The 'storied' helper: narrative ideas and practices in counselling and psychotherapy

This paper is intended as an introduction to the use of narrative ideas, languages and practices in counselling and psychotherapy. It explores the skills and knowledges that are involved in narrative ways of working for bothpractitioners and those who consult them. Counselling is understood as comprising a social process within a ‘storied world’. These ideas are illustrated through one particular ‘shortstory’. A narrative perspective enables us to consider the stories that are hidden as well as the stories that are privileged within the both contemporary cultural discourse and the professional discourses of counselling and psychotherapy.     

Religion and the crisis in Ukraine

This article investigates religious nationalism in the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, which has appeared in political and popular rhetoric and has been expressed through violence. From the Tsarist era, Kyiv and Crimea have featured centrally in Russian national mythology as the cradle(s) of Russian Christianity. This nationalist conception of space persisted after political borders changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as has the Russian Orthodox Church's historic jurisdiction in Ukraine. As a result, Russian Orthodox believers retain a special affinity for Kyiv and Crimea, and many Ukrainian citizens have looked to Moscow for matters of faith. Subjects of inquiry include religious nationalism, the baptism of Slavic Prince Vladimir (Volodymyr), Orthodox holy places in Crimea and Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill's Russian World concept, and religious violence in Ukraine and Crimea.     

Attachment in Psychotherapy

Abstract

Basic psychotherapy techniques are necessary for trauma intervention, including the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. The importance of these techniques is reviewed within various settings in the New York City area immediately following the World Trade Center disaster. The purpose included debriefing of practitioners, as well as the education of trauma symptoms and assessment for client intervention. Perhaps most importantly was the therapeutic technique modeled by the social work leader in these vignettes, since she and other practitioners simultaneously experienced symptoms of trauma. The practice of creating and maintaining a therapeutic atmosphere at this time was an essential challenge for all.     

Effects of load on the time course of attentional engagement,disengagement, and orienting in reading

Sensory-motor delays vary over the course of development and under different environmental conditions. Previous research has shown that humans can compensate for the resulting temporal misalignment while performing sensory-motor tasks (e.g., Cunningham, Billock, & Tsou, 2001a), but remains silent on the question of whether perceptual learning—similar to that involved in adaptation to spatial misalignment (e.g., Redding & Wallace, 1993) and in adaptation to purely intersensory misalignment (e.g., Fujisaki, Shimojo, Kashino, & Nishida, 2004)—is also involved in this adaptive response. Following an attempted replication of Cunningham et al.'s (2001a) study in a preliminary experiment, we present in this paper two experiments that demonstrate that after-effects of adaptation to temporal misalignment do not spontaneously decay. The literature on adaptation to spatial misalignment suggests that, while instrumental learning spontaneously decays in the absence of reinforcement, perceptual learning persists. Therefore our results are consistent with adaptation being effected through perceptual learning.     

Alice in Systems Wonderland: A Children's Systems Learning Guidebook Accompanying Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The author proposes the development of systems learning guidebooks to accompany famous children's classic books. Children's classic books can make excellent bases for children's learning guidebooks on systems thinking and global ecology, because they are fun to read and well known worldwide. If such learning guidebooks are properly designed with humor and entertaining aspects, they could stimulate children to learn more about systems thinking. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is chosen as a pilot case for developing such a children's guidebook. The systems learning guidebook that accompanies Alice's Wonderland shall be entitled Alice in Systems Wonderland and will help its readers look at the Alice's Wonderland story with a systems perspective.     

GREED AS VIOLENCE: Methodological Challenges in Interreligious Dialogue on the Ethics of the Global Financial Crisis

The current financial crisis is one rooted not in recent deregulation but in the breaking of ancient (religious) laws, and this crisis is one of many ethical problems today that have religious roots. The tone of this essay is informed by a document from the World Council of Churches, which affirms “greed as violence” and that Christians do not have all the answers to the problem of greed; therefore, Christians need to seek solutions with other religious communities. Furthermore, religious leaders, theologians, and ethicists, by their very station in life, are not able to effectively listen to the voices of the poor and marginalized people of the world. Self‐critically examining the mainstream traditions within Christianity for its allegiance to empires, the article calls for engaging the alternative, rather than the mainstream traditions within religions whose interpretations of Scripture have provided insights that are at variance with the mainstream. It calls those who engage in this work to be double‐headed: to examine others' beliefs from the perspective of the other—while continuing to be rooted in one's own center—and to recognize that the voices of those in poor or marginalized communities are inaccessible, unless those who are poor themselves become the mediators of dialogue.