Characteristics of a French African Caribbean Epidemiological Psychiatric Sample with a History of Suicide Attempt

Research on vulnerability factors among ethnic groups, independent of primary psychiatric diagnosis, may help to identify groups at risk of suicidal behavior. French African Caribbean general psychiatric patients (N = 362) were recruited consecutively and independently of the primary psychiatric diagnosis. Demographic and clinical characteristics and lifetime history of suicide attempts were recorded. Sixty‐five patients (18%) had a history of at least one suicide attempt. Presence of professional qualifications, children, poor social contacts, treatment with benzodiazepine at inclusion, and poor treatment compliance were all associated with a lifetime history of suicide attempts.     

Beyond Political Theology and its Liquidation: From Theopolitical Monotheism to Trinitarianism

One of the central theological challenges facing Erik Peterson was to help the mid‐twentieth century Catholic Church define its relationship with the wider world. He responded by advancing a distinctive understanding of the ‘polis.’ In this essay, I critically analyze Peterson's central and perhaps best known proposal about how the Church ought to negotiate the modern world — encapsulated in his expression, the ‘liquidation of political theology.’ I contend that Peterson's proposal is not congruent with a right understanding of patristic trinitarian monarchy, although a view that stands in sharp contrast to that of Carl Schmitt. Notwithstanding the effectiveness of Peterson's critique of Schmitt's political theology, I argue that Peterson nonetheless fails in his exposition of the thought of Gregory of Nazianzus and therefore in his interpretation of the role of the Church in what we have learned to call the ‘political’ and the ‘social.’ I conclude by outlining several ways that the Church today might take up the challenge of regaining a truly political thought, a new ekklesioteia, nourished by the monarchy of the triune God.     

Information Integration in Modulation of Pragmatic Inferences During Online Language Comprehension

Upon hearing a scalar adjective in a definite referring expression such as “the big…,” listeners typically make anticipatory eye movements to an item in a contrast set, such as a big glass in the context of a smaller glass. Recent studies have suggested that this rapid, contrastive interpretation of scalar adjectives is malleable and calibrated to the speaker's pragmatic competence. In a series of eye‐tracking experiments, we explore the nature of the evidence necessary for the modulation of pragmatic inferences in language comprehension, focusing on the complementary roles of top–down information ‐ (knowledge about the particular speaker's pragmatic competence)  and bottom‐up cues  (distributional information about the use of scalar adjectives in the environment). We find that bottom‐up evidence alone (e.g., the speaker says “the big dog” in a context with one dog), in large quantities, can be sufficient to trigger modulation of the listener's contrastive inferences, with or without top‐down cues to support this adaptation. Further, these findings suggest that listeners track and flexibly combine multiple sources of information in service of efficient pragmatic communication.     

The Role of Situational Interviews in Fostering Positive Reactions to Selection Decisions

We investigated the effect of interview format and employment equity program strength on perceptions of fairness. We used job seekers and vignettes to test the hypotheses. The participants reported lukewarm support for employment equity programs. The use of a situational interview in the selection process of an organisation that had adopted an employment equity program contributed to higher perceptions of fairness vis‐à‐vis the use of an unstructured interview. The results also showed that the inclusion of a situational interview in the selection process mitigated negative reactions to the selection decision when a strong employment equity program was in place as well as when a female visible minority was hired. Nous avons évalué l'impact sur la perception de justice du style d'entretien et de la rigueur d'une charte d'équité relative à l'emploi. On a fait appel à des demandeurs d'emploi et utilisé un test de jugement situationnel pour éprouver les hypothèses. Les répondants se sont montrés peu enthousiastes en ce qui concerne les chartes d'équité relatives à l'emploi. Le choix d'un entretien structuré dans le processus de sélection d'une organisation qui avait adopté une charte d'équité relative à l'emploi a amélioré la perception de justice portant sur un entretien ordinaire. Il apparaît aussi que la présence d'un entretien structuré dans le processus de sélection atténuait les réactions négatives consécutives au résultat de la sélection quand existait une sérieuse charte d'équité relative à l'emploi et quand était embauchée une minorité féminine non négligeable.     

Personality maturity and Teresa's interior castle

The ego development stage model theory of Jane Loevinger is compared to the understanding of St. Teresa of Avila regarding development in spiritual life. The paper first presents Loevinger's theory, then goes through the mansions Teresa described in the interior castle of the soul, comparing each mansion with Loevinger's understanding. The paper concludes that a very similar line of development is traced in both understandings.This paper is a revision of a paper first presented to Division 36, Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues, at the annual meeting of The American Psychological Association.     

Facilitative school leadership and teacher empowerment: Teacher's perspectives

In recent years, facilitative forms of leadership and teacher empowerment for the democratic restructuring of schools have been emphasized. However, no published studies seem to have examined teachers' perspectives of both facilitative school leadership and empowerment. This article describes the everyday strategies and personal characteristics of exemplary principals practicing facilitative leadership in shared-governance schools and how these principals influenced teacher empowerment. The date were drawn from a qualitative study of teachers in 11 schools in Georgia. An openended questionnaire was designed to provide teachers the opportunity to identify and describe in detail the characteristics of principals that enhanced their sense of empowerment and what being empowered means to teachers. Inductive analyses of the data generated seven major strategies, one set of personal characteristics identified with facilitative leadership, and two major dimensions of teacher empowerment: affective and professional. This article emphasizes the meanings teachers identified with empowerment.     

An analysis of the law of confidentiality with special reference to the counselling of minors

Although professional counsellors would be aware of the need to maintain confidentiality in their work with clients, the basis and scope of this obligation is generally less well understood. This article examines the issue of counsellor-client confidentiality from a legal perspective, and considers the potential bases of legal liability which counsellors may have with respect to the maintenance of client confidentiality as well as the circumstances under which disclosure of this information will be required or may be permitted. It is contended that the general issue of counsellor-client confidentiality presently poses particular difficulties for counsellors who work primarily with children and adolescents, especially when clinical services are provided directly to adolescents. In such instances, counsellors may be confronted by competing and even conflicting interests, and may be required to exercise judgement in relation to the disclosure of confidential information which has been provided by a minor. Although there is no clear law which directly relates to this area, it is argued that counsellors may presently have a primary obligation to respect the wishes which are expressed by a "mature minor" in relation to the provision of counselling services. It is further argued that awareness of general legal principles which are of relevance to areas of professional practice can provide much assistance to practitioners who could be required to make decisions in the course of their work which may later be examined in the context of legal proceedings.