 5.23 µm beam frequency is correspondingly shifted. The 420 nm light has been tuned over a range of 1 GHz. This parametric FWM process has potential application as a tunable photon source at novel wavelengths.

Parametric four-wave mixing using a single cw laser.

Four-wave mixing can be used to generate coherent output beams, with frequencies difficult to acquire in commercial lasers. Here, a single narrow external cavity diode laser locked to the two photon 5s-5d transition in rubidium is combined with a tapered amplifier system to produce a high power cw beam at 778 nm and used to generate coherent light at 420 nm through parametric four-wave mixing. This process is analyzed in terms of the intensity and frequency of the incoming beam as well as the atomic density of the sample. The efficiency of the process is currently limited when on resonance due to the absorption of the 420 nm beam, and modifications should allow a significant increase in output power.