Working Through Countertransference Blocks in Cultural-Competence Training

The encounter with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds may stir in the practitioners intense counter-transferencial reactions, which if unexplored may obstruct the helping relationships and interventions. This article presents and demonstrates a cultural competence training where such countertransference can be worked through. The training applies a combination of narrative analysis that emphasizes the active participation of the listener in the sense-making process and of the exploration of group processes from a psychoanalytically oriented point of view. Presented are four vignettes that demonstrate different types of countertransference and of the group process.     

Creativity in Science Through Visualization*

ABSTRACT The fact that attempts to gain insight into the creative process have been so unsuccessful suggests that they have overlooked at least one basic ingredient in the process. This ingredient may lie in the way the individual mind goes about remembering and manipulating data. The hypothesis is advanced that the creative persons appear to have stumbled onto and then developed to a high degree of perfection the ability to visualize—almost hallucinate—in the area in which they are creative. And their visualizations seem to be of a sort that lend themselves to easy manipulation in the thinking process. This is illustrated by reports from many of the great inventors of the past and it is easy to demonstrate that individuals differ enormously in the kind and degree of their ability to think in such manipulatable visualizations. If correct, this view of creativity suggests many research attacks and many potential changes in education for creative activity.     

Assessing Working Memory Capacity Through Time-Constrained Elementary Activities

Working memory (WM) capacity measured through complex span tasks is among the best predictors of fluid intelligence (Gf). These tasks usually involve maintaining memoranda while performing complex cognitive activities that require a rather high level of education (e.g., reading comprehension, arithmetic), restricting their range of applicability. Because individual differences in such complex activities are nothing more than the concatenation of small differences in their elementary constituents, complex span tasks involving elementary processes should be as good of predictors of Gf as traditional tasks. The present study showed that two latent variables issued from either traditional or new span tasks involving time-constrained elementary activities were similarly correlated with Gf. Moreover, a model with a single unitary WM factor had a similar fit as a model with two distinct WM factors. Thus, time-constrained elementary activities can be integrated in WM tasks, permitting the assessment of WM in a wider range of populations.     

Working for Well-Being: Uncovering the Protective Benefits of Work Through Mixed Methods Analysis

Previous research mostly defines the benefits of work as the absence of unemployment’s negative outcomes or as benefits to employers, such as increased productivity. This study uses mixed methods to investigate the ways that work can enhance the well-being of the worker. Two hundred and two participants from a rural area participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys. Participants’ qualitative discussions of work in the interviews were coded with grounded theory. The majority (74.8 %) of participants mentioned work at least once during the interview, which focused on prominent moments in their life stories, and 53.3 % of work mentions were positive. Two main themes encompassing the protective benefits of work arose: self-oriented benefits and other-oriented benefits. Each main theme was further divided into three subthemes. Self-oriented subthemes were autonomy, personal development, and empowerment; other-oriented subthemes were providing for dependents, generativity, and helping others. Participants spoke about how each of these benefits enhances their well-being and happiness. The empowerment subtheme was positively correlated with workplace integration and negatively correlated with financial strain. This study uncovered protective benefits of work that have not been addressed by previous scholarship. Qualitative data provided the flexibility to explore work-related domains for which quantitative scales do not currently exist. Work is one of the main activities of most adults, and the study of the psychological benefits of work can improve our understanding of adult well-being and happiness.     

Searching for Sharks and a Second Self

Twenty years ago, Pastoral Psychology published “The Extra Mile—Case History of a Homicide” (Moss, Pastoral Psychology 42:107–136, 1993, p.134). In that autobiographical vignette, I argued that pastoral theology has a responsibility to: “1) articulate contemporary ultimate concerns, 2) clarify healthy avenues for compensation, and 3) tell stories about the hopeful revelations of God’s providence in a broken world” (Moss, Pastoral Psychology 42:107–136, 1993, p.134). This story illustrates all three of these points by recording a psychological fragmentation and restoration resulting from the death of a dear friend—“a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). Aristotle referred to this type of friend as “a second self.” In the Celtic church such a person was anam cara, a Gaelic expression for “soul friend.” A few years ago I lost such a friend to cancer. During my grieving process I created a private tribute from our unfulfilled wish to go on one more adventure together—specifically, a shark hunt. The capture and release of sharks is a unique extreme sport. It is also the vehicle by which I finally resolved my grief: I reunited with my second self by means of an image in the eye of a requiem shark, a reflection of anam cara. The interrelated layers of this occurrence—particularly its coincidences—evidence Providence, as well as provide an example of a “Contact with the Dead Experience” described by Andrew Greeley and myself some 20 years ago in the Journal of Religion and Health (Moss, Journal of Religion and Health 29:261–283, 1990).     

应用计算机技术实现精确测试双手协调性的方法

双手协调性测试是测量个体注意分配经常使用的方法。在同一时间内，把注意分配到两种或两种以上不同的对象与活动上，叫做注意分配。注意的分配品质是完成复杂工作的重要条件。如果一个汽车司机不能同时把注意分配在不同的活动之上，就不能成为一个合格的司机。对于其它许多的职业，注意分配都是一个很重要的个性心理品质。准确地获得个体的个性心理品质特点对于个体选择职业以及在岗位上的贡献都很重要。     

Working Through the Trauma of Sexual Assault in an Undergraduate Class

Processing the trauma of sexual assault is a complicated and often prolonged process that may occur both within and outside a formal psychotherapeutic context. The second author describes an undergraduate class that explores various aspects of sexual assault, followed by a paper written by a female student in which she describes how the class impacted her intellectual understanding of and emotional reactions to her own sexual victimization as a high school student. Finally, the authors discuss the concept of “working through” as it applies to recovery from sexual assault, and they propose that a didactic course experience, even if not designed as a therapeutic enterprise, may nonetheless serve such a function.     

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Through the Sermon

Abstract :  The purpose of this article is to give thought to the listener as co-creator of meaning with the preacher during the sermon event. The underlying conviction of the author is that preachers and listeners have always been co-creators but have not been recognized as such. The author sketches the history of the task of preaching as a movement from getting something said to getting something heard , and suggests that, building on this, preaching can now be viewed as getting something created . Finally, the qualities of humility, imagination , and a "catalytic consciousness" are seen as essential for any preacher willing to take up this task.