Post Abortion Syndrome is a Clinical Reality: A Critical and Methodological Reflection on the Politics,Biology and Phenomenology of Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion

Macleod (2009) criticizes Boulind and Edwards (2008) for using the concept of post-abortion syndrome (PAS) in their conceptualization of the case of Grace. This article responds to this by arguing the following points: 1) the appropriation of PAS into anti-abortion rhetoric is not sufficient reason to abandon it since this rhetoric distorts the facts, 2) methodological difficulties cited by Macleod in identifying the nature of the distress experienced by some women post-abortion are an artifact of the use of multivariate statistical methods which are not appropriate for answering these questions; 3) the well documented process of maternal foetal attachment, which has a neurobiological basis, shapes a pregnant women's experience of the foetus in the direction of experiencing it in personal terms; 4) the incorporation of this into the clinical concept of PAS carries no implications about foetal personhood; 5) there is considerable documentation of the loss of a foetus being experienced as a bereavement by some women and giving rise to a traumatic grief response; 6) there is a difference between a formal diagnosis in a diagnostic manual and a clinical syndrome which can guide case formulation. It is concluded that the presentation of the case of Grace, rather than offering evidence that supports a pro-life stance on abortion, is an example of the kind of emancipatory theory and practice that is advocated by Macleod.     

The Protestant Reformation and Catholic Publishing: A Framework for Contemporary Understanding

Drawing from the perspective of an interdisciplinary exploration of the sociocultural impact of the printing press and its effects on Catholic thinkers, educators, and worship practices, the author of this article explores the educational mission of Catholic publishing during the Reformation and how it has evolved in modern times. First, the author discusses the communication dynamics of the Reformation and specifically the impact of the printing press. Second, the author explores the historical reasons for why the Roman Church perceived the need for uniformity in worship. Third, the author focuses on how the Roman Church built upon this framework of uniformity to define and shape the issues that were being discussed when expanding their outreach to the public during this period. Fourth, the author shows how Catholic worship and education evolved within an interpretation that is relevant to the educational mission of Catholic publishers today.     

The Difficulty of Making Psychology Research and Clinical Practice Relevant to Medicine: Experiences and Observations

Psychology and medicine research and practice have demonstrated substantial and unique bodies of knowledge designed to both improve patient care and respond to contemporary health care needs for use of evidence and cost consciousness. At their full potential they represent a significant paradigm shift in healthcare. Despite impressive successes, it is clear that we are just on the cusp of such a change. These findings have had limited impact and penetration into medical practice, particularly outside of academic medicine and large, organized systems of health care, and there are multiple examples of such limitations in various arenas of health care. There also appear to be common themes to such examples which provide us opportunities to consider how psychologists might move things ahead. They also suggest how our unique position in academic medicine can both limit our impact and provide ways of creating continued shifts in the healthcare paradigm. This paper is based in part on the author’s presentation at the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers 3rd National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 2007.     

The Role of Filipino Occupational Therapists in Substance Addiction and Rehabilitation: A Q-Methodology

More than the shortage of manpower, occupational therapists (OTs) in substance addiction and rehabilitation (SAR) practice have remained underused and misunderstood in the Philippines. This study aimed to identify the role of Filipino OTs in people with SUD based on the perspectives of OTs, mental health professionals, and former service users and carers in the community. Using Q-Methodology (QM), this research revealed a tripartite role for Filipino OTs in SAR: (a) “Promoter of occupational participation,” (b) “Collaborator to enhance participation and well-being,” and (c) “Facilitator of environmental supports for occupational participation.”     

Judgments of marital rape as a function of honor culture,masculine reputation threat,and observer gender: A cross-cultural comparison between Turkey,Germany, and the UK

Previous research has shown that there is higher tolerance of violence against women in cultures with salient gender-specific honor norms, especially when the violence occurs in intimate relationships and in response to threat to male honor. The present cross-cultural study (N = 398) extended these findings to sexual aggression (i.e., marital rape) by comparing participants from a culture that emphasizes honor (Turkey) and participants from cultures without strong honor traditions (Germany and Britain). Turkish participants blamed the victim and exonerated the perpetrator more than did German and British participants. In all cultural groups, participants blamed the victim and exonerated the perpetrator more when the husband's reputation was threatened than in the absence of such threat, and in all cultural groups, men blamed the victim and exonerated the perpetrator more than women. Yet, the effect of masculine reputation threat and this pattern of gender differences were somewhat more pronounced among Turkish than German or British participants. Results exploring the predictive role of honor norms at the individual level beyond rape myth acceptance and traditional gender role attitudes revealed that honor norms were the primary predictor of rape perceptions and blame attributions in Turkey (an honor culture), but not in Germany and Britain (dignity cultures) where rape myth acceptance was the strongest predictor. These results provide insights into the cultural factors influencing marital rape judgments in ways that may undermine victim's well-being and fair handling of rape cases, and highlight the domains most urgently in need of potential intervention.     

Construction of the Disciplinary,Academic, and Discourse Systems in the Contemporary Chinese Philosophy of Science and Technology: Retrospect and Prospect

A review of the decades of research shows that Chinese philosophy of science and technology, on the strength of carrying forward traditions and blazing new trails, has made progress in the construction of discipline system and development of institutions, teaching materials and periodicals, with deepening the discussion on discipline orientation. In academic system construction, driven by efforts to update the academic framework and deepen research on the philosophy of nature, philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, science, technology and society, as well as other traditional fields, achievements have been made in ethical reflections on high technology, engineering ethics, big data and artificial intelligence philosophy, responsible innovation and other emerging, frontier and crosscutting fields. In the construction of discourse system, work has been done to make China’s voice heard on the international stage, excavate and elucidate the excellent traditional Chinese culture, and build disciplines with Chinese characteristics. In short, the achievements of the Chinese philosophy of science and technology have not come easily. Though a diverse and dynamic academic pattern has been formed, and wonderful and unique Chinese discourse has been created, we still face some problems. To accelerate the construction of “Three Systems” of the philosophy of science and technology with Chinese characteristics by building on existing achievements, we should carry forward the tradition of dialectics of nature and strengthen the guidance of Marxism, consolidate the foundation of philosophy and support interdisciplinary interaction and cooperation, track the frontiers of science and technology, and pay attention to the social operation of science and technology.     

Psychologists in Academic Health Settings: Key Contributors to Dynamic Interplay Among Research, Clinical Practice, and Policy Domains

Psychologists in academic health systems are in a unique position to impact the dynamic interplay among research, clinical practice, and policy domains. In addition to their specialty expertise in psychopathology, particular types of physical illness and disease, and health promotion, psychologists have substantial knowledge of human behavior, refined scientific skills, knowledge and experience in the effective delivery of clinical services, strengths in written expression, and a collaborative orientation. This combination of strengths makes psychologists extremely well-suited for (a) interdisciplinary efforts to develop and implement evidence-based assessment and intervention strategies with biological, psychological, behavioral, and social components, and (b) leadership and advocacy efforts that impact the quality and availability of health care services.     

药品临床试验的伦理规范与医学科技进步--对非洲等地开展HIV药品临床试验的思考

目前,在非洲等地进行的HIV药品临床试验已成为国际上最有争议的话题之一.药品临床试验促进了医学科技的进步和发展,但同时带来了一些突出而复杂的伦理问题.面对这一难题,我们应正确看待医学科技进步与伦理之间的关系,以"尊重、公正、不伤害、受益"这一伦理基本原则指导HIV药品临床试验,促进医学和伦理道德的共同进步、协调发展.     

Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology: An Ethical Framework for Graduate Education,Clinical Training,and Maintaining Professional Competence

Evidence-based practice is often acknowledged as the future state of psychology, yet those graduate students who will soon be applying such practices tend to hold several misconceptions about the major components within this framework. This review highlights implications for graduate education, clinical training, and professional competence in light of the movement toward evidence-based practice in psychology. These implications are discussed in relation to the close parallel between the major components of the evidence-based framework and the current Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The evidence-based framework is discussed as an ideology that promotes lifelong learning and best prepares graduate students for ethical clinical practice throughout their careers as psychologists.     

Between Addition and Difference: A Place for Religious Understanding in a World of Science

Among contemporary religious believers, some follow in the footsteps of Newton, allowing their religious understanding to fill in gaps left by the sciences. Others take a more Wittgensteinian approach, discretely separating religious from scientific ways of thinking. Because neither of these relatively irenic positions captures the important element of cultural reform that is prevalent in so much of the religious life of the past, George Lakoff's recent work in cognitive studies is used to suggest ways that religious ideas may be used to challenge and enrich scientific thought. A scrutiny of Richard Dawkins's biological analyses of human behavior reveals the distorting limitations of exclusively scientific understanding, thereby clearing conceptual space for genuinely religious values, actions, responsibilities, and forms of human life.     

The United States Cover-up of Japanese Wartime Medical Atrocities: Complicity Committed in the National Interest and Two Proposals for Contemporary Action

To monopolize the scientific data gained by Japanese physicians and researchers from vivisections and other barbarous experiments performed on living humans in biological warfare programs such as Unit 731, immediately after the war the United States (US) government secretly granted those involved immunity from war crimes prosecution, withdrew vital information from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and publicly denounced otherwise irrefutable evidence from other sources such as the Russian Khabarovsk trial. Acting in “the national interest” and for the security of the US, authorities in the US tramped justice and morality, and engaged in what the English common law tradition clearly defines as “complicity after the fact.” To repair this historical injustice, the US government should issue an official apology and offer appropriate compensation for having covered up Japanese medical war crimes for six decades. To help prevent similar acts of aiding principal offender(s) in the future, international declarations or codes of human rights and medical ethics should include a clause banning any kind of complicity in any unethical medicine—whether before or after the fact—by any state or group for whatever reasons.     

A Level of Care Instrument for Children's Systems of Care: Construction, Reliability and Validity

The Child and Adolescent Level of Care System/Child and Adolescent Service Intensity Instrument (CALOCUS/ CASII) is designed to help determine the intensity of services needed for a child served in a mental health system of care. The instrument contains eight dimensions that are rated following a comprehensive clinical evaluation. The dimensions are risk of harm, functionality, co-morbidity (psychiatric, substance abuse, development disability and medical), environmental stressors, environmental supports, the child's resiliency, and the child and family's willingness to engage in treatment. An algorithm connects the ratings to a level of care recommendation. The instrument specifies six levels of care defined flexibly enough to consider whatever services are available. The results of psychometric testing using raters with a broad range of clinical experience and training from four different systems of care around the country are presented. The testing demonstrates excellent reliability when rating vignettes. Using children and adolescents in live system of care clinical settings, the CALOCUS/CASII demonstrates reasonable validity when compared with the Child Global Assessment Scale, and the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale.     

The place of human values in the language of science: Kuhn,Saussure, and structuralism

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models of science and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process.     

Learning to Optimize Speed,Accuracy, and Energy Expenditure: A Framework for Understanding Speed-Accuracy Relations in Goal-Directed Aiming

Over the last century, investigators have developed a number of models to explain the relation between speed and accuracy in target-directed manual aiming. The models vary in the extent to which they stress the importance of feedforward processes and the online use of sensory information (see D. Elliott, W. F. Helsen, & R. Chua, 2001, for a recent review). A common feature of those models is that the role of practice in optimizing speed, accuracy, and energy expenditure in goal-directed aiming is either ignored or minimized. The authors present a theoretical framework for understanding speed-accuracy tradeoffs that takes into account the strategic, trial-to-trial behavior of the performer. The strategic behavior enables individuals to maximize movement speed while minimizing error and energy expenditure.     

The Findings of a Cochrane Meta-Analysis of Couple Therapy in Adult Depression: Implications for Research and Clinical Practice

The association between depressive symptoms and distressed intimate relationships supported the assumption that couple therapy, by focusing on the interpersonal context of depression, might be more effective as a treatment for depression than individual psychotherapy or drug therapy. This issue was addressed by a Cochrane meta-analysis assessing the evidence from clinical trials of couple therapy for depression in comparison with individual psychotherapy, drug therapy, and no/minimal intervention, including fourteen studies with 651 participants. No study was found free of bias and the quality of the evidence was low, with major problems of small sample sizes, missing outcome data, selective reporting, lack of information on random sequence generation and allocation concealment, recruitment of people not representative of clinical practice, and allegiance bias. The meta-analysis showed that both couple therapy and individual psychotherapy improved depressive symptoms at end of treatment and after 6 months or longer, with moderate effect sizes, without any difference between the two treatments. Couple therapy was more effective in reducing couple distress. This effect was larger in studies with distressed couples only and should be considered as relevant in its own right. Couple therapy is a viable option for the treatment of a depressed partner, especially in discordant couples. Future research should address several issues left open to provide a sound empirical foundation for clinical practice.