Skeptical theism and the problem of moral <Emphasis Type="Italic">aporia</Emphasis>

Skeptical theism seeks to defend theism against the problem of evil by invoking putatively reasonable skepticism concerning human epistemic limitations in order to establish that we have no epistemological basis from which to judge that apparently gratuitous evils are not in fact justified by morally sufficient reasons beyond our ken. This paper contributes to the set of distinctively practical criticisms of skeptical theism by arguing that religious believers who accept skeptical theism and take its practical implications seriously will be forced into a position of paralysis or aporia when faced with a wide set of morally significant situations. It is argued that this consequence speaks strongly against the acceptance of skeptical theism insofar as such moral aporia is inconsistent with religious moral teaching and practice. In addition, a variety of arguments designed to show that accepting skeptical theism does not lead to this consequence are considered, and shown to be deficient.     

The Scientist-Practitioner Model: Now More Than Ever

The scientist-practitioner model has been fundamental to the field of professional psychology for over 50 years. Although other training models have been offered in an attempt to improve training or meet other needs, we view many of the changes suggested by these models as consistent with the original intent of scientist-practitioner training. We argue that the reciprocal effects of science and practice within this model, if appropriately integrated, remain an excellent fit for integrating science and practice and enhancing the quality of both the practice and science of psychology. We address some of the problems with how the model has been implemented and offer recommendations for ways to enhance science and practice integration. Finally, we describe some of the mechanisms we have used to put these principles into practice in our counseling psychology training program.     

Thinking and Working Relationally: Interviewing and Constructing Hypotheses to Create Compassionate Understanding

In the initial interviews of family therapy sessions, the therapist faces the challenge of obtaining and organizing the information that is most relevant toward understanding the essential concerns that families and couples bring to therapy. This article describes the process of clinical interviewing and case conceptualization used in training family therapists at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. This approach helps the therapist bring forward, and organize, specific information into relational hypotheses, or systemic‐relational conceptualizations, that allow both family members and the therapist to understand presenting problems within their relational contexts. While always provisional, relational hypotheses help anchor the therapist in a systemic‐relational frame and provide a conceptual through‐line to guide the ongoing work of the therapy. The process of interviewing and the construction of clear and complex conceptualizations of presenting problems are illustrated through case examples.     

Diagnoses,Relational Processes and Resourceful Dialogs: Tensions for Families and Family Therapy

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM‐5), given its psychiatric focus on mental disorders in individuals, presents families and family therapists with challenges. Despite considerable controversies over its adoption, the DSM‐5 extends a process of standardizing a language for human and relational concerns. No longer a diagnostic language of professionals alone, its use is medicalizing how mental health funders and administrators, as well as clients, respond to human concerns. For family therapists who practice systemically, particularly from poststructuralist and strengths‐based orientations, many tensions can follow when use of the DSM‐5 is expected by mental health administrators and funders, or by clients who present concerns about themselves or a diagnosed family member. In this paper, I explore how such DSM‐5 related tensions might be recognized, navigated, and negotiated in the practice of family therapy with clients, and with administrators and funders.     

Couple and Family Treatments: Study Quality and Level of Evidence

This paper examines the application of the guidelines for evidence‐based treatments in family therapy developed by Sexton and collaborators to a set of treatment models. These guidelines classify the models using criteria that take into account the distinctive features of couple and family treatments. A two‐step approach was taken: (1) The quality of each of the studies supporting the treatment models was assessed according to a list of ad hoc core criteria; (2) the level of evidence of each treatment model was determined using the guidelines. To reflect the stages of empirical validation present in the literature, nine models were selected: three models each with high, moderate, and low levels of empirical validation, determined by the number of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). The quality ratings highlighted the strengths and limitations of each of the studies that provided evidence backing the treatment models. The classification by level of evidence indicated that four of the models were level III, “evidence‐based” treatments; one was a level II, “evidence‐informed treatment with promising preliminary evidence‐based results”; and four were level I, “evidence‐informed” treatments. Using the guidelines helped identify treatments that are solid in terms of not only the number of RCTs but also the quality of the evidence supporting the efficacy of a given treatment. From a research perspective, this analysis highlighted areas to be addressed before some models can move up to a higher level of evidence. From a clinical perspective, the guidelines can help identify the models whose studies have produced clinically relevant results.     

The Parallel Episodic Processing (PEP) model 2.0: A single computational model of stimulus-response binding,contingency learning,power curves,and mixing costs

The current paper presents an extension of the Parallel Episodic Processing model. The model is developed for simulating behaviour in performance (i.e., speeded response time) tasks and learns to anticipate both how and when to respond based on retrieval of memories of previous trials. With one fixed parameter set, the model is shown to successfully simulate a wide range of different findings. These include: practice curves in the Stroop paradigm, contingency learning effects, learning acquisition curves, stimulus-response binding effects, mixing costs, and various findings from the attentional control domain. The results demonstrate several important points. First, the same retrieval mechanism parsimoniously explains stimulus-response binding, contingency learning, and practice effects. Second, as performance improves with practice, any effects will shrink with it. Third, a model of simple learning processes is sufficient to explain phenomena that are typically (but perhaps incorrectly) interpreted in terms of higher-order control processes. More generally, we argue that computational models with a fixed parameter set and wider breadth should be preferred over those that are restricted to a narrow set of phenomena.     

Narrative Approaches to Organizational Development: A Case Study of Implementation of Collaborative Helping

Across North America, community agencies and state/provincial jurisdictions are embracing family‐centered approaches to service delivery that are grounded in strength‐based, culturally responsive, accountable partnerships with families. This article details a collaborative consultation process to initiate and sustain organizational change toward this effort. It draws on innovative ideas from narrative theory, organizational development, and implementation science to highlight a three component approach. This approach includes the use of appreciative inquiry focus groups to elicit existing best practices, the provision of clinical training, and ongoing coaching with practice leaders to build on those better moments and develop concrete practice frameworks, and leadership coaching and organizational consultation to develop organizational structures that institutionalize family‐centered practice. While the article uses a principle‐based practice framework, Collaborative Helping, to illustrate this process, the approach is applicable with a variety of clinical frameworks grounded in family‐centered values and principles.     

Facebook as a platform for collecting women's birth stories: Supporting emotional connections between researchers and participants

This paper extends debate on the use of social networking sites in social science research, specifically focusing on their role in creating ‘emotionally connected’ research spaces. Drawing on the authors' experiences of using a closed Facebook group as a platform for collecting women's ‘birth stories’, we explore to potential of Facebook to support the transcendence of traditional researcher/participant relations and empower participants through creating something akin to a ‘Community of Practice’. The project also contributed to a process of inter and intra-personal self-care, which, as a research team, we recognise as an important driver of our research agendas. We acknowledge that the virtual cannot be all-inclusive but conclude that this methodological approach has generated both a rich dataset and a series of emotions for researchers and participants that added value to the research process. We also argue that this approach captured a greater depth of experience and diversity of voice than would have been the case if we had chosen to use traditional face-to-face methods. We call for future research to focus on better understanding some of the challenges related to the appropriateness of Facebook as a platform for hearing the voices of particular socio-cultural groups.     

La gestion de la souffrance par le psychologue clinicien. Étude des impacts et des stratégies de coping

We focus in this study on strategies used by clinical psychologists to cope with their own or patient psychological distress in the framework of help relationship. A self-administered form was sent to listings of professionals by e-mail. The sample is made of 187 French clinical psychologists. To cope with patients’ suffering, psychologists use mostly avoidance coping style. And the strategies they prefer are “supervision”, “personal therapy” and “speaking with colleagues” (problem focused coping strategies). To cope with their own distress, which has a lot of negative impacts on help relationship, psychologists have most frequently a problem focused coping style but their favourite strategy is to “lighten their schedules”. And almost a quarter of the sample presents a significant level of distress. In conclusion, results show that psychological distress management by psychologists is an important question with a lot of ethical questions.