The diagnostic fallacy: A critique of Jane Mercer's concept of mental retardation

Jane Mercer's influential book on mental retardation is criticized because it essentially reverts to traditional “diagnosticism”—the assumption that retardation is an entity of biological origin and unfavorable sequelae, rather than a set of behaviors stemming from a diversity of causes. It is argued that this view point is fallacious because it is oversimplified and educationally irrelevant. Instruction is rarely affected by knowledge of original etiology, and therefore elaborate pluralistic assessment procedures designed to unravel cause are not helpful. Criteria and instruments appropriate for classification are discussed in terms of the purposed to be served by school designations.     

Cognition and Emotion,Volume 24, 2010, List of Contents

Effective emotion regulation is important for high-quality social functioning. Recent laboratory-based evidence suggests that mindfulness may enhance emotion regulation in socioemotional contexts; however, little is known about mindful emotion regulation during in vivo social interactions. In a study of romantic couples, we assessed each partner's mindfulness and top-down attentional efficiency (with an Emotional Go/No-Go task) prior to sampling emotions and perceived connection with others during day-to-day social interactions. Analyses revealed that mindfulness-related differences in top-down attentional efficiency on the Emotional Go/No-Go predicted positive emotion during daily social interactions. In turn, positive emotion and two additional indices of social emotion regulation each mediated the relation between actor mindfulness and perceived social connection. In corresponding analyses, neither trait reappraisal nor suppression use predicted the outcomes, and all mindfulness relations held controlling for these strategies. Findings support a framework for investigating mindfulness and higher-quality social functioning, for which mindful emotion regulation may be key.     

Subsistence Needs,Human Rights,and Imperfect Duties

I address the usefulness of thinking about a human right to subsistence within conceptions of human rights grounded in ordinary moral reasoning. I argue that that natural rights should be understood as rights in rem, with their dynamism constrained by the requirements of justification and their scope constrained by the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty. I then suggest that many of the most pressing demands which the moral significance of subsistence needs create are plausibly imperfect duties, and so cannot correlate to a natural right to subsistence. This restricts the helpfulness of a human right to subsistence in our reasoning about what we owe to others.     

Adoption: some clinical features of adults who have been adopted and the difficulties of helping them in NHS psychotherapy

This paper explores issues of adoption and specifically what happens when adults who have been adopted as babies present for psychological help in the NHS. Two clinical examples of women patients are given, and it is suggested that there is a re‐enactment of earlier adoption experiences within the approach to and engagement in psychotherapy. The tendency for splitting and projection between biological and adoptive mothers, good and bad mothers and the patient's body and mind are discussed, as are the implications for the transference and countertransference. The combination of the patients' problems and the restrictions imposed on treatment in the NHS due to scarce resources is explored.