The ‘redefinition of death’ debate: Western concepts and western bioethics

Biomedicine is a global enterprise constructed upon the belief in the universality of scientific truths. However, despite huge scientific advances over recent decades it has not been able to formulate a specific and universal definition of death: In fact, in its attempt to redefine death, the concept of death appears to have become immersed in ever increasing vagueness and ambiguity. Even more worrisome is that bioethics, in the form of principlism, is also endeavouring to become a global enterprise by claiming neutrality. It appears that the discourse within both disciplines have similarly manipulated the boundaries of death to include the “dying”. This paper argues that the redefinition of death debate in biomedicine reveals a concept of personhood which is profoundly western in origin and which is in accordance to the concept adhered to within principlism. Biomedicine and bioethics do not appear to acknowledge the limitations of their own world view and hence lack an understanding of their applicability and appropriateness in diverse social and cultural contexts; a situation which adds credence to claims as to the hegemonic and imperialistic nature of all such global enterprises. Ms. Jones is an intensive care clinical nursing specialist. Dr. Kessel is a public health physician and medical ethicist.     

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Pastoral Psychology -     

Religion and Psychology in Transition: How It Came to Be Written

Pastoral Psychology -     

Is Bradburn's measure of psychological well-being fair to introverts? A study among 16- to 18-yr.-old students

The relationship between dimensions of personality characteristics and the perceived rearing attitude of parents in the Japanese population were investigated. The scores on a measure of perceived parental attitude of 153 normal female students, measured on the Parker Parental Bonding Instrument, were correlated with personality features from the Japanese version of the Cloninger Temperament and Character Inventory. Self-directedness, especially the subclasses of Responsibility vs Blaming and Congruent Second Nature vs Incongruent Habits, was significantly related to high scores on Maternal Care and low scores on Maternal Overprotection. The subscale of Self-acceptance vs Self-striving correlated only with low scores on Maternal Overprotection. Paternal Care was only related to the total scale scores on Self-directedness. Results suggest that some personality traits may be related to the perceived attitudes of parents, especially of the mother, during childhood.     

Change of intensity fails to produce an irrelevant sound effect: implications for the representation of unattended sound.

Sequences of changing sounds that are irrelevant to the task at hand disrupt serial recall appreciably even though participants are instructed to ignore the sounds. Three experiments, which compared the effect of changing token identity with that of changing intensity in the 55- to 85-dB (A) range, were conducted. Although serial recall was impaired by changes in token identity, no disruptive effects of a change in intensity were found. This was replicated using speech and nonspeech. Overall, the absence of a changing intensity effect was based on an analysis of the performance of 115 participants in a design whose power was .98. This outcome suggests that the representation of intensity in preattentive processing of auditory stimuli is somewhat different from that of other acoustic features.     

Massage and music therapies attenuate frontal EEG asymmetry in depressed adolescents

EEG asymmetry, specifically greater relative right frontal activation, is associated with negative affect. Depressed adults show stable patterns of this asymmetry. The present study assessed the effects of massage therapy and music therapy on frontal EEG asymmetry in depressed adolescents. Thirty adolescents with greater relative right frontal EEG activation and symptoms of depression were given either massage therapy (n = 14) or music therapy (n = 16). EEG was recorded for three-minute periods before, during, and after therapy. Frontal EEG asymmetry was significantly attenuated during and after the massage and music sessions.     

A case study of behavioral assessment and treatment of insect phobia

We assessed the academic performance of a 14-year-old boy with insect phobia in the context of feared stimuli. The dependent measure was math calculation rate across three conditions that varied therapist statements about the presence of crickets and the actual presence of live crickets. Subsequent treatment consisted of graduated exposure and contingent rewards for math problem completion. Assessment results indicated that the boy's performance was consistently low in the presence of live crickets but not when he was spuriously informed that crickets were present (the primary referral concern). Treatment results indicated no effect from exposure alone and a dramatic effect when exposure was combined with contingent rewards.     

The Treatment Planning of Experienced Counselors: A Qualitative Examination

Using consensual qualitative research, the authors examined the treatment planning process of experienced counselors (N = 9). The data analysis resulted in 4 domains: assessment steps, clinical impressions, treatment factors, and treatment strategies. These domains describe the process used by experienced counselors in making clinical decisions and offer insight into the nature of clinical expertise and the need for further research on treatment planning.