Reviews: Books, Art

LOCATING THE ROMANTIC SUBJECT: NOVALIS WITH WINNICOTT. By Gail M. Newman. 258 pp. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 1997. $39.95. MENTORING: THE MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL KINSHIP. By Edward C. Sellner. 198 pp. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2002. $12.95. CREATING SCHOOLS THAT HEAL: REAL LIFE SOLUTIONS. By Lesley Koplow. 232 pp. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002. $19.95. MORAL MEMORANDA FROM JOHN HOWARD YODER: CONVERSATIONS ON LAW, ETHICS, AND THE CHURCH BETWEEN A MENNONITE THEOLOGIAN AND A HOOSIER LAWYER. By Thomas L. Shaffer. 121 pp. Eugene, OR: WIPF and Stock Publishers, 2002. $16.00. TALK IS NOT ENOUGH: HOW PSYCHOTHERAPY REALLY WORKS. By Willard Gaylin, M.D. 323 pp. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2000. $24.95. MICHAL ROVNER: THE SPACE BETWEEN     

Evaluating FACES III and the Circumplex Model: 2,440 families

Previous evaluations of the Circumplex Model's curvilinear hypothesis using FACES instruments have yielded conflicting results. A review of the different research procedures and samples used in those investigations revealed that none of the studies had samples large and/or heterogenous enough to test the curvilinear hypothesis adequately. The present study evaluates the curvilinear hypothesis of family functioning and the concurrent validity of FACES III with a sample of optimal size (N = 2,440 families) and diversity. The lack of support for the curvilinear hypothesis in this "greenhouse" sample is explained by different findings for the two FACES III subscales. There was no relationship between the study's measures of well-being and the adaptability subscale and a linear relationship between these measures and the cohesion subscale. Implications of these findings for the continuing use of the FACES III and for the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems are discussed.     

Protecting Sexual Minority Youth from Research Risks: Conflicting Perspectives

We describe the dilemmas we encountered in the informed consent process for an HIV prevention project targeting Black gay, bisexual, and non-gay identified young men. We highlight the complexities of applying informed parental consent procedures to sexual minority youth and identify some of the challenges that researchers who work with sexual minority youth face when they must balance the needs and rights of this population against the needs and rights accorded to parents by federal guidelines for protecting minor participants in research.     

Parental Perceptions of Services Provided for Children with Autism in Jordan

Providing formal support for children with autism and their parents is important and mandatory to improve children’s abilities and enhance the capabilities of parents. The present study attempted to investigate the perceptions of parents of children with autism regarding the services provided in Jordan. A questionnaire consisting of five sections was designed and distributed to a sample of 60 parents of children with autism (5–18 years old) among four special education institutions in Jordan. The questionnaire addressed five domains: demographics, type and number of received services, methods and difficulties of obtaining services, parents’ satisfaction, and parents’ perceived needed services. The results revealed that the service delivery system with which parents interacted was composed of multiple places and providers, but had several difficulties. Parents participating in this study expressed an average satisfaction with the received services. Issues pertaining to the cost of services, parents-professional partnerships, and overall quality of services were seen by parents as sources of low satisfaction. On the other hand, parents expressed the need for early intervention, family counseling, and community awareness services. Further suggestions and implications are presented in the study.     

Four‐model approach to adolescent–parent attachment relationships and adolescents' loneliness,school belonging,and teacher appraisal

This study tested monotropy, hierarchy, independence, and integration conceptual models of adolescent–mother and adolescent–father attachment to explain adolescents' perceived social interrelationships with extrafamilial attachment figures (peers, teachers). Participants included 356 Israeli adolescents (12–15 years). More adolescents were significantly classified as securely attached to mothers than to fathers, but high concordances emerged. Results supported two of the attachment models, hierarchy and integration, as explaining variation in adolescents' perceived extrafamilial interrelationships. As per the hierarchy attachment model, adolescent–mother attachment outweighed adolescent–father attachment to some extent in predicting adolescents' perceived social interrelationship measures. As per the integration attachment model, significant differences emerged on most social interrelationship measures between the 4 distinct subgroups: secure attachment to both parents, neither, only father, only mother. The Discussion section focuses on the unique importance of attachment to each parent for typically developing junior high students.     

Cognitive load effects on early visual perceptual processing

Contrast-based early visual processing has largely been considered to involve autonomous processes that do not need the support of cognitive resources. However, as spatial attention is known to modulate early visual perceptual processing, we explored whether cognitive load could similarly impact contrast-based perception. We used a dual-task paradigm to assess the impact of a concurrent working memory task on the performance of three different early visual tasks. The results from Experiment 1 suggest that cognitive load can modulate early visual processing. No effects of cognitive load were seen in Experiments 2 or 3. Together, the findings provide evidence that under some circumstances cognitive load effects can penetrate the early stages of visual processing and that higher cognitive function and early perceptual processing may not be as independent as was once thought.     

WHEN THINKING HESITATES: PHILOSOPHY AS PROSTHESIS AND TRANSFORMATIVE VISION

In this essay, I draw on Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau‐Ponty to interrogate what philosophy is and how it can continue to think. Though my answer is not reducible to the views of either philosopher, what joins them is an attempt to elaborate philosophy as a different way of seeing. In this light, I propose a view of philosophy as prosthesis—as a means and a way for seeing differently. Rather than a simple tool, philosophy as prosthesis is a transformative supplement, one that our bodily perception calls for and wherein that perception is recast. Rather than a fixed or assured view, this prosthesis holds open the interval in which thinking can take place. Philosophy, I argue, must wait. It sees and thinks hesitatingly, for the temporality it inscribes is not a foreseeable development but the unfolding of life as tendency, as that which creates its own possibility as it comes into existence.