The study of religion in West Africa 1959–1969

Messianic Judaism is an American-born movement of congregations that hold evangelical beliefs and follow Jewish practices. Scholars have viewed it chiefly as a new religious movement (NRM) or a controversial branch of Judaism. As a result, they have downplayed or ignored its largely evangelical Christian base. The first study of ‘gentile believers,’ this article argues that Messianic Judaism is best understood through the lens of religious seeking, a trend usually associated with alternative spiritualities and still under-theorized vis-à-vis conservative Christians, like evangelicals. First, it traces why Messianic Judaism appeals to growing numbers of North American Christians. Second, and more broadly, it argues that seeking is a spiritually satisfying religious practice that, for evangelicals, reiterates central themes of born-again life. Their experiences also clarify the limits that may constrain religious seeking; they seek to deepen and actualize a biblical worldview in religious sites viewed as proximate to their own.     

On being dropped and picked up: adopted children and their internal objects

The field of adoption has changed over the past years from one where there were babies available for many adoptive couples to one where increasingly the children who are needing adoption are those who have already suffered deprivations and difficulties in their families of origin, with disrupted attachments and a consequent traumatizing effect of their early history on their internal worlds. Professionals working with these children, who have in effect been 'dropped', face the difficult task not only of placing them appropriately but of supporting their adoptive families. With the new experience of a secure base the original trauma may be reworked, and the new framework tested by these damaged and consequently often damaging children as they replay their feelings of being unwanted and unwantable. In describing once-weekly work with a 6-year-old adopted boy, I suggest that the primary disillusion of his neonatal experience caused an internal catastrophe which was then reworked in his adoptive placement. This child did not experience what Winnicott (1971) called 'gradual disillusion' in terms of his belief that he creates the needed breast, and thus integration of love and hate of the primary object, but remained in a state of hyper-vigilance because of the deficits in his internal world. These deficits have been able partially to be addressed in psychotherapy treatment.     

Gender,Social Disorganization Theory,and the Locations of Sexually Oriented Businesses

Communities are increasingly developing zoning ordinances for sexually oriented businesses based on presumed negative “secondary effects.” Utilizing social disorganization theory, this study examines neighborhood differences among three types of sexually oriented businesses. Based on census-tract data from four urban Texas counties, findings show that census tracts with only adult sexuality boutiques, which primarily market to women consumers, are significantly more socially organized than census tracts with only adult entertainment clubs, only adult bookstores, and more than one type of adult business. This suggests that the gendered nature of sexual consumerism also has implications for the locations of these businesses.     

The Preoedipal Development of the Critical Superego and Its Manifestations in Psychoanalytic Group Psychotherapy

Alexithymia is a psychic dysfunction in which symbolic thinking and fantasy are reduced, somatization is common, feelings are poorly communicated, empathy is impaired, and intimate interpersonal relations are difficult to maintain. Individuals with significant alexithymia may have a variety of psychiatric disorders but their psychotherapy should always be informed by an awareness of their alexithymia. This paper reviews the concept and details the most efficient means of psychotherapy for alexithymic patients. Ideal treatment for such patients maximizes their opportunities to learn while protecting their self-esteem and minimizing nonproductive stress. Such treatment involves concurrent individual and group psychotherapy. Clinical material is presented and specific therapeutic maneuvers are explored.     

Innovating With the Model of Human Occupation in Mental Health

This article describes a new approach in a group of National Health Service trusts in the United Kingdom. The assessment and intervention were focused on using the Model of Human Occupation in Mental Health services. An occupation focused assessment and intervention protocol were developed based on the Model of Human Occupation Screening Tool Single-Observation Form (MOHOST-SOF). The aim was to develop a guide to treatment and monitoring to support efficient practice while maintaining an occupation and client-centered focus. Implementation has been successful to date.     

Ripples in mental space caused by dark matters and twisted tales: Some reflections on memory,memoirs and therapeutic work

In this paper, the author reflects on the issues of memory and the writing of personal memoirs, and how this impinges on our professional work. Her title is drawn in part from the work of theoretical physicists who can hypothesise about the existence of dark matter by measuring the deformations it causes in surrounding stars and galaxies. What she suggests is that there may be limitations in keeping strictly to disciplinary boundaries, and our professional lives may defy our efforts to box them in. The opening of doors to a more extensive world of ideas is often helpful, both for psychoanalysis and for the fields which it can illuminate and by which it can also be illuminated. She uses the example of the publication and critical reception of her own memoir, Pieces of Molly to make links with our professional selves and our clinical work. She draws on the work of Freud, and other seminal thinkers in the field, as well as her own clinical work to illustrate the ways in which mental space and the memories within it can be contained and transformed over time, but also can be beset by both internal and external saboteurs.     

Emotion Ideology Mediates Effects of Risk Factors on Alexithymia Development

Despite its connection to mental and behavioral health complications, elevated alexithymia tends to be associated with low responsiveness and high resistance to psychological intervention. To further understanding of potential treatment targets for clients with alexithymic traits, the present study explored the (a) independent contributions of various risk factors to statistical predictions of alexithymic trait severity, (b) generalizability of risk factor contributions across two culturally distinct samples, and (c) potential for emotion ideology (i.e., beliefs about emotion and emotional experience) to mediate such contributions. Preliminary results suggest emotion socialization and child abuse may be salient contributors to alexithymia severity, whereas effects of trauma exposure may be limited to samples with high overall exposure to alexithymia risk-factors. Moreover, emotion ideology mediates the relation between risk-factor exposure and alexithymia severity. Thus, psychotherapeutic interventions targeting emotion ideology may be beneficial when working with clients with elevated alexithymia.     

Using Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Quality Improvement in Clinical Genetics: an Exploratory Study

International advocacy of patient-centred healthcare delivery has led to emphasis on the (re)design and evaluation of healthcare processes and outcomes from a patient perspective. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have significant potential to inform such attempts. However there is limited understanding of the processes by which this can be achieved. This exploratory study followed attempts to utilise two different PROMs measures to support service quality improvement in clinical genetics. PROMs used were the Genetic Counseling Outcome Scale (GCOS-24), a well-validated clinical genetics-specific PROM and Euroqol (EQ-5D), a generic PROM favoured by the UK National Institute for Health and Excellence (NICE). Both of these PROMs enable pre/post intervention comparison. A service audit tool was also used, premised on a patient-reported experience measure. In addition, the study draws on interviews with clinical staff to identify challenges associated with the use of PROMs (response rate, data collection, analysis). Benefits are also explored and include the provision of insight into patients’ needs; complementing clinical judgement; identification of needs being met, evidencing the benefit of services provided; prompting consideration of areas requiring attention; and encouraging professional development.     

Media multitasking and implicit learning

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Media multitasking refers to the simultaneous use of different forms of media. Previous research comparing heavy media multitaskers and light media...     

Measuring category intuitiveness in unconstrained categorization tasks

What makes a category seem natural or intuitive? In this paper, an unsupervised categorization task was employed to examine observer agreement concerning the categorization of nine different stimulus sets. The stimulus sets were designed to capture different intuitions about classification structure. The main empirical index of category intuitiveness was the frequency of the preferred classification, for different stimulus sets. With 169 participants, and a within participants design, with some stimulus sets the most frequent classification was produced over 50 times and with others not more than two or three times. The main empirical finding was that cluster tightness was more important in determining category intuitiveness, than cluster separation. The results were considered in relation to the following models of unsupervised categorization: DIVA, the rational model, the simplicity model, SUSTAIN, an Unsupervised version of the Generalized Context Model (UGCM), and a simple geometric model based on similarity. DIVA, the geometric approach, SUSTAIN, and the UGCM provided good, though not perfect, fits. Overall, the present work highlights several theoretical and practical issues regarding unsupervised categorization and reveals weaknesses in some of the corresponding formal models.