Family therapy without the family: a framework for systemic practice

This paper contrasts the basic tenets of systemic thinking with some guiding principles of the psychodynamic approach, and outlines specific techniques which family therapists can use when seeing individuals. It is argued that a useful systemic framework can be maintained if the therapist aims to keep the therapy system 'open' for relevant others to join at any time.     

Gender and Wellness: A Multidimensional Systems Model for Counseling

An expanded view of health is advocated for assessment and treatment of individual clients in helping them achieve and maintain their maximum potential for high-level wellness. In addition, moderating variables, such as culture, age, and gender differences, have an impact on every dimension of health and wellness. In this article a multidimensional systems model for wellness is described, and gender differences along those dimensions are reviewed. Application of the model and implications for counseling are discussed. Finally, two illustrative case examples, one man and one woman, are described.     

Applied behavior analysis and the movement to restructure schools: Compatibilities and opportunities for collaboration

The field of applied behavior analysis has devoted considerable effort to the problem of educating America's youth. In addition to developing a wide range of procedures to improve children's academic and classroom survival skills, behavioral researchers have discussed a wide range of technological characteristics that are likely to facilitate the adoption of their procedures by educational decision-makers and practitioners. A movement to restructure American schools has become highly popularized within educational, political, and public media forums over the past several years. One general characteristic of this movement is its failure to recommend the more frequent implementation of applied behavior analysis techniques to educate America's youth. A close inspection of three global models for school reform, however, reveals notable compatibilities with the focus and goals of applied behavior analysis. Applied behavior analysts can collaborate with and contribute to the school restructuring movement by pursuing the more formal and systematic analyses of characteristics essential to the adoption process.     

Ein Protokoll aus Husserls Logikseminar vom Winter 1925

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

HUMANITY IN NATURE: CONSERVING YET CREATING

Abstract. Developing a scientifically grounded philosophy of cosmic evolution, and using the moral norm of completeness as dynamic harmony, this paper argues that humans are a part of nature in both its conserving and emergent aspects. Humans are both material and cultural, instinctual-emotional and rational, creatures and creators, and carriers of stability and change. To ignore any of the multifaceted aspects of humanity in relation to the rest of nature is to commit one of a number of fallacies that are grounded in a dualistic-conquest mentality. Examples of some new developments in philosophy and theology, metaphorical images, and ritual show how to overcome dualism in favor of a dynamic harmony of humanity within nature.     

TEACHING SUPPORTED EMPLOYEES WITH SEVERE MENTAL RETARDATION TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

Two individuals with severe mental retardation, employed by a janitorial supply company, were taught to use self-instruction in combination with multiple exemplar training to solve work-related problems. Use of the combined strategy resulted in generalization of the effects of independent variables, as well as generalization to nontrained problems. Use of the strategy is discussed in terms of promoting independent performance among supported employees.     

Intervening causation and the mitigation of responsibility for harm doing II. The role of limited mental capacities

The present study investigated (i) the conditions under which the proximal cause of an event affects judgments of a distal cause, (ii) the capacities persons need to be held responsible for their actions, and (iii) the relationship between judgments of causation, blame, and restitution. Subjects read about situations in which an initial act, in combination with a later behavior by a second person, produced harm. The age and mental state of the second person were varied. It was found that cause and blame assigned to the initial action was greater when the second person was a child or mentally disturbed, as compared to a sane adult. Causal and moral responsibility were related to the understanding, reasoning capacity, and ability to control behavior of the person judged. Finally, support was obtained for an entailment model of the relations between judgments of causation, blame, and restitution.     

Perceived informativeness of verbal information

When people are asked to rate verbal material (texts, statements, and statements forming part of a text) according to informativeness, their judgments will to a large extent depend upon how much they already know about the subject, and how novel the communication is to them. This will in some cases make them stress novelty and in other cases familiarity as the most important determinants for expected or perceived informativeness. It is argued that these apparently contradictory trends are reconcilable by a propositional (subject-predicate) model of information, which presupposes an identifiablesubject of the communication (“what it is all about”), as well as something to be predicated about this subject, topic, or theme. This kind of information structure allows the communication to contain both novel and familiar elements at the same time, with informativeness being at a peak when something quite new and unexpected is told about a familiar subject, or when a new subject is made familiar (i.e., satisfactorily explained) to the person. This article was written when the author was on sabbatical leave at the University of Leicester. The study was supported by a grant from the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities.     

When perceptual or motor sets are changed: Effects of updating demands on structure and energy of P300

It was attempted to disentangle the effect of two updating processes on P300. Three conditions were created by a priming paradigm: (1) No updating, (2) updating perceptual but no motor information, and (3) updating both perceptual and motor information. As expected, both updating conditions led to a P300-complex with more energy, but the additional demand of motor updating did not affect P300. Effects were similar for both delayed (experiment 1) and immediate responding (experiment 2).

Both experiments confirmed earlier observations that P300 consists of at least three subcomponents, namely P3a, P3b, and a positive Slow Wave (pSW). Perceptual updating affected in particular the energy of P3b and pSW. Further, pSW was related to the complexity of the updating operations. When stimuli consisted of abstract symbols there was more energy in pSW than when stimuli were concrete symbols with direct spatial relations to the response.

The structure and energy changes of P300 suggest that P3b and pSW do not provide an unambiguous picture of the underlying source structure. In some conditions only one peak (P3b) was observed in the surface structure; this still seemed to be the result of two underlying waves. In other conditions these waves were separated in time showing a clear double peak in the surface structure.