Helping the ex-addict

The mass media have given anyone who is remotely interested a general picture of what it is like to be a heroin user. Very few people, however, have any idea of what it is like to try to stop being an addict. Even addicts and ex-addicts provide a confused and frequently inaccurate picture. This article discusses the types of problems counselors encounter when they deal with those who want to stop using heroin and focuses on those issues about which most people seem unaware.     

Re-visioning Clients' Pathology Into Initiatory Desire

A perspective of therapy is presented that re-visions clients' pathology into desire for initiatory experience. Initiatory experience is understood as a symbolic template that lies over the biological and psychological developmental life cycle. A symbolic perspective is taken of clients' presenting problems in order to provide meaning to the symptoms and to eliminate the constraints that accompany diagnoses, treatments, or both. A developmental foundation is laid in support of the clinical application of this perspective in what will be called symbolic therapy. Anthropological and psychological models are reviewed in order to clarify the historical genesis and modern application of the ritual of initiation. Finally, a case study is offered to further explore this view of therapy.     

The justice and injustice of life events

An experiment employing a sample (N=280) of undergraduates from an urban university was designed to test the general hypothesis that the perception of justice and injustice in life events depends upon the relationship between two variables that are part of the stimulus situation: the valence of the person being observed (good or bad), and the valence of the outcome experienced by that person (positive or negative). The findings from both qualitative (analysis of spontaneous comments) and quantitative scale ratings supported the prediction that justice and injustice perceptions depend respectively on whether the signs of the person–outcome valences are the same or different. Two perceptual biases were revealed by the analysis. The first was a positive outcome bias: respondents rated as more just outcomes that were positive regardless of the goodness or badness of the person in the life event. The second was a justice bias: respondents in both measures found the just life events to be more just than unjust life events to be unjust. Finally the more religious respondents perceived the life events as more just regardless of the patterns of person–outcome valences than did the less religious, suggesting a third, religiosity bias. A number of theoretical implications and questions for future research were discussed, including the quantification of the hypothesis and its cross-cultural generality.