David and Goliath: What If He Loses?

ABSTRACT

Infant’s volition has not been explored in healthy development. Our research conducted on the environmental response to infant’s initiatives (Hoffmann, Popbla, and Duhalde, 1998) shows that maternal attitude has a direct correlation with successful development of initiatives in infants aged 4 to 12 months, having implications for the capacities of infants to unfold as much as endowments allow. The opposite also is true. Infants who are more thwarted in the development of their potential initiatives show greater reactivity and conflict in early relationships with the caregiver, impacting the development of a healthy self. These claims will be discussed with proposals made in recent decades by some authors who have focused on the coming together of a self in the first year of life. The ramifications of this early start in one’s life can be credited to Lou Sander, whom we honor in this issue. Sander was gifted with a capacity to see with a “relational eye” and to state it in everyday language, while simultaneously using very sophisticated inventions to validate his assumptions. This work has made it possible to solve the riddle of the David and Goliath story that is part of the miracle of life over death, of love over hate, of health over sickness, which makes (most) mothers able to become good enough or whatever defines a progressive meeting between the infant’s doings with the doings of mothers.     

A Machine Learning Approach to Identifying the Thought Markers of Suicidal Subjects: A Prospective Multicenter Trial

Death by suicide demonstrates profound personal suffering and societal failure. While basic sciences provide the opportunity to understand biological markers related to suicide, computer science provides opportunities to understand suicide thought markers. In this novel prospective, multimodal, multicenter, mixed demographic study, we used machine learning to measure and fuse two classes of suicidal thought markers: verbal and nonverbal. Machine learning algorithms were used with the subjects’ words and vocal characteristics to classify 379 subjects recruited from two academic medical centers and a rural community hospital into one of three groups: suicidal, mentally ill but not suicidal, or controls. By combining linguistic and acoustic characteristics, subjects could be classified into one of the three groups with up to 85% accuracy. The results provide insight into how advanced technology can be used for suicide assessment and prevention.     

Dispensary treatment of endogenous psychoses from the viewpoint of the psychiatrist in ambulatory care

Reviewing the results of the observation of 72 patients suffering from endogenic psychoses during a period of 11 years the author tries to demonstrate the advantages of a basis-near, i.e. near to the places of living and employment, therapy for psychically sick persons. The necessity of long-term therapy is emphasized.     

PUTTING FEMINIST PEDAGOGY TO THE TEST

Critics of women's studies (WS) have charged that WS teaching overemphasizes students'personal experience and is overly politicized. They claim further that WS classes discourage critical, independent thinking and stifle open, participatory learning, causing student dissatisfaction. This study provides empirical evidence of the process of WS teaching from the perspective of 111 teachers and 789 of their students from 32 campuses in the United States. Contrary to WS critics, WS faculty and students reported strong emphases on critical thinking/open-mindedness and participatory learning and relatively weaker emphases on personal experience and political understanding/activism. In addition, student ratings of positive class impact were higher for WS than non-WS classes. The results support the pedagogic distinctiveness of women's studies.