The Biomedical Paradigm and the Nobel Prize: Is It Time for a Change?

An examination of the early history of Nobel Committee deliberations, coupled with a survey of discoveries for which prizes have been awarded to date – and, equally revealing, discoveries for which prizes have not been awarded – reveals a pattern. This pattern suggests that Committee members may have internalized the received, biomedical model and conferred awards in accord with the physicalistic premises that ground this model. I consider the prospect of a paradigm change in medical science and the possible repercussions of such a change on the distribution of Nobel prizes within the domain of physiology or medicine. For expository purposes, I contrast a model based on a science of pathophysiology with one based on a science of pathopsychophysiology. I propose a means whereby members might minimize the potentially blinding effects of model-dependence and come to evaluate medical discoveries from an inter-model rather than an exclusively intra-model perspective. By bringing to light questions rarely asked and proposing answers, I seek to open a dialogue and furnish a vehicle by which the putative delimiting effects of model-dependence might be overcome.     

Business Ethics without Philosophers? Evidence for and Implications of the Shift From Applied Philosophers to Business Scholars on the Editorial Boards of Business Ethics Journals

This article considers the relationship between business ethics and philosophy, specifically in relation to the field and persons working in it. The starting point is a grammatical one: business ethics by the rules of grammar belongs to ethics. In terms of academic disciplines, it belongs to applied ethics, which belongs to ethics, which belongs to practical philosophy, which belongs to philosophy. However, in the field of business ethics today one will seldom meet colleagues from philosophy; instead, they will come from business, applying business studies perspectives, approaches, and increasingly quantitative methods. This article provides empirical evidence that today the three top journals with “business ethics” in their titles (and “awarded” a high impact factor) are mostly run (in terms of their editorial boards) by business scholars with PhDs in business. The article compares the three journals today with their inaugural issues and finds that at their inception all three were run by a majority of philosophers. The article discusses six possible explanations for this shift and provides suggestions for how to bring business ethics back to philosophers (and vice versa).     

Personality Psychology: Lexical Approaches, Assessment Methods, and Trait Concepts Reveal Only Half of the Story—Why it is Time for a Paradigm Shift

This article develops a comprehensive philosophy-of-science for personality psychology that goes far beyond the scope of the lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts that currently prevail. One of the field’s most important guiding scientific assumptions, the lexical hypothesis, is analysed from meta-theoretical viewpoints to reveal that it explicitly describes two sets of phenomena that must be clearly differentiated: 1) lexical repertoires and the representations that they encode and 2) the kinds of phenomena that are represented. Thus far, personality psychologists largely explored only the former, but have seriously neglected studying the latter. Meta-theoretical analyses of these different kinds of phenomena and their distinct natures, commonalities, differences, and interrelations reveal that personality psychology’s focus on lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts entails a) erroneous meta-theoretical assumptions about what the phenomena being studied actually are, and thus how they can be analysed and interpreted, b) that contemporary personality psychology is largely based on everyday psychological knowledge, and c) a fundamental circularity in the scientific explanations used in trait psychology. These findings seriously challenge the widespread assumptions about the causal and universal status of the phenomena described by prominent personality models. The current state of knowledge about the lexical hypothesis is reviewed, and implications for personality psychology are discussed. Ten desiderata for future research are outlined to overcome the current paradigmatic fixations that are substantially hampering intellectual innovation and progress in the field.     

Time for Presence?

It is, I think, possible to generate a variation of McTaggart’s (Mind 17:457–474, 1908) paradox that infects all extant versions of presentism. This is not to say that presentism is doomed to failure. There may be ways to modify presentism and I can’t anticipate all such modifications, here. For the purposes of the paper I’ll understand ‘presentism’ to be the view that for all x, x is present (cf. Crisp (2004: 18)). It seems only right that, at a conference devoted to McTaggart’s work on time, we continue to pursue new ways in which his now infamous arguments remain relevant to us today.     

“Reflections on a peach-seed monkey”: Empowering relationships

The focus of this essay is on human relationships, specifically, the empowering potential of those relationships, and, most particularly, on the empowering potential those relationships have for enabling us to discover our respective possibilities. It is argued that we often discover who we are and what we can become as our possibilities are discovered by another and reflected back to us. This empowering potential of human relationships can be helpfully understood as a manifestation of the redemptive role of God in human life.     

A Christian for the Christians, a Muslim for the Muslims? Reflections on a Protestant View of Pastoral Care for all Religions

Whereas in the first half of the 20th century, proclamationwas the focal point of pastoral care in Germany, the 1970s witnessedan embracing of the American pastoral care movement. From thenon, pastoral care was increasingly understood as accompanyingpatients whilst adopting the spiritual dimension. Nowadays,Christian chaplains are encountering an increasing number ofpatients from different religious communities. Various modelshave been proposed to help Protestant chaplains find an authenticform of pastoral care suitable for all religions. Until a clearposition is assumed with regard to Christianity's demands ofabsolutism, however, none of these approaches can be satisfactory.     

Substance Abuse Counselor Certification Requirements: Is It Time for a Change?

The minimum professional training requirements of 32 state certifying bodies for substance abuse counselors were analyzed. Only 14 of the certifying boards included any of the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs core knowledge areas in their training components for Certified Addictions Counselors. Specific training in counseling and drug and alcohol treatment issues also appeared to be minimal. The lack of specific drug and alcohol training brings the quality of preparation for substance abuse counselors into question.     

HPV Vaccine Decision-Making and Acceptance: Does Religion Play a Role?

We conducted a web-based survey among 476 white, Black, and Hispanic parents or caregivers with daughter(s) between the ages of 9–17 to better understand how religion influences HPV vaccine acceptance. Catholic parents were more likely than nonaffiliated parents to have already vaccinated their daughters (vs. being undecided) (OR = 3.26, 95% CI = 1.06, 10.06). Parents with frequent attendance at religious services were more likely than parents who do not attend services to have decided against vaccination (vs. being undecided) (OR = 2.92, 95% CI = 1.25, 6.84). Directions for research and implications for interventions are addressed.     

Reflections on working memory: are the two models complementary?

By means of the theoretical modeling of data from Kemps, De Rammelaere, and Desmet (2000, this issue), the working memory theory of Baddeley and the theory of constructive operators of Pascual-Leone are contrasted and compared. It is concluded that although the theory of constructive operators is complementary with working memory theory (for it explains developmental and individual differences that working memory theory cannot explain), the converse is not true; the theory of constructive operators explains all the data without need of working memory theory.     

Self-analysis: a fool for a patient?

In this paper I first reviewed the scanty publications on the subject of self-analysis. Although it was recommended by Freud as early as 1910 for every analyst, self-analysis turns out to have many pitfalls and to be quite a complicated and controversial procedure. There is no agreement on the proper technique of self-analysis in the literature, nor is there any discussion of the determinants of the particular choice of technique of self-analysis that is employed, nor even of the reasons why some analysts do not engage in it at all. Using clinical data gathered from written material of many years of self-analysis following the termination of a successful training psychoanalysis, I have attempted to elucidate some of the problems posed by this procedure. These problems are in some ways similar to formal psychoanalysis, but are in some ways contingent on the fact that it is basically a different technique. It is a solitary occupation and therefore suffers from the dangers of disintegration into autism, narcissism, and obsessional rumination. There is no living presence of an analyst to serve either as a transference figure or to make interpretations and stimulate the production of material. The identification with the analyst's analyzing function is far from simple in self-analysis because of the complex nature of the various internalizations of the analyst that take place over years of a formal training analysis. Thus, Ticho (1967) is correct when she claimed that self-analysis is a skill that the analysand has to acquire by himself or herself. An important phase of the beginning of self-analysis involves the working through of the separation from the psychoanalyst and the re-evaluation of the analyst and the analytic process. This results in a heightened sense of independence and autonomy, increased cohesion of the self, and maturation--which is manifested by greater autonomous ego functioning, a more mature sense of identity, and continued transformations of narcissism which highly valuable goals, on the basis of the data I have presented, can be approached through the process of self-analysis. Above all this stands the most important goal of self-analysis, the understanding of one's countertransference reactions. This is especially important in the treatment of seriously disturbed patients who become disruptive, and thus get labeled borderline, often as a response to unconscious countertransference manifestations from the analyst which are then experienced in the self-object transference as failures in empathy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Change Blindness: Theory or Paradigm?

The present paper examines a number of recent findings from the induced change blindness literature in an attempt to determine what these findings reveal about the role of attention in perception. The conclusion is drawn that change blindness research reveals that attention is necessary to raise a stimulus to a level of awareness (e.g. verbal report), as has been shown in related literatures, e.g. eye movement, masking, and the attentional blink. Some research possibilities employing the change blindness paradigm are suggested, which may prove useful in future research efforts.     

Touched by Time: Some Critical Reflections on Derrida’s Engagement with Merleau-Ponty in Le Toucher

This essay raises some critical questions about the interpretation that Derrida offers of Merleau-Ponty in his recent book, On Touching: Jean-Luc Nancy, where Derrida implies that the latter’s work remains mired in theological prejudices. As well as defending Merleau-Ponty’s analyses of the senses and inter-subjectivity against such claims, this essay is also concerned to examine Derrida’s transcendental philosophy of time (or philosophy of the contretemps that breaks open time but nonetheless pertains to it) that undergirds and motivates his engagement with various philosophies of touch. In this latter respect, I will argue that Derrida’s philosophy is itself ‘touched’ by time, in the peculiar sense of ‘touched’ that connotes affected and wounded. His work instantiates an ethics of non-presentist time (which is also the transcendental condition for any event of touch) and I ask whether there is reason to look for a different understanding of both time and the transcendental to Derrida’s.

The Role of Religion in Therapy: Time for Psychologists to Have a Little Faith?

The argument has been made that religious and spiritual (R/S) forms of treatment, or R/S adaptations of existing treatments, are an appropriate, culturally sensitive, and potentially efficacious method of intervention when working clinically with religious patients experiencing psychological, behavioral, or physiological dysfunction. The previous articles in this special series describe four such interventions designed for use with patients with particular presenting problems including serious mental illness, cancer, eating disorders, and scrupulosity. This article offers a brief historical presentation on the growth of interest in R/S in clinical psychology and behavioral medicine, with particular attention to the general issue of the role of values in therapy, and includes criticisms of integrating R/S in treatment. The difficulty of appreciating unique R/S perspectives and their relevance for particular clients is emphasized and the question of whether a “true” understanding of R/S beliefs necessarily leads to better health is examined. Each of the four therapies presented in this special series is individually analyzed, and it is clear that they offer sensitive and culturally relevant approaches to treating the various disorders, though areas of potential improvement or possible confusion are highlighted. Finally, the following are deemed essential if R/S-informed therapies are to impact the field and be appropriately introduced with clients: (a) training of future and current practitioners; (b) longitudinal research on R/S; (c) outcome studies of R/S interventions; and (d) adequate funding for the achievement of these goals.