Victim and Perpetrator Groups’ Divergent Perspectives on Collective Violence: Implications for Intergroup Relations

Groups in conflict develop strikingly different construals of the same violent events. These clashing perceptions of past violence can have detrimental consequences for intergroup relations and might provoke new hostilities. In this article, we integrate and juxtapose what we know about construals of collective violence by delineating the different dimensions along which these construals differ between victim and perpetrator groups: regarding the question of who is the victim, who is responsible for the harm doing, what the perpetrator’s intent was, how severe the violence was, and when it took place. Then, we discuss the individual‐ and group‐level factors (e.g., collective narratives, social identities) that shape these construals, as well as their implications for attitudes regarding the conflict and support for relevant policies. We distinguish two different core motives that drive construals and their outcomes among victim and perpetrator groups: Perpetrator groups try to cope with moral identity threats and preserve a positive image of the ingroup, while victim groups try to protect their ingroup from future harm doing and desire acknowledgment of their group’s experiences. Lastly, we discuss implications for strategies and interventions to address victim and perpetrator groups’ divergent perspectives of collective violence.     

Dancing Contact Improvisation with Luce Irigaray: Intra‐Action and Elemental Passions

This article takes as its point of departure Luce Irigaray's Elemental Passions, in which a woman‐speaker tries to make her lover and the discipline of philosophy understand that she is not how they have imagined her to be; that she is not at all but that she keeps becoming through perpetual movement. The article investigates Irigaray's investment in a form of materialist difference feminism that offers conceptual links to the posthumanist work of Karen Barad's agential realism, especially her theorization of intra‐action. The link between Irigaray and Barad is established via a diffractive reading that incorporates the dance/movement research practice of Contact Improvisation. Although expressed through written language, Elemental Passions creates the impression of the woman‐speaker dancing, of encountering herself, her environment, and her lover through moved and moving contact, searching for a practice of moving‐together, feeling‐with, and feeling‐between that can be experienced in an improvised dance duet. Exploring how touch and the sharing of weight in Contact Improvisation challenges boundaries and establishes ever‐changing configurations and entanglements between dancers, the article proposes that Irigaray's woman‐speaker envisions herself as a posthuman/ist woman and that improvised dancing offers a practice of intra‐action through which she can encounter the world in her becoming.     

"Listen and I tell you something": Storytelling and social action in the healing of the oppressed

The process of healing from life under a military dictatorship is slow and arduous. Reviving one's sense of self when the peace has been shattered; articulating vision and purpose in a culture and a community polarized and divided, requires both a connection to the spiritual and an outlet for direct action. In both cases it is necessary to reclaim ones' voice and to find others who will listen with the commitment to receive and understand. In this article, the words of citizens of Argentina and Chile are presented to illustrate the experience of those who lived in violence and how they are managing to heal.     

Trichotillomania: impact on psychosocial functioning and quality of life

This study explored the impact of hair pulling on psychosocial functioning for patients diagnosed with trichotillomania (TTM; n = 28). TTM patients were compared to age and gender-matched groups of psychiatric patients without TTM (n = 28) and nonpsychiatric control volunteers (NC, n = 28) on measures of psychological distress, functioning/quality of life, and self-esteem. Results indicated that TTM patients reported more severe psychosocial impairments than did NC volunteers; however, these differences were mediated by differences in level of depression. Regression analyses indicated significant relationships between some measures of psychosocial functioning and severity of hair pulling, independent of level of depression. Finally, an interview of the impact of hair pulling on 6 domains of daily functioning (negative affect/negative self-evaluations, grooming, recreational activities, social interaction, work/housework productivity, and physical health) indicated common and wide-ranging impairments for both lifetime and current (i.e., past week) ratings. These results highlight the importance of promoting and improving resources for the clinical care of TTM patients, and provide some directions for clinicians to enhance assessment of interference caused by TTM.     

Culture and social support: who seeks it and why?

Are Asians and Asian Americans more or less likely to seek social support for dealing with stress than European Americans? On the one hand, the collectivist orientation of Asian countries might favor the sharing of stressful problems; on the other hand, efforts to maintain group harmony might discourage such efforts. In 2 studies, Koreans (Study 1) and Asians and Asian Americans in the United States (Study 2) reported using social support less for coping with stress than European Americans. Study 3 examined potential explanations for these effects and revealed that relationship concerns accounted for the cultural differences in use of support seeking. Discussion centers on the potential benefits and liabilities of seeking social support.     

Chronic corticosterone-induced deterioration in rat behaviour is not paralleled by changes in hippocampal NF-kappaB-activation

We investigated whether long-lasting stress induced by chronic glucocorticoid (GC) exposure affects activation of brain NF-kappaB and whether these changes are related to functional deterioration and structural changes in the rat hippocampus. Psychometric investigations were conducted using a holeboard test system in 28 one-year-old male Wistar rats. Thereafter, rats were divided into three groups for daily administration of 10 mg corticosterone (treatment) or sesame oil (placebo = sham control for effects of the vehicle) for 60 days. Additional control rats did not receive any treatment or handling until the end of the experiment. Behavioural and cognitive changes were tested again in the holeboard system. Rat body weights and corticosterone concentrations in plasma, hippocampus and urine were determined and adrenal glands were investigated histopathologically. Hippocampal concentrations of corticosterone, NF-kappaB and I-kappaBalpha were determined using RIA, EMSA and Western blotting techniques, respectively. Structural changes in rat hippocampus were measured using magnetic resonance imaging techniques. High peripheral corticosterone concentrations after chronic treatment led to significant reductions in rat body weight. Significant atrophy of both adrenal glands with marked histological deterioration was detected. Furthermore, an increase in hippocampal corticosterone concentrations was observed after chronic administration. Chronic corticosterone treatment also significantly altered behaviour and working and reference memory capacity without changing hippocampal structure. Daily injections of sesame oil in the placebo group, however, were also sufficient to reduce the pellet-finding time. However, neither in the corticosterone group nor in the placebo group were behavioural changes paralleled by significant changes in brain NF-kappaB activation and I-kappaBalpha expression. Thus, cognitive alterations in rats seen after chronic corticosterone exposure are not paralleled by hippocampal NF-kappaB modulation.     

Words and Wards: A Model of Reflective Writing and Its Uses in Medical Education

Personal, creative writing as a process for reflection on patient care and socialization into medicine ("reflective writing") has important potential uses in educating medical students and residents. Based on the authors' experiences with a range of writing activities in academic medical settings, this article sets forth a conceptual model for considering the processes and effects of such writing. The first phase (writing) is individual and solitary, consisting of personal reflection and creation. Here, introspection and imagination guide learners from loss of certainty to reclaiming a personal voice; identifying the patient's voice; acknowledging simultaneously valid yet often conflicting perspectives; and recognizing and responding to the range of emotions triggered in patient care. The next phase (small-group reading and discussion) is public and communal, where sharing one's writing results in acknowledging vulnerability, risk-taking, and self-disclosure. Listening to others' writing becomes an exercise in mindfulness and presence, including witnessing suffering and confusion experienced by others. Specific pedagogical goals in three arenas-professional development, patient care and practitioner well-being - are linked to the writing/reading/listening process. The intent of presenting this model is to help frame future intellectual inquiry and investigation into this innovative pedagogical modality.     

The Limits of Narrative and Culture: Reflections on Lorrie Moore's “People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk”

This article provides a discussion of the limits of both narrative and culture based on a close textual analysis of the short story, "People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk," by Lorrie Moore. In this story, a mother describes her experiences on a pediatric oncology ward when her infant son develops Wilms' tumor. The authors examine how the story satirically portrays the spurious claims of language, story, and culture to protect us from an unjust universe and then exposes their false promises. The various personal, professional, and genre-specific narratives we use to create order and coherence from the terror of serious illness are ultimately ineffective. Similarly, the superficially comforting culture of the hospital ward cares more about creating the illusion of control than it does about the suffering of sick children. Language and culture cannot make sense of human anguish, the article concludes, yet they are all we have to hold back the chaos. Mystery and uncertainty, as part of the human condition, must become part of our stories and part of our culture.     

A controlled trial of cognitive-behavior therapy combined with vestibular rehabilitation in the treatment of dizziness

Dizziness is a common and often untreated symptom in the general population. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a combined cognitive-behavioral/vestibular rehabilitation (VR) program, using a randomized control design. A total of 29 participants were randomized to treatment consisting of psychoeducation, vestibular exercises, relaxation and cognitive interventions, or to serve as waiting list controls. Measures of dizziness-related handicap, dizziness-provoking movements, and daily diary registrations of dizziness symptoms at pre- and post-treatment showed statistically significant improvements in many domains, which translated to moderate effect sizes. These findings provide preliminary support for the combination of Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and VR methods in the treatment of dizziness.     

Part-list cuing in amnesic patients: evidence for a retrieval deficit

Part-list cuing--the detrimental effect of the presentation of a subset of learned items on recall of the remaining items--was examined in amnesic patients and healthy control subjects. Subjects studied two types of categorized item lists: lists in which each category consisted of strong and moderate items and lists in which each category consisted of weak and moderate items. The subjects recalled a category's strong and weak items in either the presence of or absence of the moderate items serving as retrieval cues. In healthy subjects, part-list cuing impaired recall of the strong items but not of the weak items; in amnesics, part-list cuing impaired recall of both types of items. Part-list cuing is often attributed to a change in the retrieval process from a more effective one when cues are absent to a less effective one when they are present. On the basis of this view, our results indicate that part-list cuing causes a stronger retrieval inefficiency in amnesic patients than in healthy people.