Conceptualising the family-friendly career: the contribution of career theories and a systems approach

Mainstream theories of career have been charged with a lack of 'critical, multidisciplinary, gendered, and contextualised work'. This suggests that they would not readily be able to encompass the notion of the family-friendly career. This paper contextualises their shortcomings, notes some responses to them over time, and identifies some recent theorising that seems more likely to be able to contribute to 'joined-up thinking' on career and family-friendly issues. It then proposes the value of a systems approach and soft systems thinking to conceptualising a (family-friendly) career, and introduces the concept of a 'family career'.     

Therapeutic assessment of a man with "ADD"

In this article I present the first published complete case study of a psychological assessment done by the methods of Therapeutic Assessment. A client-therapist pair had been working together for several years but felt "stuck" in the treatment. The man had been previously diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and sought help for disorganization and difficulties in romantic relationships. The therapist asked for diagnostic clarification but gradually revealed a deeper confusion about how to work with the client. Through the collaborative process of the assessment, the client gradually concluded that he did not have ADD, and he and the therapist reached a joint understanding of their next steps in treatment. This case illustrates how collaborative psychological assessment (a) can help clients revise their "stories about themselves and the world" and (b) provides an effective, non-threatening way for a consultant to intervene in a client-therapist system that has reached an impasse.     

Impaired sensitivity to dynamic stimuli in poor readers of a regular orthography

The mappings from grapheme to phoneme are much less consistent in English than they are for most other languages. Therefore, the differences found between English-speaking dyslexics and controls on sensory measures of temporal processing might be related more to the irregularities of English orthography than to a general deficit affecting reading ability in all languages. However, here we show that poor readers of Norwegian, a language with a relatively regular orthography, are less sensitive than controls to dynamic visual and auditory stimuli. Consistent with results from previous studies of English-readers, detection thresholds for visual motion and auditory frequency modulation (FM) were significantly higher in 19 poor readers of Norwegian compared to 22 control readers of the same age. Over two-thirds (68.4%) of the children identified as poor readers were less sensitive than controls to either or both of the visual coherent motion or auditory 2Hz FM stimuli.     

Does face recognition rely on encoding of 3-D surface? Examining the role of shape-from-shading and shape-from-stereo

It is now well known that processing of shading information in face recognition is susceptible to bottom lighting and contrast reversal, an effect that may be due to a disruption of 3-D shape processing. The question then is whether the disruption can be rectified by other sources of 3-D information, such as shape-from-stereo. We examined this issue by comparing identification performance either with or without stereo information using top-lit and bottom-lit face stimuli in both photographic positive and negative conditions. The results show that none of the shading effects was reduced by the presence of stereo information. This finding supports the notion that shape-from-shading overrides shape-from-stereo in face perception. Although shape-from-stereo did produce some signs of facilitation for face identification, this effect was negligible. Together, our results support the view that 3-D shape processing plays only a minor role in face recognition. Our data are best accounted for by a weighted function of 2-D processing of shading pattern and 3-D processing of shapes, with a much greater weight assigned to 2-D pattern processing.     

Vladimir Alexandrovich Smirnov as a Founder of Research Schools in Logic and Methodology of Science in the USSR and Russia

The article gives a short account of V.A. Smirnovs scientific biography, including his work in Tomsk University in Siberia and in the Department of Logic of the Institute of Philosophy in Moscow.     

Intensive group psychotherapy of borderline patients

The group modality employed by the authors for the past two years to structurally treat borderline personality patients has proven successful and is presented here for consideration by other clinicians. The authors suggest that the ego deficits that can make the borderline patient a problematic group member are the very deficits that are often best treated in a group setting. The inherent curative factors of groups are discussed in parallel with the structural therapeutic needs of the borderline, and specific strategies and interventions for enhancing borderline structural growth are recommended. Inherent risks of treating this challenging patient population within the group modality are discussed, and suggestions for preempting or minimizing such effects are presented.     

How We Teach Introductory Bible Courses: A Comparative and Historical Sampling

This study identifies the dominant modes of biblical interpretation being taught in introductory Bible courses through a qualitative analysis of course syllabi from three institutional contexts: evangelical Christian colleges, private colleges, and public universities. Despite a proliferation of methods and scholarly approaches to the Bible, this study reveals that historical‐critical approaches continue to predominate in pedagogical contexts, especially private colleges and public universities. In Christian colleges, theological approaches appear more frequently, usually alongside historical criticism and rarely supplanting it. The study also shows that teachers have been deploying social scientific and ideological approaches with increasing frequency over the past decade. Additionally, the study tracked instruments of student assessment in these courses. Public universities showed a particularly high level of pedagogical conservatism in this regard, while Christian colleges exhibit the greatest diversity with respect to course assignments and evaluations. See also “ Response to ‘How We Teach Introductory Bible Courses’ ” by Caryn A. Reeder, Tat‐siong Benny Liew, Jane S. Webster, Alicia J. Batten, and Chris Frilingos, published in this issue of the journal. The complete data set is included in an extended Appendix at the end of the article, and is also available electronically on the “Supporting Information” tab of the article's webpage and at the Wabash Center ( http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/pdfs/AppendixCornellandLeMon.pdf ).     

A Mid-Career Perspective on the Opportunity-Structure/Occupational-Choice Debate

Research into mid-career change lends support to K. Roberts' thesis on the significance of the opportunity structure for initial entry to work and during the early working years. Whether objective or 'socially constructed', it was perceived as a determinant by men who were ensuring that their children should not be constrained as they had been. The study also offers evidence of the subsequent strengthening and implementation of the self-concept and of a consequent change in the significance of the opportunity structure. The conclusions, highlighted in a case-history, tend to support all parties to the opportunity-structure/occupational-choice debate so far. They suggest that in today's turbulent environment there is an urgent need for careers information, guidance and counselling throughout working life.