Religious self and secular self: Clinical transitions

Clerical people, returning to secular life, may undergo shifts in self-experience, including alterations in internal object relations. Self-psychology, positing the importance to health of cohesion of all aspects of self, provides a theoretical model for exploring such shifts and their facilitation through psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A case of a released Roman Catholic priest is discussed to illustrate dynamic processes. Emphasis is on a clinical approach that does not require conversion of religious and spiritual self-experience into drive derivative formulations     

Test Anxiety, Self-Awareness, and Cognitive Interference: A Process Analysis

ABSTRACT Participants performed a cognitive task under evaluative, self-awareness, and neutral conditions, Task performance was determined jointly by trait test anxiety and situational factors. Test anxiety led to poorer performance in both evaluative and self-awareness situations, relative to the neutral situation. We examined the cognitive activity variables that might mediate the effects of test anxiety and situational variables on performance, and identified a significant cognitive mediator of the main effect of test anxiety, but not for the Test Anxiety x Situation interaction effect. Therefore, the current experiment offered some support for Sarason's (1980) cognitive interference theory, as well as integrating test anxiety and self-awareness research.     

Managers' alcohol use: Roles and symbolic functions

Alcohol was used widely by a representative sample of managers in the private business sector. Manager's perceptions of the roles and the symbolic functions played by alcohol are reported. The inclusion of the roles and symbolic functions in change strategies are advocated.This study was funded by the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council of New Zealand. The author would like to acknowledge the work of Ruth Houghton and Prue Toft in conducting the original study.     

The recovering female alcoholic: A family affair

Supported by a review of relevant literature and a case study, the author argues that family therapy intervention enhances the likelihood of a female alcoholic's positive prognosis. With a basis in systems theory, family therapy views the family as a system and, hence, perceives the alcoholism as a symptom of that family. A profile of the female alcoholic, how her drinking affects her family, and the role that family therapy plays in the recovery process are examined.     

‘Belonging to a global religion’: The sociological dimensions of international elements in Sahaja Yoga

The paper introduces a contemporary Hindu‐based sect, Sahaja Yoga, and outlines the extent to which the beliefs and rituals of the group foster its internal perception of itself as a global movement. The network of contacts maintained between British members and the international ‘collective’ of disciples which also go towards supporting this view are highlighted. The paper then describes the extent to which there is international cultural conformity within Sahaja Yoga. The final section draws on Rajneeshism for a comparative discussion of issues raised. It explores the factors behind the differing global configurations of religious groups, the advantages and disadvantages of having a global ethos and some of the ways in which New Religious Movements mirror aspects of the contemporary process of globalisation.     

Selectively prompting speech repairs in stages I to V: A technique for investigating early metalinguistic abilities

When children aged from 1;6 to 3;6 made errors in relation to targeted morphemes within grammatically obligatory contexts, a prompt of “Pardon?” was given. Morpheme repair rates increased with linguistic proficiency, and with target morpheme mastery. The selective use of prompted repairs appears to be a useful technique for assessing rudimentary abilities to monitor grammatical form within very young children.     

Sex-role orientation,intimacy of topic,and target person differences in self-disclosure among women

Sex Roles - The focus of the present study was self-disclosure patterns of young women in three types of close relationships: same-sex friend, opposite-sex friend, and romantic partner. The...     

The impact of confederate responsivity on social skills assessment

The current investigation examined the degree to which judges' ratings of skill, anxiety, and attractiveness are influenced by the responsivity of the confederate. High-, medium-, and low-skilled subject-pool groupings, as well as self-referred clinical groups, were exposed to either a moderately or a minimally responsive confederate. Results indicated that subjects were rated as more skillful when interacting with a moderately responsive confederate than when interacting with a minimally responsive confederate. Further, there was a groups × condition interaction for anxiety ratings such that both the high- and the medium-skilled groups appeared more anxious under the minimal condition, whereas the low-skilled and self-referred groups did not. Self-referred subjects received significantly lower attractiveness ratings than did the high- or medium-skilled groups. Implications of these results and future directions for research are discussed.This research is based on a M.S. thesis carried out by the first author under direction of the second author.