Should men treat women? Dilemmas for the male psychotherapist: psychoanalytic and developmental perspectives

A spate of sexual abuse cases predominantly involving male psychotherapists with female patients as their victims raises serious questions about the ethics of cross-gender therapeutic dyads. Although such abusive situations must be highlighted as ethically aberrant, they may well represent a type of intrusive harm or hostile neglect which ensues on a continuum in the psychotherapeutic treatment of many female patients by male clinicians. I argue that the difficulties for men in empathically understanding women stem not only from certain misconceptions about women's development but especially stem from a paucity of understanding concerning men's psychology, a dearth of gender-sensitive information about the differences between boy's and girl's/men's and women's development, and a consequent difficulty for male psychotherapists to engage in the type of productive self-analysis that would ameliorate this gender-biased myopia. Recent psychoanalytically oriented child development/family research and innovative revisions of psychoanalytic theory are used to highlight some of the often overlooked, yet salient aspects of men's development as it is differentiated from women's. Specifically addressed is the possibility of a male, gender-linked vulnerability for a normative traumatic abrogation of the early holding environment with predictable sequelae in later intimate relationships, including the psychotherapeutic encounter. As the "confusion of tongues" between men's and women's development comes to light, is translated, and is empathically understood, new hope may be found for male therapists and their patients. An opportunity for enhanced therapeutic efficacy within an ethical and genuinely caring depth psychology may then be generated.     

Generativity in multiple roles

Interest in the Eriksonian notion of generativity and its role in the lives of mature adults has recently increased. In the present study, we examined generativity separately in the roles of wife, worker, and mother, and examined the utility of our strategy relative to more global measurement strategies in explaining variation in well-being. Two samples of employed mothers were studied, one sample employed in private industry and the other in a university setting. Statistical analyses demonstrated that measurement equivalence existed across the two samples (i.e., that the patterns and magnitudes of factor loadings did not differ significantly). For 8 of 11 indices of well-being examined across the two samples, role-specific measures of generativity explained significantly greater variation than did global measures.     

Evaluating Therapists' Practices in a Postmodern World: A Discussion and a Scheme

The social constructionist ideas currently reshaping the practice of family therapy are also relevant for supervision. However, if, as postmodernists assert, there is no privileged, expert position, how can supervisors evaluate their trainees? This question — a most pertinent one for university-based supervision, where evaluation is necessary and constant — is addressed both theoretically and pragmatically in this article. Ethical issues are explored, and an evaluation form, developed by the authors for use in a family therapy doctoral program, is presented and discussed.     

The effects of total darkness on schedule control

The study investigated the effect of total darkness on the key pecking of pigeons under fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval, and variable-interval schedules of food reinforcement. Eight pigeons were divided into groups of two, with each group conditioned to peck under one of the four schedules of reinforcement. Under an ABAB procedure, all pigeons experienced alternating light and dark conditions. The house- and keylights were (a) maintained at full intensity for the first 30 one-hour sessions, (b) faded out and disconnected over Sessions 31 through 50, (c) totally illuminated for Sessions 51 to 60, and (d) disconnected again for the final 10 sessions. Responding under the ratio schedules increased from 20% to 108% in the dark and responding under the interval schedules in the dark decreased by 37% to 93%.     

Preference,Expectations, and Attributional Bias: Two Field Studies1

Two quasi-experiments were conducted to test the relationship among a perceiver's preference, expectations, and causal attributions for an event, when the outcome of the event ran for and counter to expectation and preference. Following the 1976 Superbowl, fans of Dallas and Pittsburgh and fans with no preference were asked to attribute causality for a series of game events, counterbalanced for (un)favorability for each team. Following the 1976 Presidential election, fans of Carter and Ford were asked to attribute causality for the election outcome and estimate its repeatability and mutability. Both studies revealed that fans exhibit a biased attributional pattern, offering more credit to their own side for their successes than to the opponents for their successes. Furthermore, fans see their side's successes as replicable and their side's failures as nonreplicable. The implications of the data patterns for real world manifestations of attributional bias are discussed.     

A Person-Relative-to-Event (PrE) Approach to Negative Threat Appeals and Earthquake Preparedness: A Field Study1

The person-relative-to-event (PrE) model of fear-arousing or negative threat appeals predicts that increasing levels of threat when resources are appraised as sufficient relative to the magnitude of the threat will increase problem-focused coping. Conversely, increasing levels of threat when resources are appraised as insufficient relative to threat magnitude will decrease problem-focused coping. These hypotheses were tested in the context of a field study in which homeowners living in a local city were the participants. Results generally supported the PrE model in that preparedness increased over a I-month period as level of appraised threat increased, but only for those who also appraised resources as sufficient relative to threat. The possibility that perceived difficulty of preparation for a threatening event should be added to the PrE model as an essential component is discussed.     

Real and Illusory Control Over Exposure to HIV in College Students and Gay Men1

Reasons for unsafe sex were examined using an illusions of control framework. Heterosexual college students (N= 301) and gay men (N= 248) were surveyed regarding perceived control over exposure to HIV, of vulnerability to HIV, use of illusory control in chance situations, and real and illusory strategies for protection against HIV. As predicted, the use of illusory control in chance situations was associated with more illusory HIV protection in both samples. Illusory protection strategies were associated with feeling less vulnerable to HIV which was mediated by perceptions of control over exposure to HIV. Suggestions for intervention include providing information about the illusory nature of some protective strategies and a focus on failing to protect oneself from STDs.     

The marriage of perception and memory: Creating two-way illusions with words and voices

By most theories of lexical access, idiosyncratic aspects of speech (such as voice details) are considered noise and are filtered in perception. However, episodic theories suggest that perceptual details are stored in memory and mediate later perception. By this view, perception and memory are intimately linked. The present investigation tested this hypothesis by creating symmetric illusions, using words and voices. In two experiments, listeners gave reduced noise estimates to previously heard words, but only when the original voices were preserved. Conversely, in two recognition memory experiments, listeners gave increased old responses to words (or voices) presented in relatively soft background noise. The data suggest that memory can be mistaken for perceptual fluency, and perceptual fluency can be mistaken for memory. The data also underscore the role of detailed episodes in lexical access.     

Temple Gairdner of Cairo revisited

Temple Gairdner was a prominent and respected figure in his own time, and remains an intriguing and engaging character worthy of occasional re‐examination. This paper presents some of the salient features of his biography and highlights some aspects of his life and work that deserve emphasis because of their continuing importance for the Christian approach to Islam. In particular, it describes the evolution in his assessment of Islam, how this affected his apologetic interpretation of Christianity for Muslims, his contribution to the training of missionaries to Islam, and how his contribution has been creatively continued within the Anglican Communion.     

Is women's identity achievement associated with the expression of generativity? Examining identity and generativity in multiple roles

We hypothesized that the degree to which middl-aged mothers are identity-achieved is related both to their well-being and their generativity. A unique feature of this research is the examination of identity and generativity separately in the context of specific role domains. Although midlife women reported significantly lower moratorium and higher diffusion than did college women, reports of identity achievement did not differ between the two samples. Identity achievement was, however, more consistently associated with midlife women's positive well-being than foreclosure, moratorium, or diffusion. While global measures of identity and generativity were not related, significant relationships were observed when identity and generativity were measured separately in the context of specific role domains.