Counseling in Ireland

Counseling in Ireland has experienced rapid growth in the past 30 years. Public attitudes toward counseling have become more positive, especially with the increasing secularization of a once strongly religious Catholic society. Licensure is nonexistent but there are certification bodies that attempt to ensure qualified practice. There is no third‐party payment, so access to counseling for impoverished individuals is a problem. Training programs are quite varied. Efforts are being made to standardize training and to develop licensure requirements.     

Enhancing the effects of a narrative message through experiential information processing: An experimental study

First-person narratives are becoming a popular means to communicate health risk information. Although studies show they can increase risk perception and motivate health behaviours compared to statistical messages, more research on the conditions in which they are particularly likely to have effects is needed. In this study, we tested a moderator related to how information is processed. Specifically, we hypothesised that thinking in terms of emotions and personal experiences – known as experiential information processing – would increase people’s responsiveness to a narrative. Female college students (N = 138) who reported indoor tanning were randomly assigned to read a first-person narrative message or a statistical message about the risks of skin cancer. Prior to reading the message, the women received instructions that would activate either experiential or rational information processing. Participants then reported their risk perceptions of skin cancer, worry about skin cancer and behaviour intentions related to skin cancer. Analyses showed that message type and information processing interacted to influence risk perceptions and worry. Consistent with hypotheses, participants reported the highest risk perception and worry when they used an experiential information system prior to reading the narrative message. There were no effects on behaviour intentions. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Childhood and Adolescence: Precursors, Outcomes, Processes, Experiences, and Measurement

ABSTRACT. This paper reviews and critiques the growing literature on the distinction between reactive and proactive aggression in children and adolescents. Empirical findings suggest that the subtypes of aggression are (a) preceded by different familial precursors, (b) associated with different behavioral outcomes, (c) driven by different social–cognitive and emotional processes, and (d) related to different social experiences. Because measurement difficulties have been a prominent concern in the study of reactive and proactive aggression, a discussion of various assessment approaches is included. Suggestions are made for future research directions, including a greater use of observational and laboratory-based methods, more longitudinal designs, and a greater focus on the careful assessment of the subtypes of aggression.     

A Phenomenological Reflection on Kurosawa's Ikiru in Light of the Early Heidegger's Concept of “Distance”

This article focuses on one of Heidegger's early lecture courses, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research, in order to explore his early development of fallenness. Within this lecture it is termed ruinance and at the heart of its development is what Heidegger refers to as distance. The first half of this article is dedicated to examining the concept of distance and to following Heidegger's movement of life towards ruinance through his understanding of distance. Heidegger understands distance as the relationship between life and its possibilities and it is the variances within this relationship that cause for a natural movement towards ruinance and also allow for a return from it. The second half of this article is a phenomenological reflection upon Kurosawa's film Ikiru in light of Heidegger's observation of this movement of life. Ikiru provides a concrete example of a life that has fallen completely and unwittingly into ruinance. Heidegger's understanding of distance, especially as being dynamic, is more readily grasped by observing Mr. Watanabe as he becomes aware of his ruinance and struggles to recover from it. Gaining an understanding of distance as described by Heidegger provides a new way of phenomenologically reflecting upon life and expresses the importance of the subject's self-awareness within experience.     

Instructing Young Children in the Use of Memorizing Strategies: Effects at Study and Recall

This study examined preschool children's abilities to apply a newly learned organizational study-recall strategy in posttraining tasks that employed stimulus items from different media and that were administered by an unfamiliar experimenter. Fortyeight 4- and 5-year-old children were assigned to training and control conditions that alternated the presentation of pictures and objects on baseline, training, and test tasks. Samemedium tasks required children to study and recall items of the same stimulus medium (pictures or objects) as that depicting items in the training tasks. Different-medium tasks required performance with items presented in the alternate medium. Training included demonstration and practice in using a study-sorting strategy to organize the stimuli, encouragement to apply the strategy in new tasks, presenting a rationale for using the strategy, giving feedback about the effectiveness of using the strategy, and providing incentive for effortful performance. Subjects in the training groups showed marked increases in the use of sorting activities in posttraining tasks but failed to show corresponding significant improvements in item recall.     

Constitution,Over Determination and Causal Power

Kim's exclusion argument threatens to show that irreducible constituted objects are epiphenomenal. Kim's arguments are examined and found to be unconvincing; that a constituted cause requires its constituent to be a cause is not an adequate reason to reject the causation of the constituted object (event or property‐instance). However, I introduce and argue for, the Causal Power Uniqueness Condition (CPUC). I argue that CPUC and the causal closure of the physical, implies that constituted objects or property‐instances are not novel causal powers.