Three perspectives on addiction

Three perspectives on addiction promulgated during the 1990s are reviewed, along with many earlier contributions to the understanding of addictive illness. It is suggested that these distinct yet overlapping formulations of the dynamics of addiction form a hierarchy for each patient suffering from an addiction. Assessment of a patient's ego strength, and of the relative importance of addictive behaviors in overall character structure, allows referral to various types of treatment, including psychoanalytic therapy. Case examples are presented, including material from the psychoanalysis of a woman addicted to heroin, methadone, cocaine, amphetamines, nicotine, alcohol, and shopping.     

Competing perspectives on deviance

This paper presents an assessment of the theoretical conflicts and debates within the sociology of deviance over the past two decades. It delineates the epistemological and theoretical confusion that currently characterize the field, and points out some of the dangers that this factionalization entails.     

Scientific perspectives on rebirth

This paper is concerned with the way in which monistic ?aiva ideas about the body relate to religious practices. For the ?aiva monist, the body is both identical with the pure consciousness of ?iva and is a result of the projection of his consciousness as the hierarchical cosmos. This paper examines how these ideas are reflected in ?aiva religious practices focused on the body, which intend to realize the body as divine. In this connection ?aiva visionary yoga and the transformation of emotion and instinct are considered. But perhaps the most striking and controversial use of the body is in the practices of the esoteric ?aiva liturgy, which uses desire as a means of expanding consciousness beyond the limits prescribed by vedic orthodoxy.     

Integrative perspectives on acculturation

Comments on the original article, "Rethinking the concept of acculturation: Implications for theory and research," by S. J. Schwartz, J. B. Unger, B. L. Zamboanga, and J. Szapocznik (see record 2010-08987-001). Schwartz et al are to be commended for their attempts "to propose an expanded, multidimensional model of acculturation and of the demographic and contextual forces that can influence the acculturation process" (p. 238). In their article, they called attention to key factors such as the generational status of immigrants and their children; the role of location, particularly in ethnic enclaves; and the context of reception that immigrants enter, including the potential discrimination they may face. These variables are the crucial backdrop for the authors' call to "focus on the higher order construct of receiving-culture acquisition as well as on the individual dimensions of this higher order construct-practices, values, and identifications" (p. 246). As a sociologist trained in social psychology, I am pleased by their incorporation of some of the sociological literature on these processes. However, I was surprised by important gaps in their discussion of Portes and Rumbaut's (1996, 2006) work and by their neglect of one of the most widely used terms employed by sociologists to hypothesize outcomes for the very questions Schwartz et al were posing.     

Multicultural perspectives on suicide

Cultural differences exist as to suicide rates, suicide attempts, suicide attitudes such as acceptability, and appropriate treatment of suicide. Although suicide has been studied cross-nationally to highlight cross-cultural differences, the nuances of suicide among racioethnic groups within the United States have been at times been overlooked. The present article discusses suicide among the four (African American, Hispanic American, Native American, Asian American) most populous minority sociopolitical groups in the United States, and makes culture-specific recommendations for treatment and research.     

Eschatological perspectives on aging

Focus is on the reality of aging as the concrete expression of our common human experience of ourselves as temporal beings. The analysis appeals to resources from a philosophical interpretation of temporality and a Christian theological interpretation of the central symbols of eschatology. Both resources provide positive approaches and clarifications of that aging process. Three eschatological symbol systems are noted: the traditional (past-orientation); the prophetic (present-orientation) and the apocalyptic (future-orientation). Each is analyzed as articulating a distinct authentic possibility for a person or a culture involved in the aging process. Symbols help orientate us in a positive way toward the process of aging.     

Neuropsychological perspectives on delinquency

Neuropsychological studies of delinquents have revealed characteristic deficits in skills that require verbal mediation, conceptual integration, impulse control, anticipation of consequences of actions, and the utilization of feedback from behavior to modify maladaptive response patterns. Formulations of this impairment pattern in terms of frontal lobe and left hemisphere dysfunction are reviewed. The role of verbal mediation in the development of a stable personality and the capacity for self-control is discussed. It is proposed that the neuropsychodynamic profile of the delinquent is dominated by an inability to form a self-referential conceptual classification system and that this predisposes to behavioral disinhibition under conditions of stress or interpersonal conflict. The relationship between language development, moral cognition, and social behavior is examined and therapeutic and dispositional implications are discussed. Finally, the general role of neuropsychological models in personality and social theory is addressed.     

马克思主义无神论研究的力作——推介田心铭教授新著《马克思主义与无神论研究》

《马克思主义与无神论研究》是田心铭教授最新出版的专题论文集。该著围绕“马克思主义与无神论研究”这一主题,收入了作者近十年来发表的27篇文章,涉及马克思主义无神论的历史发展和基本原理,澄清了围绕无神论的种种错误或模糊观点,提出了共产党员要坚持和宣传马克思主义无神论。该著的鲜明特点是直面问题、解疑释惑,体现了作者提倡的坚持问题导向和矛盾分析的方法,反映了作者敏锐的问题意识和深厚的马克思主义理论学养。     

深入研究马克思主义宗教观

当今世界,宗教在国际国内社会的影响力日益上升,正确认识和对待宗教问题,比以往任何时候都更加重要和紧迫。马克思主义宗教观是建立在现代自然科学、社会科学和思维科学基础之上的科学宗教观,是我们观察宗教问题的锐利思想武器、开展宗教工作的根本指导思想、搞好宗教研究的基本科学方法。当前,我们必须全面、深刻地理解马克思主义宗教观的精神实质,把握其历史唯物的基本原则、科学辩证的基本方法和与时俱进的理论品质,积极推进马克思主义宗教观中国化、时代化、大众化。     

Historical perspectives on near-death phenomena

The authors present an introductory overview of the history of near-death phenomena, followed by a synopsis of near-death research representative of three historical eras: 1880s–1930; 1930s–1960; and 1960 to the present.     

Clinical perspectives on self psychology

With the help of several clinical vignettes from the literature, the clinical consequences of the theoretical system of self psychology are examined. In that system pathogenic primacy is given to failures in parental empathy, leading to the technical requirement of providing empathic responses which build a cohesive self through transmuting internalizations. Efforts to extend the application of self psychology to include the psychoneuroses lead to an interactional reparative therapy that compromises interpretation of transference and resistance. Therapeutic change resulting from this approach is seen as essentially different from the processes and transformations set in motion by classical analysis.