The effects of a mental skills package on ‘repeatable good performance’ in cricketers

Objectives: To examine the efficacy of a mental skills package to both improve consistency and level of performance in cricketers, and to investigate the influence of different performance measures on cricketing performance.Method: Semi-professional cricketers (n=16) were matched into experimental and control groups. Cricketing performance was monitored subjectively and objectively across two seasons. Prior to the second season, the experimental group were provided with an intervention package consisting of goal-setting, activation regulation, self-talk, mental imagery and concentration.Results: Data from two, two-way multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) indicated that cricketers in the experimental group experienced improved performance consistency and improved performance when using subjective scoring procedures, but only a performance improvement was recorded using objective measures. Subsequent single-case analysis applied to the data of four of the experimental participants also revealed support for the efficacy of the intervention.Conclusions: A mental skill package was seen to be beneficial to enhance performance consistency and actual levels of performance. In view of these findings, practitioners and coaches may wish to consider both objective and subjective scoring measures to improve the sensitivity of performance indicators.     

The transvestite ‘double image’: a preliminary report

Transvestites completed Eysenck Personality Questionnaires whilst functioning as males and also whilst cross-dressed and in their female role. It was found that, in assuming that female role, subjects scored significantly lower on neuroticism and, to a lesser extent, higher on extraversion and lower on psychoticism. It is thought that when expressing his female personality the transvestite is able to reduce the anxiety and shyness which seems common to his kind.     

The ‘I’ and the ‘Me’ in self-referential awareness: a neurocognitive hypothesis

The nature of the ‘self’ and self-referential awareness has been one of the most debated issues in philosophy, psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Understanding the neurocognitive bases of self-related representation and processing is also crucial to research on the neural correlates of consciousness. The distinction between an ‘I’, corresponding to a subjective sense of the self as a thinker and causal agent, and a ‘Me’, as the objective sense of the self with the unique and identifiable features constituting one’s self-image or self-concept, suggested by William James, has been re-elaborated by authors from different theoretical perspectives. In this article, empirical studies and theories about the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’ in cognition and self-related awareness are reviewed, including the relationships between self and perception, self and memory, the development of the self, self-referential stimulus processing, as well as related neuroimaging studies. Subsequently, the relations between self and different aspects of consciousness are considered. On the basis of the reviewed literature and with reference to Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, a neurocognitive hypothesis is formulated about ‘I’-related and ‘Me’-related self-referential awareness. This hypothesis is extended to metacognitive awareness and a form of non-transitive consciousness, characteristic of meditation experiences and studies, with particular reference to the notion of mindfulness and other Buddhist constructs.     

The Quest for ‘A Common Word’: Initial Christian Responses to a Muslim Initiative

To a world experiencing heightened suspicion and distrust between Christians and Muslims, a call for dialogue and understanding between the two faiths may seem a welcome event. Such a call was issued in October of 2007 when 138 Muslims from around the world sent an invitation to Christian leaders to cease their mutual fear and diatribe, find some measure of theological common ground, and work together for world peace. What motivated such an initiative, and how has it been received? In this essay we will examine some of the reasons for the call, the content of the invitation, and the kinds of responses given by Christian individuals, denominations and communities.     

‘Journey in the world of professions and work’: A career intervention for children

A structured ten-unit training was devised to stimulate some career adaptability resources such as optimism and hope toward the future, curiosity, career exploration, and occupational knowledge in children. Ten classes, for a total of 154 children (79 boys and 75 girls) with a mean age of 10.65 years (SD = 1.24), were randomly assigned to either the experimental, who was the focus of the intervention, or control group. At post-test the experimental group held significantly more hope, optimism, curiosity, career exploration, occupational knowledge, information, planning, and time perspective than the control group. The pattern of effect sizes strengthens the idea that the training enhanced experimental participants’ some career adaptability resources.     

Career transitions and career success in the ‘new’ career era

The ‘new’ career, most notably the boundaryless career, is associated with high career mobility, which is in turn associated with employability and career success of individuals. The current study examined how frequency, form (organisational, horizontal or vertical) and impact (objective career success) of career transitions have changed across two cohorts of Austrian business graduates (1970 and 1990) throughout the first 15 years of their careers (n = 291). Data for the study were collected by way of standardised questionnaires; participants' career transitions (n = 807) were plotted based on curriculum-vitae type lists of their successive jobs. This research examined two assumptions: (1) that careers have become more turbulent and complex and (2) that this is generally a positive evolution for individuals. Results indicate that overly dramatic claims about the ‘death’ of the traditional-organisational career need to be reconsidered.     

Psychological mobility and career success in the ‘New’ career climate

We examined the influence of two types of psychological mobility, i.e. boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference, on career success. We hypothesized that this relationship would be partially mediated by physical mobility. In addition, we expected the direction of the influence to depend on the type of psychological mobility. We tested our hypotheses using data of 357 business alumni. Results showed that a boundaryless mindset related positively to wage and promotions, while organizational mobility preference led to less promotions, lower job satisfaction and lower career satisfaction. The relationship between boundaryless mindset and career success was partially mediated by functional mobility whereas organizational mobility preference impacted career success via organizational mobility. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Automaticity: a new framework for dyslexia research?

The performance of a group of 23 13-year-old dyslexic children was compared with that of same-age controls on a battery of tests of motor balance. A dual-task paradigm was used--subjects performed each test twice, once as a single task, and once as a dual task concurrently with a secondary task. Two alternative secondary tasks were used, the classic counting-backwards task and an auditory choice reaction task. Both secondary tasks were calibrated for each subject to ensure that their performance on the secondary task alone fell between pre-specified performance criteria. In all single-task conditions there was no difference between the performance of the two groups. By contrast, in 19 out of the 20 tests performed under dual-task conditions, the dyslexic group were significantly impaired, whereas the controls showed no impairment, thus resulting in significantly better performance by the control group than the dyslexic group. The sole exception was that the dyslexic children were not impaired on the easiest balance condition with the choice reaction task. Under the dual-task conditions the dyslexic children also performed worse than the controls on the secondary task. It is very hard to accommodate the findings within the traditional framework of a deficit specific to lexical skills. One plausible explanation of the results is that, unlike the controls, the dyslexic children need to invest significant conscious resources for monitoring balance, and thus their performance is adversely affected by any secondary task which serves to distract attention from the primary task. This need for "conscious compensation" suggests that for dyslexic children the skill of motor balance is poorly automatized. It is possible, therefore, that many of the reading deficits of dyslexic children are merely symptoms of a more general learning deficit--the failure to fully automatize skills.     

Critical incident sparks critical incident sparks critical incident: an ‘aresolutionist’ method

In this article the authors propose a concept of aresolutionism and outline an aresolutionist method/ology which emerged from reflective practice research. This research was prompted by an event that occurred during a tutorial and the outlined methodology is illustrated by an account of subsequent events and processes. The authors draw on poststructuralist theorizing and methods such as writing as inquiry to counter the resolutionism that permeates dominant approaches to research and reflective practice. In their own research, the authors’ aim shifted from solving a pedagogic problem to analyzing the event as a complex assemblage and exploring the discourses that circled their discussions about the event. A problem to solve had become an object of curiosity.     

The ‘Platforms’ for Comparing Incommensurable Taxonomies: A Cognitive-Historical Analysis

This paper examines taxonomy comparison from a cognitive perspective. Arguments are developed by drawing on the results of cognitive psychology, which reveal the cognitive mechanisms behind the practice of taxonomy comparison. The taxonomic change in 19th-century ornithology is also used to uncover the historical practice that ornithologists employed in the revision of the classification of birds. On the basis of cognitive and historical analyses, I argue that incommensurable taxonomies can be compared rationally. Using a frame model to represent taxonomy, I show how rational comparisons were achieved in the historical case through compatible contrast sets and attribute lists. Through analyzing the cognitive processes of classification and concept representation, I further explain how rival taxonomies in the historical case could be rationally compared on ‘platforms’ rooted in such cognitive mechanisms as relational assumptions and preferences for body parts in conceptual processing. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The ‘Conditional Position Problem’ for epistemic externalism

Synthese - In this paper, I develop a problem I call the “Conditional Position Problem” that arises for Ernest Sosa’s externalist epistemology. The problem is that, due to a...     

‘Coordinative definition’ and Reichenbach''s semantic framework: A reassessment

My greatest debt is to Prof. Hilary Putnam, without whose inspiration and encouragement this paper would not have been written. Thanks are also due to Prof. Michael Friedman for detailed and helpful comments on an earlier version, and to two anonymous referees. This paper is based in part on research conducted while supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.     

Jurors’ perception of violence: A framework for inquiry

The impact that the perceived violence of a crime has on jury decision making has received much controversy lately. Violence may affect juries by how it is presented, as in the case of graphic evidence; its evidentiary purpose, as in establishing a history of violence in domestic abuse cases; and in sentencing, when the question of the heinousness of the crime is raised. Many judicial experts argue that evidence of violence may prejudice juries’ verdicts. There is also concern within the legal community that what constitutes a heinous crime cannot be objectively determined. Psychological research has only just begun to explore these issues. This paper reviews the current legal state of these issues, the arguments and questions that have been raised within the legal community, and the empirical research that has been conducted thus far. The paper concludes with directions for future research that would improve our understanding of how jurors’ perception of violence affects their decisions.     

Revisiting ‘What works for whom?’: A qualitative framework for evaluating clinical effectiveness in child psychotherapy

This paper describes a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of child psychotherapy used by child psychotherapists in an inner city Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). The Hopes and Expectations for Treatment Approach (HETA) involves using the assessment for psychotherapy that normally precedes treatment to derive a baseline from which to generate a set of hopes/expectations as regards the effects of the treatment on the part of parents and the psychotherapist, to be revisited one year after the start of the psychotherapy and/or at its completion. The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, for parents and schools, was also administered before and after the treatment. The characteristics of the first 30 children referred for psychotherapy over a particular time period are described. Of the first 15 children in this group to complete one year of individual psychotherapy, all showed change or significant change in the areas concerning parents' and therapists' hopes at the end-of-year review, as rated by parents and psychotherapists. A case of a child with conduct disorder is used to describe how the assessment generated a psychoanalytic formulation, how the therapist's understanding was fed back to the parents, and how the parents' and therapist's hopes and expectations were derived and recorded. This case illustrates powerfully the impact of trauma in the parents' backgrounds on the internal world of the child, and how the method provides a useful bridge between parent and child work. Feedback from the psychotherapists, the parents and the referrers using the framework is reviewed, and in conclusion the paper argues for the framework's value in promoting good practice in the treatment and management of complex cases and in enhancing awareness of the nature and scope of the psychotherapy process.     

The ‘workshy’

Abstract

This article is an attempt to apply the Kleinian ‘positions’ to long-term unemployment and to use them to suggest an alternative to punitive concepts such as ‘workshy’, while discussing the paradox in which a sincere attempt to find work exists alongside behaviour which seems designed to sabotage it. Such sabotaging behaviour not only offers secondary gains but affords channels for projections which mitigate unresolved aggression. While effective in coping with long-term unemployment, these mechanisms inhibit development and ‘benign cycles’ are gridlocked. Change and growth are seen as threats and aggression cannot be worked through and must be projected. Persecutory anxieties and a lack of enrichment by ‘otherness’ results and is reinforced by the reality of chronic unemployment. No opportunity for reparative work exists, so ‘concern’ and a sense of responsibility are inhibited. Narcissistic omnipotence and grandiosity is a feature. Long-term unemployment and homelessness show similar revolving door patterns connected to similar coping mechanisms.     

Finding a ‘Normal’ Woman: Selection Processes for Board Membership

The higher the organization level, the lower the percentage of women in governance. The purpose of the present study was to explore how men and women negotiate women’s ‘fit’ as candidates for boards of national sport organizations. We based our analysis on in- depth interviews with male chairs and female board members. The results provide evidence that men can control boards by affirming and negating affirmative action policies and by framing the process of recruitment and selection in such a way as to reproduce the male-dominated culture in the board. Women, in their turn, tend to negotiate their entry by distancing themselves from their gender and proving their ‘fit.’     

Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The ‘Fasting Body’ and the Hunger for Pure Immanence

This article will explore the ‘return of the repressed’ of secular materialism, in the form of ‘mutant spiritualities’, with a particular focus on the significance of the fasting body, once an accepted product of ascetic spiritual practice, and now cultivated by those seeking a range of experiences; including the anorexic, the model or celebrity trading in beauty and elegance, and those in search of a new age spiritual enlightenment. I argue that further exploration of the range of contexts in which the fasting body is cultivated reveal that what is desired is a lost experience of the body as an expanded field of energetic confluences, an assemblage of affects in the manner of Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘body without organs’. Such an experience of the body is termed as expanded, light and even ecstatic by those following fasting regimes, in that it overcomes the experience of the body as ‘heavy’, burdensome or limiting. The word ecstasy derives from the Greek ‘ekstasis’, meaning to stand outside oneself. Through a textual analysis of web content of cyber communities dedicated to these food practices, I suggest that fasting expresses a hunger for ‘self transcendence’ as pure immanence, that is both subversive of secular materialism and limited by narcissistic pathology.Jo Nash, PGDip Ed, PhD (Psychotherapy Studies), MA., BA (Hons) has taught on the Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Sheffield since 1998 and became Course Director in October 2001. Before becoming an academic she worked in mental health services for over 15 years as a student nurse, social worker, advocate, trainer and researcher. She is currently working on a series of essays on the application of psychodynamic theory to the study of social processes, in relation to new spiritualities, religion and political processes, and gender and mental health. Correspondence to Dr Jo Nash, Mental Health Section, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield. Regent Court, 30 Regent Place, Sheffield, UK: S1 4DA. J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk She can be contacted by email at J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk     

‘The experiencing of experience’: a Pragmatic reassessment of Rogerian Phenomenology

This paper draws on a study that asked twenty family users about their first session of family therapy. Analyses of the interviews indicated that families entered therapy with a pre-existent knowledge about therapy, which did not always chime with those of professionals and which positioned speakers in ways which governed their expectations and perceptions of therapy. This paper, therefore, is concerned with the acquisition and deployment of knowledge: specifically, the knowledge involved in being a user of family therapy. Three key discourses were identified through this analysis: medical, counselling and consumerist. We aim to illustrate how these discourses served as a resource for members of the family in constructing therapists, therapy and themselves in relation to their experience. The examination of the rhetorical, ideological and practical effects of the positions chosen and the objects constructed, in terms of how speakers wanted to present themselves, with what enhanced or diminished status as patients, shows users actively engaging with the power of therapeutic institutions. Users’ accounts suggest that while most speakers felt anxious about the prospect of therapy, there were clear differences in overall satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the experience according to the synchrony between speakers’ construction of the therapist, and themselves as client/patients. Those who seemed to take a traditional view of therapy within a medical discourse valued therapists who offered diagnosis and a cure; those who sought and experienced a counselling relationship with the therapist found their experience to be constructive in terms of enhanced self-knowledge. We believe that the research findings discussed in this paper have implications for family therapists in accommodating to parental and child positions to maximise the effectiveness of therapy and so minimise drop-out.