Who Wants these Stories? Reflections on Ethical Implications of the Re-publication of a Missionary Work

This paper discusses ethics in the context of Aboriginal Studies. Taking the example of a late-nineteenth century missionary work, a collection of out-of-print Mi’kmaq stories, it examines the ethical implications of the potential re-publication of such a text. It is argued that the Baptist missionary Silas T. Rand, who translated and transcribed the narratives, did his work from a Eurocentric perspective. The biases of a colonial ideology built into his translations/interpretations which are often quoted as authoritative would be further perpetuated if his work is republished without critical commentary. As Aboriginal oral traditions generally form the basis of Aboriginal cultures and contemporary Aboriginal literatures but have been demeaned for centuries thereby further colonizing the peoples, an edition of Rand’s work informed by a postcolonial ethics is crucial. The paper therefore concludes with the suggestion that the stories collected by the missionary should be repatriated in the respective Mi’kmaq communities in a way that the people can decide how to go about their publication (if they want them published at all). A non-Aboriginal scholar may facilitate the process but should follow the directions of the communities.     

Evaluation of the effects a caregiver training programme has on the cognitive and functional maintenance of the elderly / Valoración de los efectos de un programa de formación de cuidadores sobre el mantenimiento cognitivo y funcional de ancianos

Abstract

With the increase in the elderly population comes a need to ensure they remain cognitively and functionally stable for as long as possible. Achieving this through a caregiver training programme based on the Person Centred Care (PCC) approach has been suggested. On this basis, the purpose of this study has been to evaluate the effectiveness of a caregiver training programme on the cognitive and functional maintenance of the elderly. The study sample comprised 56 elderly people and 14 caregivers, who were assessed using the MMSE, Clifton, Barthel, EuroQol, RMBPC (elderly) and SSFQ (caregivers) measurement scales. The results at intergroup level show significant differences in the pre-treatment assessment: the control group had higher scores for MMSE, Barthel, EuroQol and RMPBC scales, but that difference disappeared as scores for the treatment group increased. At an intragroup level, increases in scores were observed in the MMSE, Clifton and EuroQol scales for the treatment group and decreases in the Clifton, EuroQol and Barthel scales for the control group. From these results we can conclude that a caregiver training programme based on a PCC approach produces cognitive and functional benefits in the elderly. In addition, caregivers in the treatment group felt more competent, confident and satisfied with their work.     

Goldfish (Carassius auratus) matching geometric and featural cues: a reinterpretation of some of the data of Vargas, López, Salas, and Thinus-Blanc (2004)

Vargas, López, Salas, and Thinus-Blanc showed that goldfish (Carassius auratus) can use both geometric and featural cues in relocating a target corner in a rectangular enclosure. When featural cues (arrangement of striped walls) were put in conflict with geometric cues, results differed according to target location during training. Vargas, López, et al. explained the results of their cue conflict in terms of 2 different strategies: mapping and cue guidance. I provide an alternative, more parsimonious interpretation in which the same strategy of attempting to match as many cues as possible applies to both cases.     

Traveling Through the Unthinkable and the Nameless: Discussion of Gómez and Kovalskys

In this response to the paper “Reencounter With History Through a Therapeutic Process” written by Elena Gómez and Juana Kovalskys, I comment in some aspects that are to be addressed while working with patients traumatized by social and political violence. I started by reflecting the inevitability of facing horror and death in the experience of remembering the foreclosed experience of trauma and the need and effects of working from the personal; how the personal wrecked history is interweaved with the ruptures of the big History, and how trauma is stablished not only from the violence of a single human over another, but by the catastrophic lose of the social bond. I conclude by commenting around the place of words in the field of the unthinkable and the nameless experiences.     

Bergson & Lévinas on the Genealogy of Mind

This paper presents the influence that Bergson’s theory of subjectivity had on Lévinas. We start by examining Bergson’s “centripetal theory of mind.” Considering the relationship between perception and action, Bergson develops an understanding of subjectivity as a process that unifies disparate perceptions. Guided by the body, this unifying principle is deemed affective. This being done, we then present a contradiction in Bergson’s thinking: While humans are described as different in kind from other animals, the framework used to determine the nature of their world remains unchanged. Bergson never fully embraced the centripetal theory. We then turn to Lévinas and compare his critiques of Bergson and Heidegger. Lévinas believes that both instrumentalize desire, and that a philosophy of subjectivity can only escape this problem by radically embracing the affective nature of Bergson’s centripetal theory. The latter accounts for the place of Lévinas’ phenomenology of enjoyment.     

The Religious Psychology of Mestizaje: Gómez Suárez de Figueroa or Garcilaso Inca de la Vega

Contrary to airtight notions of identity, this article argues that the construction of identity of peoples is far more complex and cannot be conceived separately from the sociocultural, religious and psychological dimensions of life. Using the example of the 16th century Peruvian writer Garcilaso de la Vega, I highlight the way in which the adoption of Catholic Christianity helped him resolve his internal psychological and existential identity conflict. By redefining the label of mestizaje and mestizo de la Vega reclaimed his dual ethnocultural identity, and began the painstaking job of carving a social space for people of mixed descent. He provides an alternative for framing the complex process of identity construction, and the central role of religion in it.     

Head or tail? de morgan on the bounds of traditional logic

This paper is concerned with De Morgan’s explanation of the validity of arguments that involve relational notions. It discusses De Morgan’s expansion of traditional logic aimed at accommodating those inferences, and makes the point that his endeavour is not successful in that the rules that made up his new logic are not sound. Nevertheless, the most important scholarly work on De Morgan’s logic, and contrary to that De Morgan’s mistake is not beyond repair. The rules that determine his new logic are in fact monotonie replacement rules. And provided they are restricted in the correct way, these rules are demonstrably sound     

How Therapy With Victims of Political Trauma Repairs the Third—Commentary on Gómez and Kovalskys’s Work in the Context of Postdictatorship Chile

In this discussion I use the concept of the moral Third to designate the position in which we experience the world as lawful because repair is possible. Repair takes place through acknowledgment of harming and consequent suffering. This form of acknowledgment, coupled with social recognition, is considered by the authors to be a crucial part of the therapeutic work with victims of collective trauma, especially of torture by the Pinochet security police. In relation to Gómez’s case, I discuss how the moral Third, the representation of a lawful world, is shattered by attacks on the victim’s family. Further, the witnessing function is reversed and perverted in torture, where the torturer presents a blank face and denies the very suffering he is inducing. The experience of betrayal becomes the core issue which the therapist seeks to address through the attachment relationship itself. In relation to Kovalskys’ case I consider how the moral Third of the activists, the belief in the possibility of a world in which all can live, is attacked in order to affirm the paranoid view that “only one can live.” The lived experience of this traumatizing attack is that the child becomes imbued with the sense of not deserving life, of having gained life at the expense of the other. Helping the patient to testify publicly to her personal history and truth becomes part of the healing process in the context of collective trauma.     

Reading the writing on the wall: a textual analysis of Łódź graffiti

Abstract

This article traces the history of the involvement of the American Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) with Russian-language publishing from its beginnings to the end of the twentieth century. During the period between the two world wars this was the primary source of Russian Orthodox theological and philosophical literature. In addition, it served as a catalyst for ferment within Orthodoxy by providing a forum for heated debate, especially in the pages of Put’, a unique interdisciplinary journal of Christian thought. The unique role of the YMCA Press in the Russian emigration has been noted in a variety of studies. However, such evaluations usually do not pay attention to the original Protestant leadership of this remarkable Orthodox publishing house, the political impact of its avowedly non-political efforts, and the recent activities of the YMCA Press in Russia and Ukraine after the end of communism. The Press played a major role in preserving an important aspect of prerevolutionary Russian culture in Western Europe during the Soviet period until the repatriation of this culture following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In this way, the Press contributed to the expansion and enrichment of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

This publishing house for all these years has been giving to Russians living in Russia the real bread of life. … I really have to testify that the hunger for books is really a much greater hunger than the hunger for food. … The greatest help that we can receive is precisely the kind of help that was given to us by Paul Anderson. (Anderson, n.d.a, preface)     

Validation of a Spanish version of the Muscle Appearance Satisfaction Scale: Escala de Satisfacción Muscular

The psychometric properties of a Spanish version of the Muscle Appearance Satisfaction Scale (MASS; Mayville, Williamson, White, Netemeyer, & Drab, 2002) were examined using a sample of five hundred and sixty-one male weightlifters. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the 19-item Spanish version of the MASS called the Escala de Satisfacción Muscular (ESM), was represented by five subscales similar to the original MASS. Internal consistency of the measure was good (α=.86-.95), and various measures of construct validity indicated that the ESM may be a useful measure of Muscle Dysmorphia symptoms among Spanish speaking populations.     

Receiving the promised blessing: Missionary reflections on ‘Ishmae's (mostly female) descendants‘

The Arabian Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church set out in 1889 to introduce Christianity to the Muslims of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. The Mission failed in its efforts at proselytism, but persevered for 70 years providing medical and educational services. In the process, the Arabian missionaries produced an historical record of culture and society — especially about women — that is unparalleled in any other available sources. These sources are both technical and dispassionate as well as up‐close and highly personal, and are written with a point of view that tells us as much about the missionaries and their changing times as about men, women and society in the villages and towns of the Gulf, Hasa and Najd.     

Neurophysiological characteristics of acts of remembering in the process of positive ageing / Características neurofisiológicas de los actos de recuerdo en el proceso de envejecimiento positivo

Abstract

‘Acts of remembering’ refer to the conscious cognitive process that facilitates recognition of socioculturally relevant events. This study presents an analysis of the differences and similarities between the morphological characteristics and architecture of Event-Related Potentials associated with the visual recognition of cultural events, by comparing a group of older adults (n = 15) with a group of young adults (n = 17). The results show similar modulations in the N1, P2, P300 and N400 components while a differential modulation appears in N200, a component that has been associated with attentional processes. Two ways of interpreting the results are put forward: one suggests that with age come greater difficulties for cognitive processing and the other suggests that older adults have a particular interest in this type of material.     

Argentine validation of the Purpose in Life Test / Validación argentina del Test de Propósito en la Vida

Despite the fact that the Purpose in Life Test developed by James Crumbaugh and Leonard Maholick in the 1960s is considered to be one of the most commonly used measures in positive psychology, there are no validations of it into the Argentine context. This paper aims to assess the psychometric properties of PIL in a sample of 336 university students residing in Buenos Aires. The results suggest that PIL has adequate psychometric properties for the Argentine context. The confirmatory factor analysis presents a good fit of the data as proposed by the authors. These results favour the assessment of psychological well-being in this local context. Future studies should use different samples in order to provide more robust support to the construct.     

C. G. Jung’s Influence on Art Therapy and the Making of the Third

Art therapy and the image are active approaches to address the analytic third, an idea that was mentioned by C. G. Jung in the Psychology of the Transference, but was first experienced by him as described in The Red Book (2009). Jung’s art-making was an impressive lifelong affair that relied upon mixed media, making it reasonable for us to consider Jung as the father of art therapy. Prior to the 1913 publication of Symbols of Transformation, Jung visited America for a second time; on this visit, the Jungian analyst Beatrice Hinkle introduced Jung to the Greenwich crowd. Among the noteworthy artists and activists were Margaret Naumburg and Florence Cane, who later established the field of art therapy in the United States. Despite the tension created from the Freud–Jung split, Naumburg and Cane were deeply influenced by Jung’s theoretical ideas, initially via Hinkle, with whom they analyzed for three years. Requiring a safe passage for the birth of art therapy, Naumburg navigated an independent third way, but drew from many of Jung’s already established ideas to formulate her research and educational approach. Because the historical details surrounding the development of art therapy in America are being stitched back into an art therapy education, Jung’s early clinical insights regarding specific theoretical ideas gain visibility and respect. This overview acknowledges that analytical psychology remains a powerful and integral building block in the field of art therapy and offers relevant resources for theoretical and clinical formulations when working as an art therapist.     

Assessment of learning goals in university students from the perspective of ‘person-situation interaction’: the Situated Goals Questionnaire (SGQ-U) / Evaluación de las metas de aprendizaje en estudiantes universitarios desde la perspectiva de la ‘interacción persona-situación’: el Cuestionario de Metas Situadas (CMS-U)

Academic behaviour takes place in a context in which the nature of class activities and interactions can influence the student’s motivation to learn. So, in order to study this influence, it is necessary to assess not only the personal variables that can motivate academic behaviour, but also the degree to which students are sensitive to different situational or task characteristics. In this case, the interaction person-situation is analysed using a new tool, the ‘situated-goal questionnaire’ for university students. Data of 770 students were analysed using confirmatory techniques, as well as Anova and regression techniques. According to results, the questionnaire has good psychometric characteristics. Besides, they showed the effect of the kinds of situation on the degree to which students declare the pursuit of different goals, as suggested by the person/situation interaction model, as well as the validity of both goals and sensitivity to situations for predicting engagement and self-estimated mean grade.     

Psycholinguistic variables involved in concept recall from the successive presentation of features / Variables psicolingüísticas involucradas en la evocación de conceptos a partir de la presentación de atributos sucesivos

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the psycholinguistic variables of the attributes and concepts involved in the recall of a concept. One hundred and twenty adults (18–40 years old) participated. A lexical recall task was administered by presenting a successive list of defining attributes. Forty concepts from different semantic categories were used. The attributes were obtained empirically from local Semantic Features Production Norms. The influence of the characteristics and attributes of the concepts on the number of participants who accessed the name of the concept and the correct guess trend was analysed. Significant values for Age of Acquisition, Presence of Distinctive Attributes and Presence of Taxonomic Attributes were observed. Results show that concepts which are acquired earliest are more easily recalled; presenting taxonomic categories narrows the search and the presence of distinctive attributes allow differentiating between such concepts within a category.     

Assessment of Basic Family Relationships: Portuguese Validation of the “Cuestionario de Evaluación de las Relaciones Familiares Básicas” (CERFB)

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Clinical intervention with families benefits from the accurate evaluation of family dynamics, requiring the development of assessment instruments that allow...     

The art of ethics as the art of wise life in the concept of Józef Tischner

Studies in East European Thought - The article examines Tischner’s views on the meaning of ethics in human life. Tischner opposes positions that treat ethics as a set of recommendations...