Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones: The Effects of Emotional Abuse

The relationship between psychological maltreatment in childhood and adult well-being has previously been established via the statistical modeling of psychometric data. This study examines a set of statistical data regarding abuse alongside personal accounts. A group of 165 participants completed several psychometric scales, including a measure of childhood emotional abuse. Several participants were then invited to participate in interviews exploring issues in more depth. Statistical analysis supported previous findings, but the interviews exposed themes pertinent to the examination of long-term effects of emotional abuse, such as acknowledgment of abuse. The findings support the use of a mixed methodology, as statistical measurements alone did not reveal some detail. The implications of this finding for psychological research and practice are discussed.     

Decreasing Child Distress During Needle Sticks and Maintaining Treatment Gains Over Time

This study examined the effectiveness of an intervention for reducing behavioral distress in children during needle sticks. Participants were eight children and their parents. The children received injections or venipunctures for hematological or oncological disease. The distress management intervention included instruction for children to engage in a distraction activity during needle sticks and parent training in coaching their children. The intervention was adapted to clinic and home treatment settings. Results indicated that five children exhibited significantly less distress after treatment when compared with baseline sessions, that treatment gains were maintained at follow-up for three of them, and that child distress was significantly and negatively related to use of the experimental distractor. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.     

A House of Living Stones

This report to the 6th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Vancouver in 1983 describes the church as a “House of Living Stones,” based on the First Letter of Peter. The ecumenical movement is the means by which the churches that form the house, the oikos of God, are seeking to live and witness before all peoples. The image of the house of living stones is a reminder that only as the churches relate to each other as living stones will they discover new realities about their essential calling to be the church, the house of the triune God, as a fellowship of confessing, learning, participating, sharing, healing, reconciliation, unity, and expectancy to the glory of God.     

清凉石的优美传说

当我们踏上五台山这块佛国净土时,无不被那清洁新鲜的空气、凉爽宜人的气候、漫山遍野的鲜花、如鸣佩环的溪声和那青松翠柏掩映着的梵宇花宫所陶醉.然而,这充满诗情画意、令人神往的清凉胜境,原来并非这般景象.相传,在远古的时候,五台山叫五顶山.五座山峰矗立天际,悬崖陡峭,山丘相连,纵横交错.气候异常恶劣,冬天滴水成冰,春天飞沙走石,夏天炎热难耐,终年天旱无雨,寸草不生,天罕飞禽,地绝走兽,只有面目峥狞的古怪岩石和令人窒息的滚滚沙石,看去满目荒凉,好像一个没有生命的不毛之地.……     

The Cry of the Forgotten Stones

Based on extensive archival work, this essay assesses the contribution of a Palestinian liberation theology (PLT) to a comprehensive view of peacebuilding that involves not only liberation from oppressive occupation but also a holistic vision and strategy for attaining just societal structures. Emerging out of the victim's viewpoint, a PLT is consistent with a multiperspectival approach to justice. It articulates a call for a holistic transformation of the interrelations between Jews and Palestinians, envisioning a just peace that must entail a re‐framing of geopolitical structures as well as ideological discourses that vindicate systemic and symbolic violence against the Palestinians. However, the author shows that a PLT is asymmetrical: while it challenges the theopolitical affinities between Christian and Jewish Zionists and the structural injustices and social mechanisms they endorse, it refrains from contesting the symbolic boundaries of a Palestinian national identity. This bears important implications for the broader debate concerning the role of religion in peacebuilding. The author argues that the limits of a PLT as a peacebuilding framework relate to its conceptual reliance on an unreconstructed secularist interpretation of a future Palestinian state and on its elective affinity with a supersessionist and theological orientation that, by definition, hermeneutically de‐Zionizes the Bible and its interpretations.     

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but ethnophaulisms can alter the portrayal of immigrants to children

An archival study examined the portrayal of ethnic immigrants to children as a function of the prevailing cognitive representation of those ethnic immigrant groups in ethnophaulisms. The complexity in ethnophaulisms (and, to a lesser degree, the valence in ethnophaulisms) predicted the portrayal of ethnic immigrant groups. Overall, ethnic immigrant groups characterized in terms of ethnophaulisms of low complexity were less frequently present in children's literature, children from these ethnic groups were described more in terms of physical appearance than in terms of personal traits, fictional child characters from those ethnic groups were portrayed with smaller heads and with lower verbal complexity, and the folksongs attributed to these groups had a more negative affective tone. The implications of these results for approaches to intergroup relations are considered.     

Sticks and stones may break my bones: Protective factors for the effects of perceived discrimination on social competence in adolescence

Adolescents are developing in an increasingly diverse society requiring sophisticated and flexible social skills for effective negotiation of social environments. Developing these social skills effectively has important implications for adolescents, especially those of diverse ethnic backgrounds. This study investigated social competence in minority and nonminority adolescents from the perspective of an integrated and context‐specific model of development (C. Garcia Coll et al., 1996 ). The relationships among perceived discrimination, attachment, ethnic identity, and social competence were explored in 320 middle school students using questionnaire methodology. Perceived discrimination was found to be negatively related to social competence in all participants and attachment was found to be a buffering factor, but only in minority adolescents. The findings support a unique developmental context of minority and nonminority youth and highlight the need for continuing research on constructs such as attachment and ethnic identity that may be influential in outcomes such as social competence.     

Maternal Style and Children's Participation in Reminiscing: Stepping Stones in Children's Autobiographical Memory Development

In this study we investigated maternal and child factors in children's autobiographical memory development. Fifty-eight mother-child dyads discussed unique past events when the children were 19, 25, 32, and 40 months old. In addition, children participated in experimenter-child interviews about unique events when they were 25, 32, and 40 months old. The developmental progression to children's independent verbal memory begins with children's early interest in participating in the conversations and maternal reminiscing style, which together elicit children's later shared memory elaborations. Subsequently, children's shared memory elaborations and maternal reminiscing style both contribute to children's later independent memory at approximately 3 1/2 years of age. We address the idea that autobiographical memory development is essentially a collaborative process, with children significantly contributing to the development of their own reminiscing style from its inception.     

Systematic Review and Meta‐analysis of Stepping Stones Triple P for Parents of Children with Disabilities

The aim of this systematic review and meta‐analysis was to examine the effectiveness of Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP) parent training programs on child behavior problems and parenting outcomes in families of children with developmental disabilities. Sixteen suitable studies including data from over 900 families were identified in a search for English language published and unpublished controlled outcome studies. SSTP has five levels on a graded continuum of increasing intensity targeting families with differing degrees of treatment need from low intensity media‐based parenting information campaigns at level 1, through brief interventions at levels 2 and 3, to more intensive parent training and family therapy interventions at levels 4 and 5. Analyses were conducted on the combination of all levels of SSTP and separately for each level. For combined levels, significant overall effect sizes were found for parent‐reported child problems (d = 0.46), researcher observed child behavior (d = 0.51), parenting style (d = 0.70), parenting satisfaction/self‐efficacy (d = 0.44), parental adjustment (d = 0.27), and coparental relationship (d = 0.26), but not researcher‐observed parent behavior. Strong support was found for level 4 SSTP as an effective intervention for improving child and parent outcomes in families of children with disabilities who have clinically significant problems. Less intensive SSTP interventions for cases with circumscribed difficulties yielded fewer significant treatment effects, and there were relatively few studies of such interventions.     

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Group Stepping Stones Triple P: A Mixed‐Disability Trial

Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP) is a parenting program designed for families of a child with a disability. The current study involved a randomized controlled trial of Group Stepping Stones Triple P (GSSTP) for a mixed‐disability group. Participants were 52 families of children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, or an intellectual disability. The results demonstrated significant improvements in parent‐reported child behavior, parenting styles, parental satisfaction, and conflict about parenting. Results among participants were similar despite children's differing impairments. The intervention effect was maintained at 6‐month follow‐up. The results indicate that GSSTP is a promising intervention for a mixed‐disability group. Limitations of the study, along with areas for future research, are also discussed.     

汉画像石中蟾蜍的医药文化含蕴

汉画像石中有关蟾蜍的题材比较特殊,蟾蜍常口含仙草,或捣制仙药,或与西王母、嫦娥相伴,这些画面蕴涵着较深的文化意蕴:反映了古老的蟾蜍及蛙崇拜,揭示远古时期对女性的生殖崇拜心理.反映了战国秦汉时期的羽化升仙思想及人们对仙药的渴求.中医针灸类书<黄帝虾蟆经>,其书名及书中的针灸随月避忌之法,体现了蟾蜍为月精观念对医学的影响.