The Meaning of Obesity in the Church: A Pastoral Leader’s Perspective

The purpose of this study is to highlight a unique case regarding obesity and weight loss in the Christian church that emerged when interviewing men who had experienced bariatric surgery. Thirty-four-year-old “Pastor Tom” was removed from his position in the church due to his obesity. Through critical reflection, utilizing an intrinsic case study methodology, the authors explore how this research participant constructed meaning around obesity and weight loss. In this study, two major themes emerged: (1) leading by example and (2) becoming a leader. The study includes a discussion of implications for the church as well as teaching, clinical, and research implications.     

Faith and belief in The Anti-Christ: A re-evaluation of Nietzsche’s relation to Jesus

This paper re-evaluates the significance of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at The Anti-Christ. Specifically we will ask whether a re-evaluation of this relation can shed new light on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. And we will do this first by surveying the standard interpretations of this issue, as well as the existing literature on The Anti-Christ. Arguing that the latter picks out nothing new regarding a critique of Christianity, we nonetheless suggest that a new criticism can be developed via the discussion of Jesus there. Further, this can be done by looking at the account given of faith and belief in that text. That is, we will explore the status of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at the origins and development of “faith” as a mode of belief. In particular, we trace the former’s development as a type from a basic mode of faith. As such, we begin by looking at the psychological origins of this kind of belief in “decadence”, and why Nietzsche is critical of this. However, we will then discuss the emergence of a more positive faith in the form of Buddhism, and see how this represents an analogue for Jesus’s faith. Continuing, we will see how Jesus signifies a similar problematic development, but also “overcoming”, of initial decadence faith. And we will argue, also, that this overcoming is rooted in his emphasis on the immediacy of lived experience. Finally though, we will look at how Christianity returns Jesus’s more productive relation to the world again to a primitive mode of faith. In other words, we will see how Christianity converts the fluid, lived, “faith” of Jesus into something again based on transcendent belief. And lastly, we will ask what new light this point sheds on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, and his affinity with Jesus the man.     

A Review of: “The Use of Dreams in Couple Counseling”

Avalanche: Heretical Reflections on the Dark and the Light. By W. Brugh Joy, M. D. New York: Ballantine, 1990.

Carnal Acts. By Nancy Mairs. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990.

Anne Heath is a free-lance writer and artist with a background in journalism, poetry, and radio drama. She is currently working on a book about travel as a rite-of-passage for women in mid-life.

The Untouched Key. By Alice Miller. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

“To blame is to hold on to anger as though it could compensate for what we lost. Nothing can. Only griming can heal us…”

Crisis Intervention Verbatim. By Nira Kfir. (1989). New York: Hemisphere Publishing.

The Japanese Psyche. By Hayao Kawai. Dallas, Texas: Spring Publications, 1988.

The Psychology of C. G. Jung: Vol. 111. Consciousness. By C. A. Meier. Boston: Sigo Press, 1989.

Progress without Loss of Soul: TO-ward a Wholistic Approach Modernization Planning. B y Theodor Abt. Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron Publications, 1989.

Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. By Stephen LaBerge and Howard Reingold. New York: Valentine books, 1990.

“The rapid acceptance of lucid dreaming suggests that it will have a significant impact on the way that dreams are perceived for both the general public and the scientific community.”

Body and Soul: The Other Side of Illness. By Albert Kreinheder. Toronto: Inner Cities. 1991.

Wisdom of the Heart: Working With Women's Dreams. By Karen A. Signell. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.     

Care of the Self and Patient Participation in Genetic Discourse: A Foucauldian Reading of the Surgeon General's “My Family Health Portrait” Program

Critics of genetic discourse are concerned that deterministic and discriminatory views of genetics are increasingly becoming adopted. These views argue that current genetic discourse becomes a source of power whereby powerful institutions harm people with so-called “bad” genes. This essay argues that current analyses of the power of genetics discourse are grounded in an improper reading that disempowers patients. Deploying Michel Foucault's concept “care of the self,” this essay claims that genetics discourse is better understood as a way that patients take on power through rhetoric rather than a force that has power over patients. Through a close reading of the “My Family Health Portrait” program, this paper argues that patients experience a process of “subjection” wherein they become agents of and objects of genetics discourse both. This alternative mode of analyzing the power of genetics discourse has implications for our collective understanding of the operations of the care of the self and the uses of genetic information that we propose.     

A Response to Patricia A. Williams' “The Fifth R: Jesus as Evolutionary Psychologist”

Panentheism has recently become a widely accepted and appreciated concept among scholars in the science-theology dialogue, and its theological repercussions have been discussed to great extent. Yet, there remains to be studied in more detail the notion of the philosophical foundations of the term. A prominent gap in our understanding of these foundations is the potential similarity between the metaphysics of Hegel and Whitehead, their understanding of the transcendence and immanence of God, and their respective versions of panentheism. In this article, I present a critical reflection on the possible resemblance between process thought and Hegelian metaphysics and philosophy of God. In the last section I refer to those who use panentheism within the science-theology dialogue. I try to specify which of the two versions of panentheism, that of Hegel or Whitehead, is more popular among those scholars.     

The Changing Composition of “Intelligence”: A Study in T-Technique

Abstract

(Kantor, J. R. Problems of Physiological Psychology. Bloomington. Ind.: Principia Press, 1947. Pp. 398.) Reviewed by John Bucklew

(Dunlap, K. Religion; Its Functions in Human Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946. Pp. 362.) Reviewed by Sidney Kosofsky     

A Phenomenological Reading of Hegel’s Concept of History of Philosophy: An Analysis of “The Gallery of Opinions”, “The Gallery of Knowledge” and “The Gallery of Dresden”

From a phenomenological perspective of game-space and horizon, this paper tries to make a deconstructive reading of Hegel’s “two galleries”, namely, “the gallery of opinions” and “the gallery of knowledge”, which are mentioned in the introduction of Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy. The reading shows that the Game-space or the ab-gruendiger Grund of the Hegelian concept of philosophical history lies in an originally differencing space that is keeping in absence, which is called by Edmund Husserl and Jacques Derrida “the gallery of Dresden”. Translated from Zhexue Yanjiu, 2005:6     

A Dream: “Coyote Kills the Giant”

“Coyote Kills the Giant” is an American Indian tale of the Flathead or Salish-Kootenai tribe of the northwest plateau areas of Montana, Idaho, and Western Washington. This story functions as a teaching tale, and it caught my imagination as a lens through which we can view our dreaming selves. I use this tale as an analogue to a dream, applying Jung's four stages of individuation to investigate a dream as a way to introduce how complexes hijack us.     

The “ABCs” of REBT I: A Preliminary Study of Errors and Confusions in Counselling and Psychotherapy Textbooks

In this study, a random sample of twenty counselling and psychotherapy textbooks were studied with respect to the errors and confusions made by the authors of these textbooks with respect to the ??ABCs?? of REBT. A total of 240 of such errors/confusions were found with most being made about beliefs at ??B??, particularly about irrational beliefs. A variety of errors and confusions were also made about (i) the relationship between ??B?? and ??C?? (including whether or not such a relationship is causal), (ii) the relationship between irrational beliefs and disturbed responses at ??C??, (iii) ??A?? and (iv) ??emotional ??Cs??. Twenty errors were even made about the name of the therapy! It was suggested that one way of addressing this state of affairs would be for the Albert Ellis Institute to commission a group of REBT experts to write a document especially for authors of counselling and psychotherapy textbooks and for publishers of these works that specifies clearly and accurately agreed wisdom about the ??ABCs?? of REBT. The weaknesses of the current study were noted and suggestions for future research made.     

A review of: “The presentation of case material in clinical discourse”

Ivan Ward (ed.) (1997) The Presentation of Case Material in Clinical Discourse, London: Freud Museum Publications, 96 pp., $6.95     

Maneuvers in the Depths: The Politics of Identity in Anton Boisen’s Pastoral Care

This article examines Anton Boisen’s political negotiations within the identity categories of ministry and madness in the aftermath of his own repeated episodes of psychosis. In conversation with contemporary queer theorists Judith Butler, José Esteban Muñoz, and Lee Edelman, the article characterizes Boisen’s negotiations between dominant and marginalized identity spheres as a political performance of disidentification in which a subject moves and negotiates between disempowered and hegemonic social spheres, simultaneously displacing but also, as Boisen’s example demonstrates, reifying the norms of the latter. The article illustrates how Boisen sought to change many of the practices of pastoral care for those consigned to madness, while at the same time his actions also reestablished the very boundaries and exclusions he sought to displace.     

What Will Become of Epiphanies? A Psychoanalytic Reading of James Joyce's “The Dead”

James Joyce's story, The Dead, is read in the tension between sameness, circularity, restraint, deadness as against possibilities for change, vitality, passion, and loving intimacy. The author plays two different readings of The Dead against each other to generate such tension in life and death struggles. Epiphanies are seen as beckoning us with the possibilities for radical transformation—an impossible illusion—but sufficient to tempt us to struggle against detachment, isolation, and restraint toward moments, of variable length, of intimate connectedness with ourselves and with others.     

“Why Do I Get in Trouble So Much?”: A Family Therapeutic Assessment Case Study

Recent case studies have demonstrated the potential benefits of Finn's Therapeutic Assessment (TA) model with families (e.g., Handler, 2007 Handler, L. 2007. “The use of therapeutic assessment with children and adolescents”. In The clinical assessment of children and adolescents: A practitioner's handbook, Edited by: Smith, S. R. and Handler, L. 53–72. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.  [Google Scholar]; Tharinger, Finn, Wilkinson, &; Schaber, 2007 Tharinger, D. J., Finn, S. E., Wilkinson, A. D. and Schaber, P. M. 2007. Therapeutic assessment with a child as a family intervention: A clinical and research case study. Psychology in the Schools, 44: 293–309. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This case study of a 6-year-old girl and her family follows the Therapeutic Assessment (TA) model, focusing on the specified goals of each session and how those goals were accomplished. In this article, we illustrate the flexibility afforded by the TA model to tailor an appropriate intervention for a specific family and also show that extensive experience with the TA model is not necessary for this approach to yield clinically significant results.     

A Review of: “Learning in Places: The Informal Education Reader”

ABSTRACT

Fluctuations in visitor numbers over the past 50 years at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Trondheim, Norway, indicate an overall decline in visitation since the 1990s but with some positive figures in the last years. Separate data available from 1977 to 2006 show a strong correlation between the numbers of school students and the general public. The general public paid relatively few visits in December, but visitation peaked in summer and autumn. Sundays and midweek were the busiest days. This article discusses factors that may influence the short-term, monthly, and daily distribution of visitors as well as the more long-term variations. These include the development of museums in Norway and how the historical, cultural, and nationalistic background may influence the topics and information in exhibitions, and hence the public interest in what the museum has to offer.     

A Review of “Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus”

SUMMARY

The library Web site is a significant access point to a library's collections, resources, and services. A Web site can and should provide information about the library in a way that can be efficiently navigated and used by all library patrons. The usability of a library Web site can be improved through changes in organization and design informed by the experiences of real users. User expectations should be primary in determining the content, purpose, organization, and design of the site.     

“I’m Not Gonna Be Like ‘That Guy’”: Examining Antidrug Shock Advertising through the Eyes of “That Guy”

Shock advertising antidrug campaigns pose significant implications for methamphetamine (meth) addicts. In recent years, the Montana Meth Project public service campaign has broadcast a series of advertisements containing shocking and disturbing images of meth addicts in an attempt to prevent meth use. Although intended to warn teens about the dangers of meth, the shock-based advertising reaches another population: meth addicts, unintentionally exposing them to a labeling process. This study examines the effects of Montana’s advertisements on the worldview of 20 recovering meth addicts using interviews. Results highlight the unintended consequences of shock advertising on those attempting to reintegrate into the non-using community, suggesting that the campaign negatively impacts addicts’ worldviews and creates stereotypes, stigma, and differential treatment of meth users. Ultimately, this antidrug scare campaign appears to be a barrier to reintegration for meth addicts.     

The Development of “Vocational Interests”: I. The Organization of Likes and Dislikes in Ten-Year-Old Children

Seventy-two black, white, and Mexican-American boys and girls enrolled in the Lansing, Michigan, Head Start program were administered the Purdue Self-Concept Scale for Preschool Children (PSCS), and their teachers rated their self-esteem on Coopersmith's Behavior Rating Form (BRF). A low positive correlation was obtained between the scores on these two techniques. Analysis of variance showed no significant differences by ethnicity or sex on self-esteem measured by either the PSCS or the BRF. Although the literature on ethnic and sex differences in self-esteem is contradictory, these findings suggest that group differences may be minimal.