Using Artist Trading Cards as an Expressive Arts Intervention in Counseling

Artist trading cards (ATCs) are miniature works of art that are created within the dimensions of standardized trading cards or playing cards (2.5 inches × 3.5 inches). ATCs can be made with a variety of media—everything from pen and ink to oil paints, collages, mosaics, stamping, and altered photos. Using this compact art format as an expressive arts intervention in the therapeutic environment provides the counselor with most, if not all, of the same therapeutic benefits of larger art media (e.g., expressive release, creativity, artistic communication, symbolic self-expression, self-exploration, etc.). The unique benefit of the ATC format is that ATCs allow for traditional expressive arts interventions to be “better, faster, and cheaper” in many ways.     

Science,Values and Loves: Theologies as Expressive Constructions

Invited to write “a manifesto for [my] own theological position”, I begin with science and human rights as excellent examples of universalist aspirations of modernity. Modern individualism is important too, as particular existential loves shape each life. Science, morality, and personal loves are interwoven in theologies, as creative constructions. The sciences are important, as we need not only individual authenticity but also accountability. My position presented here is science-inspired naturalistic theism. It is not “religious naturalism”, given the categorical difference between facts and values. It is not “natural theology”, as inductive approaches do not reach that far. It comes closer to a “theology of nature”, but it does not assume the epistemic claims involved. I consider theologies to be important expressive constructions.     

Androgeny,Flexibility, and Individualism

Questionnaire data from 195 college students were examined to clarify the relationships among masculinity, femininity, and androgyny and self-perceived flexibility and individualism. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hiearchical regression showed no evidence for unique positive "androgyny" effects, while higher masculinity was associated with flexibility and individualism, particularly among women. Contrary to expectations, "androgynous" men were more rigid and conforming, while the cross-typed were most flexible and independent.     

Creative Genius as a Personality Phenomenon: Definitions,Methods, Findings,and Issues

Genius first became the subject of scientific inquiry in the early 19th century, and it has continued to attract research interest to the present day. Although genius can be defined as either superlative intelligence or achieved eminence, this review is restricted to the latter definition, and is further confined to creative achievement. The article then describes the main methods for studying creative genius as a personality phenomenon. These methods entail three central dichotomous methodological decisions: single‐case versus multiple‐case samples, qualitative versus quantitative analyses, and direct versus indirect assessments. Next, the main empirical findings are presented with respect to both generic traits and domain‐contingent traits. There follows a brief discussion of three major issues: genetic and environmental influences, additive and multiplicative effects, and individual and situational factors. Given the intrinsic importance of the phenomenon and the many questions still unanswered, creative genius certainly deserves future treatment in personality psychology.     

Individualism, Communitarianism and Consensus

There is a contemporary conflict between individualistic andcommunitarian conceptions of rationality. Robert Goodin describes it asa conflict between an enlightenment individualistic conception of a``sovereign artificer'' and ``a socially unencumbered self'' ascontrasted with the communitarian conception of a ``socially embeddedself'' whose identity is formed by his or her community. Should wejustify and explain rationality individualistically or socially? This isa false dilemma when consensus is reached by a model articulated byKeith Lehrer and Carl Wagner. According to this model, the consensusresults from the positive weights individuals give to others and use tocontinually average and, thus, aggregate their allocations. Aggregationconverges toward a consensus in which the social preference and theindividual preferences become identical. The truth of communitarianismis to be found in the aggregate and the truth of individualism in theaggregation. The original conflict dissolves in rational consensus.     

Individualism,Normativity and the Epistemology of Understanding

Philosophical Studies -     

Pathologizing the Normal,Individualism, and Virtue Ethics

Recently, a number of distinguished critics have raised fundamental questions about the knowledge claims and practices of the mental health professions. We review a few of these critiques concerning such matters as pathologizing normal experiences and reactions to events and spreading not only our brain disease conception of mental illness but our Western “symptom repertoire” as well around the globe in a detrimental manner. It is striking that for the most part these critics have almost nothing to say about genuine alternatives to the problems and cultural deficits they identify. We suggest that work done by theoretical psychologists and others working in a similar vein in recent years might help both sharpen the analysis of these dilemmas and contribute something valuable to envisioning alternative therapeutic and cultural pathways of a better sort.     

Individualism,causal powers,and explanation

Versions of this paper were presented at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology in June 1991, at Cornell University in October 1991, and at Queen's University in January 1992; I thank Terence Horgan and Carl Ginet, respectively, for their comments on the first two of these occasions. I would also like to thank Terence Irwin, Sydney Shoemaker, Bob Stalnaker, Ed Stein, and J. D. Trout for comments on earlier versions of the paper, and Joe Moore, Dave Robb and Sergio Sismondo for useful discussion.     

Individualism, Externalism and Idiolectical Meaning

Semantic externalism in contemporary philosophy of language typically – and often tacitly – combines two supervenience claims about idiolectical meaning (i.e., meaning in the language system of an individual speaker). The first claim is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her intrinsic, physical properties. The second is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her understanding of it. I here show that a conception of idiolectical meaning is possible that accepts the “anti-internalism” of the first claim while rejecting (what I shall refer to as) the “anti-individualism” of the second. According to this conception, externally constituted idiolectical meaning supervenes on idiolectical understanding. I begin by trying to show that it is possible to disentangle anti-internalist and anti-individualist strands of argument in Hilary Putnam’s well-known and widely influential “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” Having once argued that the latter strand of argument is not cogent, I then try to show that individualism (in the sense above) can be reconciled with perhaps the most plausible reconstruction of Putnam’s well-known and widely accepted “indexical” theory of natural kind terms. Integral to my defense of the possibility of an individualist externalism about idiolectical meaning are my efforts to demonstrate that, pace Putnam, there is no “division of linguistic labor” when it comes to the fixing the meanings of such terms in a speaker’s idiolect. The fact that average speakers sometimes need defer to experts shows that not reference, but only reliable recognition of what belongs in the extension of a natural kind term is a “social phenomenon.”

Wittgenstein (1958, 14).

     

Expressive power, mood, and actuality

In Wehmeier (J Philos Log 33:607–630, 2004) we are presented with the subjunctive modal language, a way of dealing with the expressive inadequacy of modal logic by marking atomic predicates as being either in the subjunctive or indicative mood. Wehmeier claims that this language is expressively equivalent to the standard actuality language, and that despite this the marked-unmarked dichotomies are not the same in the two languages. In this paper we will attend to Wehmeier’s argument that this is the case, and show that this conclusion rests on what might be considered an uncharitable stipulation concerning what it is for a formula in the actuality language to be true in a model.     

Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood

This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to "mind, body, and sprit" and centered on the goal of "holistic well-being." We argue that the growing popularity of such "holistic spirituality" since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to explain why women are disproportionately active within the sphere of holistic spirituality. By paying closer attention to gender, we seek to refine Taylor's approach and to advance our understanding of contemporary spirituality. Drawing on findings from two qualitative studies of holistic spirituality and health carried out in the United Kingdom, this article offers an analysis of what the "subjective turn" may mean for women. We argue that holistic spiritualities align with traditional spheres and representations of femininity, while simultaneously supporting and encouraging a move away from selfless to expressive selfhood. By endorsing and sanctioning "living life for others" and "living life for oneself," holistic spiritualities offer a way of negotiating dilemmas of selfhood that face many women — and some men—in late modern contexts .     

Liberalism,Abstract Individualism,and the Problem of Particular Obligations

In the following I take issue with the allegation that liberalism must inevitably be guilty of ‘abstract individualism’. I treat Michael Sandel’s well-known claim that there are ‘loyalties and convictions whose moral force consists partly in the fact that living by them is inseparable from understanding ourselves as the particular persons we are’ as representative of this widely held view. Specifically, I argue: (i) that Sandel’s account of the manner in which ‘constitutive’ loyalties function as reasons for action presupposes the possibility of there being (what I call) ‘underivable particular obligations’, but that such obligations are, in fact, a logical impossibility; and (ii) that Sandel’s account of the self as necessarily ‘encumbered’ presupposes an account of personal identity which confuses identification with definition, and which is, therefore, fundamentally flawed. For their constructive and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the following: Clare Chambers, Roger Crisp, Cécile Fabre, Paul Kelly, David Lloyd-Thomas. Thanks also go to Res Publica’s two anonymous referees.     

Individualism and the metaphysics of actions

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of folk psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved.