The major's therapy: Ernest Hemingway's “In Another Country”

“In Another Country” draws upon Hemingway's experiences during World War I. Narrated by a wounded young American, this story is a parable of early machine-rehabilitation therapy, one in which the strong optimism of a physician employing new machines is contrasted with the skepticism of an Italian major (“the greatest fencer in Italy”) who, disbelieving in the machines, nevertheless comes regularly for therapy to his hand. That daily attendance is interrupted only when the major's young wife dies suddenly. The major, who had instructed the American never to put himself “in a position to lose,” has himself just “lost” the wife he had married when he felt sure that his own wounding had effectively taken him out of danger of being killed at the front. His continued stoicism offers the young soldier an example of ethical and moral behavior, for after her funeral he resumes his daily routine of machine-therapy. Seen against the ineffectiveness of the machines, the major's behavior seems to offer an example of the only “therapy” possible in this world of wounds and machines.     

The ethnocentric gaze: From ethnology to ethnophilosophy to “Africa”

In this essay I deploy Sartre's phenomenology of the gaze as the foil to demonstrate the cultural and philosophical movement from ethnology to ethnophilosophy that produces a specific conception of Africa. The violence of the Western gaze on Africa led several ethnological and anthropological excavations of Africa's cultural beingness, and the eventual creation of ethnophilosophical reason. Despite the obvious limitations of ethnophilosophy, I argue in this essay for a conception of cultural agency around which we can properly understand “Africa” as a meaningful site, a territorial imaginary that is far from the ethnophilosophical imagination, but not too far. Ethnophilosophy serves as the platform around which we can commence a reconstruction of an African self that is sufficiently recuperated, through false memory and historical reinvention, to return the gaze and renegotiate its freedom.     

From “The Depleted Self” to “The Will to Believe”: Excavating the Hermeneutics of Donald Capps

The concept of “reframing” lies at the heart of the pastoral psychology of Donald Capps. In previous articles I have argued that the process of reframing follows a circular hermeneutics. An excavation of Capps’ hermeneutics reveals foundations in the fields of philosophy and psychology. This article focuses on the legacy of Johann Gottfried von Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James and Paul Ricoeur. It explores the differences and commonalities between William James and Friedrich Schleiermacher’s understanding of religious experience as well as Paul Ricoeur’s understanding of narrativity and traces these strains to Capps’ pastoral psychology. As illustration of his pastoral approach to healing and wholeness the problem of “the depleted self,” so prevalent in “our narcissistic age,” encounters the healing narrative of Jesus that appeals to “the will to believe.”     

Defending Research Confidentiality “To the Extent the Law Allows:” Lessons From the Boston College Subpoenas

Although in the US there have been dozens of subpoenas seeking information gathered by academic researchers under a pledge of confidentiality, few cases have garnered as much attention as the two sets of subpoenas issued to Boston College seeking interviews conducted with IRA operatives who participated in The Belfast Project, an oral history of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. For the researchers and participants, confidentiality was understood to be unlimited, while Boston College has asserted that it pledged confidentiality only “to the extent American law allows.” This a priori limitation to confidentiality is invoked by many researchers and universities in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, but there has been little discussion of what the phrase means and what ethical obligations accompany it. An examination of the researchers’ and Boston College’s behaviour in relation to the subpoenas provides the basis for that discussion. We conclude that Boston College has provided an example that will be cited for years to come of how not to protect research participants to the extent American law allows.     

“In One”: The Bearer Issue and the Principles of Exemplification

Traditionally, the so-called exemplification or the relation between the particular and the universal has been one of the three central problems making up the classical problem of universals: (1) What is a particular? (2) What is a universal? (3) What is the relation between the particular and the universal? I used the expression “classical problem of universals” instead of “the problem of universals” since the classical formulation of the problem could be said to contain a questionable assumption, namely that substance should be the bearer “in” which are the entities of (other) categories. Under these circumstances, a neutral approach to the problem of universals could consist in reformulating the three problems of the classical problem as follows: (4) What is the fundamental bearer of categories? (5) What categories are there? (6) What is the relation between the fundamental bearer and the categories? My purpose in this paper is to answer the latter three questions. In order to accomplish this task, I shall discuss the views of two leading figures in substance-ontology, Aristotle and Jonathan Lowe, and the views of two leading figures in fact-ontology, Gustav Bergmann and Reinhardt Grossmann. I shall answer the first question by claiming that the fundamental bearer of categories is facts; the second, by pointing out that it depends on the answer to the previous one; and the third, by showing that the relation between the fundamental bearer and the categories is the one between facts and its constituents, not between a substance or particular and its accidents or properties. In this connection, I shall argue that the “in” of property exemplification should be categorially reconstructed in order for entities other than properties, say, particulars, relations, connectives, numbers, and even facts, to be “in” facts. This categorial reconstruction will also argued for with respect to the Principle of Exemplification.     

Putting “Positive” and “Psychology” In Perspective: The Role of Indian Psychology

Rao (this issue) offers a trenchant critique of the field of positive psychology. He clearly shows the way positive psychology, as it has been thus far considered, is clearly a product of a Westernized psychology. He goes further though and proposes that some of the limitations of positive psychology might be addressed by considering the insights of Indian indigenous psychology. In this commentary I suggest that these limitations of positive psychology can be fruitfully framed by considering the nature of the self and the nature of the positive or good that any understanding of positive psychology must presuppose.     

Illuminating and Applying “The Dark Side”: Insights From Elite Team Leaders

In contrast to socially desirable behaviors, recent work has implied that effective elite team leadership also relies on socially undesirable behaviors. Accordingly, this study aimed to further explore the authenticity of dark side leadership behaviors, what they look like, and how they may be best used. Via interviews with 15 leaders, behaviors associated with Machiavellianism/mischievousness, skepticism, social dominance, and performance-focused ruthlessness were found. Moreover, these behaviors were enabled by leaders’ sociopolitical awareness and engineering as well as their adaptive expertise. Findings promote practitioner sensitivity to dark side leadership and, for leader effectiveness, sociopolitical and temporal features of its application.     

Asian Families “Back Home”: An Unexplored Resource

Communities from which Asian migrants to the West originate are often seen by western professionals as a drain upon these new migrants’ resources, and are not included in formulations about problems or their solutions. In this article, a number of case examples are used to illustrate how the authors made use of the relationships of Bangladeshi migrants living in the east end of London to their families back home as a crucial resource in overcoming difficulties encountered in their new country. It is further argued that seeing such families as having transnational loyalties is a more helpful “frame” than seeing them as caught up in cultural conflict.     

Whether “Malevolent” or “Negative,” Creativity Is Relevant to Terrorism Prevention: Lessons From 9/11 and Hazardous Material Trucking

Cropley, Kaufman, and Cropley (this issue) make an important contribution in arguing for the value of creativity for terrorism prevention. Their message will be, though, somewhat more novel for scientific researchers and theorists than for the intelligence and security communities. It also leaves out many concepts and techniques, from the Psychology of Creativity literature, which are relevant to the theme of preventing terrorism. In this article, we give some attention to examining the constructs and analyses presented by Cropley et al. Most of our effort is, however, devoted to using Cropley et al.'s ideas as the starting point for a more detailed discussion of applying cognitive psychology, social psychology, organizational psychology, and security-profession ideas to creatively anticipating potential creative terrorism attacks, and devising creative counter-measures against such attacks. To illustrate the potential application of the Psychology of Creativity to terrorism, results are presented of a pilot study on using the Red-Team/Green-Team, Attack-Defense Tree, and Nominal Group techniques to generate possible creative approaches to anticipating and countering terrorism.     

In Progress … I Hope: From Pediatrics to Psychoanalysis to …

Psychoanalysis must be an idiosyncratic matter. That means that the encounter between the patient and the analyst is carried out through the personal character of both participants. But there is something more. Historical and cultural patterns are also most influential. The present and the past social context where the psychoanalytic bipersonal meeting occurs is a significant factor in the evanescent constitution and the constant movement between the ego of the analyst and the ego of the patient. Therefore, in this radical view only Freud would fulfill a Freudian encounter. We, as probable post-Freudians, must be permanently searching for personal, idiosyncratic ways in the clinical work. Brazilian psychoanalysts face the challenge to treat their patients in a Brazilian way. To understand Brazilian people and the way psychoanalysis may develop in this land, we must know that Brazilians' lived experience is frequently blended by irony, paradox, and the fleeting character of the human life. Words—a pragmatic perspective of Brazilian words in action—are essential for the task. Interrogative psychoanalytic dialogues are my main topic of research.     

The attentional blink: Resource depletion or temporary loss of control?

Identification of the second of two targets is impaired if it is presented less than about 500 ms after the first. Theoretical accounts of this second-target deficit, known as attentional blink (AB), have relied on some form of limited attentional resource that is allocated to the leading target at the expense of the trailing target. Three experiments in the present study reveal a failure of resource-limitation accounts to explain why the AB is absent when the targets consist of a stream of three items belonging to the same category (e.g., letters or digits). The AB is reinstated, however, if an item from a different category is inserted in the target string. This result, and all major results in the AB literature, is explained by the hypothesis that the AB arises from a temporary loss of control over the prevailing attentional set. This lapse in control renders the observer vulnerable to an exogenously-triggered switch in attentional set.     

HIV/AIDS Awareness of In—School Adolescents in Nigeria: Implications for Adolescence Sexuality

This study investigated HIV/AIDS awareness of in-school adolescents in Nigeria to determine their risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. A total of 892 purposively selected adolescents (mean age = 16. 5 years; SD = 5. 2; males = 492; females = 400) participated in the study. The participants responded to the HIV/AIDS Awareness Inventory (HAAI). The questions on the survey included the following aspects: meaning of HIV/AIDS; prevalence; mode of transmission; consequences and prevention. Differences in gender, age, school location and father's educational background in understanding HIV risk were examined. A group means comparison procedure revealed a significant difference in HIV awareness by gender, age, school location and father's educational background. Female adolescents, the older adolescents, those living in urban centres and those whose fathers are literate had higher HIV/AIDS awareness than their counterparts from rural areas. Nigerian adolescents need education regarding HIV/AIDS awareness.     

The NIH Roadmap: Are Psychologists In or Out?

Psychologists often express concerns about the inclusion of psychology in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap initiative. Most Roadmap themes focus on biomedical research, forming the basis for psychologists’ concerns. Although most Roadmap funding goes toward biomedical research, social and behavioral scientists do win support. It is reasonable to ask, however, why the Roadmap is focused so exclusively on medical research. One explanation is that medical interventions are seen as the natural translation of basic biomedical research, whereas psychological interventions are not perceived as following from basic behavioral research. Psychologists working in academic health centers represent the best opportunity for creating such linkages, and therefore the best potential bridge for psychology connecting to the NIH Roadmap. This paper represents the views of the author, and not necessarily those of the American Psychological Association and is based on a presentation given at the 3rd National Conference of the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers in May 2007 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.     

In a no-win situation: The employment–health dilemma

Work and organizational psychology (WOP) research has to date mostly focused on people privileged to have the choice between several attractive job options and less on people who are restricted in their job choice (e.g., due to their qualification or personal contingencies) and have to choose from fewer and often less-than-optimal jobs. Often, the jobs available to the latter are characterized by precarious employment and hazardous working conditions which can put them in the difficult situation of having to choose between a health-threatening job and possible unemployment. Building on interdisciplinary literature, we propose the employment–health dilemma (E-H dilemma) as a framework for analyzing this intrapersonal conflict of having to choose between employment (incurring health threats) and health (incurring economic threats) and discuss potential antecedents and consequences of the E-H dilemma at the societal, organizational, and individual level. We outline the implications of the E-H dilemma and make a case for examining the full spectrum of job choice situations in WOP research. In doing so, we demonstrate what WOP can gain by embracing a more inclusive and multidisciplinary approach: uncovering processes in their entirety (e.g., job choice decisions of all people) and strengthening the role and legitimacy of WOP in society.     

From “Home” to “Camp”: Theorizing the Space of Safety

In this article, I discuss how the space of the classroom is a contested object that is constituted by historical, cultural, political, social, psychological, and discursive practices (Lefebvre in The production of space, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1991). I then employ Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “assemblage” to characterize the ways in which educational spaces cohere “content and affect” quoted in Puar (Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times, Duke University Press, Durham, 2007, 193) into discursive figures of the heteronormative and racialized national “family.” Finally, I argue that in order to advance contemporary theorizing on safe space we might consider shifting the metaphor of the classroom (and/or schooling) as a situation of home (in loco parentis) to that of a metaphor of camp. As a discursive practice, “camp” is like “home” in that it has multiple associations of past histories. However, the advantage of the metaphor of classroom as camp allows for a more capacious range of past histories of association, from recreation to temporary inhabitation to forced relocation, thus foregrounding the innate political implications of theorizing space. Moreover, the metaphor of camp implies transience (whether real or imaginary) while keeping in mind the partial and situated nature of particular places and spaces. Foregrounding the transient component/feature of safe space allows us to make visible and explore the possibilities and limitations of conceptualizing relations of power as circuitous, contested and performative through competing claims to particular places as objects of safety.     

“Scattered In Times”

Climate change is a temporally fragmented phenomenon: the causes and effects at work are dispersed over a remarkably long time period. Climate change exceeds human ability to forecast and quantify its effects in time. This creates serious epistemic, moral, and psychological difficulties and poses challenges to generating adequate ethical responses. Augustine’s understanding of time as a measure of imagination emphasizes the way in which human beings actively shape their sense of time. He sees “looking forward” in time as a matter of spiritual vocation that collects the self out of dispersion and connects to a transgenerational collective. A notable example of how this “looking forward” may be practiced is singing the Psalms. The Augustinian “temporal imagination” links the imaginative, affective, moral, and vocational dimensions of measuring time. This offers some preliminary avenues for reimagining a sense of time responsive to climate change’s temporal fragmentation.