Our Personal and Professional Lives: Learning Positive Connotation and Circular Questioning

The work of the Center for the Study of the Family in Milan has had wide influence. We describe its influence on us--the positive connotation of many car journeys, our self-training, and changes in how we view, and function in, our personal and professional lives.     

Questioning Feminine Connection

This paper examines Nancy Chodorow's theory of feminine connection and masculine separation in The Reproduction of Mothering. First it demonstrates that, contrary to many feminists’ interpretations, Chodorow's theory does not portray masculine separation as a social problem to which feminine connection is the solution. Then it shows that Chodorow's apparently intended theory is incoherent. Finally, it argues that Chodorow's claims imply another theory that is coherent and that deserves feminists’ attention.     

Nietzsche’s Questioning

Abstract

When Nietzsche is called a radical philosopher, it is (among other reasons) because he claims to call into question what other thinkers take for granted. In the article I concentrate on the way in which Nietzsche asks his questions, and how his questions (and the vocabulary which he uses to express his questions) develop through his writings. The article points out how Nietzsche gradually discovers his guiding question and how this search reaches its climax around 1886. This guiding question turns out to be a practical or existential one: ‘To what extent can truth endure incorporation?’ (FW/GC 110 KSA 3.471).     

Questioning the psychoanalyst's authority

Sources of the trend to question not just the analyst's authority to interpret, but the analyst's use of authority in general, are explored. Out of a wish to circumvent the potentially detrimental effects an analyst's interpretations can have on patients, certain psychoanalysts have modified their analytic techniques with an eye to downplaying the role of their authority. When taken to extremes, this has led analysts to act as if they have little to offer patients in the way of an alternative point of view, and to privilege patients' accounts and interpretations by treating them as if they were objectively true. It is argued that one need not go so far in order to protect patients from the analyst's less than careful use of authority. It is argued further that the judicious use of authority remains an indispensable tool in helping to ready the patient's mind for a consideration of constructs different from those on which the patient has always relied. Finally, becoming comfortable with the aggressive aspect of the use of one's authority may determine the extent to which one is willing to employ one's authority with patients.     

Questioning the social intelligence hypothesis

The social intelligence hypothesis posits that complex cognition and enlarged "executive brains" evolved in response to challenges that are associated with social complexity. This hypothesis has been well supported, but some recent data are inconsistent with its predictions. It is becoming increasingly clear that multiple selective agents, and non-selective constraints, must have acted to shape cognitive abilities in humans and other animals. The task now is to develop a larger theoretical framework that takes into account both inter-specific differences and similarities in cognition. This new framework should facilitate consideration of how selection pressures that are associated with sociality interact with those that are imposed by non-social forms of environmental complexity, and how both types of functional demands interact with phylogenetic and developmental constraints.     

Using Socratic Questioning in Coaching

Socratic questioning, a cornerstone of CBT, is as equally useful in coaching to raise awareness, promote reflection and improve problem-solving thinking. Padesky’s (Socratic questioning: Changing minds or guiding discovery? 1993) bifurcation of Socratic questioning, changing minds versus guiding discovery, is commented upon. The characteristics of good Socratic questions are enumerated, the pitfalls of experienced coaches’ over-reliance on intuition to guide their questioning is discussed and how continuing deliberate practice through, for example, providing the logical basis for sequencing questions can correct this ‘intuition bias’. Socratic questioning is demonstrated in a number of coach–coachee dialogues with accompanying commentary. Finally, it is emphasized that asking good Socratic questions is indispensable to the practice of effective coaching.     

Questioning authority in the psychoanalytic classroom

Psychoanalytic educators today, like their predecessors who trained them, struggle to maintain respect for and make use of candidates' various kinds of professional expertise while offering instruction in "the subject." But unlike their predecessors, today's educators teach in the wake of various challenges to authority and knowledge in recent decades from across the disciplines. Some of the most important work of teaching in this context begins when teachers recognize that they have assumed the position of objectivity in the classroom--that they have closed down the possibilities for open discussion--and figure out (with and in front of their students) what to do next.     

Heidegger and Derrida on the Nature of Questioning: Towards the Rehabilitation of Questioning in Contemporary Philosophy

In this article, the Heidegger and Derrida controversy about the nature of questioning is revisited in order to rehabilitate questioning as an essential characteristic of contemporary philosophy. After exploring Heidegger's characterization of philosophy as questioning and Derrida's criticism of the primacy of questioning, we will evaluate Derrida's criticism and articulate three characteristics of Heidegger's concept of questioning. After our exploration of Heidegger's concept of questioning, we critically evaluate Heidegger's later rejection of questioning. With this, we not only contribute to the discussion about why Heidegger rejected questioning in his later thought and whether this rejection is legitimized, but also to the rehabilitation of questioning in contemporary philosophy.     

Socratic Questioning and Irony in Psychotherapeutic Practices

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - Socratic questioning is employed in therapeutic interventions when the beliefs that clients express are critically evaluated using reason and logic. In this...     

质疑媒体批评"反伪"

首都某报7月22日载文“科学靠证伪而不是反伪向前发展”说:“我国科学界有一股‘反伪’之风:许多富有原则和独创的、或从中国传统文化当中生发出来的、或从现有科学(常识)看来难以理解的理论或假说,一经提出就给扣上‘伪科学’或‘似伪科学’的帽子,打入冷宫,再也不可能获得立项、拨款和其他能够继续研究下去的条件。我觉得这是一种很不正常的情况,不利于我国科学的发展,特别是不利于出创新性的成果。因为科学从来就是靠证伪向前发展的,从来没靠‘反伪’向前发展过。”文章列举了伽利略、哥白尼、布鲁诺、开普勒、麦克尔孙———莫雷、爱因…     

Increasing Deception Detection Accuracy with Strategic Questioning

One explanation for the finding of slightly above‐chance accuracy in detecting deception experiments is limited variance in sender transparency. The current study sought to increase accuracy by increasing variance in sender transparency with strategic interrogative questioning. Participants (total N = 128) observed cheaters and noncheaters who were questioned with either indirect background questions or strategic questioning. Accuracy was significantly below chance (44%) in the background questions condition and substantially above chance (68%) in the strategic interrogative questioning condition. The results suggest that transparency can be increased by strategic question asking and that accuracy rates well above chance are possible even for untrained judges exposed to only brief communications.