Social control doctrines of mental illness and the medical profession in nineteenth-century America

Social control doctrines of mental disorders have influenced a generation of psychologists and have shaped attitudes and discussions about how to treat the mentally ill. In light of the failure of deinstitutionalization as a public policy and the contemporary concern with the medical or biological bases of psychiatric disorders, this paper re-examines social control doctrines. Reviewing mid-nineteenth century statistical accounts, the author challenges claims of social control theorists and shows that in recent years some former social control advocates and revisionists have “recanted” and criticized their earlier use of the concept of social control, particularly the characterization of the asylum as a “total institution”.     

Feigned insanity in nineteenth-century America: Tactics,trials, and truth

Feigned insanity in nineteenth-century America is appraised through a review of the medical and legal literature. The authors focus on the explanations for feigning, procedures used in uncovering feigning, and the role of feigning in the courtroom. This discussion of feigned insanity demonstrates the remarkable consistency of approach to this form of malingering over the past 200 years.     

心理健康服务的文化胜任力：理论取向与实践策略

心理健康服务的文化胜任力随着欧美对多元文化群体的重视而逐渐发展起来。该领域存在两种不同的理论取向及相应的实践策略。内容取向关注静态的、结构化的文化胜任力; 过程取向则关注动态的、非结构化的文化胜任力。两种取向的异同体现了文化胜任力的研究和实践中对文化特异性和普遍性因素的平衡。在此基础上, 本文最后讨论了如何参考国外经验, 立足中国现实问题和加强社会心理服务体系建设的大背景, 来发展中国的文化胜任力。     

Sex, race/ethnicity, and romantic attractions: multiple minority status adolescents and mental health

This study examined the association between multiple minority statuses and reports of suicidal thoughts, depression, and self-esteem among adolescents. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to examine mental health outcomes across racial/ethnic groups for same-sex-attracted youths and female youths. Hispanic/Latino, African American, and White female adolescents reported more suicidal thoughts, higher depression, and lower self-esteem compared with male adolescents in their racial/ethnic group. Same-sex-attracted youths did not consistently demonstrate compromised mental health across racial/ethnic groups. Follow-up analyses show that White same-sex-attracted female adolescents reported the most compromised mental health compared with other White adolescents. However, similar trends were not found for racial/ethnic minority female youths with same-sex attractions.     

Loving and leaving: Sex differences in romantic attachments

We propose a two-part generalization about sex differences in entering into and giving up romantic attachments: (1) Men tend to fall in love more readily than women; (2) women tend to fall out of love more readily than men. Evidence in support of these generalizations is derived from a longitudinal study of 231 college student dating couples. The data suggest that women are more cautious than men about entering into romantic relationships, more likely to compare these relationships to alternatives, more likely to end a relationship that seems ill fated, and better able to cope with rejection. We consider several possible explanations of these sex differences from the standpoints of psychoanalytic theory, the social and economic context of mate selection, and the socialization of men and women in the management of their own emotions. To evaluate these (and any other) explanations, further research might profitably investigate whether and to what degree these sex differences are found in other segments of the population.This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant GS-27422 to Zick Rubin. The authors are grateful to Claire Engers, Sherry Ward, and Susan Willard for their contribution to this research and to Jessie Bernard, Nancy Chodorow, George W. Goethals, Paul Rosenblatt, Ann Swidler, and Shelley Taylor for their helpful comments.     

Self-definition and self-defense: Jewish racial identity in nineteenth-century France

This article examines how and why French Jews began to speak of themselves as a race. Though we often assume that Jewish racial identity was an invention of anti-Semites in the 1880s, Jewish publicists had in fact adopted this language as early as the 1820s. Far from unwittingly appropriating the language of their detractors, Jews borrowed the language of race from scholars neutral or sympathetic to their cause in ways that made sense in light of their larger strategies of self-defense. The scholars who pioneered modern race theory were not the late nineteenth-century Social Darwinists; they were romantic historians like the Thierrys and Michelet, who saw France as a nation composed of a plurality of peoples who had come together over time to form a unified nation. Race thus provided a framework for understanding difference as legitimate, useful and dignified at a moment when anti-Jewish publicists attacked Jews as anti-social and immoral people who brought only harm to France. Looking at what French Jews borrowed from these early historians allows us to see the interconnections between Jewish self-defense and Jewish self-definition. In seeking to guarantee their rights and social status, French Jews appropriated new terms of understanding who they were.     

Developing coherence in community and clinical psychology: the integration of idealism and pragmatism

Illustrations of how ideas from community psychology may be integrated with clinical psychological thinking and practice are described from the perspective of a clinical psychologist working in the NHS. The intentions are to consider socially relevant conceptualizations of the causes of people's well-being and distress, and to develop ways of helping individuals and communities to clarify and address these causes. Incorporating an analysis of social power also necessitates a critical awareness of the limited potency of psychological interventions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spinning strands into aspects: Realism,idealism, and finite modes in Spinoza

There is a long tradition of reading Spinoza as committed, perhaps unwillingly, to the non‐reality of finite modes. While acknowledging that Spinoza does seem to rely on the reality of modes in certain places, Michael Della Rocca has called attention to what he labels an “idealist strand.” As a concluding remark in “Steps Toward Eleaticism in Spinoza's Philosophy of Action,” he claims that faced with these two conflicting strands, which are genuinely to be found in the text, it is better to note both rather than artificially imposing a unity on the text. In this paper, I suggest that one need not admit two conflicting strands in Spinoza, on the one hand, nor arbitrarily disregard one strand, on the other. Rather, I argue for a unified view that diagnoses what gives rise to both seemingly conflicting strands. The key to this enterprise is recognizing that finite modes, paradoxically seeming perhaps at first, are not wholly finite. That is, a finite mode is determined by the totality of finite modes—wherein lies its finite aspect, but at the same time, and equally, partially actively determines this totality—wherein lies its infinite aspect.