Examining the role and functions of self-development in healthcare therapy trainings: A review of the literature with a modest proposal for the use of learning agreements

Many healthcare trainings with a psychodynamic orientation encourage or require students to commit to a process of personal development, such as provided through attending individual psychotherapy and/or an experiential ‘as if therapy’ group. This paper reviews recent literature about training in psychodynamically oriented practices within counselling psychotherapy, psychiatry, the creative arts therapies and clinical psychology. The results indicate that the mandatory personal development dimension of therapy training needs urgent reassessment. Results of studies consistently call for further research about the direct benefits of personal development on students’ development of skills for therapy practice. There is minimal evidence to indicate what self-development through individual psychotherapy can specifically deliver in terms of eventual professional competence. To address some aspects of the current lacuna, this paper summarises the recommendations for training programmes available from the current research, and makes a modest proposal for the use of learning agreements, rather than only mandated hurdle requirements, to ensure that the incremental steps by which the student attains expected requirements is negotiated and agreed within regularised, and widely accepted university course procedures.     

Drive for leanness and health-related behavior within a social/cultural perspective

We examined relationships between drive for leanness and perceived media pressure to change appearance, internalization of an ideal physique, exercise frequency, and dieting. Men and women (N = 353) completed the Drive for Leanness Scale, the Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire-3, the Eating Attitudes Test-26, and a demographic inventory. Drive for leanness was significantly correlated with athletic internalization (.52), pressure to attain an ideal physique (.25), exercise frequency (.36), and dieting (.25). Structural equation modeling revealed a good fitting model (χ² = 2.85, p < .241; CFI = .99; NNFI = .98; RMSEA = .04; SRMR = .02) with internalization predicting drive for leanness, which in turn predicted dieting and exercise. Results reveal social/cultural theory helps enhance the understanding of the drive for leanness and its relationship with health-related behavior.     

Ronald L. Hall,The Human Embrace: The Love of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Love; Kierkegaard,Cavell, Nussbaum

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Children and Spirituality in the Context of a Traditional Festival: Halloween

This paper examines some of the contemporary cultural practices associated with the traditional festival of Halloween as it is celebrated by children in Britain and the United States. Using ethnographic evidence from a variety of sources, the authors seek to explore the range of activities which constitute the modern Halloween, particularly as it is mediated to children through the forms of consumer culture. The paper analyses the changing social, historical and religious patterns which have displaced the celebration of Halloween onto children, and offers an account of them which points to the persistence of a coherent spirituality—what the authors term a ‘spirituality of boundaries‘—to be found in the symbolism of the festival and its interaction with the lives and representation of children.