Emotional availability and psychosocial correlates among mothers in substance‐abuse treatment and their young infants

Emotional availability (EA) was investigated among low‐income mothers enrolled in substance‐abuse treatment and their young infants (n = 21) compared with a demographically matched group of mother–infant pairs who, by self‐report, were not at risk for substance abuse (n = 27). The mother–infant dyads in the treatment group generally demonstrated poorer EA functioning than those in the comparison group, but few differences between the groups on individual dimensions of EA were significant. This finding was notable considering that mothers in treatment reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms and psychological stress. Treatment effects may have buffered the negative impact of depression and psychological stress on mothers' EA scores. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed as they relate to substance‐abuse‐treatment services for pregnant and parenting women.     

The Beliefs in the Inheritance of Risk Factors for Suicide Scale (BIRFSS): Cross‐Cultural Validation in Estonia,Malaysia, Romania,the United Kingdom,and the United States

The genetics of suicide is increasingly recognized and relevant for mental health literacy, but actual beliefs may lag behind current knowledge. We examined such beliefs in student samples (total N = 686) from Estonia, Malaysia, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States with the Beliefs in the Inheritance of Risk Factors for Suicide Scale. Cultural effects were small, those of key demographics nil. Several facets of construct validity were demonstrated. Marked differences in perceived plausibility of evidence about the genetics of suicide according to research design, observed in all samples, may be of general interest for investigating lay theories of abnormal behavior and communicating behavioral and psychiatric genetic research findings.     

Judaism and Theology In Martha Nussbaum's Ethics

The writings of Martha Nussbaum broadly defend an account of transcendence as internal, always rooted in the human context. Her account implies that any and all projects of normative theological ethics are superfluous, since they transcend the natural bounds of human experience and reason. This essay points toward a space for theology, specifically Jewish theology, in Nussbaum's work, through an analysis of her recent philosophical and autobiographical writings on Judaism. Nussbaum's account in Upheavals of Thought associates Judaism with carnality and vulnerability; this essay supplements her account by pointing to a non-natural origin of emotional judgments in some of the texts Nussbaum treats. This move serves to temper the emphasis on autonomy in liberal Jewish thought, and provides an account of transcendence which can serve as the basis of a more traditional Jewish theological ethics.