Weight and Shape Ideals: Thin Is Dangerously In

Thinness as an ideal of feminine beauty is nowhere more evident than in the popular media. The trend toward an increasingly thinner standard and a more tubular body shape has been documented in Playboy centerfolds from the 1960s to the 1980s. The present study provides information about body standards into the 1990s. Body measurements of two groups of models were compared: contemporary Playboy centerfolds and ready-towear and commercial print models advertising on the Intemet. Results revealed that thinness is increasing for centerfolds, many of whom meet weight criteria for anorexia. Results also showed unhealthy levels of thinness in the Internet models. Body shape for both cohorts is curvaceous, results which do not support prior research indicating an increase in the tubular body. Discussion focuses on the role that both the media and the health industry play in contributing to Western culture's adoption of an unhealthy body ideal.     

NGO-government partnerships

In an effort to streamline service and generate efficiency, governments have looked increasingly to non-government organizations (usually not-for-profit charities) to deliver service to the public. This new way of subcontracting is often referred to as partnership and has created interesting challenges for both government and non-government sectors. These range from threats to the autonomy of NGOs to the downloading of deficits to the private sector. The field of immigration and settlement provides a particularly interesting example of study.     

Social demand characteristics in children's and adults' eyewitness memory and suggestibility: the effect of different interviewers on free recall and recognition

Shortly after viewing a video of a theft, 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children and adults were interviewed with free recall and either misleading or unbiased‐leading questions. After a 2‐day delay, participants were interviewed with free recall and recognition questions administered by either the same or a different interviewer. Results from day 1 replicate previous findings with levels of recall and resistance to suggestibility increasing with age. Counter to predictions, correct recognition performance on day 2 was greater for some participants interviewed by the same as opposed to a different interviewer, and incorrect recognition was greater for all groups of participants for those interviewed by a different as opposed to the same interviewer. Results are discussed in terms of the role of context dependence on memory performance. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mental health consultation to law enforcement: Secret Service development of a Mental Health Liaison Program

The Mental Health Liaison Program developed and used by the Secret Service is presented as a model for comprehensive, multidimensional interactions between law enforcement and mental health systems, with particular focus on assessing and preventing violent behavior. The structure of the program pairs consultants—psychologists and psychiatrists—with Secret Service field offices to provide (a) consultation regarding risk assessment and case management of individuals who threaten or display inappropriate interest in the President or other protectees; (b) training for agents on risk assessment, mental illness, and mental health care issues; and (c) liaison activities between the Secret Service and the mental health community. Practical benefits to the Secret Service are discussed to encourage more systematic use of broad based psychological and psychiatric consultation to law enforcement, with a goal of enhanced intersystem communication and collaboration. The need for program evaluation and outcome research is discussed in the context of applying the model to improve other mental health and law enforcement systems interactions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Manic temporality

Time-consciousness has long been a focus of research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. We advance and extend this tradition of research by focusing on the character of temporal experience under conditions of mania. Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-of-ideas, hyperactivity. But what is the underlying structure of temporal experience in manic episodes? We tackle this question using a strategically hybrid approach. We recover and reconstruct three hypotheses regarding manic temporality that were advanced and modeled by two pioneers of clinical phenomenology: Eugène Minkowski (1885–1972) and Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966). We then test, critique, and refine these hypotheses using heterophenomenological methods in an interview-based study of persons with a history of bipolar and a current diagnosis of acute mania. Our conclusions support a central hypothesis due to Minkowski and Binswanger, namely, that disturbance in the formal structure of temporal experience is a core feature of mania. We argue that a suitably refined variant of Binswanger’s model of disturbance in manic protention helps to explain a striking pattern of impaired insight and impaired reasoning in manic episodes.     

Mood,Delusions and Poetry: Emotional ‘Wording of the World’ in Psychosis,Philosophy and the Everyday

Philosophia - Starting from a comparison of the similarities between a poem by Sylvia Plath called Tulips and the words of someone in the thrall of a delusion I develop a phenomenology of how mood...