‘And if not now,when?’: Spirituality,psychotherapy, politics

Abstract

Without collapsing distinct discourses into each other, the paper considers the linkages between spirituality, psychotherapy and politics. Changes are taking place in all three areas. Therapists who focus on the spiritual dimension as part of their ordinary work still tend to be marginalized. Similarly, the political dimensions of the client's experience often receive insufficient attention. The author offers an initial sketch of a new ‘anatomy of spirituality’: into social spirituality, democratic spirituality, craft spirituality, profane spirituality and spiritual sociality. He criticizes the practice of ‘safe therapy’, meaning therapy based on an object relations paradigm that represses the (incestuous) sexuality that lies at the heart both of the therapy encounter and the domain of spiritual values. The paper concludes with some thoughts about justice and an account of pertinent grassroots political developments.     

And now what, after such tribulations? Memory and dislocation in the era of uprooting

This article explores some of the often overlooked, traumatic psychological consequences that follow from major social and political disruption and upheaval. Specifically, it examines the importance of maintaining memory and legacy in the face of widespread uprootedness and dislocation of the sort that can undermine and even obliterate personal, social, and collective identities. The role that authentic social frameworks for memory play in preserving psychological rootedness and that accurate historical narratives play in resistance and regrouping is explored. Finally, the importance of creating a new psychology that is fully grounded in history and culture is emphasized.     

Adults' beliefs about children and mathematics: how important is it and how do children learn about it?

A series of studies was conducted which focused on US adults' beliefs about the relative importance of acquiring mathematical skills for preschool children and about how children acquire these skills. In Study 1, adults rated general information, reading and social skills as all being more important than mathematical skills. They also claimed that parents have the most influence on preschool children's learning regardless of content area. In Study 2, the parents of kindergarten children also rated reading, general information and social skills as all being more important than mathematics in preparing children for the first grade. The more important parents felt mathematics were, the more they reported engaging in a variety of mathematical-related activities with their children. However, the importance they placed on mathematics was not related to their child's actual mathematical performance. In summary, adults seem to value mathematics less than other skills in preparing young children to enter elementary school. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What do we know about how best to assess counsellor competence?

Issues of assessment of counsellor competence are becoming increasingly important as counselling becomes more professionalized and recognizable as a distinct profession. There is, however, a lack of systematic research into competence assessment in this field. The existing literature is discussed in terms of the issues involved in employing different sources of assessment, such as trainers, tutors, managers, supervisors, external assessors, clients, self and peers. Techniques of assessment are reviewed, including questionnaires, video and audiotapes, role play, examinations, learning diaries and computer simulations. Some suggestions are offered for increasing the validity of assessment judgements.     

Top-down strategy in rehabilitation of spatial neglect: how about age effect?

The aim of this work is to verify the effectiveness of our treatment in patients with spatial neglect in relation to their age and to the severity of neglect. Lots of studies on rehabilitation were proposed and, in some of them, treatments based upon visual-scanning abilities were described. Our rehabilitation training is aimed to induce patients to find by themselves an adequate strategy to solve spatial problems and, after that, try to let this searching strategy as automatized as possible. In this study, forty-six patients with right brain damage and left visuo-spatial neglect underwent to this specific cognitive treatment. A neuropsychological battery was administered before and after treatment. Repeated measure MANOVA on test performances showed significant main effects of treatments, age, and severity of neglect; an interaction effect between these three variables was found as well. Our results confirm an effectiveness of treatment, in particular for elderly patients. Actually, they seem to show a better recovery of neglect after cerebral stroke, even for those of them affected by a severe neglect. These data could be explained in accordance with recent neurophysiological models that claim compensatory responses to reduce brain plasticity even in terms of reorganization of cognitive functions such as visuo-spatial attention.     

Which Mental States Are Rationally Evaluable,And Why?

What makes certain mental states subject to evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, and others arational? In this paper, I develop and defend an account that explains why belief is governed by, and so appropriately subject to, evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, one that does justice to the complexity of our evaluative practice in this domain. Then, I sketch out a way of extending the account to explain when and why other kinds of mental states are rationally evaluable. I argue that the cognitive or psychological mechanisms that give rise to and sustain our mental states help to render our mental states appropriate targets for evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification when the operation of these mechanisms is responsive, in a specific way, to our judgments about which kinds of considerations constitute rationalizing and justifying reasons for being in states of the relevant sort.     

A dilemma for subjective bayesians — And how to resolve it

Short though it is this paper has already undergone several revisions. My thanks to Graham Oddie for occasioning some of them.     

What is behavior? And so what?

This article addresses a longstanding problem in the field of psychology, that of lacking an adequate explication of what is arguably our central concept as a “science of behavior,” the concept of “behavior” itself. The three sections comprising the paper are devoted, respectively, to (a) presenting a conceptual formulation of behavior; (b) discussing this formulation by, among other things, addressing objections to it and noting its advantages over psychology’s currently preferred definition of behavior as observable activity; and (c) relating why having such a formulation is important. The final section includes several uses to which the present formulation has already been and can in future be put, including a sketch of how it may be used to integrate the various subfields of our currently fragmented science of behavior.