Physician-assisted suicide: what's the story?

After telling a story of a family's inquiry into physician-assisted suicide on behalf of a loved one, John F. Kilner uses the story to discuss some specific ways in which modern medicine often fails to supply life-affirming alternatives in situations like the one this family faced. Knowing about these alternatives is important for Christians, since God is the author of freedom, justice, and life itself. Moreover, when medicine has nothing more to offer suffering patients, it should be prepared to assist them in their suffering, rather than simply eliminate the sufferer. The example of Jesus' suffering is important here.     

EFFECTS OF HIGH-PROBABILITY REQUESTS ON THE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS OF YOUNG CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

High-probability requests were used to increase social interactions in 3 young boys with severe disabilities who had been identified as severely socially withdrawn. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of high-probability request intervention on (a) social initiations, (b) social responses, (c) continued interactions, and (d) performance of high- and low-probability requests. The students were observed in a second setting to examine generalization effects across peers who did not participate in the training sequence and settings. The results demonstrated that the high-probability requests increased the students' responsiveness to low-probability requests to initiate social behavior. Increases were also found in (a) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to the training peers, (b) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to peers who were not involved in the training procedure, and (c) generalized unprompted initiations and interactions in a second nontraining setting. The students maintained increased levels of initiations and interactions after all prompts were removed from both the training and nontraining settings.     

A Whiff of Reality: Empirical Evidence Concerning the Effects of Pleasant Fragrances on Work-Related Behavior1

Two studies were conducted to investigate the potential effects on workrelated behavior of one environmental variable: pleasant fragrances. In Study 1, participants performed a word construction task under low or high stress while in the presence or absence of pleasant fragrances. Performance was significantly enhanced by fragrance in both stress conditions. In addition, exposure to pleasant fragrances significantly increased performance on an additional task (decoding written messages) completed by participants following exposure to stress. In Study 2, both exposure to pleasant fragrances and receipt of a small gift increased performance on the same word construction task used in Study 1. In addition, fragrance and a gift increased participants' willingness to engage in both immediate and delayed helping. Together, the results of these studies offer support for the view that pleasant fragrances can influence work-related behavior, and that such effects may be mediated, at least in part, by increments in positive affect.     

On seeing oneself as “left out”: The chronically complaining patient in psychotherapy

A clinical observation regarding patients who complain about feeling left out and/or second best provides the framework for this paper. What is expressed is a form of separation anxiety coupled with a loser self-concept. It is suggested that these patients represent a milder form of the moral masochism. Early theoretical formulations include Freud and his emphasis on the superego and Reich's emphasis on the masochist's fear of being left alone. Kramer's little man phenomenon is an example of a more current theoretical formulation which takes account of the complexities of the ego, and composite self and identity in the clinical phenomena observed. A case of a latency-aged child is provided.     

Commentary: Psychodynamics and Social Cognition—Notes on the Fusion of Psychoanalysis and Psychology

ABSTRACT Interest in linking psychoanalysis with scientific psychology waxes and wanes. In part, the difficulties have been caused by the preference of psychoanalysts for Freud's clinical theory (and its emphasis on narrative truth) as opposed to his metapsychology (with its requirement for historical truth). Even though contemporary scientific psychology evolved largely independently of psychoanalysis, the articles on object relations, transference, and defense published in this special issue show that the theory remains a source of inspiration, observations, and hypotheses.