A Phonological Existential Analysis to the Book of Job

This current article “A Phonological Existential Analysis to the Book of Job” explores the various ways that Job’s friends attempted to help him deal with his grief. Dr. Johnson is able to identify the various stages of grief that Job goes through and correlate each stage and the response from the friends in current psychological terms. It becomes clear that various practices of modern psychotherapy can be seen in each response from Job’s friends. It is reasonable to conclude that the responses from Job’s friends were part of the therapeutic process that moved Job to a state of rationality and wholeness. While the article approaches the Book of Job from a psychotherapeutic standpoint, it does not distract for the spiritual teachings found in the document. Fred Johnson is licensed as a counseling psychologist and is certified as a school psychologist. Dr. Johnson has worked many over 15 years as a private practicing family therapist and behavior specialist. Dr. Johnson completed his doctorate in counseling psychologist at the University of Louisville and attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary obtaining a degree in pastoral psychology. He currently owns Educational Resource Services, a company that is dedicated to providing seminars in classroom behavior management throughout the United States and Canada. Dr. Johnson has published two books, Effective Discipline for the Difficult Child and From Chaos to Control: Managing Disruptive Classroom Behavior. He has also published several research studies, including ones dealing with the role of the ministers and a pastoral approach to divorce.     

Trends in the Scientific Study of Religion, Spirituality, and Health: 1965–2000

The present study examined the degree to which interest in religion, spirituality, and health has changed in psychology and the behavioral sciences over the past few decades. To accomplish this, searches were conducted on the PsycINFO database between the years 1965 and 2000. Three basic searches were conducted combining the word “health” with the following search terms: 1. (religion OR religious OR religiosity) NOT (spiritual OR spirituality); 2. (spiritual OR spirituality) NOT (religion OR religious OR religiosity); and 3. (religion OR religious OR religiosity) AND (spiritual OR spirituality). The rate per 100,000 articles was then calculated for each of the three search-terms: religion, spirituality, religion and spirituality. A significant upward trend across years was found for the rate of articles dealing with spirituality, r(34) = .95, p<.001, and religion and spirituality, r(34) = .86, p<.001. A significant downward trend was found for articles that only addressed religion, r(34) = −.64, p<.001. The consequences of these trends are discussed.Dr. Andrew J. Weaver is a United Methodist minister and clinical psychologist. He is the Associate Publisher of Zion’s Herald, an independent religious journal founded in 1823 and is co-author of numerous professional and popular articles and eleven books. His recent book titles include Counseling Survivors of Traumatic Events and Reflections on Grief and Spiritual Growth.Dr. Kenneth I. Pargament is professor of clinical psychology at Bowling Green State University. Dr. Pargament has published over 100 articles on the meanings of religion and spirituality, the vital role of religion in coping with stress and trauma, perceptions of sacredness in life, and psychospiritual treatment. He is author of The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice.Dr. Kevin J. Flannelly has been the Associate Director of Research at The Health Care Chaplaincy since 2001. Dr. Flannelly has published more than 100 studies in various areas of psychology and he has worked in the field of religion, spirituality and health since 1996. He recently published a review and analysis of the methodological quality of research on religion and health in the Southern Medical Journal.Julia Oppenheimer is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oregon, studying child development and clinical practice in the Clinical Psychology program. She has conducted research on the etiology and treatment of anxiety disorders, as well as publishing a number of studies on religion and mental health. Her current research on the development of children’s self-perceptions of personality is funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Award. Correspondence to Dr. Kevin J. Flannelly, kflannelly@healthcarechaplaincy.org.     

Unpublished draft paper on sexuality by Donald Meltzer

Editor's note : Albert Mason discovered an unpublished paper by Donald Meltzer dating from around 1968 and has made the text available to the IJP. He writes “my best guess is that Meltzer gave me the paper to read/approve about the time I was preparing to move to Los Angeles (1968–69) and that I hastily packed it away with other papers. It got buried, and only came to light recently, kind of like a lost score that turns up in someone's attic!” The patient Meltzer discusses in his paper is a patient who Dr Mason treated for approximately 11 years, and about whom Dr Mason consulted with Dr Meltzer early in the treatment. Dr Mason has also provided the original report he wrote about the patient in the 1960s. Following an introduction by Dr Abbot Bronstein, we have published extracts from Dr Mason's report, including the following: details about the case, the two dreams which Dr Mason believes were ‘turning point dreams’, and a third dream called the ‘hula hula dream’, as well as the clinical material leading up to it.     

Mindestanforderungen für Prognosegutachten1

Die aus Richtern am Bundesgerichtshof, Bundesanw?lten, forensischen Psychiatern und Psychologen, Sexualmedizinern und weiteren Juristen bestehende interdisziplin?re Arbeitsgruppe, die sich bereits mit Mindestanforderungen für Schuldf?higkeitsgutachten befasst hat², hat nun auch die nachfolgenden Empfehlungen für die vielf?ltig zu erstattenden forensischen Prognosegutachten erarbeitet. Wegen der H?ufigkeit und der Bedeutung dieser Gutachten in der Strafvollstreckung ist die Arbeitsgruppe um drei erfahrene Vollstreckungsrichter erweitert worden. Die Mitglieder waren: VRinBGH Dr. Rissing-van Saan, VRiBGH Nack, RiBGH Basdorf, RiBGH Dr. Bode, RiBGH Dr. Boetticher, RiBGH Maatz, RiBGH Pfister, VRiBGH a.D. Dr. Sch?fer, die Bundesanw?lte Hannich und Altvater, die Vollstreckungsrichter RiOLG B?hm, Karlsruhe, RiOLG Dr. Müller-Metz, Frankfurt a.M., VRiLG Dr. Wolf, Marburg, der Kriminologe Prof. Dr. Sch?ch, München, der Rechtsanwalt Dr. Deckers, Düsseldorf, die forensischen Psychiater Prof. Dr. Berner, Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Dittmann, Basel, Prof. Dr. Kr?ber, Berlin, Prof. Dr. Leygraf, Essen, Dr. Müller-Isberner, Gie?en, Prof. Dr. Nedopil, München, Prof. Dr. Sa?, Aachen, Dr. Habermeyer, Rostock, die Sexualmediziner Prof. Dr. Dr. Beier, Berlin, Prof. Dr. Bosinski, Kiel, und der Rechtspsychologe Prof. Dr. K?hnken, Kiel. ¹ Dieser Beitrag ist bereits erschienen in NStZ 26:237–544 (2006), Abdruck mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Verlages C. H. Beck ² NStZ 25:57–62 (2005), Nervenarzt 76:1154–1159 (2005), Forens Psychiatr Psychol Kriminol 1:3–9 (2007)     

Erikson's life cycle theory and the local church

This paper recommends the use of Erik H. Erikson's life cycle theory to clarify the dynamics of the corporate life of the local church. To support this recommendation, it illustrates how an incipient institutional crisis in an inner-city church reflects the conflict ofinitiative vs. guilt. In the analysis of this case, the initiative vs. guilt conflict is broken down into four basic themes. Each of these themes focuses on a different form of interaction between participants in the conflict, and each theme provides specific recommendations for the resolution of the crisis. While only one of the eight life crises has been applied in this study, the paper concludes that there is genuine merit in the application of the life cycle theory to the corporate life of the church.Dr. Capps is Associate Professor of Pastoral Care and Psychology of Religion at The Graduate Seminary, Phillips University, Enid, Oklahoma 73701. This article reflects research done for Dr. Capps' forthcoming book,Pastoral Care: A Thematic Approach (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979).     

Where Am I? A new case of developmental topographical disorientation

Recently, developmental topographical disorientation (DTD) was described (Bianchini et al., 2010, J Clin Exp Neuropsychol, 20, 807–27; Iaria & Barton, 2010, Exp Brain Res, 206, 189–96; Iaria, Bogod, Fox, & Barton, 2009, Neuropsychologia, 47, 30–40) as a navigational deficit in the absence of neurological or psychiatric disorders. Here, we reported the case of a healthy subject who presented this disorder. Dr. WAI was a 29‐year‐old right‐handed man with normal development and no clinical history of neurological or psychiatric diseases who was affected by a very pervasive topographical orientation and navigational disorder. A neuroradiological exam confirmed the absence of structural and anatomical alterations of the brain. Dr. WAI was submitted to an extensive neuropsychological examination and to a battery of tests specifically developed to assess developmental topographical disorder. Using this battery, we analysed Dr. WAI's acquisition of navigational information and re‐orientation processes. He showed severe DTD accompanied by deficits of different cognitive processes directly or indirectly involved in navigational skills. Dr. WAI showed a deficit in developing cognitive maps, already found in previous cases, plus difficulties in evaluating distances and computing metric environmental features. He represents a further confirmation of the existence of DTD suggesting dissociations within the disorder related to the level of development of the ability to build cognitive maps and the association of different imagery deficits. Dr. WAI can help in shedding some light on the mechanisms underlying lack of development of navigational skills.     

Why I stopped worrying about the definition of life... and why you should as well

In several disciplines within science—evolutionary biology, molecular biology, astrobiology, synthetic biology, artificial life—and outside science—primarily ethics—efforts to define life have recently multiplied. However, no consensus has emerged. In this article, I argue that this is no accident. I propose a dilemma showing that the project of defining life is either impossible or pointless. The notion of life at stake in this project is either the folk concept of life or a scientific concept. In the former case, empirical evidence shows that life cannot be defined. In the latter case, I argue that, although defining life may be possible, it is pointless. I conclude that scientists, philosophers, and ethicists should discard the project of defining life.     

Why Freud and Jung Can’t Speak: A Neurological Proposal

This article provides a modern neurological explanation for the theoretical differences in psychoanalytic concepts and techniques between Freud and Jung. Specifically, the article contrasts their analytic skills as arising in the left and right brain, respectively. Modern neurological techniques reveal unique brain functions that explain many of the visionary and so-called mystic phenomena discussed by Jung. Many of his psychoanalytic concepts can be traced to right brain function. Modern research and philosophic analyses also provide light on Freud’s research method and its limitations.Barbara Stevens Barnum, RN, PhD, FAAN, former editor of Nursing Leadership Forum and Nursing & Health Care, is presently a writer/consultant. Before retiring, her positions at Columbia University included holding the directorship, Division of Health Services, Sciences and Education at Teachers College, where she also held the Stewart Chair in the Department of Nursing Education. Dr. Barnum has written in areas of nursing management, theory, education, and aspects of spirtuality/holistic nursing. Her books include: Nursing theory: Analysis, application, evaluation, Spirituality in nursing: From traditional to New Age, and The New Healers: Minds and Hands in Complementary Medicine.     

Sexual counseling and therapy

Abstract

This article is an edited version of four interviews conducted with Dr. Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy in the Spring of 1980. The interviews ranged in content from Dr. Nagy's early training and influences to the theoretical and clinical foundations of contextual family therapy. This article focuses on the major constructs of contextual family therapy. Since this approach is often viewed as highly theoretical and conceptual in nature, it may be helpful to the practitioner to see how Dr. Nagy uses these constructs in a clinical situation. As a practitioner, I have found his theory extremely useful in conceptualizing the family system, and also in developing a treatment strategy. Hopefully, the questions asked of Dr. Nagy in these interviews will be of interest to other family therapists who are concerned with the clinical aspects of family therapy theories.     

The clinical approach: Triangulated program evaluation and adjustment

In the discussion about “enlightenment” or “utilization” in program evaluation, it is increasingly clear that the discussants implicitly refer to different professional contexts. Weiss, in Alkin (1990), using the “scientist” approach appears to reflect upon the academic context of the traditional university, where, beyond the land grant institutions, “enlightenment” is the honored objective. In contrast, Patton (Alkin, 1990) speaks from the clinical perspective of the organization consultant, with “utilization” the essential element in the evaluator-client relationship. Yet, those contextual differences notwithstanding, each party defends its case on the implicit assumption ofone methodological procedure of program evaluation—equally shared by both. Correcting this assumption, this article articulates major principles and methods of the “clinical” approach in program evaluation. The method has been tested in the field in western Europe and the United States. Its characteristic difference with the academic tradition is that in clinical evaluation, improving the program is part of the method. Mark van de Vall is professor of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam and adjunct professor at SUNY / Buffalo.     

Assessing sensitivity in a multidimensional space: some problems and a definition of a general d'

This article provides a formal definition for a sensivity measure,d′ _g , between two multivariate stimuli. In recent attempts to assess perceptual representations using qualitative tests on response probabilities, the concept of ad′ between two multidimensional stimuli has played a central role. For example, Kadlec and Townsend (1992a, 1992b) proposed several tests based on multidimensional signal detection theory that allow conclusions concerning the perceptual and/or decisional interactions of stimulus dimensions. One proposition, referred to as thediagonal d′test, relies on specific stimulus subsets of a feature-complete factorial identification task to infer perceptual separability. Also, Ashby and Townsend (1986), in a similar manner, attempted to relate perceptual independence to dimensional orthogonality in Tanner’s (1956) model, which also involvesd′ between two multivariate signals. An analysis of the proposedd′ _g reveals shortcomings in the diagonald′ test and also demonstrates that the assumptions behind equating perceptual independence to dimensional orthogonality are too weak. Thisd′ _g can be related to a common measure of statistical distance, Mahalanobis distance, in the special case of equal covariance matrices.     

Facial display of environmental policy uncertainty

Although much attention has been given to research reflecting the issue of human perception, a limited number of studies have utilized the human face as a mechanism for displaying perceptual data. This article illustrates the use of computer-generated cartoon faces as a method of portraying that data. It also demonstrates the use of this method in detecting perceptions among market drivers toward environmental protection policies. Guided by the Chernoff Faces, data from market drivers are mapped into cartoon faces which reflect perceptual expressions of the policies.The author is grateful to Dr. Morris Wilhelm, Dr. James Bowden, and Dr. James Clevenger for their constructive criticism and support and to the anonymous reviewers of theJournal of Business and Psychology for their very incisive comments.     

Mother,Melancholia, and Art in Erik H. Erikson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Toys and Reasons</Emphasis>

In three earlier articles (2007a, 2007b, 2007c), I focused on the theme of the relationship of melancholia and the mother, and suggested that the melancholic self may experience humor, play, and dreams as restorative resources. In this article, I want to make a similar case, based on Erik H. Erikson’s Toys and Reasons (1977), for art (in this particular case, a painting of the Annunciation). I have made a similar case for the restorative role of art in articles on Leonard da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (Capps, Pastoral Psychology, 53, 107–137, 2004) and James McNeill Whistler’s painting of his mother (Capps, Pastoral Psychology, 2007d). In the present article, however, I focus on the special biographical circumstances in Erikson’s own development of a melancholy self and the painting he discusses in Toys and Reasons, thereby suggesting that individuals may find a particular work of art especially relevant to their own experience of melancholy. I conclude with Erikson’s testimonial at the memorial service of a colleague and friend who translated her own melancholy into her service to others.

Nature, Interthing Intersubjectivity, and the Environment: A Comparative Analysis of Kant and Daoism

The Kantian philosophy, for many, largely represents the Modern West’s anthropocentric dominance of nature in its instrumental-rationalist orientation. Recently, some scholars have argued that Kant’s aesthetics offers significant resources for environmental ethics, while others believe that Kant’s flawed dualistic views in the second Critique severely undermine any environmental promise that aesthetic judgments may hold in Kant’s third Critique. This article first examines the meanings of nature in Kant’s three Critiques. It concludes that Kant’s aesthetic view toward sensible nature is indeed inconsistent. The article, however, also suggests that the “I” as “transcendental apperception” discussed in the paralogisms of the first Critique holds some promise of “interthing intersubjective” thinking. The second half of the article demonstrates that Daoism with a dialectic concern similar to Kant’s has something insightful to offer in its idea of interthingness based on a phenomenal account of nature. The article investigates important Daoist ideas of interthing analogical experience, qi, spiritual exercise, and wuwei in its dialect relation to zizan. By bringing Daoism and Kant into dialogue, the author hopes to bring forth a synthetic approach that is better suited to today’s environmental concerns.     

From Desire to Civility: Is Xunzi a Hobbesian?

This article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Xunzi’s and Hobbes’s understandings of human nature are qualitatively different, which is responsible for the difference in their respective normative political theory of a civil polity. This article has two main theses: first, where Hobbes’s deepest concern was with human beings’ unsocial passions, Xunzi was most concerned with human beings’ appetitive desires (yu 欲), material self-interest, and resulting social strife; second, as a result, where Hobbes strove to transform the pathological (anti-)politics of resentment into the politics of recognition by creating rational egalitarian citizenship under the all-encompassing constitutional sovereign power, Xunzi attempted to nourish human beings’ basic appetitive desires (yu 欲) by instituting a li 禮 ordered civil entity. This article concludes by showing how Confucian civility that Xunzi reconstructed by means of the li 禮 can effectively deal with unsocial passions.     

Patterns of abduction

This article describes abductions as special patterns of inference to the best explanation whose structure determines a particularly promising abductive conjecture (conclusion) and thus serves as an abductive search strategy (Sect. 1). A classification of different patterns of abduction is provided which intends to be as complete as possible (Sect. 2). An important distinction is that between selective abductions, which choose an optimal candidate from given multitude of possible explanations (Sects. 3–4), and creative abductions, which introduce new theoretical models or concepts (Sects. 5–7). While selective abduction has dominated the literature, creative abductions are rarely discussed, although they are essential in science. The article introduces several kinds of creative abductions, such as theoretical model abduction, common cause abduction and statistical factor analysis, and illustrates them by various real case examples. It is suggested to demarcate scientifically fruitful abductions from purely speculative abductions by the criterion of causal unification (Sect. 7.1).     

Behind Our I’s: Grief and Loss in the Poetry of Li-Young Lee

This article uses Kenneth R. Mitchell and Herbert Anderson’s (1983) six modalities of grieving as presented in Donald Capps’ (1993) The Poet’s Gift to bring a pastoral theological perspective to bear on Li-Young Lee’s Behind My Eyes (2008), a collection of thirty-nine poems. In specifically focusing on Lee’s poem “To Hold,” it makes the case for a seventh grieving modality, that of preemptive loss. Employing Mitchell and Anderson’s distinction between faithful and unfaithful grieving, it argues that preemptive loss is an unfaithful form or expression of grieving, and notes the irony and sadness in this regard, as this unfaithful response to grief is informed by what is widely considered to be a faithful Judeo–Christian perspective, rooted in the inescapable sinfulness of humanity.     

MORALITY AND THE LAW: BOWERS AND THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY

This article examines the right of privacy with emphasis on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick, as this case illustrates issues that arise in the context of government interference with citizen’s actions and with the broader context of morality and the law. I argue specifically that the Supreme Court erred in its ruling on the Bowers case by failing to recognize that the moral value of autonomy in this case outweighs the right of a state to establish statutes based on the perceived moral attitudes of its constituencies. I argue generally that moral principles can inform decisions about the ordering of the right of privacy and the moral claims that aim to limit the right.     

Defeating Dr. Evil with Self-Locating Belief

Dr. Evil learns that a duplicate of Dr. Evil has been created. Upon learning this, how seriously should he take the hypothesis that he himself is that duplicate? I answer: very seriously. I defend a principle of indifference for self‐locating belief which entails that after Dr. Evil learns that a duplicate has been created, he ought to have exactly the same degree of belief that he is Dr. Evil as that he is the duplicate. More generally, the principle shows that there is a sharp distinction between ordinary skeptical hypotheses, and self‐locating skeptical hypotheses.     

Semantic Information and the Correctness Theory of Truth

Semantic information is usually supposed to satisfy the veridicality thesis: p qualifies as semantic information only if p is true. However, what it means for semantic information to be true is often left implicit, with correspondentist interpretations representing the most popular, default option. The article develops an alternative approach, namely a correctness theory of truth (CTT) for semantic information. This is meant as a contribution not only to the philosophy of information but also to the philosophical debate on the nature of truth. After the introduction, in Sect. 2, semantic information is shown to be translatable into propositional semantic information (i). In Sect. 3, i is polarised into a query (Q) and a result (R), qualified by a specific context, a level of abstraction and a purpose. This polarization is normalised in Sect. 4, where [Q + R] is transformed into a Boolean question and its relative yes/no answer [Q + A]. This completes the reduction of the truth of i to the correctness of A. In Sects. 5 and 6, it is argued that (1) A is the correct answer to Q if and only if (2) A correctly saturates Q by verifying and validating it (in the computer science’s sense of “verification” and “validation”); that (2) is the case if and only if (3) [Q + A] generates an adequate model (m) of the relevant system (s) identified by Q; that (3) is the case if and only if (4) m is a proxy of s (in the computer science’s sense of “proxy”) and (5) proximal access to m commutes with the distal access to s (in the category theory’s sense of “commutation”); and that (5) is the case if and only if (6) reading/writing (accessing, in the computer science’s technical sense of the term) m enables one to read/write (access) s. Sect. 7 provides some further clarifications about CTT, in the light of semantic paradoxes. Section 8 draws a general conclusion about the nature of CTT as a theory for systems designers not just systems users. In the course of the article all technical expressions from computer science are explained.