Exploring the Edges: Boundaries and Breaks

In this article, we examine conceptual and practical issues pertaining to relationship boundaries within the helping profession. Although our focus is primarily on relationships between mental health professionals and clients, there are considerable implications for a new approach to ethically structuring and understanding the construct of "required distance" in many human-interactive professions, such as teaching, religious leadership, public administration, and others. We define the concept of boundary as applied to human relationships, provide examples of boundary breaks, and raise questions regarding how to evaluate the significance and morality issues raised by specific boundary breaks. Questions and dilemmas are presented regarding boundary setting and accidental or deliberate boundary breaking. Representative dangers present in boundary breaks are identified, and examples are provided. Possible beneficial outcomes are also discussed. Finally, a suggested protocol for assessing a proposed boundary break is provided, much of which is drawn from the work and thinking of Laura Brown, applied more generally in this article, with additions from our perspectives.     

Why Anti-Realism Breaks up Relationships

Some theologians are inclined to regard realism with hostility or indifference. I do not present an argument for realism, but for why realism matters, and what is at stake.
First of all, I separate the heart of realism from gratuitous doctrines which are too often associated with it. Religious realism is the claim that truth is independent of our beliefs about truth, and that we can in principle hope to have true beliefs about God. Realism is not intrinsically concerned with the existence of 'objects', with natural theology or rational justification.
I then show that even thinkers who are hostile or indifferent to religious realism so defined, usually make an implicit appeal to a similar realism in the sphere of ethics.
To establish that realism matters in religion as well as ethics I draw an analogy with realism/anti-realism about persons, to show that anti-realism makes mutually risk-taking and courageous relationships impossible. I go on to argue that far from it being a realist who is obsessed with rational certainty, this is one of the worst vices of the anti-realist, who cannot bear there to be a gap between her beliefs and reality.
I conclude that the most vital feature of religious realism is not certainty of belief, but the opposite – the acknowledged risk that all our hope could be in vain. In closing the possibility on this risk, the anti-realist demonstrates an unfaithful and uncourageous movement of thought.     

Tough Breaks: Trans Rage and the Cultivation of Resilience

Countering hegemonic understandings of rage as a deleterious emotion, this article examines rage across specific sites of trans cultural production—the prison letters of CeCe McDonald and the durational performance art of Cassils—in order to argue that it is integral to trans survival and flourishing. Theorizing rage as a justified response to unlivable circumstances, a response that plays a key role in enabling trans subjects to detach from toxic relational dynamics in order to transition toward other forms of gendered subjectivity and intimate communality, I develop an account of what I call an “infrapolitical ethics of care” that indexes a web of communal practices that empathetically witness and amplify rage, as well as support subjects during and after moments of grappling with overwhelming negative affect. I draw on the work of trans, queer, and feminist theorists who have theorized the productivities of so‐called “negative” affects, particularly Sara Ahmed's work on willfulness and killing joy ( 2010, 2014 ), María Lugones's writing on anger (2003), Judith Butler's Spinozan reassessment of the vexed relations between self‐preservation and self‐destruction (2015), and the rich account of trans rage provided by Susan Stryker ( 1994 ).     

Off‐Task Social Breaks and Group Creativity

This study investigates the effect of off‐task breaks, where individuals engage in a collective off‐task activity, on group creativity. Using an experimental method comprising 36 groups of 5 individuals, the relationships between different types of off‐task group break and performance in creative tasks post‐break are explored. When compared to the no‐break case, it is seen that off‐task breaks, in which all individuals participate in the group activity, lead to more original ideas being generated post‐break. On the other hand, individual incubation breaks and self‐organizing group breaks, lead to lower levels of post‐break idea originality when compared with the no‐break case. This research thus highlights the positive benefits of off‐task breaks involving full member participation, on the creative process in groups.     

When the Diagnosis Is Vaginismus

No abstract available for this article.     

Breaks are Better: A Tier II Social Behavior Intervention

Multi-tiered systems of social behavioral support in schools provide varying levels of intervention matched to student need. Tier I (primary or universal) systems are for all students and are designed to promote pro-social behavior. Tier III (tertiary or intensive) supports are for students who engage in serious challenging behavior that has not responded to other efforts. In between Tier I and Tier III are Tier II (secondary or targeted interventions), for students at risk for developing more serious problematic behavior. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Breaks are Better, a Tier II intervention designed for students who engage in problem behavior maintained by avoidance of instructional activities. Breaks are Better builds on an evidence-based Tier II intervention, Check-in/Check-out, but includes key components to enhance its effectiveness for students who avoid instruction. Working with three typically developing elementary school students, we documented changes in problem behavior during academic instruction following the implementation of Breaks are Better. Further, students and teachers rated the intervention as both feasible and valuable.     

Breaks and Links. Prospects for Russian Religious Philosophy Today

An analytical review of the current situation of Christian philosophyin Russia is presented, aiming to explain, why so much expectedrenaissance of this philosophy in the post-soviet period did nottake place. Russian philosophy is shown to be structurally a synthesis of the Western conceptual framework and Eastern Christian discourse,the latter being, in turn, the synthesis of patristic and asceticdiscourse, including two basic paradigms, deification (theosis)and sacralisation, and having energy as its dominant category.The key role of ascetic experience in Eastern Christian discourseis stressed. Topical problems related to the study of thisexperience, as well as concepts of energy and theosis, are discussed.     

When the therapist says goodbye

Therapist-initiated termination poses several unique problems for both the group and the therapist. This paper describes the termination process from the point of view of this therapist's experience in planning the termination of her group therapy practice. The reactions of other analysts to her decision to retire and the group processes and individual patient's reactions in this long-term psychoanalytic therapy group are described in detail. The author follows the group process and her own inner processes in the final six months of the group. The importance of the working through of the termination phase of therapy is supported by the experiences that were shared by the group and the therapist.     

When the Body Speaks:

No abstract available for this article.     

当预言成为愚言

2012年已经挥手远去,带走许多故事,留下精彩回忆。这一年,因为一则"预言"引发的荒诞、戏谑猜想让我们忍俊不禁,而由此衍生的一些不法行径却值得我们再度思考。你可以把它简单地理解为"一场电影惹的祸",你也可以把它解释成人性的脆弱或谣言的可畏。当"末日预言"再次沦为愚言,当所有的闹剧都尘埃落定,当新年的曙光照常升起,我们只想再一次敲醒警钟,告诉那些善良的人们,擦亮眼睛,拒绝上当……     

Breaking the Rules When Others Do

People often speak as if the behaviour of others is relevant to the question of whether they are justified in violating a rule. This paper explores three lines of argument which might be used to justify rule violation on grounds appealing to what others do. The appeal to self-defence as a justification does not succeed, since it must expand the concept to involve a cumbersome weighing of harms. The argument that complying with a rule may involve too great a sacrifice in some cases needs to be developed by an account of when a sacrifice is morally significant. It is tempting, but problematic, to do this by weighing consequences of individual acts. An alternative approach is to argue that the behaviour of others is sometimes relevant to determining what rule is actually functioning in some context as a part of a particular moral system.