A walk through time: What you should have read by now or will read soon about psychotherapy

In this paper a five years analysis of psychotherapy is done. The sample, taken from the PsycLIT was composed of 2694 books and book's chapters which deal with psychotherapy from many perspectives. Results are offered about first author's sex, institutional affiliation and country. Besides, the content of each book and chapter is analyzed in terms of the therapeutic approach followed, the pathology and sample treated, and the specific theme or author's work reviewed. The paper ends with a thorough discussion of the most relevant results found and brief comments about the future of psychotherapy.     

A Review Of Geraldine Jonçich's The Sane Positivist: A Biography Of Edward L. Thorndike

This book review, unfinished at the author's death, examines in historical context Thorndike's law of effect, his Animal Intelligence monograph of 1898, and related works on learning and behavior.     

The social-psychological study of conflict: Rejoinder to a critique

This paper is a rejoinder to Plon's critique of the social psychology of conflict published in this Journal. The rejoinder reviews the history of American social psychology, the meaning of ‘conflict resolution’, the nature of the dilemma in the Prisoner's Dilemma, and other related matters, which Plon has apparently misconstrued. The rejoinder criticizes Plon's crude ‘economic determinism’ version of Marxist theory and briefly considers the role of power in politics. The characteristics of the present author's social-psychological approach to conflict is outlined, and it is suggested that such an approach has direct relevance to the intellectual concerns of those who seek to bring about social change.     

Problems with paccekabuddhas—decoding early Buddhism

Steven Collins's review (Religion 2:3 (July 1992), pp. 271–8) of my publication Ascetic Figures before and in Early Buddhism: the Emergence of Gautama as the Buddha, Berlin, New York, Mouton de Gruyter 1990) warrants an extended response for a variety of reasons. In a circumstance where a four‐thousand word review has not one positive thing to say about a book, then the principle of natural justice particularly cries out for the author's right of reply. If Collins's review should have the effect of putting off prospective readers of my book then my reply is designed to recuperate their interest. Notwithstanding, it does not take an adept in the art of hermeneutic suspicion to realize the review actually tells us much more about the reviewer than the book. I cannot think that frenzied expressions like ‘academic hooligan’, ‘hearer‐bashing’, ‘fantasy’, ‘biting the hand that feeds you, with a vengeance’ could so easily have poured forth from the pen of normally so gracious a reviewer, had this particular book not hit an emotive nerve—if nothing else!—and sent Collins into an unparalleled fit of moral panic. Indeed, I shall be so bold as to suggest that Collins's reaction to the book has less to do with questions of its scholarly credibility (though his academic posturing would have us believe otherwise): ‘the thesis is presented as historical scholarship, and so it must be judged on academic grounds’ (p. 274) than with Collins's own narrow, pedantic conception, or preconception, of Buddhist Studies. This means my rejoinder to Collins's review inevitably draws me into a discussion of broader methodological questions of general interest to the wider academic community as well as particular issues pertaining to Buddhist scholarship.     

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE REQUIREMENTS FOR REVIEWING BOOKS

Abstract: The quality of peer‐reviewed journals is vulnerable to the absence of declared standards for book reviews. Reviewers should agree to several simple rules before undertaking to review books and while writing them. Sensitivity to an author's aims is one requirement; familiarity with an author's previous and relevant publications is another. Critical judgment is always appropriate, but it can be set apart from an account of the ideas reviewed.     

Another Strand of Our Diversity:

This article represents the author's attempt to open the subjects of disability and accessibility-for-all in the women's community and specifically the feminist therapy community. It is a revised version of a presentation given at the May 1990 Advanced Feminist Therapy Institute Conference in Chicago. The author's illnesses, CFIDS (Chronis Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome) and MCS/EI (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/Environmental Illness) are "women's illnesses," and, as such, are generally misunderstood and ignored. For this reason, the author describes in some detail her personal experiences, physical and emotional, of becoming severely and chronically ill. She discusses shortcomings in the women's therapy community's response todisabled women and suggests some analysis of the phenomenon of what she calls the "active unwillingness to know."     

How Not to Write a Biography… Perhaps: A Preface

Writing a biography can take on a life of its own. The twists and turns of capturing another's personal history often result in the author's deepening sense of the pitfalls and triumphs animating his or her own life. Consequently in a biography can be found much of the biographer. Though sources are the resources informing “the story,” the effort to illuminate decisions and actions casts a shadow inward, prompting questions and concerns, uncertainties and fears about how much can truly be discovered about another we do not know.     

“Experiences deemed religious”: Radical critique or temporary fix? Strategic ambiguity in Ann Taves’ Religious Experience Reconsidered

Ann Taves has written an interesting, lucid and informative book. In particular, the author's suggested reformulation of religious studies as the study of “things deemed special” indicates a critical alternative to the dominant discourse. But such a reformulation implies that the ‘secular’ side of the mutually parasitic religion‐secular binary also requires deconstruction. This in turn must surely lead to a critique of the representation of social psychology and related disciplines as ‘natural science’, a representation which itself is already dependent on the wider, globalizing, ideological religion/secular binary, and its supernatural/natural correlate. The author's ambiguous alternation between things deemed special and things deemed religious invites the discursive contours of ‘religion’ to re‐enter through the back door, leaving the status quo substantially intact     

Queering Migrations: Towards,From, Beyond Asia

Abstract

The author's most recent book, Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay Reading of Saints, was published by the Pilgrim Press, which is part of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a liberal Protestant denomination. The book came under a fair measure of close scrutiny by the UCC Ministry Interpreters, and parts of it were asked to be removed or rewritten. This article examines some of the ‘offensive’ or problematic passages in the text, and it raises questions about ‘the intersections of a sexualized gay discourse and a normative religious one’. The author looks at concepts of pollution or disorder as these might apply to the writing of an eroticized theology, and why it is that writing about the sacred in a sexual or homoerotic way, particularly in a Christian context, so often is perceived as a source of theological angst or ecclesial panic.     

‘On Bullshit’ and ‘Mindfucking’: an essay on mental manipulation in education

In 2005 and 2008, respectively, two books by well-established and -respected analytical philosophers caused some controversy, not only because of their provocative and eye-catching titles but also because of the sheer brevity of the essays they contained. Harry Frankfurt's book, which analysed the prevalence of ‘bullshit’ in contemporary society, was generally lauded for elevating a slang term to a new epistemological category, despite some people's understandable unease with the author's opportunist focus on a popular obscenity. Critics were generally less kind with regard to Colin McGinn's book, pointing out that his analysis adds little, if anything, to the general understanding of mental manipulation, and that he has little to say about the factors that influence the frequency with which mindfucking occurs in contemporary society. After arguing that mindfucking is a special kind of psychological manipulation (and crucially distinct from indoctrination and brainwashing), the present paper investigates the possible educational significance and application of these two notions. It pays special attention to the factors affecting the frequency and magnitude with which bullshit and mindfucking occur in contemporary society, not only in our culture but in other cultures too.     

You Must Have Thought This Book Was About You1: Reply to Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett's review 2 of my book, Human Nature and the Limits of Science, 3 was apparently conceived as part of a multiple review, anticipating an author's response, so I am grateful for the opportunity to satisfy this expectation. Indeed, Dennett uses this excuse to justify devoting his own contribution to responding to those parts of the book directed explicitly at his own work, leaving other imagined reviewers to take care of other issues. Since he has things to say about most of the topics in the book he evidently interpreted this remit widely, in fact taking the book as “presented as an antidote of sorts to [his] own world view” (p. 482). Let me begin, therefore, by reassuring Dennett that, while I certainly had some critical things to say about some of his views, the book most certainly was not intended as an ad hominem attack. The nine pages (out of 187) on which his work is cited fairly accurately reflects the extent to which his views figured in my thinking. Curiously, his ire seems most strongly aroused by my assault on his views on free will in which, apparently, I agree with nearly everything he says and, worse still, fail to cite him at all.     

COMMENTS ON SIX RESPONSES TO DEMOCRACY AND TRADITION

This paper is a rejoinder to papers by Sabina Lovibond, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Sumner B. Twiss, G. Scott Davis, M. Cathleen Kaveny, and John Kelsay on the author's recent book Democracy and Tradition. The argument covers a host of topics, ranging from epistemology and methodology to human rights, the common law, and Islamic ethics.     

BUDDHISM,NATURALISM, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Owen Flanagan's important book The Bodhisattva's Brain presents a naturalized interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. Although the overall approach of the book is very promising, certain aspects of its presentation could benefit from further reflection. Traditional teachings about reincarnation do not contradict the doctrine of no self, as Flanagan seems to suggest; however, they are empirically rather implausible. Flanagan's proposed “tame” interpretation of karma is too thin; we can do better at fitting karma into a scientific worldview. The relationship between eudaimonist and utilitarian strands in Buddhist ethics is more complex than the book suggests. Flanagan is right to criticize incautious and imprecise claims that Buddhism will make practitioners happy. We can make progress by distinguishing between happiness in the sense of a Buddhist version of eudaimonia, and happiness in the sense of attitudinal pleasure. Doing so might result in an interpretation of Buddhist views about happiness that was simultaneously philosophically interesting, historically credible, and psychologically testable.     

Justice Within Different Borders: A Review of Caney's Global Political Theory

This essay examines the central claim of Caney's book, viz., that there is no reason to treat the global sphere differently from the domestic sphere. It suggests that there is much that is valuable in having relatively autonomous, differentiated political communities, which both versions of Caney's scope argument ignore. This insight is explored via a critical assessment of both versions of Caney's scope argument; version 1, which is focused on civil and political rights (and argues that that they should be universalized) and version 2, which applies to theories of distributive justice (particularly Caney's global equality of opportunity principle).     

Rethinking the Comparative Study of Religious Ethics

This essay describes the author's change of approach to the comparative study of religious ethics from the one contained in a book on the subject (with Sumner B. Twiss), published in 1978. The change resulted from interactions with Abdulaziz Sachedina, the noted scholar of Islam, demonstrating the importance of comparing different ethical systems in reference to global topics like human rights, particularly the right to freedom of conscience.     

The leaders and the led: Problems of just war theory

Any attempt to justify war in the fashion of just war theories risks underestimating its morally problematic nature. This becomes clear if we ask how the individual soldier or citizen is supposed to use just war theory in his own thinking. Michael Walzer's recent book, Just and Unjust Wars, illustrates the problem nicely. Walzer's view is that whether a state is justified in going to war is not a matter for the citizen to judge, and with regard to the way the war is conducted the individual soldier can have only minimal moral responsibility for what is done. Walzer's position is criticized in detail and the conclusion drawn that such an understanding of just war theory undermines the theory's significance as a moral outlook on war. It is also argued that a more pertinent version of just war theory must have strong implications for social change.     

Seeing Small,Seeing the Future

The Role of Science in Law by Feldman analyzes the vexed relationship between science and law. The book provides a good overview on the ongoing debate on the topic, but the author's attempt to suggest a guideline for the conflict between science and law falls short of any satisfactory conclusion.     

A Comment on teurnell's “the piggle—a sexually abused girl?”

Abstract

In his comment on Teurnell's paper “The Piggle—a sexually abused girl?” the author points to the risk of organizing a complicated clinical material around one single idea and briefly describes other ways of understanding the material in Winnicott's book. To the author's mind, the richness and depth of the material and the subtleness and aesthetics of the interplay between Winnicott and the Piggle, in Teurnell's way of reading, collapse into one single question: the possibility of a sexual trauma. At the end of the comment the role of the Piggle's father is shortly discussed.