“It takes a village to heal a child”: Necessary spectrum of expertise and benevolence by therapists,Non-Governmental Organizations,and the United Nations in managing war-zone stress in children traumatized by political violence

This article highlights the post-traumatic stress responses in some war-zone children who were exposed to political violence—witnessing unspeakable horror, maimings, brutal beatings, torture, and murders. Children inducted into rebel military units to serve as child-soldiers further traumatized self and others by raping and killing children and adults. Additionally, some children go without food, shelter, and adult protection, while finding themselves as refugees in a foreign country. This article advances some conceptual, technical, and practical issues in intervention with these children and provides a model of intervention that seeks to integrate established international policies of the United Nations (UN) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) along with cognitive, behavioral, and psychodynamic clinical approaches in the context of cultural/racial sensitivity and indigenous folk medicine. The child's adaptational strengths are discussed, and the recognition and management of transference and countertransference are not ignored in the treatment of traumatized children. Basically, the author's point of view is that Western models of interventions are very useful, but that the personal, cultural, social, spiritual, and economic resources of the child's homeland or village probably constitute the best system for healing and integration after brief or continuous exposure to political violence.     

Likelihood to rape in college males

This study assessed rape and sexual force proclivities among 159 college men at a small Protestant church-affiliated liberal arts college. No data were collected regarding ethnicity; however, institutional statistics indicate that the population was about 90% European American. There were 69 freshmen, 31 sophomores, 30 juniors, and 29 seniors (mean age = 19.34). Thirty-four percent reported some proclivity to rape or force sex. Participants who reported both proclivities indicated higher rape myth acceptance, offered more justifications for the increasing use of violence against women, were lower in rape empathy, held more gender stereotyped attitudes toward women, and accepted interpersonal violence more than those who reported no proclivities. However, by contrast, these groups did not differ on general emotional empathy.This paper is based on a Senior Honor's Research Project conducted by the first author while an undergraduate. The first author would like to thank Thomas Peterson for his assistance and encouragement during the early stages of the research process and Keith Yanner for his timely statistical suggestions.     

Ethnotherapeutic empathy (EthE)—Part II: Techniques in interpersonal cognition and vicarious experiencing across cultures

Too much of what happens between patient and therapist in cross-cultural therapy is left to chance. No wonder so many experienced cross-cultural therapists are searching for answers to therapeutic failures with their ethnic patients. This article sets out to eliminate some of the guess work, and to leave less of the initial psychotherapeutic process to chance. As one way to actualize latent theory into practical application, the techniques of ethnotherapeutic empathy involve experience-near interactions that offer opportunities for patients to feel they share in shaping the therapeutic venture. Through knowledge of relevant real-life experiences about their therapists, patients learn to feel at ease and empathize with their therapists in cementing the ethnocultural alliance. Though seeming to be unusual and for some, even radical, the complexities of intercultural treatment requires another close look at the therapeutic interface, and the development of strategies to overcome the early profound sense of ethnocultural alienation between patient and therapist. The position here is that bicultural dynamics can be positively influenced by systematic insertion of specific exercises into the fabric of ongoing psychotherapy to hopefully bring about a better gluing interface between patient and therapist.     

CATS PERCEIVE BIOLOGICAL MOTION

Abstract— With behavioral techniques, cats were trained to discriminate a point-light animation sequence depicting biological motion (i.e., a cat walking) from an animation sequence consisting of equivalent local motion vectors lacking the global synchrony present in the biological-motion sequence (i.e., "foil" displays). Successful discrimination was evidenced for even the most difficult foil display and for different versions of the biological-motion sequence, indicating that cats are able to extract the higher order kinematic invariants embodied in these novel motion displays.     

Early child rearing in Japan: Cross-cultural and intra-cultural perspectives

Within the field of cross-cultural developmental psychology, examinations of parenting serve to focus attention on development in the proximal context of the family and the distal context of the culture. Even though Japan is economically in the mainstream of the industrialized Western world, there are many cultural differences between Japan and Western countries; these include differences in cultural values, beliefs about children, parental behaviours and differences in the children themselves. The focus of this special issue is observational studies of early child rearing in Japan; included are cross-cultural comparisons with the United States, Germany and France, as well as studies within Japan. The contexts of the observations reported in this special issue include homes, laboratory playrooms, and day care centres. With intra-cultural and cross-cultural perspectives, an updated view of Japanese child rearing in the early years is presented.     

Post-traumatic accelerated cohesion: Its recognition and management in group treatment of Vietnam veterans

Post-traumatic accelerated cohesion (p-TAC) is the name given to a frequently observed group phenomenon in the treatment of Vietnam veterans who suffer traumatic war neuroses. It is critical that this group dynamic be discussed, especially since group is widely regarded as the modality of choice in treating these veterans. Post-traumatic accelerated cohesion is the rapid, premature development of cohesion in a group of virtual strangers, and is here presented in terms of its harmful impact on the group and the impasses it creates. Suggestions are given to resolve p-TAC and move the group toward fulfilling its goals. Placed within the self psychology and object relations theoretical frameworks, the discussion addresses issues pertaining to developmental arrests and post-traumatic self disorders and their relationship to p-TAC dynamics.The views in this paper are the author's sole responsibility and do not necessarily reflect those of the Veterans Administration.