When Compassion is Making It Worse: Social Dynamics of Tabooing Victims of Child Sexual Abuse

The paper explores the social dynamics of tabooing, using sexual abuse of children as an example. Some social categories are problematic to embrace, because they entail socially problematic category bound activities in an emotional context of guilt and shame. This theoretical paper shows how a victim of sexual abuse as a child may suffer from two separate offenses, a sexual and a social; one caused by actions of the offender, one caused by actions of intended helpers. By ascribing an identity of ‘incest victim’ or ‘victim of child sexual abuse’ to a person, the taboo act becomes linked to the person. This may be an inescapable ascribed identity for the person, leading her/him to be subject of both sexual and social offenses. As a consequence, potential ‘victims’ may have troubled affiliation with such identity casting, and may fight a future tabooed role by not reporting tabooed abusive actions, hence not receiving the help needed to recover.     

Need,Compassion, and Support for Social Welfare

Funding for social welfare depends on citizen support. Drawing on evolutionary psychological approaches to politics, we study two types of need that might shape citizens' welfare support by regulating their feelings of compassion. One type of need is a recipient's absolute need. The other type is acute need created by sudden misfortune, such as sudden job loss. Across four studies, we find that absolute and acute needs independently affect compassion and welfare attitudes. This leads to potential inefficiencies in judgments: People who have fallen far are judged more deserving of compassion and access to welfare even when they are not in an absolute sense the most impoverished.     

Chaos and Compassion

This article suggests that if the implications of chaos theory are accepted by the counseling profession, rather than rejected as it was at first by physicists, then it should make compassion, rather than control, the new desired competence. Chaos theory has turned our perceptual world upside down. Chaos and creativity become two sides of the same coin and a theme for personal reflection and self-renewal. Before chaos, Western society had no “scientific” tools to deal with disorder and unpredictability because science relied only on facts, on knowing. Reliance on faith, on believing, was left to religion. Now, when we see everything as connected to everything else in an unbroken wholeness, facts and faith and science and religion cannot be separated. Neither can order and chaos be separated. With chaos theory, knowing and believing are now seen as interconnected and both are considered authentic. Counseling should reflect this new authenticity.     

作为体验实践的同感与同情——现象学分析与佛教教义之比较

众所周知，胡塞尔对交互主体性的分析是以同感为基础的。现在，这样一种同感经验在胡塞尔那里被描述为，它既涉及我们身体所特有的空间性，也涉及两个身体的一种时间结对、以及从我们的心理状态向他人心理状态的一种独特想象的转化。我想把对他人的这样一种多层次的经验，与大乘佛教传统中的一些教义(首先出现于印度，而后传到西藏)对同情经验的描述方式作一个比较。实际上，在这种教义体系中被非常具体地加以描述的“tonglen”实践(西藏人这样称呼)，就其植根于身体中并使时间同步而言，尤其是就想象被考虑的方式而言，都以多种形式回应着胡塞尔的同感经验。在生活空间、时间和想象等方面，通过比较这两者的实践与理论，我们将能估价它们的亲和性、它们的差异，进而最终说明它们如何才能相互启发，甚至相互促进。     

The Dynamics of Unemployment for Social Assistance Recipients

In this exploratory research study, the experience of unemployment and helping or hindering factors for social assistance recipients is examined.     

Compassion and Beyond

This paper is a discussion of the emotion of compassion or pity, and the corresponding virtue. It begins by placing the emotion of compassion in the moral conceptual landscape, and then moves to reject the currently dominant view, a version of Aristotelianism developed by Martha Nussbaum, in favour of a non-cognitive conception of compassion as a feeling. An alternative neo-Aristotelian account is then outlined. The relation of the virtue of compassion to other virtues is plotted, and some doubts sown about its practical significance.

The Dynamics of Cultural and Technological Evolution: Domination Versus Partnership

There is growing consensus that we need a new paradigm if we are to solve the global problems that are the result of actions and policies stemming from prevailing paradigms or cognitive maps. Theories are cognitive maps. This article summarizes cultural transformation theory, which proposes that to solve our mounting global problems we need a clearer understanding of the self-organizing interaction of two basic movements in cultural evolution. The first consists of technological phase changes, including the most recent shift from industrial to electronic, nuclear, and biochemical technologies. The second consists of shifts in a system's orientation to what, based on three decades of transdisciplinary research, the author identifies as the socio-economic, gender, and cultural configurations characteristic of the dominator and partnership models. The article calls for a reassessment of earlier theories as the basis for effective action to accelerate the shift to a world orienting to the partnership rather than dominator model as a basis for a sustainable, equitable, and peaceful future.     

The Origins of Fears of Compassion: Shame and Lack of Safeness Memories,Fears of Compassion and Psychopathology

Empirical and clinical research suggests that some individuals find self-generating compassion and receiving compassion from others difficult and aversive. However, it is unclear how these fears of compassion are linked to early experiences and to psychopathological symptoms. This study explores the relationship between shame traumatic memories, centrality of shame memories, early memories of warmth and safeness, fears of compassion, and depression, anxiety and paranoid symptoms. Participants were 302 individuals from the general community population, who completed self-report measures of fears of compassion, shame memories, early affiliative memories, and psychopathology. Shame traumatic and central memories were positively associated with fears of compassion for self, for others and from others, whereas early memories of warmth and safeness were negatively related to such fears. Path analyses revealed that fears of compassion for self and of receiving compassion from others mediated the effects of shame traumatic memory, centrality of shame memory and early memories of warmth and safeness on depressive, anxious and paranoid symptoms. These findings have implications for therapeutic interventions as these fears, as well as the negative shame-based emotional memories fuelling them, may need to be addressed in therapy to assist patients in self-generating and receiving compassion.     

Of Power and Compassion

Abstract: While military and economic power are obviously central instruments of policy in international relations, there are a number of reasons why power alone is insufficient to succeed in fighting terrorism. Three central reasons are discussed in this essay: the limitations and the dilemma of power; the proposition that the most threatening form of terrorism, such as al‐Qaeda's, is conducted by nonstate actors, conventional deterrence against whom is less effective; and the role of motivation in conflicts where the distribution of power is asymmetrical. In addition to these objective reasons, it is argued that the foreign‐policy strategies pursued ultimately affect the actors' own values.     

Self‐Compassion as a Mediator of Mindfulness and Compassion for Others

Mindfulness and self‐compassion have garnered interest as tools for improving counselor wellness and performance, yet little is known about how they relate to compassion. Compassion—for oneself and others—is considered important to counselor well‐being and effective counseling. In Buddhist and current models, mindfulness is theorized to increase self‐compassion and, subsequently, compassion for others, but the study of these proposed relationships is limited. Using mediation analysis, the author confirmed self‐compassion as a mediator of mindfulness and compassion for others among 152 master's‐level counseling interns. Implications and practical application of mindfulness and self‐compassion for counselor development are discussed.     

The Dynamics of Intragroup Differentiation in an Intergroup Social Context

Status hierarchies typically emerge when groups of strangers interact. Relatively little work tests explanations for this process in homogenous groups, and the majority has been conducted in intragroup settings. We test an expectation‐states explanation in an intergroup context using the multilevel application of the actor–partner interdependence model. Participants (N= 48) discussed capital punishment in gender‐homogenous 6‐person groups containing 3 pro– and 3 anti–capital punishment adherents. The more speakers directed turns and proactive behavior at the outgroup than the ingroup, the higher they emerged in status. Further, high‐ but not low‐status group members obtained more successful interruptions by being proactive, but more unsuccessful interruptions by being reactive. Socioemotional standing in the group was an inverted‐U function of participation. Those higher on socioemotional standing also directed relatively less reactive behavior at the outgroup than the ingroup. The findings suggest that intragroup differentiation is subtly yet powerfully affected by status expectations and the intergroup context. Instructions for running these models in SAS and SPSS are appended.     

The Impostor Phenomenon in Mental Health Professionals: Relationships Among Compassion Fatigue,Burnout, and Compassion Satisfaction

Imposter phenomenon is defined as a sense of intellectual fraudulence and an inability to internalize success and competency. Although imposter phenomenon has been noted in several populations, literature is sparse that focuses on mental health professionals. In addition, little is known about the relationships between imposter phenomenon, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction for mental health workers. Using a survey design with a convenience sample of 158 mental health workers, this study found that imposter phenomenon was positively associated with compassion fatigue, as well as negatively associated with compassion satisfaction, when controlling for years of work and age. Further, the combination of lower levels of compassion satisfaction and higher levels of burnout predicted higher levels of imposter phenomenon. Implications and preventative measures are discussed.

     

Towards a Theory of Social Dynamics

(Résumé) Vers Une Théorie de la Dynamique Sociale

On considère la théorie pratique (“field theory”) basée sur la philosophie organismique de la biologie, la méthode hypothétique-déductive, et le langage des constructs comme l'approche la plus juste à une psychologie sociale scientifique. L'auteur examine diverses théories de la psychologie sociale et ne trouve aucunes qui satisfassent les critères qu'il a établis pour une approche théorique-pratique. Il définit ensuite le champ social et discute les variantes dynamiques topologiques et non-mesurées dans sa structure. Les concepts de région, fluidité, limite, barrière, caractère de membre (“membership character”), et direction de tension premièrement employés par K. Lewin pour la psychologie individuelle sont appliqués aux problèmes sociologiques et sociaux-psychologiques. Le problème d'une “foule” qui devient une “multitude désordonnée” est sujeté à une analyse théorique-pratique. On conclut que la méthode serait également applicable à d'autres problèmes sociaux-psychologiques et que les groupes sociaux peuvent ětre traités selon la méthode théorique-pratique. On suggère que cette approche pourrait fournir une psychologie sociale de valeur scientifique.

Brown

(Referat) NACH EINER THEORIE DER SOZIALEN DYNAMIK HIN

Eine Feldtheorie, die auf die organismische Philosophie der Biologie, die hypothetisch-deduktive Methode, und auf die Sprache der Konstrukte gegründet ist, wird als die gültigste Annährung an die wissenschaftlich-soziale Psychologie betractet. Der Autor untersuch die verschiedenen Theorien der sozialen Psychologie und findet keine, welche die Kriterien erfüllt, die er zur feldtheoretischen Annährung aufgestellt hat. Er definiert dann das soziale Feld und bespricht die topologischen und nichtmetrischen dynamischen Varianten in seinem Aufbau. Die Begriffe von Gebiet, Flüssigkeit, Grenze, Barriere, Zugehörigkeit, und Spannung, die zuerst von K. Lewin für individuelle Psychologie gebraucht waren, werden auf soziologische und sozial-psychologische Probleme angewandt. Das Problem des Uebergangs von einer Menge Leute zu einem “Mob” wird einer feldtheoretischen Untersuchung unterworfen. Es wird gefolgert, dass die Methode sich ebensogut auf andere Probleme anwenden lässt und dass soziale Gruppen feldtheoretisch behandelt werden dürften. Es wird vorgeschlagen, dass eine solche Annährung eine wissenschaftlich gülitige soziale Psychologie verschaffen könnte.

Brown