Kabbalah: A Developmental Psychological Model

Kabbalah long has been appreciated for its mystical aspects. What has been less valued are its psychological implications. Almost alone in its formulation of a Jewish theology, Kabbalah has concerned itself with an exploration of the human Self. The Kabbalists claimed that their teachings could provide people with the power to overcome their earthly fears and desires and to summon the inner strength with which to free their souls from those alien forces inherited from nature. The Kabbalistic reality model would supply them with the power to transcend the pull of their earthly natures. In this paper, I explain the Kabbalistic teachings of the Four Worlds, the Five Souls and the Sefirot, and through the use of an original Meta Model Diagram and its Universal Themes I explore the psychological implications of Kabbalah.     

A process recording for evaluating group psychotherapy training methods

This paper discusses an exploratory investigation concerned with the long range questions: How does group psychotherapy help patients? and How can psychiatry residency programs best train residents to treat patients in therapeutic groups? Group psychotherapy has come to be accepted in its own right as a decisive contribution to the study of and relief of emotional disorders. As a component of comprehensive psychiatric services it is indispensable. However, while its clinical value has been demonstrated, its scientific validity has not. A Group Process Inventory has been developed by the author and has been utilized for the past two years by psychiatric residents in recording the process of their therapeutic groups in a teaching hospital mental hygiene clinic. The preliminary use of this recording as a clinical-teaching instrument has proven effective. This inventory is being revised to serve as a research instrument.     

America—Still in the Hero's Grip

Although the United States is clearly still reeling from its current and recent exported wars, it has never gotten close enough to fully witness their actual horror. As a result, the nation's profound identification with the archetypes of the warrior and hero has never undergone a corrective experience. The country's one-sided myth of its own exceptionalism and goodness has created not only an unattainable image to live up to, but also its flip side—a very repressed and ignored shadow, which is liable to pop up in highly unregulated forms. The psychic split this creates is now being played out in a deeply divided nation and the seemingly sudden emergence of a president who carries all the shadow aspects of the hero archetype. The United States is certainly not the only nation with a narrative elevating itself above all others—or that has ended up enthroning its own shadow. But because of its size and power, the consequences are much more damaging. It would serve the United States well to relativize its view of itself, and for it to take a more appropriate place among the nations of this world. However, history shows that this kind of shift does not happen voluntarily; instead it is forced upon a country by its own failure. It remains to be seen if the United States will be able to make the necessary leap in consciousness to avoid following in history's footsteps.     

Validation française de l’Inventaire d’Attitudes Environnementales

IntroductionClimate change has made it necessary to develop valid tools for studying pro-environmental behaviors.ObjectivesThe present study assessed the validity of the French translation of the brief version of Milfont and Duckitt's (2010) Environmental Attitudes Inventory. We chose this scale for its psychometric properties, its ability to predict behaviors, its theoretical foundations, and its use in many countries. In addition to the translation, we tested a shortened, 12-item version of the scale.MethodThree samples were used to study the structure of the IAE, its nomological network, its test–retest fidelity, and its predictive validity.ResultsIAE-24 has similar psychometric properties to the original version, for both one-factor and two-factor models (preservation and utilization dimensions). IAE-12 has satisfactory internal consistency if the one-factor model is used. The nomological network of IAE-24 is not totally identical to the original version. Differences can be ascribed to inconsistencies in the literature and the use of different scales. Both IAE-24 and IAE-12 have very satisfactory predictive validity and test–retest reliability.ConclusionThe French version of the IAE has satisfactory psychometric properties.     

Constructionism versus what?

Constructionism is a theoretical perspective with great potential usefulness for the study of religion. However, the theory is often assumed rather than clarified, and it is often reduced to its extreme relativistic versions. As a result, its value has stagnated even as talk of constructs has proliferated. Constructionism has been portrayed as the other of religion's two realisms: theological and phenomenological. It has been cast in the role of a conveniently discounted counter-position. Constructionist work in the study of religion, by failing to clarify its theoretical basis adequately and by too often accepting the role of antagonist to realism, shares responsibility for this misleading and detrimental characterisation. Lack of due attention to theory has obscured the status and claims of constructionism. This theoretical perspective is not necessarily reductionist or radically relativist, and it is not simply the opposite of realist or sui generis approaches to religion. Constructionism can help us understand how historically and culturally contingent religious phenomena arise from the raw materials of our physical and social worlds.The first two sections of this article present a brief sketch of the development and key characteristics of constructionism, illustrating something of its breadth and variety. In the third section a consideration of constructionism in religious studies demonstrates the need to clarify three key issues. First, constructionist approaches are not necessarily anti-realist and so can be consistent with critical theological or sui generis perspectives. Second, the overwhelming lack of explicitly developed theory has obscured and obstructed the usefulness of constructionism in religious studies. Third, the relationship between constructionism and other theoretical positions needs to be clarified.     

Is Neo‐Republicanism Bad for Women?

The republican revival in political philosophy, political theory, and legal theory has produced an impressive range of novel interpretations of the historical figures of the republican tradition. It has also given rise to a variety of contemporary neo‐republican theories that build on its historical themes. Although there have been some feminist discussions of its historical representatives, neo‐republicanism has not generated a great deal of enthusiasm among feminists. The present paper examines Phillip Pettit's theory of freedom as nondomination in order to assess its potential usefulness for those with feminist goals. It defends Pettit's account of interpersonal domination from certain feminist objections, but argues that his account of state domination needs to be amended if it is fully to protect the interests of women and other groups.     

The Educational Crisis in American Reform Judaism

The American Reform Judaism movement has been undergoing revitalization in all areas of its interaction with its rabbis and laity. One of the concerns it is presently addressing is the condition of its educational programs for its children, teenagers and adults; it is now reevaluating and reformulating these programs to bring in maximum benefits. Assimilation, apathy, and acculteration are three of the thorniest problems with which the Reform movement has had to contend for most of its 200-year history. From recent assimilation and apathy comes endemic intermarriage with non-Jewish spouses, and widespread disinterest in ritual observance and in Judaism itself. Acculturation has brought American Jews strong feelings of wanting to be very much part of the American society, and this acculturation has fanned the flames of apathy. Jews have historically maintained their religious individualism and kept their religious collective body whole through education and knowledge of Judaism. Strong educational programs are absolutely essential in the fight against apathy.     

Projective identification fifty years on: A personal view

Since its introduction by Melanie Klein in 1946 the concept of projective identification has inspired, baffled, rankled, but always mesmerized its adherents and opponents alike. I offer in this paper a brief outline of the concept's development over the past fifty years by way of some thoughts on a personal journey of discovery surrounding its meaning and clinical usefulness to my work as a child therapist. I would like to suggest that definitions in current use seem to be derived more from adult work than from work with children, which has sometimes skewed the debate surrounding the concept in a particular direction. In both its conceptual guises, namely, as an unconscious 'phantasy' and as an interpersonal feature of the transference, projective identification is a logical extension of certain aspects of Klein's work with small children. In child work too the developmental status of the concept comes more into focus.     

Vampires,Desire, Girls and God: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Twilight</Emphasis> and the Spiritualities of Adolescent Girls

Fantasy fiction long has been read for its capacity to narrate religious meanings and themes for young readers. Since its publication in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s young adult series Twilight, in which an adolescent girl falls in love with a vampire, has become a pop culture phenomenon among U.S. teen girls. Although vampires usually represent dangerous desire, rarely have these creatures been treated as spiritually attractive figures. Using feminist perspectives on the psychology of gender and Christian feminist theology, this article offers a critical exploration of Twilight’s constructions of intimate relationships, supernatural masculinities, and girlhood, arguing that Twilight’s girl-appeal stems from its ability to tap into both the sexual and spiritual desires of girls.     

Everything is What it is,and Not Another Thing: Knowledge and Freedom in Isaiah Berlin's Political Thought

Although Isaiah Berlin's critique of positive liberty has achieved canonical status, its place within his wider political philosophy remains obscure. However, the re-publication of one of his most important philosophical essays, From Hope and Fear Set Free, as part of a new edition of Four Essays on Liberty, simply entitled Liberty, has opened the door to a re-evaluation of Berlin's political project.

At the heart of Berlin's argument, which gains its fullest expression in From Hope and Fear Set Free, stands his contention that positive liberty, in its incarnation as self-realisation, conflates liberty with knowledge, which leads to the distortion of our phenomenologically inescapable structure of experience. This transgression against the conceptual framework in terms of which we think, Berlin argues, played its desolate part in linking the ‘totalitarian temptation’ latent in liberty as self-realisation with the totalitarian politics of the mid-twentieth century.     

Catching more than pocket monsters: Pokémon Go's social and psychological effects on players

ABSTRACT

The augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go has reached unprecedented popularity since its release in 2016. The game has received intense media attention, but scientific inquiry into its popularity and the effects of play are in the early stages. Previous work has used secondary data or simple correlational analysis to draw early conclusions. A seven-day diary study was conducted to investigate potential health, psychological, and social outcomes of daily gameplay. Daily time spent playing Pokémon Go was related to higher scores of life satisfaction, vitality, and greater social interactions and conversation with both friends and strangers, but not with increased daily exercise. Increased total gameplay across the week was associated with increased interaction and conversations along with more exercise. Future directions for this unique type of game along with the need for theoretical development for unique style of games are discussed.     

当代心理学发展的一种新取向--进化心理学

进化心理学是近年在西方心理学中出现的一种新的研究取向,目前仍没有一个明确的概念和系统的理论。其基本主张是：过去是理解心理机制的关键;功能分析是理解心理机制的主要途径;心理机制是在解决问题的过程中演化形成的;模块性是心理机制整体组织的特性;人的行为是心理机制和环境互动作用的结果。进化心理学的发展既有意义同时也存在局限。其意义是：其发展与当代科学发展趋势相一致;它的研究促进了对人性和心理的进一步思考。局限是：具有遗传决定论的倾向;方法论存在一定的缺陷,忽视了文化对进化的意义等等。     

Parents' ethnic-racial socialization practices: a review of research and directions for future study

Recently, there has been an emergence of literature on the mechanisms through which parents transmit information, values, and perspectives about ethnicity and race to their children, commonly referred to as racial or ethnic socialization. This literature has sought to document the nature of such socialization, its antecedents in parents' and children's characteristics and experiences, and its consequences for children's well-being and development. In this article, the authors integrate and synthesize what is known about racial and ethnic socialization on the basis of current empirical research, examining studies concerning its nature and frequency; its child, parent, and ecological predictors; and its consequences for children's development, including ethnic identity, self-esteem, coping with discrimination, academic achievement, and psychosocial well-being. The authors also discuss conceptual and methodological limitations of the literature and suggest directions for future research.     

Leibniz Filters Revisited

Leibniz filters play a prominent role in the theory of protoalgebraic logics. In [3] the problem of the definability of Leibniz filters is considered. Here we study the definability of Leibniz filters with parameters. The main result of the paper says that a protoalgebraic logic S has its strong version weakly algebraizable iff it has its Leibniz filters explicitly definable with parameters.     

Immigration and Democratic Principles: On Carens’ Ethics of Immigration

Carens has done more than any other political theorist or philosopher to develop the normative perspective of prospective migrants from within the liberal democratic tradition, but he has not sufficiently engaged with the other side of the argument – in particular, with the value of political community and the principle of collective self‐determination. What is at stake for the immigrant‐receiving country that might justify its claim to control immigration? I first examine Carens’ theory of social membership and its connection to political community. I then discuss his method of ‘political theory from the ground up’ and his interpretation of democratic principles. I conclude with a discussion of the principle of collective self‐determination.     

Creation and Validation of an English-Language Version of the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET)

The measurement of cognitive and emotional empathy, reflecting abilities to understand and to experience or ‘feel’ the emotional states of others, is important for many studies pertaining to clinical conditions as well as normative personality characteristics. The Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET) has been shown to be a useful and efficient instrument for indexing impaired empathy in different diagnostic groups, in particular due to its measurement of both cognitive and emotional components of empathy within the same task set. This makes the MET a valuable means for assessing empathy with implications for conditions such as autism and psychopathy. However, up to this point the MET has only been available in German, and has not been investigated in regard to specific facets of psychopathy. This report describes (a) the translation of the MET into English to allow its use in a wider range of populations, and (b) efforts undertaken to refine the measure itself and evaluate its relationship with distinct facets of psychopathy (i.e., boldness, meanness, disinhibition). As expected, MET emotional empathy showed its strongest association with the meanness component of psychopathy (r?=??.31, p?<?.01). The resulting instrument was then validated in a sample of 80 healthy control subjects, where it showed expected associations with other empathy measures and psychopathic tendencies. Findings also highlighted some issues pertaining to evaluation of scale reliability. Results from this study indicate that this translated version of the MET can serve as an effective tool for assessing emotional and cognitive empathy in English-speaking samples.     

Descartes,Malebranche and Leibniz: conceptions of substance in arguments for the immateriality of the soul

ABSTRACT

The most prominent early modern argument against materialism is to be found in Descartes. Previously I had argued that this argument relies crucially on a robust conception of substance, according to which it has a single principal attribute of which all its other intrinsic qualities are modes. In the present paper I return to this claim. In Section 2, I address a question that is often raised about that conception of substance: its commitment to the idea that a substance has a single such principal attribute. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra and Daniel Garber have argued that this claim relies on Descartes's identification of substance with attribute. But I argue that it relies on his view that a substance has a single, unitary nature. In Section 3, I examine the role of this conception of substance in arguments found in Malebranche and Leibniz and compare these arguments with Descartes's.     

论孝在中国传统社会中的异化

孝是伴随着家庭出现而出现的 ,其自然意义是指对父母的能养与敬事 ,属于私德范畴。自春秋战国以来 ,在以儒家为主的诸多学派对其进行的理论膨胀与实践延伸中 ,发生了愈益深刻的异化。这种异化 ,一方面表现为随着孝的社会化、政治化 ,使其由家庭私德而放大为社会公德与政治道德 ;另一方面 ,则是通过孝的法律化 ,将社会与政治的种种规范注入了作为家庭私德的孝中 ,使其由道德规范发展为法律规范 ,更加远离其本来。孝的这种异化趋势对中国传统社会道德的构建产生了深远影响     

‘The Only Creature God Willed For Its Own Sake’: Anthropocentrism in Laudato Si’ and Gaudium et Spes

The Second Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et Spes stated that man is ‘the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake’. Post-conciliar Catholic teaching on the environment largely reproduced this anthropocentric theology. Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’, however, appears directly to contradict this well-established tradition with its repeated assertions of the intrinsic value of nonhuman life and its critical approach to the term ‘anthropocentrism’. Questioning this putative discontinuity, this article challenges the perception that Laudato Si’ has definitively rejected anthropocentrism. It suggests that the claim for the intrinsic value of nonhuman life, and the traditional assertion that man is the only creature willed for its own sake, can be seen to converge in light of the traditional theological anthropology of the human being as microcosm. On this view, the centrality of the human person in the order of creation is constituted by its gathering up of the sakes of creatures. The distinctive place of the human does not come at the expense of the rest of creation, but rather is the means of creation’s movement towards the unity and harmony to which God calls it. Laudato Si’ is distinguished not by its rejection of anthropocentrism, but by its refusal to set human and nonhuman over against one another. In contrast, the language of ‘intrinsic value’ is criticised for conceiving created value as a zero-sum game, as though human and nonhuman value are in competition with one another; the language of ‘stewardship’ is criticised for its extrinsicist conception of the human being in the natural order.