Deep Symbols and Mythic Imagination in the Hermeneutics of Creation Texts

This article reflects on creation through the lens of different traditions of Christian scholarship, and argues for a returning of the theology of creation to its rightful place at the centre of theological discourse about God's relationship with the world—intrinsically linked to the economy of salvation and not in opposition to it. It posits a necessary re-visioning of the relationship between humanity and other-than-human creation via a re-evaluation of the epistemological function of symbol and myth, and a re-examining of the governing principles within myth typologies and their implicit axioms within creation theology. The hermeneutical insights of philosopher Paul Ricoeur and biblical exegete Claus Westermann are brought into conversation. Building on the Ricoeurian epistemological axiom that ‘the symbol gives rise to thought’, the article avers the creation imaginary as a deep and formative symbol of God's free and loving purposes enacted through different and even contesting cultures and traditions and within the whole cosmos. In imaginative dialogical rereading, the community of faith can be open to God's free and loving relationship with all creation, thus also participating in the divine work of renewing the face of the earth.     

Teachers’ Changing Subjectivities: Putting the Soul to Work for the Principle of the Market or for Facilitating Risk?

Studies in Philosophy and Education - Here we reconsider teachers’ changing subjectivities as autonomous agents whose practices acknowledge risk as an essential element in intellectual...     

An evaluation of the effectiveness of Diploma-level training in cognitive behaviour therapy

Background

As part of the UK government’s initiative to Increase Access to Psychological Therapies (see http://www.iapt.nhs.uk/for full details of the IAPT programme) there has been an expansion in the provision of post-graduate Diploma training in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). Previous evaluations of such training programmes have yielded mixed results but have been limited by small sample sizes and/or limited assessment measures.

Aims

To evaluate the impact of a long-standing Diploma in CBT training programme on a variety of measures of CBT competence.

Method

Trainees’ levels of CBT skill are compared at the beginning and end of CBT training. The effect of therapist factors such as age, professional background and gender on the development of CBT competence is also examined.

Results

Results show that trainees demonstrate higher levels of CBT skills after completing the training than they did before, with the majority achieving pre-determined criteria for competence. Trainees’ gender was not related to their performance but trainees’ age showed a negative association with CBT skill (older trainees performed worse). Trainees’ professional background also had an impact on their level of CBT competence, with trainees who were clinical psychologists demonstrating the highest levels of competence across a range of measures.

Conclusions

CBT Diploma training leads to increases in the level of trainees’ CBT competence, with the majority achieving the levels demonstrated in research trials by the end of training. Thus, this training is likely to lead to improved outcomes for patients. Further research is needed to determine the most efficient ways of enhancing CBT skills.     

Is there "feedback" during visual imagery? Evidence from a specificity of practice paradigm.

The specificity of practice hypothesis predicts the development of a sensorimotor representation specific to the afferent feedback available during skill acquisition (Proteau, 1992; Proteau, Marteniuk, Girouard, & Dugas, 1987). In the present investigation, we used the specificity of practice hypothesis to test whether skill acquisition through visual imagery would lead to the development of a sensory-specific movement representation similar to one resulting from actual practice. To accomplish this objective, participants practiced walking a 12-m linear path in one of three practice conditions, full-vision (FV), no-vision (NV), or visual imagery (VI), for either 10 or 100 trials. Knowledge of spatial and/or temporal results (KR) was provided to participants following each trial during this phase. Following acquisition, participants completed 10 NV trials without KR. An analysis of root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) indicated NV participants were more accurate than both FV and VI participants in the transfer condition. We believe the equivalence in transfer RMSE between FV and VI suggests that there are similarities between the movement representations attained by FV and VI practice.     

Spiritual Maturity and Social Support in a National Study of a Male Religious Order

This national study analyzed the relationship of spiritual maturity and valued relationships with social support and life satisfaction using a random sample of male religious from one Roman Catholic order (N = 251). Four measures were used: (a) NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992), (b) Spiritual Maturity Index (SMI; Ellison, 1983), (c) Social Support Appraisals Scale (SS-A; Vaux, et al., 1986), and (d) Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Hierarchical regression results showed that Spiritual Maturity was a significant predictor of Perceived Social Support (F (1, 237) = 20.662, p ≤ .001) and Life Satisfaction (F(1, 237) = 13.205, p ≤ .001). The study also showed that valued relationships inside (versus outside) the order predicted Life Satisfaction (F(1, 236) = 4.722, p ≤ .05). These findings demonstrate the importance of spiritual development and peer relationships as a way of enhancing vocational stability and satisfaction in male religious.     

The Treatment of Religious Minorities in South-Eastern Europe: Greece and Bulgaria Compared

Abstract

The politics of efficiency characterised by economic growth alone cannot help to strengthen the legitimacy of the Chinese authorities, because people demand justice, equality and rights. The authorities have therefore introduced the politics of equity, in the form of exchange politics, and the ideology of a harmonious society. Under the new political order characterised by exchange relationships it is not an adequate understanding of Chinese religious policy to see it just as a matter of curbing the growth and influence of religion. In fact, the churches have relatively greater freedom and a greater public role than in the 1980s and 1990s. As the more dependent actor, the churches are still subjected to an authoritarian government. Nevertheless, the more dependent actor is not completely passive, for exchange relationships are always dynamic rather than static. In this paper I focus on Protestantism, and I suggest that the churches should seize this opportunity to work with the government for the common good, on condition that the churches are engaged in reframing the question of the legitimisation of the government by an involvement with the concerns of the people. The churches will need to use soft power rather than hard power, not only because exchange politics in China does not allow challenges to the authority of the government, but also because, unlike the churches in some former Eastern European socialist countries, the churches in China do not have much bargaining power.     

From negative to positive and back again: Polarized affective and relational experience in borderline personality disorder

A core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the tendency to evaluate one's experience with extreme polarity (i.e., feeling all good or all bad; Beck, Freeman, & Davis, 2004; Kernberg, 1975; Linehan, 1993). In this investigation, we examined the polarity of within-person reports of experience in individuals with BPD and healthy adults over the course of a 21-day, experience-sampling diary. We applied multilevel modeling techniques (Rafaeli, Rogers, & Ravelle, 2007) to capture the within-person covariance of momentary reports of negative and positive features of experience, either affective or relational. Our data indicated significantly greater polarity in reports of affective and relational experiences in BPD that increased during heightened interpersonal stress. We also examined the association of affective and relational polarity to reports of impulsive behaviors (e.g., self-injury, substance use, etc.) and found evidence that increased polarity in reports of affective (in low-stress contexts) and relational experiences (in high-stress contexts) predicted increased rate of reports of impulsive behaviors. Together, these data present strong evidence for the role of polarized experiences in BPD, and have implications for the treatment of individuals with this disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).