The Capacity for Emotional Growth

As the AIDS epidemic continues to spread throughout Australia, the incidence of infection is moving from the major risk group of middle-aged gay men to involve bisexual men, women, and youth. Because of their age, the latter group has unique problems lacking formal legal and social recognition and access to established institutions. The Albion Street Centre, a screening clinic for the AIDS virus, provides medical management and psychosocial services to infected youth. A major component of the psychosocial facilities is an emotional support group. This article reviews the literature relating to support groups and suggests why this therapeutic approach is especially useful for youth who have come into contact with the AIDS virus. The nature of the support group is detailed with particular reference to important issues and suggestions made for future developments during its operation.     

Symmetry, Compact Closure and Dagger Compactness for Categories of Convex Operational Models

In the categorical approach to the foundations of quantum theory, one begins with a symmetric monoidal category, the objects of which represent physical systems, and the morphisms of which represent physical processes. Usually, this category is taken to be at least compact closed, and more often, dagger compact, enforcing a certain self-duality, whereby preparation processes (roughly, states) are interconvertible with processes of registration (roughly, measurement outcomes). This is in contrast to the more concrete “operational” approach, in which the states and measurement outcomes associated with a physical system are represented in terms of what we here call a convex operational model: a certain dual pair of ordered linear spaces–generally, not isomorphic to one another. On the other hand, state spaces for which there is such an isomorphism, which we term weakly self-dual, play an important role in reconstructions of various quantum-information theoretic protocols, including teleportation and ensemble steering. In this paper, we characterize compact closure of symmetric monoidal categories of convex operational models in two ways: as a statement about the existence of teleportation protocols, and as the principle that every process allowed by that theory can be realized as an instance of a remote evaluation protocol—hence, as a form of classical probabilistic conditioning. In a large class of cases, which includes both the classical and quantum cases, the relevant compact closed categories are degenerate, in the weak sense that every object is its own dual. We characterize the dagger-compactness of such a category (with respect to the natural adjoint) in terms of the existence, for each system, of a symmetric bipartite state, the associated conditioning map of which is an isomorphism.     

A Method for the Evaluation of Affective Associations to Figure Drawings

Usual scoring systems for figure drawing techniques are based on structural and content aspects of the drawing, and ignore the affectively toned associations that occur when an observer first sees a drawing. A system for measuring two components of judgment, (a) emission of affective associations (b) evaluation of affective associations, has been developed. This method was applied with some success in studying individuals who had represented in their drawings an image that corresponded to their actual physical appearance. The research so far suggests that the evaluation component of judgment may contribute more to discrimination than the emission component.     

MAPI Code Types in an Inpatient Crisis-Unit Sample

Limited data is available concerning the use of the Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory (MAPI; Millon, Green, & Meagher, 1982) and high-point code combinations of its personality style scales. Our study reports on the frequency of high-point codes in an inpatient crisis-unit sample. Data analyses comparing personality style codes using MAPI expressed concerns scale elevations and Rorschach data are reported. Results comparing the personality style codes and expressed concerns scales were consistent with the findings of Millon et al. (1982). Analyses comparing Rorschach and MAPI data revealed only the presence or absence of vista responses as having any appreciable relationship to MAPI codes or personality scales.     

child pornography and the internet: perpetuating a cycle of abuse

Thirteen men convicted of downloading child pornography were interviewed with a view to understanding how these men talked about the photographs and the function such talk played in their accounts. The interviews were informed by earlier work with defended subjects and were analyzed within a discursive framework. Quotations are used from the interviews to illustrate the analysis. Six principal discourses emerged within these accounts in relation to child pornography: sexual arousal; as collectibles; facilitating social relationships; as a way of avoiding real life; as therapy; and in relation to the Internet. These are discussed in the context of previous research. The analysis illustrates the important role that the Internet plays in increasing sexual arousal to child pornography and highlights individual differences in whether this serves as a substitute or as a blueprint for contact offenses. It also draws our attention to the important role that community plays in the Internet and how collecting facilitates the objectification of children and increases the likelihood that in the quest for new images children continue to be sexually abused. Discourses focussing on both therapy and addiction serve to distance the respondent from personal agency and allow for continued engagement with child pornography.     

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Dismissing Students From MFT Training Programs

Dismissing a student from an MFT training program can be challenging from an ethical and professional perspective. A thorough review of the literature regarding dismissal procedures in MFT training programs was conducted in order to increase discussion around circumstances under which dismissal is warranted and necessary for the protection of the public, the student, and the profession with specific attention to the dismissal process. The authors present the current state of the literature, include a case scenario for facilitating a conversation about this topic, and provide guiding principles for faculty and supervisors who might engage in a dismissal process.     

A Behavioral Analysis of Morality and Value

Morality has long been conceived as divinely instituted, so otherworldly, rules meant not to describe or explain behavior but to guide it towards an absolute good. The philosophical formulation of this theory by Plato was later grafted onto Christian thought by Augustine and Aquinas. The equally ancient theory of the Greek sophist Protagoras (that the good is relative to personal preferences and morality to man-made social customs) was forgotten until revived in the 18th and 19th centuries by such empiricists as David Hume and J. S. Mill. Then it was dismissed again in the 20th century by G. E. Moore and W. D. Ross as naturalistic fallacy, that is, conflation of what is with what ought to be. However, those who took this dismissive attitude themselves made the reverse mistake of conflating what ideally ought to be with what actually is. In other words, they mistook ideals for actualities. As B. F. Skinner (1971) said in Beyond Freedom and Dignity, sorting things out requires behaviorist parsing of the good (the personally reinforcing) and duty (the socially reinforced).     

Kafka's Experiencing in Text: A Person-Centered Reading of Letters to Felice

Franz Kafka's (1967/1999 Kafka , F. ( 1999 ). Letters to Felice (J. Stern & E. Duckworth, Trans.) London , England : Vintage . (Original work published 1967)  [Google Scholar]) Letters to Felice is instructive for the therapist/reader because it provides a first-person narrative of Kafka's immersion in a fundamentally relational-experiential process. It is argued that the underlying We of Kafka's letters implies that their correspondence expressed and constituted their relationship. Significant aspects of his experiencing are discussed from a person-centered perspective. It is argued that his experiences were initially subceived prior to awareness, in the moment, bodily felt, and process-like. The parallels that exist between the experience of reading Letters to Felice and being in a person-centered therapeutic relationship are discussed. Both endeavors are experiential and phenomenological, and from a contemporary person-centered perspective, are based upon a refinement of Carl Rogers’ original formulation.