The Battered Committed Christian Woman: The Value Difference

Many studies have been conducted to examine why some battered women return to abusive relationships (Alsdurf & Alsdurf, 1989a, 1989b; Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, 1991; Hoffman, 1992; Strube, 1988; Strube & Barbour, 1983; Walker, 1977–1978). The authors review factors linked to the battered woman's return to the abusive environment and suggest an additional factor—the values of the woman. Moral development and some of the beliefs of the committed Christian woman are examined. The influence of these factors on her decision to remain in the abusive relationship are discussed. Interventions that accommodate to the framework of the committed Christian woman's value/belief system are explored. Counselors are also encouraged to explore their own value systems in relation to their clients to ascertain if and how these values may influence their clients.     

Increasing Human Potential: Relaxation and Imagery Training (RIT) with Athletic and Performing Art Teams

This article describes a program to aid in performance improvement. Two case studies illustrate the usefulness of relaxation and imagery training (RIT) with performers.     

ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL TRAINING AND SUPPORT

The present study uses both objective and survey data to examine relations among retail sales training, organizational support, and store performance and to examine whether training interacts with organizational support to predict store performance. The study is unique in that it presents an example of the analysis of the relationship between organizational level measures of training and performance, as opposed to more traditional individual level measures. Archival data in a correlational design were analyzed for 62 stores belonging to the same international merchandising firm. Two measures of training and two measures of support were used to predict two measures of store performance. Results indicated that training and organizational support were significantly correlated with both measures of store performance, although the relationship between training and organizational performance was stronger. In contrast to predictions, there were no significant interactions between the training and support variables.     

Life's Challenges: Curse or Opportunity? Counseling Families of Persons With Disabilities

Disability is viewed as an opportunity for reframing physical and emotional difficulties. In accepting responsibility, clients recognize that, even in the most difficult of circumstances, they have the ability to choose how they wil respond. Strategies for facilitating personal healing and empowerment are explored, including self-forgiveness and positive self-talk.     

Rights-talk Will Not Sort Out Child-abuse: comment on Archard on parental rights

ABSTRACT  Argument about Rights can be either purely formal or substantial—meant to affect conduct. These two functions, which need different kinds of support, often become confused. The source of much confusion is the idea that rights-language is an all-purpose 'moral theory' which is in competition with others such as Utilitarianism. Since these are not really rivals but complementary aspects of moral thinking—parts of it, both of which need to be used along with many others—attempts to establish one of them as sole ruler are doomed to incoherence. The ambition to deploy an all-purpose thought-system is distinct from the moral motivation to change the world, and the two aims inevitably interfere with one another. Among these 'moral theories', however, the language of rights is specially ill-suited for all-purpose use. This becomes plain when philosophers, taking its adequacy for granted, conduct moral argument in terms of it alone, as if it were obviously appropriate, without background discussion. Rights-language is of particularly limited use because it is simply the most competitive and litigious of such thought-systems. Its win-or-lose formula allows no more scope for doing justice to defeated claims than a lawcourt does. For the serious conflicts of value that underlie large moral problems, this is disastrous.     

Feminism and Religion

Religion—capital R—effectively eliminated the feminine experience in its process of institutionalization as church; religion—small r—the whole human view, cannot be adequately reflected through such a myopic institution. All humans will not be equally respected, given unequal status. Thus, the church becomes a powerful contributor to inherently unjust social, legal, and economic systems. Feminism, negated as a philosophical and religious world view by Western religions, challenges the status quo insofar as it calls for endorsement of full human equality.