Mental illness and violence: A brief review of research and assessment strategies

Examinations of the relationship between mental disorders and violent behavior can be found throughout history and across cultures. Many examples of the cultural and social construction of dangerousness and mental illness also have appeared during the modern era. This article examines the evolution of thought and research regarding the relationship between mental illness and violence, from studies in the early twentieth century through the more recent MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study. In addition, the article explores the state of knowledge and practices surrounding the assessment and management of violence risk among individuals with mental illness.     

Rejecting Sectarianism: Palestinian Christians' Role in Muslim–Christian Relations

The study of Muslim–Christian relations often focuses on Islamic theology and Muslim behavior while overlooking the role that Christians play in shaping interreligious encounters. This article examines a series of historical examples from various periods of Palestinian history that highlight Arab Christians' insistence that they were Palestinian Arabs first and were fully engaged in the nationalist movement. Palestinian Christians' approach to local politics, even in the face of interreligious conflict, allowed them to maintain far better relations with Muslims than Arab Christians in some neighboring Arab countries. By way of comparison, the article highlights the Druze's acceptance of a unique communal relationship to the Zionist leadership and later, to the state of Israel. The article concludes that, while modern Islamism presents a challenge to minority Christian groups, historical examples suggest that Christians' actions have a profound impact on the nature of Christian–Muslim relations.     

Adversary evaluation and the school psychologist

This article describes adversary evaluation and explains its use in evaluation of school-based programs by school psychologists. The authors discuss the history of adversary evaluation, the various models which have been used, and major research findings. Three diverse examples of adversary evaluation are presented, along with criteria for evaluating such models. In addition the article raises some potential concerns regarding the use of adversary evaluation, and suggests potential roles that school psychologists might play within this paradigm.     

A fresh look at perversion

The history of ideas about perversion is considered, along with an examination of whether the concept is clinically useful. Three cases of varying degrees of severity are presented, illustrating the clinical value of the concept in the analytic situation. All three cases are women, and the particular usefulness of the concept of perversion for women is noted. The place of aggression and the pleasure resulting from its expression are highlighted.     

Little White Lies: Racialization and the White/Black Divide

This article emphasizes the importance of considering the history, context and epistemological bases of the use of race and racial categories in North America. Using this contextual grounding, I propose that racial categories are born of racism and not the reverse. I include some salient personal examples of the effects of the construct Whiteness in my own life experience. They are, at the same time, personal, political and cultural. Finally, some suggestions are offered for dealing with the issue of Whiteness, in particular, in feminist therapy, which seeks to uncover power differentials and the personal and political, each embedded in the other.     

A new look at the syntax-discourse interface: the use of binding principles in sentence processing

Within Generative Grammar, binding constraints on co-reference are usually defined in syntactic terms. However, some researchers have pointed out examples in which syntactically defined binding constraints do not seem to apply, proposing instead that a complete account of linguistic co-reference needs to consider notions of discourse structure. There have been several proposals in the literature for the division of labor between syntax and discourse in the definition of binding constraints. In this paper, we review these proposals in the context of recent work that applies on-line techniques to explore the roles of syntactic and discourse preferences in terms of the time course with which they become active during sentence comprehension. Some of this research suggests that (syntactic) binding principles may be momentarily applied during processing, even in cases in which the final interpretation suggests otherwise. We end the paper by considering the theoretical and methodological implications of this view.     

A personal experience of supervision

TTte author's personal experience and perspective as a feminist counsellor and supervisee is explored. Some key boundary issues are identified which have brought about some important learning for her. These examples illustrate the crucial importance of an awareness of gender issues within both the counselling and the supervisory relationship.     

Die schrittweise interaktive Entstehung einer Fehlbeschuldigung sexuellen Missbrauchs

False accusations of sexual abuse and also violent sexual misconduct by persons in a close relationship often have a long history of development by which the alleged victim increasingly involves other persons who are then used to substantiate the authenticity and truth of the claims, even before allegations are made. Using three cases as examples this article describes the approaches used which are found particularly in emotionally unstable borderline type personalities. When a mental disorder or personality disorder of the alleged victim is suspected, the volitional competence to testify should be tested. This applies not only for borderline personality disorders (which is occasionally reclassified as posttraumatic disorder) but also when symptoms of a puberty crisis, an adolescence crisis or another relevant crisis, such as a posttraumatic disorder are present.     

分布式认知——一种新的认知观点

分布式认知是指认知分布于个体内、个体间、媒介、环境、文化、社会和时间等之中。它是一种包括所有参与认知的事物的新的分析单元。该文首先简要介绍了分布式认知的概念及分布式认知的历史渊源;其次阐述了分布式认知和个体认知的关系,并介绍了描述这种关系的交互模型和同心圆模型;最后结合实例说明了分布式认知的理论研究意义和实际应用价值。     

A Computational Theory of Learning Causal Relationships

I present a cognitive model of the human ability to acquire causal relationships. I report on experimental evidence demonstrating that human learners acquire accurate causal relationships more rapidly when training examples are consistent with a general theory of causality. This article describes a learning process that uses a general theory of causality as background knowledge. The learning process, which I call theory-driven learning (TDL), hypothesizes causal relationships consistent both with observed data and the general theory of causality. TDL accounts for data on both the rate at which human learners acquire causal relationships, and the types of causal relationships they acquire. Experiments with TDL demonstrate the advantage of TDL for acquiring causal relationships over similarity-based approaches to learning: Fewer examples are required to learn an accurate relationship.     

Christianity in Iran: A Brief Survey

This article reviews the long and varied history of Christianity in the country now known as Iran. The historical emphasis is on the Assyrian Church of the East, although other churches are also mentioned. The relationship, successively, with Zoroastrianism and with Islam, as the dominant religious traditions, is discussed, as are its implications for the wider Islamic world. Western contacts with Iran, and, in particular, those of western churches, are also examined. In the light of this historical analysis, and from discussion of the situation since the Islamic Revolution, some conclusions are advanced about the prospects for Christianity in the new contemporary context.     

Creativity in Context; The Courage in Therivel’s GAM/DP

The desire to quantify and categorize creativity so that we can easily identify the individual characteristics which serve as its precursors is one which authors have been attempting to successfully complete for some time. In this light, William Therivel’s High Creativity Unmasked, discusses how his GAM/DP theory accounts for highly creative people from history as well as a rationale for the rise and fall of creativity in selected cultures throughout history. By examining the latest published work on how Genetic Endowment, Assistances, Misfortunes and Divisions of Power, and how they relate to creativity, Therivel proposes unique rationales for the rises and declines of cultures. This paper examines how creativity and courage work together and in some cases side by side, to explain more fully the role of creativity in culture. This article examines some of Therivel’s examples and provides alternate explanations for the phenomena he ascribes to the decline of creativity. In addition, the complexity of both creativity and courage are discussed, both in the current context, and in the next steps for research and theoretical discussion.     

The Earth Garden: Going Back or Going Forward to Nature?

Against the background of a short meditation on the contrasting ways in which landscape has been represented and idealized in Eastern and Western painting traditions,the article will try to show,using some striking examples,that the development of landscape painting in the last two centuries reflects the changing relationship of humanity and nature,leading in both the East and in the West to either the expression of a nostalgic longing for nature to be back as it once was,or to a gloomy expression of the vanishing of nature amidst the modern,technological world.Connecting to both the concept of "harmony," which is a key concept in Eastern aesthetics,and to some recent reflections in Western philosophy on the relationship of nature and technology,a post-nostalgic conception of nature and natural beauty is defended,in which nature and technology are no longer seen as opposing categories,but rather as poles that are intertwined in an ever-lasting process of co-evolution.It is argued that we should not so much strive to go "back to nature," but rather to go "forward to nature" and establish a new harmony between human and non-human nature and technology.The article ends with some reflections on the role artists and aestheticians may play in this transformation.     

Guilt and self-sacrifice: The plight of the better-off sibling

In this article, the experience of guilt and its behavioral sequelae, self-sacrifice, in the lives of certain therapy clients is explored. Subjects are adults who perceived as children that they were more gified in some area critical to their parents' values than was a sibling. These clients were successful children, but have come to therapy unsuccessful in some crucial area of their adult lives. Their sibling relationship was of primary importance to them. The relationship was very relevant to the lack of adult success they had experienced. Theory is developed to explain this phenomenon, and illustrative case examples are presented and suggestions are made for treatment.     

Researching theological normativity

This article deals with the implicit and explicit normative elements that are present in and shape theological research. It gives examples of such elements and suggests some strategies for addressing them. It also suggests that there is an intimate relationship between normativity and rationality in theological research. Furthermore, it argues for a post-foundationalist and hermeneutical approach that combines coherentist aspirations with a pragmatic approach to theological positions.     

Serial attention mechanisms in visual search: A critical look at the evidence

Until a few years ago, visual search tasks were of exclusive pertinence to psychophysicists and cognitive psychologists trying to understand the operating principles and computational constraints of visual perception and visual selective attention. In recent years, cognitive neuroscience, with its powerful tools, has started to explore more directly the neuronal mechanisms underlying search performance in humans and macaques, aiming at the same general goals. New observations from a number of cognitive neuroscience approaches are promising a near future of great excitement in this field of research. This article offers a critical review of some of these recent contributions and highlights some of the interpretational problems that they pose. Received: 20 January 1998 / Accepted: 25 September 1998     

自我建构理论的发展与评价

出现于20世纪90年代初的自我建构理论是自我图式理论的一个分支,致力于从个体看待自我和他人关系的角度探讨个体自我表征的构成。本文回顾了该领域从"独立型与依存型自我建构理论"到"三重自我建构理论"的发展脉络,较为详细地介绍了这两种理论的基本观点以及不同研究者围绕三重自我建构相互间关系所进行的争论。最后,本文从个体自我表征系统的结构、关系自我与集体自我的内涵以及三重自我建构之间关系的角度提出了后续研究的方向。     

Some historical relationships between science and technology with implications for behavior analysis

The relationship between science and technology is examined in terms of some implications for behavior analysis. Problems result when this relationship is seen as one in which science generally begets technology in a one-way, or hierarchical, relationship. These problems are not found when the relationship between science and technology is seen as two-way, or symmetrical, within a larger context of relationships. Some historical examples are presented. Collectively, these and other examples in the references weaken the case for a prevailing one-way, hierarchical relationship and strengthen the case for a two-way, symmetrical relationship. In addition to being more accurate historically, the symmetrical relationship is also more consistent with the principles of behavior analysis.     

情绪的早期哲学思想

本文对西方心理学史上一些重要的哲学思想就情绪的本质、情绪与认识的关系以及情绪与动机的关系等基本问题进行一定的分析和论述,为进一步认识和理解西方情绪心理学提供一定的历史背景。     

Dancing with passion: A look at interpersonal relationships

Drawing from the dualistic model of passion for activities (Vallerand et al., 2003), this research investigated the role of passion for social partnered dancing in relationships quality with other dancers as well as outside of the dance community, in a romantic relationship. Study 1 showed that harmonious passion (HP) was related to enjoyment while dancing with a novice partner, whereas obsessive passion (OP) was associated with negative interactions with an incompetent partner. Study 2 showed that HP was positively related to relationship quality with a preferred dance partner and the dance community through mastery-approach and social connection goals, whereas the opposite effect characterized OP. Also, OP was negatively related to relationship quality with both a dance partner and a romantic partner through conflict, whereas the reverse trend characterized HP. This research identified mechanisms through which passion may affect relationships within and outside a passionate activity such as dance.