A Living Life, A Living Death: Bessie Head��s Writing as a Survival Strategy

This paper explores Bessie Head's writing as a survival strategy through which she transformed her lived experience into imaginative literature, giving meaning and purpose to a life under permanent threat from the dominant group first in South Africa and later in Botswana. This threat included the destructive effect of the many fixed labels imposed upon her including: a 'Coloured' woman, the daughter of a woman designated mad, an exile, a psychotic, a tragic black woman, and a Third World woman writer. Her endeavours to avoid and defeat such limited, static definitions produced work characterised by contradiction and paradox, through which she asserted her right to survive and determined, like Makhaya in When Rain Clouds Gather, to establish 'a living life' in place of the 'living death that a man could be born into' (Head 1989, 136). Through a combination of Head's personal letters and papers and her published work, it can be seen how her particular preoccupations and experiences including her life in exile, her beliefs about her origins, her relationship to her absent mother, her distress, her madness and her need for love and for work were transformed into writing which expresses not only the destructive circumstances of her life but also its life-affirming aspects. Her writing was also a means by which she could create identities to express the dangers she encountered from the all-pervasive power structures which influenced her life and her sense of self, as well as ways to transcend them, enabling her to say in the last years of her life 'I am no failure' (20.2.1986 KMM BHP).     

A Meta‐Analytic Review of Child‐Centered Play Therapy Approaches

The authors explored the overall effectiveness of child‐centered play therapy (CCPT) approaches through a meta‐analytic review of 52 controlled outcome studies between 1995 and 2010. Hierarchical linear modeling techniques estimated a statistically significant moderate treatment effect size (.47) for CCPT, as well as statistically significant relationships between effect size and study characteristics, including child's age, child's ethnicity, caregiver involvement, treatment integrity, publication status, and presenting issue.     

Active heading control in simulated flight based on vertically extended contours

In two experiments, we manipulated the properties of 3-D objects and terrain texture in order to investigate their effects on active heading control during simulated flight. Simulated crosswinds were used to introduce a rotational component into the retinal flow field that presumably provided the visual cues used for heading control An active control task was used so that the results could be generalized to real-world applications such as flight simulation. In Experiment 1, we examined the effects of three types of terrain, each of which was presented with and without 3-D objects (trees), and found that the presence of 3-D objects was more important than terrain texture for precise heading control In Experiment 2, we investigated the effects of varying the height and density of 3-D objects and found that increasing 3-D object density improved heading control, but that 3-D object height had only a small effect. On the basis of these results, we conclude that the vertical contours improved active heading control by enhancing the motion parallax information contained in the retinal flow.     

The use of structured experiences in family therapy

Structured experiences such as sculpting, psychodrama, rôle-play and growth games are frequently used in family therapy. This article puts forward a framework for the use of structured experiences which can be used in the context of a family session to ensure that the family will gain the maximum learning and change. Use of the framework is illustrated with examples from practice.     

A behaviour modification technique for the hyperactive child

This paper describes a procedure for the conditioning of attending behaviour in a brain-injured hyperactive boy.

Observations of the behaviour of two hyperactive children were made in the classroom setting. These observations were made from an observation bootn adjoining the classroom and provided data on the frequency of occurrence of the following high rate responses: walking, talking, distraction, “wiggling”. Each child was observed for a minimum of ten minutes a day, four days a week. Following several weeks of baseline observation, the conditioning procedure was begun with the expel imental subject. The conditioning trials took place in the classroom setting. During each time interval in which one of the high rate responses did not occur, S received an auditory stimulus (secondary reinforcer). This auditory stimulus had previously been paired with the delivery of candy and pennies. The stimulus was dispensed by a radio device which activated an earphone worn by the subject. At the end of each conditioning trial, S received whatever candy or pennies he had “earned”.

The data show that the control subject showed no significant change in the frequency of occurrence of the high rate responses during the three month period. The experimental subject showed a significant decrease in non-attending behaviour. This reduction in rate was maintained over a four week extinction period.     

The development of antisocial behaviour patterns in childhood and adolescence

A developmental model of antisocial behaviour is presented in this paper. Arguments and evidence are presented for the position that although many factors such as parent criminality, social and economic disadvantage, child temperament, and marital discord systematically affect the development of antisocial child behaviour, their influence is mediated by the extent to which they disrupt day-to-day parenting practices. Particularly, it is argued that irritable, ineffective discipline and poor parental monitoring are the most proximal determinants of the early development and maintenance of antisocial behaviour. The implications of this model for prevention and intervention in child conduct problems are discussed, using examples of promising clinical work that focuses on direct parent training.     

The role of prior quitting experience in the prediction of smoking cessation

Aims: In the Transtheoretical Model (TTM), the preparation stage (as applied to smoking cessation) is defined as planning to quit in the next 30 days plus having quit for at least 24 h in the last year. This study examined the value of prior quitting experience as a stage classification criterion by investigating whether prediction of making a quit attempt differed as a function of prior quitting experience. Participants: One thousand and forty-six participants, all planning to quit in the next 30 days, in a randomised trial of the effectiveness of a telephone counselling and computer-generated tailored advice intervention were followed up at 3 months. Findings: A multivariate predictive model had markedly greater capacity to predict making a quit attempt among participants with prior quitting experience (as defined in several different ways), compared to analyses of the overall sample. A previous attempt of 24 h in the previous month was associated with the greatest difference in prediction. A quit attempt in the previous year (the TTM definition) did not discriminate. Conclusions: Recent prior quitting experience moderated the predictive capacity of some variables that influence smoking cessation. The findings provide some support for a stage model of smoking cessation but not its operationalisation by the TTM.     

Growth in emotional intelligence. Psychotherapy with a learning disabled girl

This paper describes the once-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a girl, called Ellie, aged eight at the start of her treatment. Ellie had a learning disability and displayed difficult behaviour at school and at home. In her therapy, Ellie grew in emotional intelligence, more in touch with and able to express her feelings. Her behaviour improved and so did her capacity to learn. In the therapy there were certain limitations to progress and this is discussed in terms of how Ellie's disability affected the basic achievements of emotional development, including a mind with a solid ‘reality ego’, able to contain anxiety, and able to maintain depressive functioning. The importance of parallel parent work, to share observations and understanding of the child's functioning is discussed. Difficulties for both child and parents in dealing with the pain of difference and how this limits emotional intelligence are discussed. The author hopes that this paper will encourage the offering of psychoanalytic psychotherapy to children and young people with learning disabilities, who are significantly more likely to suffer from mental health problems than their peers.     

The effect of an integration program on teacher and student attitudes to mentally-handicapped children

This study examines the effect of contact with autistic children on teacher and peer attitudes to mentally-handicapped children in general. Children were interviewed and teachers completed questionnaires about their attitudes toward mentally-handicapped children in five schools attended by autistic boys and five schools not attended by any mentally-handicapped children. Children who had contact with autistic boys had more positive and realistic attitudes. Teachers' attitudes were generally positive and did not vary across settings, but those with experience in teaching mentally-handicapped children were found to have more positive attitudes than those with no experience. The implications for the integration of mentally-handicapped children are briefly discussed.