Despite substantial recent interest in walking barefoot and in minimal footwear, little is known about potential differences in walking biomechanics when unshod versus minimally shod. To test the hypothesis that heel impact forces are similar during barefoot and minimally shod walking, we analysed ground reaction forces recorded in both conditions with a pedography platform among indigenous subsistence farmers, the Tarahumara of Mexico, who habitually wear minimal sandals, as well as among urban Americans wearing commercially available minimal sandals. Among both the Tarahumara (n = 35) and Americans (n = 30), impact peaks generated in sandals had significantly (p < 0.05) higher force magnitudes, slower loading rates and larger vertical impulses than during barefoot walking. These kinetic differences were partly due to individuals' significantly greater effective mass when walking in sandals. Our results indicate that, in general, people tread more lightly when walking barefoot than in minimal footwear. Further research is needed to test if the variations in impact peaks generated by walking barefoot or in minimal shoes have consequences for musculoskeletal health.

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The experience of dread, an extreme form of fear that is induced by terror and horror, is seen as manifested in the shapes of a "dreaded self" and a "dreaded state of the self." These representations reflect psychic dangers ranging from a common, feared identification to states of disconnection, desolation, ego dissolution, and nonexistence. It is suggested that life crises and traumatic impingements, informed by developmental and psychic realities, are critical determinants of multiple dreaded self-representations; that disavowal often serves to massively ward off the recognition of the awful; and that these representations serve a preconscious signal function that anticipates the danger of reexperiencing an original terror. Case examples illustrate these points and reflect the utility of the language of dreaded representations in the treatment situation.