Facing the Holocaust in Generations of Families of Survivors: The Case of Partial Relevance and Interpersonal Values

This qualitative study examined the meaning of the Holocaust for 10 Israeli families of survivors in which there are three generations. Thirty-two individuals (24 women, 8 men) were asked to tell their life story. The interviews were analyzed for themes related to PR (Partial Relevance, Bar-On & Selah, 1991) and the interpersonal values held by family members, using SYMLOG methods (Bales, 1999). The first generation agreed on the importance of the value of family teamwork and showed medium to high range PR scores. The second and the third generations showed low, medium, and high range PR scores and tended to value both family teamwork and more non- conforming behavior.     

The treatment of adolescents and their families in cultural transition: Issues and recommendations

Increasing numbers of immigrant families with adolescent children are seeking therapy because of intergenerational conflicts specific to the adolescent separation-individuation phase of the life cycle and transitional problems related to immigration and cultural transition. Three types of adolescent immigrants are identified and discussed: Immigrants (subtypes Reluctants and Optimists), Immigrant-Americans, and Americans. Therapists' issues which can negatively affect therapy with such adolescents and families are also discussed. Effective therapy with immigrant families requires that family therapists become more culturally sensitive, therapeutically flexible, and accepting of family values to which they may be diametrically opposed. Recommendations for therapy are offered.Dr. Baptiste is himself an immigrant. The experiences and observations discussed here are culled from his work with immigrant families and children over the past 19 years in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Indiana, and New Mexico.Portions of this article will appear in a chapter Psychotherapy with adolescent immigrants and their families in cultural transition in B. Settles and D. Hanks (Eds.),Families on the move: Emigration, immigration, migration and mobility. Sage Publications, 1990, and are used here with permission.     

Wets,drys, and damps

The real issues pertaining to beverage alcohol have been obscured by propaganda from America's drys and wets. The Judeo-Christian culture has, throughout its history, usually advocated moderation. A similar position has been supported by Plato and by some modern researchers concerned with the prevention of alcoholism. Problem drinkers are more likely to come from a family tradition of abstinence than from moderate imbibers.     

The Social Costs of Treatment Programs

The medicalization of deviance refers to the identification as diseases or illnesses of patterns of behavior that were previously considered in moral terms. Herbert Spencer viewed society as analogous to a living organism. A problem or disease in one part of the organism affects the entire organism. Early sociologists built on this idea and arrived at the conclusion that deviant behavior could be thought of as social disease and social pathology. The early social pathologists were concerned with crime, mental illness, drug abuse, and suicide. There is a tendency to treat such ailments in a hospital or clinical setting. The medicalization of deviance removes responsibility from the individual as well as from the society which continues to produce the problem. Treatment programs give the false impression that something worthwhile is being done about society's behavioral problems and turn the individuals treated back into the same social milieu in which the problem was incubated in the first place. The medicalization of deviance creates a vested-interest industry dependent upon the treatment of individuals. It has constructed a system of individualized microlevel treatment programs that can be beneficial on a limited basis for a few individuals and their families, but it tends to treat only the symptoms but not change the society of which they are but emanations.     

Oral production of linguistically complex sentences with meaning relationships of time

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the abilities of children to use the adjoining mechanism in combining two constituent sentences with the temporal adjoiners: after, before, until, when, and while. To elicit responses, a sentence repetition task was devised that included these five temporal adjoiners in four different syntactic environments: transitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause following the main clause, transitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause preceding the main clause, intransitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause following the main clause, and intransitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause preceding the main clause. The 30 were between the ages of 4O and 66 years. They were average children who were free from any known emotional disturbance, who were acquiring Standard American English as a native language, who had normal speech and hearing, and whose parents had neither very high nor very low socioeconomic status. To the extent that the children in this study were representative of normal-speaking children of their ages, certain general conclusions were drawn. Children begin to use the temporal adjoining mechanism early, but they do not master it by the age of 66 years. The ability to use the adjoiners, nor is it equal for different syntactic structures nor for all degrees of semantic complexity. After, before, and when appear earlier than while and until. A rapid period of growth in learning to use the temporal adjoining mechanism occurs between the ages of 4 and 5 years. However, a plateau of learning appears to be reached between the ages of 5 and 6 years. In general, children first learn to use the temporal adjoining mechanism in intransitive sentences with the adjoining link in the middle or at the beginning of the utterance. Next, they learn to use it in transitive sentences with the adjoining link at the beginning of the utterance. Finally, they learn to use it in transitive sentences with the adjoining link in the middle of the utterance. In transitive sentences, children appear to learn the rule for placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of the utterance when temporally adjoining two constituent sentences before they learn the base structure rule. In intransitive sentences, they appear to learn the rule for placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of the utterance when temporally adjoining two constituent sentences at the same time that they learn the base structure rule. The underlying semantic relationships that are expressed by specific temporal adjoiners are important determinants of children's abilities to use these adjoiners. In linguistic evaluations, one should consider the syntactic environment in which the temporal adjoiner occurs and assume that after, before, and when are developmentally earlier than while and until.     

The family as portrayed on prime-time television, 1947–1990: Structure and characteristics

Successful family series across four decades of American prime-time television were examined. Family portrayals were defined as either conventional or nonconventional. Conventional families were categorized as couples without children and couples with children. Nonconventional families were categorized as single parent or contrived. Additional family characteristics were also recorded including sex of single parent, reason for singleness, social class status, females employed outside the home, live-ins, race, and whether the presentation was dramatic or comedic. The data show a trend toward more equal presentation of conventional and nonconventional families, few divorced or female single parents, and few minority families. Implications of findings are discussed and future research questions suggested.     

Modifying social withdrawal in preschoolers: The effects of filmed modeling and teacher praise

Thirteen social isolates were selected from five nursery schools according to teacher ratings and behavioral samples obtained by trained observers. Half the subjects were randomly assigned to a modeling group and viewed a 23-minute film depicting appropriate social behavior in the nursery school. The remainder of the subjects viewed the same film, but also received 2 days of teacher praise contingent on the subject's peer interaction in his classroom. Modeling was inferred to successfully modify isolate behavior with or without praise. The modeling plus praise condition was not significantly different from modeling only for children's social interactions. General proximity response scores appeared to be detrimentally affected by the praise contingency during posttest assessment only. At followup, all subjects maintained or improved their posttest interaction scores.Gratitude is expressed to the administrators and teachers at the Jewish Community Center of Syracuse and the Syracuse University Cooperative Nursery School.     

Poetry in Existential Psychotherapy with Couples and Families

The use of poetry during the process of existential psychotherapy with couples and families is described and illustrated. In this approach, poems can be utilized to help the couple and/or family notice meaning potentials in the future, actualize and make use of such meaning potentials in the here and now, and re-collect and honor meanings previously actualized and deposited in the past.     

“Soul-making” in a schizophrenic saint

Soul-making (cf. Jung and Hillman) is the process of integrating spiritual and bodily imagery into an intimated wholeness transcending conscious comprehension. Pierre Janet's case of the psychotic mystic, Madeleine, reveals that the patient had been making her own-soul even though his theory had no provision for soul. Janet's soul-stripping theory is contrasted with a soul-making approach, primarily in their respective interpretations of Madeleine's altered states of consciousness. Religious ecstasy is a stretching of soul, an expansion into the realm of spirit, which requires a subsequent descent into and reconciliation with tradition, society, outer world, and body.     

Mel Gibson’s Big Gamble: <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of Christ</Emphasis>

Mel Gibsons film is a creative reworking of opportunities provided by migrating to Australia as a boy and a life-long desire to be reconciled to his father, Hutton Gibson. If the film is read as a study in psychology and biography, then biblical and theological critiques, along with contemporary politically correct stances towards what Gibson did, can be set temporarily aside in search of a larger trajectory of meaning implicit in the film. The embodied nature of the film, along with other violent films in which Gibson starred in the past three decades, points to wellsprings of power in the blood. Violence becomes an idiom of reconciliation with authority. Gibsons relationship to his father plays a major role in such a reading of the film. A continuous reconciliation with his father is evident not only in thematic continuities over the course of Mel Gibsons professional acting career and starring roles. It also structures the directors construction of Christs Passion. A desire not to be forsaken gives rise to this idiosyncratic and controversial film, itself a cinematic statement about Gibsons own personal spiritual torment.Richard A. Hutch is Director of Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Reader in Religion and Psychological Studies in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion, and Classics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia 4072.     

The fallacy of fallacies

Several of the so-called fallacies in Aristotle are not in fact mistaken inference-types, but mistakes or breaches of rules in the questioning games which were practiced in the Academy and in the Lyceum. Hence the entire Aristotelian theory of fallacies ought to be studied by reference to the author's interrogative model of inquiry, based on his theory of questions and answers, rather than as a part of the theory of inference. Most of the fallacies mentioned by Aristotle can in fact be diagnosed by means of the interrogative model, including petitio principii, multiple questions, babbling, etc., and so can Aristotle's alleged anticipation of the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. The entire Aristotelian conception of inquiry is an interrogative one. Deductive conclusions caught Aristotle's attention in the form of answers that every rational interlocutor must give, assuming only his own earlier answers. Several features of Aristotle's methodology can be understood by means of the interrogative model, including the role of endoxa in it. Theoretically, there is also considerable leeway as to whether fallacies are conceived of as mistakes in questioning or as breaches of the rules that govern questioning games.     

Self-paced learning in children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity

Attention deficit (ADDH) children self-paced the delivery of response pairs for paired-associate learning at about the rate previously shown to be conducive to relatively good learning in attention deficit. The self-pacing opportunity did not seem either to impair or to enhance the learning performance. On methylphenidate they paced themselves at about the same rate but learned much more. Stimulant therapy does not help by slowing the child down but permits more effective memorizing at the same presentation rate.     

Depression and Anxiety in Persons with Parkinson's Disease With and Without “On–Off” Phenomena

On–off phenomena in Parkinson's disease (PD) are unpredictable motor fluctuations associated with long-term levodopa use. Mood fluctuations have been found to coincide with the motor fluctuations in that depression and anxiety increase while the person with PD is in the off state. What has been relatively unexplored is whether those persons with PD who have on–off phenomena differ psychologically in fundamental ways from those who do not have on–off phenomena. In the present study, depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed in 36 persons with PD (n = 14 with on–off phenomena, n = 22 without on–off phenomena). All those with on–off phenomena were assessed in their on state. Those persons with PD with on–off phenomena had significantly higher levels of anxiety than those without on–off phenomena. However, both groups, regardless of on–off status, were mildly depressed. Neurobiological interpretations of the results implicate the locus coeruleus in the pathogenesis of both on–off phenomena and anxiety, whereas psychological interpretations of the results involve the issues of learned helplessness and control over health symptoms in PD.     

Rational choices in wason's selection task

Sixty-eight subjects were asked to solve a series of six Wason selection problems by physically turning relevant cards over until they could say whether the rule was correct or false. In the first experiment most of the subjects misunderstood the rule they were asked to verify, different subjects misunderstanding in different ways, but commonly reading (a) top/underneath for one side/other side and (b) a dual conditional for if..., then.... However, a majority of subjects thereafter responded in complete logical consistency with the rule as they understood it to be. When the misunderstandings revealed in the first experiment were themselves presented as rules to be verified in a second experiment, performance was much more logical than is usually reported. It is concluded that the illogicality commonly associated with Wason's selection task is only apparent.     

Responsibility and evil imagination

In this Niebuhrian perspective on hostile and violent discourse the author utilizes H. R. Niebuhr's fourfold notion of responsibility and his concept of evil imagination to examine relations marred by protracted hostility toward hated other or others. The author argues that violent and hostile discourse manifests a particular form of responsibility whereby persons expressing hostility toward hated others construct, by way of negative representations, maligned histories and identities for the other and at the same time construct an idealized or glorified history and identity for themselves. These positive and negative representations and histories, then, are utilized to answer questions regarding interpretation, accountability, and solidarity. Niebuhr's concept of evil imagination is employed to hypothesize about the intransigence of this form of responsibility and to suggest reasons why elevated and maligned representations, identities, and histories are, more often than not, inextricably and tragically linked.     

The Relationship Between Family Factors and Adolescent Substance Use in Rural, Suburban, and Urban Settings

We tested the relationships and predictive power of family factors on rural, suburban, and urban adolescent substance use. A representative statewide survey of 11th grade students for gender, place of residence, and ethnicity was conducted. No significant differences were found between rural, suburban, and urban adolescents for substance use. For family sanction variables across all locations, adolescent substance involvement was significantly lower the more they perceived their families would stop them or care if they got drunk, smoked cigarettes, or used marijuana. Rural and suburban youth who reported that their parents talked to them about the dangers of smoking and getting drunk were less involved in substance use. While controlling for location, gender, and ethnicity, regression analyses showed that family sanctions against smoking cigarettes and marijuana explained a modest proportion of the variance in substance use. Finally, family talking about the dangers of cigarettes, family involvement in schools and belief that their families cared about them predicted lower substance use regardless of location, although minimal variance was explained. The findings have implications for social service providers regarding location settings, prevention, education, and intervention programming.     

On the identification of clinically significant client changes: Reinterpretation of Jacobson's cut scores

Cut points or cut scores play a central role in Jacobson's popular method of identifying clinically significant changes in psychotherapy. When pre- and posttherapy scores of a client are on different sides of one of these cut scores, the change is considered clinically significant, provided that it is also reliable (i.e., not due to measurement errors). This article critically examines the meanings and implications of these cut scores. Contrary to popular beliefs, they are generallynot the test scores for which the probability of belonging to the Functional population is equal to the probability of belonging to the Dysfunctional population. When the Functional population distribution is above that of the Dysfunctional population, persons scoring above these cut scores can, in fact, have much greater probabilities of belonging to the Dysfunctional than to the Functional population. Goals of Jacobson's method can be attained only with Bayesian methods. Bayesian modifications of Jacobson's cut scores are proposed, although their use is limited by the availability of relevant base rates. Bayesian methods (a) can provide information about the probability that an individual belongs to each population, given his (her) score, and (b) are expected to yield total misdiagnosis rates that are many times lower than those of Jacobson's method. Users of Jacobson's method are cautioned against interpreting ratios of likelihoods as if they were ratios of posterior probabilities.     

Impulse and Self-Reflection: Frankfurtian Responsibility versus Free Will

Harry Frankfurt's early work makes an important distinction between moral responsibility and free will. Frankfurt begins by focusing on the notion of responsibility, as supplying counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities; he then turns to an apparently independent account of free will, in terms of his well-known hierarchy of desires. But the two notions seem to reestablish contact in Frankfurt's later discussion of issues and cases. The present article sets up a putative Frankfurtian account of moral responsibility that involves the potential for free will, as suggested by some of Frankfurt's later remarks about taking responsibility. While correcting what seem to be some common misinterpretations of Frankfurt's view, the article attempts to extract some reasons for dissatisfaction with it from consideration of cases of unfreedom, particularly cases involving addiction.     

Richard Zaner’s Phenomenology of the Clinical Encounter

The clinical ethics propounded by Richard Zaner is unique. Partly because of his phenomenological orientation and partly because of his own daily practice as a clinical ethicist in a large university hospital, Zaner focuses on the particular concrete situations in which patients and their families confront illness and injury and struggle toward workable ways for dealing with them. He locates ethical reality in the clinical encounter. This encounter encompasses not only patient and physician but also the patients family and friends and indeed the entire lifeworld in which the patient is still striving to live. In order to illuminate the central moral constituents of such human predicaments, Zaner discusses the often-overlooked features of disruption and crisis, the changed self, the patients dependence and the physicians power, the violation of personal boundaries and their necessary reconfiguring, and the art of listening.     

Freud and Erikson: Their Contributions to the Psychology of God-Image Formation

Sigmund Freud's construct of the father of personal prehistory (1961), provides the foundation for the argument that our earliest and most enduring representations of God emerge in infancy during a process Freud calls primary identification, that is an identification with this first father, whom Freud says is actually both parents and the flow of feeling between them. Erik Erikson's work on infants' earliest experiences provides support for this argument if it does not anticipate it. Pastoral psychotherapist in private practice in