It’s Not You,It’s Your (Old) Vagina: Osphena’s Articulation of Sexual Dysfunction

Released to an American market in 2013 the pharmaceutical drug Osphena was heralded as an innovative, hormone-free therapeutic option to cure two dysfunctions associated with menopausal women’s bodies: vaginal atrophy and dyspareunia. Yet a critical examination of the drug, its advertising, and associated discourses presents an opportunity to explore not only the medicalization of aging but also direct-to-consumer advertising’s role in perpetuating ideologies concerned with normalcy, normal bodies, normal sex, and normal gender performance. This project undertakes a critical feminist analysis of Osphena’s advertising campaign and the public’s response, incorporating Foucaultian theory and a bioethical perspective, and ultimately re-contextualizing them within medical discourses that highlight the pharmaceutical benefits associated with widespread adoption of the “deficiency” perspective that the drug perpetuates. I claim that the Osphena campaign is a clear contemporary illustration that the age-old rhetoric of women’s bodies as requiring medical intervention to resist aging is far from passé, and suggest that images and rhetoric of empowerment would be more readily accepted without relying upon dated and clichéd depictions of female sexuality.     

Review of Penelope Deutscher,Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason

Continental Philosophy Review - In Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason, Penelope Deutscher explores the “suspended reserves” in Foucault’s writing,...     

Review of Jennifer Morton’s Moving Up Without Losing Your Way

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Human Chances for Happiness: A Review of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud referred to his Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud 1930/1961) as an “inquiry concerning happiness.” In this article we discuss what he has to say about happiness. We focus on the reasons he gives for why lasting happiness is impossible to realize; his view that human beings tend to give precedence to the reduction of suffering over the desire for happiness; his suggestion that the best path to follow for what degrees of happiness are realizable depends on the individual; his view that pleasurable experiences are the basis for happiness and that no pleasures are comparable to that which occurs when one’s love is reciprocated by the other; the importance he places on the conflict between genital love and aim-inhibited forms of libidinal connection; his view that civilization plays a doubtful role as far as the realization of personal happiness is concerned; and his view of the role that human aggression and the sense of guilt play in promoting the unhappiness of civilized people. We conclude by offering seven comments on Freud’s views on the chance for human happiness.     

A Review of Sam Harris’s Free Will

The Psychological Record -     

Review of Margaret Miles, Augustine and the Fundamentalist’s Daughter

This review considers Margaret Miles’s recent book, offering some criticisms of specific points but overall admiring the lucidity and passion Miles brings to her reading of Augustine.     

Apraxia and Alzheimer’s Disease: Review and Perspectives

Apraxia is one of the cognitive deficits that characterizes Alzheimer’s disease. Despite its prevalence and relevance to diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, this topic has received little attention and is without comprehensive review. The review herein is aimed to fill this gap by first presenting an overview of the impairment caused in different clinical situations: pantomime of tool use, single tool use, real tool use, mechanical problem solving, function and manipulation knowledge tasks, and symbolic/meaningless gestures. On the basis of these results, we then propose alternative interpretations regarding the nature of the underlying mechanisms impaired by the disease. Also presented are principal methodological issues precluding firm conclusions from being drawn.     

Implicit Memory in Korsakoff’s Syndrome: A Review of Procedural Learning and Priming Studies

Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) is characterized by dense anterograde amnesia resulting from damage to the diencephalon region, typically resulting from chronic alcohol abuse and thiamine deficiency. This review assesses the integrity of the implicit memory system in KS, focusing on studies of procedural learning and priming. KS patients are impaired on several measures of procedural memory, most likely due to impairment in cognitive functions associated with alcohol-related neural damage outside of the diencephalon. The pattern of performance on tasks of implicit priming suggests reliance on a residual, non-flexible memory operating more or less in an automatic fashion. Our review concludes that whether measures of implicit memory reveal intact or impaired performance in individuals with KS depends heavily on specific task parameters and demands, including timing between stimuli, the specific nature of the stimuli used in a task, and the integrity of supportive cognitive functions necessary for performance.     

Family Support in Children’s Mental Health: A Review and Synthesis

A comprehensive review of structured family support programs in children’s mental health was conducted in collaboration with leadership from key national family organizations. The goals were to identify typologies of family support services for which evaluation data existed and identify research gaps. Over 200 programs were examined; 50 met criteria for inclusion. Programs were categorized by whether they were delivered by peer family members, clinicians, or teams. Five salient components of family support were identified: (a) informational, (b) instructional, (c) emotional, (d) instrumental, and (e) advocacy. Clinician-led programs were heavily represented (n = 33, 66%), followed by family-led (n = 11, 22%), and team-delivered (n = 6, 12%) programs. Key differences between programs delivered by clinicians or by peer family members were found in the degree of emphasis, research methodology, and outcomes. However, the content of the components was similar across all three program types. There are both important differences in emphasis across typologies of family support provided by clinicians, family members, or teams as well as important similarities in content. Family-delivered support may be an important adjunct to existing services for parents, although the research base remains thin. A research agenda to promote more rigorous evaluations of these services especially those delivered by peer family members is critical.     

It’s Not You,It’s Me…No,Actually It’s You: Perceptions of What Makes a First Date Successful or Not

Early communication plays an important role in influencing the perceptions one has of an individual. The first form of in-person communication individuals often have with potential romantic partners is during the first date. This date tends to take on the form of a “dance” involving carefully orchestrated conversation and self-disclosures. What is said is certainly important, as are the behaviors exhibited by each member of the dyad. This study examined how individuals interpreted what potential romantic partners say and do during, or immediately following, the first date to get a sense of how they perceive these actions and words. Special attention was placed on the participants’ interpretations of whether or not their date was attracted to them. A survey was given to 390 participants, and many interesting differences were found between the genders. Certain behaviors, such as steering the conversation to the topic of sex signaled to men that their date was attracted to them. However, women looked for different behaviors to infer attraction on the part of their partner, such as mentioning future plans and kissing them goodbye. With a better understanding of how certain phrases and actions influence others, people can be more aware of the signals sent to others upon their pivotal initial encounters.     

Introduction: Review Symposium on Morton’s Moving Up without Losing Your Way

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

“I’m Not Your Stereotypical Mormon Girl”: Mormon Women’s Gendered Resistance

Research on women in gender-traditional religions has shown that women often exercise agency within the gendered confines of their religious institutions. This paper builds on the growing literature on women’s agency in gender-traditional religions by exploring whether and why some active Mormon women resist the gendered expectations of their faith more strongly than others. Drawing on interviews with women members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church, Mormon), we find that eight of the 30 women interviewed strongly resisted traditional Mormon gender expectations. We then explore their patterns of resistance and provide possible explanations for why they resist gender traditionalism more than the other participants. We discuss the wider implications of our findings, including a call for further examinations of the ways in which women’s religious experiences include both accommodation and resistance to traditional ideas about gender.     

The Effects of Healthy Aging,Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment,and Alzheimer’s Disease on Recollection and Familiarity: A Meta-Analytic Review

It is well established that healthy aging, amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI), and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) are associated with substantial declines in episodic memory. However, there is still debate as to how two forms of episodic memory – recollection and familiarity – are affected by healthy and pathological aging. To address this issue we conducted a meta-analytic review of the effect sizes reported in studies using remember/know (RK), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and process dissociation (PD) methods to examine recollection and familiarity in healthy aging (25 published reports), aMCI (9 published reports), and AD (5 published reports). The results from the meta-analysis revealed that healthy aging is associated with moderate-to-large recollection impairments. Familiarity was not impaired in studies using ROC or PD methods but was impaired in studies that used the RK procedure. aMCI was associated with large decreases in recollection whereas familiarity only tended to show a decrease in studies with a patient sample comprised of both single-domain and multiple-domain aMCI patients. Lastly, AD was associated with large decreases in both recollection and familiarity. The results are consistent with neuroimaging evidence suggesting that the hippocampus is critical for recollection whereas familiarity is dependent on the integrity of the surrounding perirhinal cortex. Moreover, the results highlight the relevance of method selection when examining aging, and suggest that familiarity deficits might be a useful behavioral marker for identifying individuals that will develop dementia.     

A Review of the Children’s Inventory of Anger (ChIA): A Needed Measure

A review and critique of the Children’s Inventory of Anger (ChIA) is presented. The ChIA is a 39-item measure that operationalizes anger according to the conceptualization set forth by Ellis in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. The ChIA consists of four subscales (Frustration, Physical Aggression, Peer Relationships, and Authority Relations) which provide information regarding situations that are commonly associated with the experience of anger. Preliminary validity studies demonstrate that the ChIA has excellent reliability and high face validity. The forms are user friendly and easily scored, with norms tables conveniently located within the form. A computer-scoring program is available which significantly reduces clerical errors. The application of the instrument in practice is discussed. Due to the fact that the ChIA attempts to link assessment and intervention it should be useful in advancing the field in regard to treatment evaluation and substantiation of treatment validity. It is also expected to have considerable research utility.