‘I love you’. How to understand love in couple therapy? Exploring love in context

Acknowledging the place of love in couple therapy requires therapists to reflect upon what love means to them. We propose that love defines the couple relationship and in turn the relationship defines love. In this article we explore and focus on our conceptualization of love and its influence on couple therapy. Exploring love in the context of the phrase ‘I love you’ leads us to consider built‐in contradictions. These contradictions can be contextualized and understood in a relational dialectic framework. Implications for therapy are explored and briefly illustrated in a case vignette.     

How to refer to ‘diabetes’? Language in online health advice

The adaptation of vocabulary between communication partners, i.e. the lexical entrainment phenomenon, is well documented. This study investigates whether the phenomenon can also be found in computer‐mediated communication between experts and laypersons. The respondents, who are medical experts (n = 46), answered to fictitious patients' queries on health problems. Language technicality within patients' queries was manipulated. One version contained certain concepts in everyday language, the other in technical language. Do experts adapt the vocabulary in their replies to that in the inquiry? Detailed analyses provide evidence that experts not only use the inquiry vocabulary, but also adapt the content of their answers to the technicality of the inquiry. Surprisingly, though queries differ in the use of vocabulary experts attributed very similar prior knowledge to the fictitious patient while providing them with very different replies. The results are discussed with respect to the implications for health counselling and for theoretical assumptions about adaptation in net‐based discourse. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reply to Mr. D⊘⊘r

Certain facts about subjective successions support, I hold, a theory of mind‐dependent sensory data. Suppose that no such theory is true and, furthermore, that as one experiences a visual subjective succession, that of which one is visually aware consists typically in a static physical array. Nevertheless one will, I hold, experience a certain change taking place within one's visual field; and under the imagined conditions, it is hard to fathom what this change could be. Various seemingly plausible and helpful suggestions are examined and rejected. I conclude that neither a common‐sense realism nor, in fact, any view which rejects mind‐dependent sensory data can deal satisfactorily with subjective successions.     

Voice as Heuristic Device to Integrate Biological and Social Sciences. A Comment to Sidtis &; Kreiman’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">in the Beginning was the Familiar Voice</Emphasis>

Sidtis and Kreiman (2011) offer a two-sided approach to voice where the biological side is thought to support the psycho-social one. Linking psychological and biological sciences by the notion of “familiar voice” they introduce, Sidtis and Kreiman (2011) foster integration in science and offer a broad view on the voice phenomenon. The way this integration is conducted is closely observed in this comment. The conclusion is that a common point of departure which does not belong to the mainstream in present academic discourse can be ascribed to both sides invoked: a dialogic view of human beings. The social dimension of the neuropsychological social model of voice recognition the authors propose is then discussed. This is taken up in the closing considerations addressing the core notion of familiarity with regard to the conception of sociality it implies; this perspective raises also the issue of the relationship between (familiar) voice and language. In analogy to the dialogic view of human beings we advocate for in accordance with Sidtis and Kreiman (2011), a notion of language emphasizing the sensorily experienced performance of symbolic activity is put forth. In this, voice holds a core place .     

LE QMVT. Version harcèlement moral au travail. Validation d'un questionnaire multidimensionnel de la victimation au travail

The article concerns the validation of a questionnaire measuring the impact of harassment of the tolerance threshold of victims. The dimensions explored asked the victims to evaluate the stressor, the adjustment strategies they adopted in front of the adverse situation, the value they gave to their professional live, the quality of the community sharing of emotion as well as the psychological, physiological and relational consequences that were engendered (Forte et al., 2005). The validation was undertaken using 77 people that saw themselves as victims of hostile machinations in the workplace and 75 witnesses Subjects. The analysis revealed high rates of internal consistency. An other version of the questionnaire, aimed at measuring the effects of a pointed victimation, is in the process of validation.     

Which Helper Behaviors and Intervention Styles are Related to Better Short‐Term Outcomes in Telephone Crisis Intervention? Results from a Silent Monitoring Study of Calls to the U.S. 1–800‐SUICIDE Network

A total of 2,611 calls to 14 helplines were monitored to observe helper behaviors and caller characteristics and changes during the calls. The relationship between intervention characteristics and call outcomes are reported for 1,431 crisis calls. Empathy and respect, as well as factor-analytically derived scales of supportive approach and good contact and collaborative problem solving were significantly related to positive outcomes, but not active listening. We recommend recruitment of helpers with these characteristics, development of standardized training in those methods that are empirically shown to be effective, and the need for research relating short-term outcomes to long-term effects.