“Something There is That Doesn't Love a Wall”: Queer Theologies and Reparative Readings

A set of recent conversations among scholars working in queer cultural and literary theory has focused on the trope of reparative reading. Reparative readings, usually contrasted with the “paranoid” criticism of those working in the Butlerian tradition, are often informed by the writings of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. This article explores the “reparative turn” in the context of Christian queer theologies, and suggests that it may include practices of “sociability with the dead”: both listening to and honouring the abjected past of queer ancestors, and continuing to be in conversation with the damaging and hurtful parts of the Christian tradition as a means of holding them accountable.     

Whose Line Is It,Anyway? Using Improvisational Exercises to Spark Counselor Development

New counselors often struggle to respond to the unpredictability and ambiguity inherent in clinical interactions. Improvisational acting exercises can be used to help counselors-in-training become more comfortable thinking on their feet. By creating a safe environment for students to engage in extemporaneous expression, educators can model ways of developing rapport while helping students increase their sense of interactional self-efficacy. This article describes the benefits of using improvisational exercises in the classroom to encourage spontaneity, experimentation, and self-reflection. Example exercises that may be incorporated into counselor education courses are provided.     

Women Networking for Peace and Survival in Chiapas: Militants, Celebrities, Academics, Survivors, and the Stiletto Heel Brigade

Women in Mexico have been networking discreetlyfor centuries. They focus on survival and change. Thewomen working for the indigenous peoples of Chiapasinclude militants leading troops, celebrities raising funds and consciousness, victim-survivors of awar-torn area, volunteers shuttling news back and forthon the internet, and an invisible stiletto heel brigade.Together they struggle against what is now called a low-intensity war,networking for peace.     

Does perceived steepness deter stair climbing when an alternative is available?

Perception of hill slant is exaggerated in explicit awareness. Proffitt (Perspectives on Psychological Science 1:110–122, 2006) argued that explicit perception of the slant of a climb allows individuals to plan locomotion in keeping with their available locomotor resources, yet no behavioral evidence supports this contention. Pedestrians in a built environment can often avoid climbing stairs, the man-made equivalent of steep hills, by choosing an adjacent escalator. Stair climbing is avoided more by women, the old, and the overweight than by their comparators. Two studies tested perceived steepness of the stairs as a cue that promotes this avoidance. In the first study, participants estimated the steepness of a staircase in a train station (n = 269). Sex, age, height, and weight were recorded. Women, older individuals, and those who were heavier and shorter reported the staircase as steeper than did their comparison groups. In a follow-up study in a shopping mall, pedestrians were recruited from those who chose the stairs and those who avoided them, with the samples stratified for sex, age, and weight status. Participants (n = 229) estimated the steepness of a life-sized image of the stairs they had just encountered, presented on the wall of a vacant shop in the mall. Pedestrians who avoided stair climbing by choosing the escalator reported the stairs as steeper even when demographic differences were controlled. Perceived steepness may to be a contextual cue that pedestrians use to avoid stair climbing when an alternative is available.     

Analogy as a strategy for supporting complex problem solving under uncertainty

Complex problem solving in naturalistic environments is fraught with uncertainty, which has significant impacts on problem-solving behavior. Thus, theories of human problem solving should include accounts of the cognitive strategies people bring to bear to deal with uncertainty during problem solving. In this article, we present evidence that analogy is one such strategy. Using statistical analyses of the temporal dynamics between analogy and expressed uncertainty in the naturalistic problem-solving conversations among scientists on the Mars Rover Mission, we show that spikes in expressed uncertainty reliably predict analogy use (Study 1) and that expressed uncertainty reduces to baseline levels following analogy use (Study 2). In addition, in Study 3, we show with qualitative analyses that this relationship between uncertainty and analogy is not due to miscommunication-related uncertainty but, rather, is primarily concentrated on substantive problem-solving issues. Finally, we discuss a hypothesis about how analogy might serve as an uncertainty reduction strategy in naturalistic complex problem solving.     

Psychodynamic counsellor training integrating difference

Abstract

Psychodynamic counselling has been criticized for being inflexible, authoritarian, antiquated and unresponsive to the issues of modern-day society. Psychodynamic counsellor training is sometimes seen as a poor relation of ‘proper’ psychotherapy therapy training. This article is written by two psychodynamic counselling course trainers who have wresded with the above criticisms and who have striven to deliver a training course that is coherent in its adherence to a psychodynamic counselling model but which embraces equal opportunities issues and takes account of a diverse society. The article focuses on ways in which sexual identity, race and culture are integrated into the course curriculum and indeed into the course philosophy and community. Traditional psychoanalytic interpretations of homosexuality are challenged and multicultural counselling ideas are merged with psychodynamic counselling theory and skills.     

Home and hiddenness: queer theology,domestication and institutions

ABSTRACT

This essay examines tropes of hiddenness and domestication in queer theology, particularly in light of the increasing mainstreaming of queer theologies in institutional (e.g. university, seminary, church) settings, and the inclusion of queer theologies by straight academics and teachers on their syllabi. Drawing on James C. Scott’s work on revolution as a luxury of the elite (by way of the Arab Spring, the UK riots of 2011, and the US demonstrations in 2014), and Judith Halberstam’s construction of “failure” as a strategy of queer resistance, I ask whether there will continue to be a role for “shadow queernesses” which reject institutional acceptability. However, I also suggest that the increased visibility of queer theology within mainstream institutions does not inevitably imply compromise or “toothlessness,” but may in fact testify to the pre-existing presence of queer diversity in multiple contexts and the inhabitation by queer scholars of various “homes.”     

Maintenance of Parent-Implemented Discrete-Trial Instruction during Videoconferencing

Access to behavior-analytic professionals who can implement interventions like discrete-trial instruction (DTI) may be limited for families living in rural communities. We trained four rural parents of children with autism to implement DTI accurately with a confederate using in vivo behavioral skills training. The DTI skills that parents demonstrated with a confederate generalized to working with their children. We then assessed whether periodic supervision during videoconferencing maintained parents’ DTI skills following training. Parents accurately implemented untrained DTI programs with their children and maintained accurate implementation over several months of remote supervision occurring twice a week, weekly, and biweekly. Videoconferencing may be an effective way for individuals responsible for direct implementation to maintain contact with behavior analysts who are not locally accessible.