The Chestnut Lodge Kiosk: Observations on a Psychiatric Hospital's Work Project Part Two

This article reviews some of the health care issues raised by K. Roy MacKenzie. The author identifies additional contributors to spiralling costs and offers a slightly different perspective on the issue of the efficacy of short-term time-limited psychotherapy. In particular, the author raises questions regarding the cost-driven aspect of today's health care delivery system versus quality of care. He also challenges some of the research findings used in support of MacKenzie's argument that short-term time-limited group therapy is as cost-effective as long-term individual psychotherapy. More specifically, he considers how resistance and the sense of hopefulness might influence the favorable outcomes of the studies cited in MacKenzie's article. In addition, the relationship between short-term psychotherapy and managed care abuse is addressed and a partial solution to preventing such abuse by legislating public accountability is offered.     

Ecclesiological Research and Natural and Human Sciences: Some Observations of an Unconventional Phenomenon

This article is motivated by the absence of published material dealing with the rapprochement between ecclesiology and the sciences. It presupposes that there is a need to broaden the scope of ecclesiological research in order to integrate into it theories and methods from the social and natural sciences. Ecclesiological research in this wider sense has as its object, church, as a broad concept. The article suggests a threefold aspect for ecclesiology, conceiving it as the ecclesiology of the researcher, and the ecclesiology of both the object and of the result of the research. Furthermore, its purpose is to identify transparent ecclesiological theories which are able to engage with and integrate scientific theories and methods. An inventory of examples of modes of collaboration used between ecclesiology and different sciences is then offered as an illustration of the context in which ecclesiology may integrate or relate to science in different ways. Finally, the article concludes that there is a need for further clarificatory research into the possibilities which exist for ecclesiology to be made more fully the science of being Christian in community or church.     

The Influence of Gender and Parental Attitudes on Preschool Children's Interest in Babies: Observations in Natural Settings

This paper reports on two studies of parents'observations of their preschool children's interactions with infants. In Study 1 parents observed 69 3- and 5-year-old white children with three nonsibling infants whom the children encountered during their daily lives. In Study 2 parents observed 46 3- to 6-year-old primarily white children with three nonsibling infants and completed measures of their own gender-related child-rearing attitudes.Consistent with findings from previous laboratory research, this research in naturalistic settings found girls to show more interest in, more nurturance toward,and more interaction with babies than did boys. In Study 2, children whose parents had traditional gender-stereotyped attitudes were more likely to show this gender difference than children whose parents had more egalitarian child-rearing attitudes.     

Observations on stroboscopic induced motion

Subject-relative explanations of motion induction state that induced motion is the result of a misperceived shift of the median plane of the visual field of the subject. This theory does not require relative motion of the spot and frame, in the classical spot-and-frame condition, only asymmetrical stimulation. Three experiments are reported in which stroboscopic induced motion was investigated. The experimental arrangement was unconventional in that the induced object (spot) was presented only during the interstimulus interval between the exposures of the inducing object (frame). This allowed differentiation of the duration of the induced movement and that of the inducing one. In the first experiment it was demonstrated that perception of induced motion depends upon the duration of the interstimulus interval between the presentations of the inducing frame. In the second experiment it was shown that the perceived velocity of the induced movement can be different from that of the inducing one and depends on the duration of exposure of the induced object. In the third experiment a stimulus display was created in which the apparent displacement of an object and its induced motion are incongruous. The results are incompatible with subject-relative displacement as the sole determining factor of motion induction and they present some difficulties for the hypothesis that induced motion is the result of the apportionment of the objective displacement of the frame.     

Observations on Loss and Family Development

This article examines the role of death and loss in family developmental processes. Aspects of family development are described, followed by an exploration of the impact of loss on family functioning and development. We present a typology of initial family response styles to the death of a member as well as some immediate and longer-term patterns of adaptation after a loss. The article concludes with a case example and a discussion of multigenerational sequelae of unresolved bereavement in family systems.