Scientific Illustration for a Psychologist!

David A. Sbarra, Ph.D., PLLC

I am a psychological scientist and work at the University of Arizona. I study and write about relationships and health. You can learn more about my work here: http://sbarra.faculty.arizona.edu/

I need a scientific illustration for a paper I am writing on the health correlates of divorce. This is a very specific scientific/medical illustration. My main goal with/for this illustration is to work with someone who can help me create a terrific visualization of our ideas-- one that will help us break-out of the mind-numbing nature of the standard PowerPoint slides we use to explain our ideas visually.

This particular illustration is for a new paper I am writing about the health correlates of divorce.

Here's a link to a draft of this paper:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4i4qxho5u….docx?dl=0

Here's a link to the PowerPoint slide we have referenced as Fig 1:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8mlffao81….pptx?dl=0

As you can see, the figure is awful.

Essentially, this figure is about the "mechanisms" that explain why and how the life event/stressor of divorce might lead to poor health outcomes. In the circle, we have the various processes of interest-- e.g.,
Hostile people (a background individual difference) are more likely to get divorced; divorced adults experience more psychological stress; psychological stress influences, say, inflammation, and inflammation, in turn, influences the development of cardiovascular disease. This is just one pathway, so the visualization will illustrate the multiple paths.

Outside the circle, we have theories that can help us understand a bit more about the specific mechanisms. You can learn about attachment theory a bit here (and in the paper linked above):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

To find out more about social baseline theory, see this paper:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kqmp9mo1d…5.pdf?dl=0

This piece about social baseline theory might be the easiest to digest-- see Sect II, pg 7:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9nw5ldtle….docx?dl=0

Ultimately, as an example, I am looking for something that is closer to Fig 2 in the following:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxi48nagn…S.pdf?dl=0

To learn more about my work in general, check out this paper:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t7iikiurh…3.pdf?dl=0