Forgiveness and Health in Christian Women

Researchers in psychology have studied the influence of forgiveness on the both the psychological and physical health of individuals. In addition, parish nursing is also looking at forgiveness as a potential benefit for self-care and health promotion. Forgiveness was measured using Enright’s Forgiveness Inventory. Health was measured using Spielberg’s State/Trait Anger measure, Beck’s II Depression measure, SPF-15 Health Survey. Body Mass Index was also calculated. Mixed Methods was also used to describe the qualitative findings using content analysis on the types of unjust violations Christian women experienced. Women expressed very severe unjust violations involving sexual, physical, emotional, financial and spiritual abuse. Statistical correlations suggested important relationships among forgiveness and overall health measures warranting further investigation. The relationship between Church type and forgiveness raised questions about women’s role in the Church as well as, the importance of acknowledging personal feelings, which are excluded in many orthodox denomination’s doctrines.     

Transdisciplinarity and Conceptual Change

This article tenders an inaugural discussion of how conceptual change theory can contribute to deeper understandings of what is conceptually involved when people attempt (or succeed) to transition from multi- and interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity. After explaining the nuances of Newtonian thinking (framed as formal rather than postformal thinking), the article shares a comparison of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity along four dimensions. Special attention is given to Nicolescuian transdisciplinarity, an approach predicated on the new sciences of quantum physics, chaos theory, and living systems theory (rather than Newtonian and Cartesian thinking). Nicolescuian transdisciplinarity is a new methodology for creating knowledge and it comprises three axioms: multiple Levels of Reality and the Hidden Third; the Logic of the Inclusive Middle; and, knowledge as complex, emergent, and embodied. The discussion then turns to an overview of three basic approaches to conceptual change theory: knowledge as theory, knowledge as elements, and knowledge as context. The author then applies conceptual change theory to understand what is involved in moving toward transdisciplinary thinking, including four elements necessary for conceptual change to occur (intelligibility, plausibility, fruitfulness, and dissatisfaction with existing conceptualizations and mental models). The article concludes with the idea that transdisciplinary thinking is a form of postformal thinking (especially paradigmatic order thinking) and suggests that future conceptual shifts toward transdisciplinarity involve achieving a transdisciplinary conceptual tipping point.     

The Efficacy of Child Parent Relationship Therapy for Adopted Children With Attachment Disruptions

This pilot study examined the effectiveness of child parent relationship therapy (CPRT; Landreth & Bratton, 2006 ) with 61 adoptive families. Statistically significant findings and large treatment effects on all measures indicated the effectiveness of CPRT over the wait‐list control condition on reducing child behavior problems and increasing parental empathy. The results provide preliminary support for CPRT as a responsive intervention for adoptive families with children presenting with attachment difficulties.     

‘Knowing all this just makes it harder’: Psychodynamic Ideas on the Frontline

This paper was given as the fifth Annual Ellen Noonan Counselling Lecture on 12 July 2011 and retains some of the spoken style of the lecture. The theme pursues an aspect of Ellen Noonan’s thinking, in that she always valued equipping students with learning they could take back into the workplace rather than purely training clinicians. The paper addresses both the usefulness and potential difficulties of providing front-line workers with psychodynamic insight. It might appear self-evidently worthwhile to offer staff in the caring and educational professions greater understanding of the roots and meaning of the difficulties faced by their clients and of the dynamics involved in working with them. This paper, while stressing the immense value of such awareness, looks at what can be problematic about it, both for staff and their employing agencies. It also describes ways of addressing such issues, both at an individual and organisational level.     

¿Se da lenguaje en los simios?

RESUMEN

Los autores revisan la evidencia en favor de la capacidad de representación simbólica en simios, afirmando que todos los programas de lenguaje parten de la misma suposición: considerar signos, lexigramas y fichas de plástico como verdaderos elementos de vocabulario siempre que los simios sean capaces de ejecutar la etiqueta conductual correcta en presencia del correspondiente hecho u objeto. Consideran crucial el problema de la equivalencia entre capacidad de etiquetar y de representar simbólicamente y manifiestan que no se ha desarrollado ningún marco teórico dentro de la psicología animal que permita distinguir respuestas discriminativas condicionadas de respuestas simbólico-representacionales. Afirman que según sus investigaciones recientes la habilidad para utilizar símbolos de forma representativa puede ser alcanzada por chimpancés, pero no es posible deducir de la simple asociación entre etiqueta y objeto la existencia de esta función de representación o simbolización. También abordan la comunicación protolingüística de niños comparándola con la de chimpancés y desarrollan el concepto de verdadera simbolización, concluyendo que los estudios sobre el lenguaje de los simios han fracasado a la hora de obtener la verdadera simbolización en parte debido a que se han centrado casi exclusivamente en el aspecto de la producción, descuidando la competencia receptiva.     

The Interactive Effect of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness on Job Performance Dimensions in South Korea

While much is known about the effects of personality traits on performance, there is still limited empirical evidence that examines how personality traits may interact with each other to impact dimensions of performance. This study examined how conscientiousness and agreeableness interact to predict both task performance and organizational citizenship behavior using a sample of 113 bank employees in South Korea. The interaction between the two personality traits was significantly related to both dimensions of performance.     

I Working with dissociative dynamics and the longing for excess in binge eating disorders

In this paper the author describes her work with a woman who, in her mid 20s, sought analysis for her non‐vomiting binge eating disorder. The paper explores how two aspects of Jung's view of the psyche as healthily dissociable were used to think about the potential for change contained within the explosive, aggressive energies in this patient's bingeing. The resultant approach takes the patient's splitting defences, dissociations and self‐destructive behaviour as a point of access to her unconscious. Seen in this way, these behaviours contain the seeds of recovery and are the starting point for analysis rather than defences against it. The paper also brings a number of Jungian and post‐Jungian ideas into conversation with aspects of contemporary thinking about subjectivity, identity and the longing for excess developed by Leo Bersani and Judith Butler.     

Sociometric Stability and the Behavioral Correlates of Peer Acceptance in Early Childhood

The author presents findings from an Australian study examining the behavioral correlates and stability of social status among preschool-aged children. Using sociometric assessment, the author determined the social status of an initial sample of 187 preschool-aged children (94 boys, 93 girls; M age = 62.4 months, SD age = 4.22 months). The author observed children (N = 70) who were classified as rejected, neglected, or popular. For a total of 25 min during a 3-month period, the author observed children engaging in free play in their preschool centers. Results indicate that children classified as popular were more likely to engage in cooperative play, engage in ongoing connected conversation, and display positive affect, compared with those classified as rejected or neglected. Popular children were less likely than rejected children or neglected children to engage in parallel play, onlooker behavior, or alone-directed behavior. To test for stability and change, the author repeated sociometric interviews 6 months after initial sociometric classification. Results indicate that preschool-aged children's social status classifications showed a moderate to high rate of stability for those children classified as popular, rejected, or neglected.     

Parents attributions of blame for the birth of a child with down syndrome: A pilot study

Abstract

Attributing blame to others for negative events is consistently associated with poor adjustment. We report here a study assessing whether failure to detect a problem on screening, in this case Down syndrome not detected during prenatal screening, is associated with blame and poor adjustment in parents. Twenty eight mothers and 23 fathers of children with Down syndrome were interviewed. Although no parent blamed themselves or their partner, eight fathers and five mothers blamed health professionals or the health care system in general for not preventing the birth of their children with Down syndrome prenatally. None of the parents who declined testing were blaming. Six of the 11 parents who received a negative test and seven of the 34 not offered a test blamed others. Both mothers and fathers who blamed others reported significantly higher parenting stress. Mothers, but not fathers, who blamed others were significantly more angry and depressed than those who did not.     

Selective deficit in spatial location memory in extremely low birth weight children at age six: The PETIT Study

Spatial location memory has rarely been assessed in young children due to a scarcity of developmentally appropriate tests. This study sought to compare nonverbal learning and recall in children born extremely low birth weight (ELBW; <1000 g) and less than 33 gestational weeks (GW) with term-born children at early school age using a recently developed and adapted test. We administered a modification of the Hopkins Board to 210 children at age six; 84 born ELBW (35 born < 26 GW; 49 born 26–33 GW) and 126 term-born. Six measures were obtained: naming, trials-to-criterion, errors-to-criterion, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention. After age correction, ELBW children had worse general cognition, item naming, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention than term-born children. Delayed item recall and percent retention performances of ELBW children remained worse after correction for general cognition. ELBW groups (< 26 GW and 26–33 GW) groups performed worse than term-born children in naming and delayed item recall with chronological age as covariate. Those born before 26 GW, but not 26–33 GW, performed worse than term-born children in delayed location recall and percent retention. Differences remained significant after controlling for gender, maternal education, and delivery type. All three groups' performance declined from final learning trial to delayed location recall, with a decline greater for less than 26 GW than term-born children. Extreme prematurity (< 26 GW) and ELBW are significant risk factors for spatial location memory deficit. The modified Hopkins Board discriminated high-risk preterm and term-born children at early school age and appears to be a useful test to measure this rarely studied cognitive capacity.