Celestial Aesthetics: Over Our Heads and/or in Our Heads

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Cloud,” 1820

Abstract Looking at the night sky, we may seem cosmic dwarfs, overwhelmed with a sense of otherness, abyss, lostness. But humans alone enjoy such celestial awe. We can move to a sense of the beholder's celestial ancestry and ongoing relatedness in “our cosmic habitat.” That account joins aesthetics with mathematics, finds dramatic interrelationships gathered under “the anthropic principle,” and considers meteorological aesthetics. The wonder is as much this Homo sapiens with mind enough to search the universe. What is out there is inseparably linked with what is down here. We are at home in the universe. The glory is both over our heads and in our heads.     

Dynamic Interactions With the Environment Make Up Our Psychological Phenomena: A Review of Noë’s Out of Our Heads

The Psychological Record -     

Turning Hard Problems on Their Heads

Much of the difficulty in assessing theories of consciousness stems from their advocates not supplying adequate or convincing characterisations of the phenomenon (or data) they hope to explain. Yet, to make any reasonable assessment this is precisely what is required, for it is not as if our ‘pre-theoretical’ intuitions are philosophically innocent. In what follows, I will attempt to reveal, using a recent debate between Chalmers and Dennett as a foil, why, in approaching this topic, we cannot characterise the data purely first-personally or third-personally nor, concomitantly, can we start such investigations using either first-personal or third-personal methods.     

Speaking Up:

This article challenges the lack of attention to issues of class in psychotherapy. It calls attention to the sociopolitical nature of therapy and defines some ways in which current therapeutic practices can become oppressive when class differences between client and therapist are ignored. I draw upon my own experience with clinical training and professional practice and invite other white, working class women, through narrative interviews, to share their experiences. Through this collaborative effort, I am able to suggest some ways in which therapy may better meet the needs of working class clients.     

Keeping It Up

SUMMARY

Clients benefit from an eclectic approach. In the case of a presenting problem such as failure to maintain an erection, the assistance of body psychotherapy in the form of Core Energetics brings additional dimensions to couples work. In this case, only the male partner came to the office; but both benefited from the integration of bodywork into the therapeutic enterprise. The client needed access to his body to incorporate the insights and the skills of other therapeutic work. This article offers a sample of the work.     

Discussion: Putting our Heads Together; Mentalizing Systems

This discussion reviews the psychoanalytic and developmental psychological theories that utilize nonlinear dynamic systems theory to situate Sperry's paper in its theoretical and historical context. The power of such nonlinear models for clinical work and theories of mind is argued. The essay then argues that the shift in theory entails a shift in ways of clinical writing and that the clinical discussion in the paper does not always feel consonant with the theory. Moving to a model of nonlinearity, intersubjectivity, and uncertainty is likely to entail shifts in conceptualizing and conveying clinical material.     

Social Networks and Homelessness Among Women Heads of Household

To examine possible bidirectional relationships between homelessness and deficient social networks, we compared the networks of 251 mothers before, and approximately 5 years after, their families entered shelters with networks of 291 consistently housed poor mothers. At Time 1, more women on the verge of homelessness than housed women reported that they had mothers, grandmothers, friends, and relatives but fewer believed these network members were housing resources. At Time 2, after homeless women were rehoused, these network differences between consistently housed and formerly homeless women had largely disappeared. Contrary to prior research findings, formerly homeless mothers did not report smaller networks, more children or fewer partners. However, formerly homeless women did report fewer positive functions. Because of city policies, homeless mothers were frequently rehoused far from network members.     

汪洋出席宗教团体负责人迎春座谈会

新华社北京1月21日电中共中央政治局常委、全国政协主席汪洋21日出席全国性宗教团体负责人迎春座谈会,同宗教界人士共庆新春佳节,并代表中共中央和习近平总书记,向全国宗教界人士和广大信教群众致以新春的祝福。汪洋充分肯定各宗教团体2019年的工作,对2020年工作提出殷切希望。     

Propping Up the Phallocracy

No abstract available for this article.     

In over Our Heads with Financial Anxiety from Student Debt

Many theological students are in over their heads with student debt, as Association of Theological Schools surveys of graduates attest. The phobia-like nature of financial anxiety makes people ignore their financial stress, which is now the top stressor in the United States. Robert Kegan’s In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life is used to understand the financial anxiety generated by the ‘hidden curriculum’ of both our neoliberal market society and the North American academic dream that promises academic and financial success through hard work. In an innovative program at Iliff School of Theology, funded by a Lilly Economic Challenges Facing Future Ministers (ECFFM) grant, selected students in a self-care course used compassion-based spiritual practices to become more aware of their financial stress and avoidant coping in the hopes of facilitating more integrated, complex theologies of financial stress grounded in embodied and relational goodness. These students continued this theologically reflexive learning process in courses on financial literacy, leadership, and fundraising (initially for their own scholarships). At the end of their academic year, they demonstrated decreased guilt and shame and increased self-compassion about their student debt along with increased confidence and ability to successfully engage in scholarship fundraising activities.     

Food Security and Perceived Well-being among Household Heads in Ghana

Access to food as a critical factor in determining individuals’ well-being in low income countries is of grave importance both in theory and public policy. Therefore this study, designed to enhance our understanding of food (in)security’s impact on quality of life, presents a micro-level analysis of factors associated with food provision, food satisfaction, and happiness in Ghana. Our empirical analysis first investigates the patterns and variations of food provision among Ghanaian households, and then evaluates how the provision factors, along with other socio-economic status and reciprocal behaviors, affect avowed well-being as measured by (1) the household heads’ subjective sense of being nonpoor and (2) reported feelings of happiness. The data are drawn from the Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ) survey conducted in 2003, with a sample of 40,481 households. Regression outcomes reveal that the usage of land, owning of livestock and amount of food spending particularly favor male-headed households’ food security, which in turn leads men not to endorse “feeling poor” and, instead, to report greater happiness than is the case, in most instances, for women. Familial reciprocity also strengthens subjective well-being by way of increasing food security among Ghanaians. Family values as such, rather than decline in significance, appear to play a critical role in food security in Ghana.