Child Pornography Offending Seen Through Three Theoretical Lenses

Understanding the complex issues surrounding child pornography offending is still in its infancy, and questions regarding the etiological underpinnings of sexually deviant interests and behaviors for these offenders remain both salient and unanswered. This article considers these questions through the lenses of three psychological theories of behavior: (1) social learning theory, (2) courtship disorder theory, and (3) behavioral economics. The development and maintenance of child pornography offending, as well as the potential for off-line escalation of those behaviors, from each theoretical perspective is discussed and the implications for theoretically grounded clinical practice is explored.     

Healing Shame

Contrary to what may be the commonly held belief, the worry is that, with almost negligible exceptions, the heavy preponderance of psychotherapists are essentially unable to give a fair hearing to revolutionary new ideas. And the charge is also leveled at humanistic psychotherapists. Because most psychotherapists would object to the charge, the purpose of the article is to invite psychotherapists to take a friendly little test of open-mindedness to revolutionary new ideas in psychotherapy.     

Single and Multiple Self Implications for Change Grids: Studies of Consistency

Abstract

This study, derived from the work of Hinkle (1965), explored the short-term test-re-test stability of two forms of Implications for Change grids. In the Single Self implications task, persons considered whether a general self change on one personal construct dimension would influence change on their other dimensions. The Multiple Self implications task followed the same form of questioning. However, in this latter procedure, persons were asked about self change within more specific contexts of activity (e.g., self as friend, self at play). Average consistency levels were calculated for the Single Self and the Multiple Self grids. Predictions were made regarding which subjects would show more or less consistency using measures of self meaningfulness and construct organization at first testing     

Epistemology and the theory of problem solving

Problem solving has recently become a central topic both in the philosophy of science and in cognitive science. This paper integrates approaches to problem solving from these two disciplines and discusses the epistemological consequences of such an integration. The paper first analyzes problem solving as getting a true answer to a question. It then explores some stages of cognitive activity relevant to question answering that have been delineated by historians and philosophers of science and by cognitive psychologists and artificial intelligencers. The traditional opposition between discovery and justification is challenged. It is suggested that epistemology may be conceptualized, in part, as the critical assessment of problem-solving strategies.     

Comprehension and memory for pictures

The thesis advanced is that people remember nonsensical pictures much better if they comprehend what they are about. Two experiments supported this thesis. In the first, nonsensical "droodles" were studied by subjects with or without an accompanying verbal interpretation of the pictures. Free recall was much better for subjects receiving the interpretation during study. Also, a later recognition test showed that subjects receiving the interpretation rated as more similar to the original picture a distractor which was close to the prototype of the interpreted category. In Experiment II, subjects studied pairs of nonsensical pictures, with or without a linking interpretation provided. Subjects who heard a phrase identifying and interrelating the pictures of a pair showed greater associative recall and matching than subjects who received no interpretation. The results suggest that memory is aided whenever contextual cues arouse appropriate schemata into which the material to be learned can be fitted.     

Lifelong Mild Bad Feelings: A Review and Solution to a Psychotherapeutic Enigma

A review indicates that (a) comparatively little is known about the common phenomenon of lifelong mild bad feelings, and (b) psychotherapy has generally overlooked an effective focus on this enigmatic feeling state. As an invitation for clinicians to provide more attention to this feeling state, a proposal is suggested toward one way of freeing a patient of lifelong mild bad feelings in the course of a session.     

Between the sea and the shore: mediating the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore

The Chinese diaspora brought tablets and effigies of their Taoist gods with them when they migrated to Southeast Asia. Temples in the region hold annual festivals to evoke this passage from the sea to the shore, assisted by makeshift sets, props, and generators with floodlights. In this article, I examine the durational performances of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore, which consist of people and deities moving in processions. What does it mean to perform spirituality between the sea and the shore? What happens when this coastline is constantly redrawn with land reclamation? There is a mobile imagery described here: technological media transport yet circumscribe the spiritual to the material stage onshore as devotees invite the deities to land. The spiritual is eventually pulled back, leaving behind its residue (ashes, footprints on the sand, talismans) as the deities depart. Spirituality performed along the coast through technological mediation reveals the contemporary nature of these religious practices.