Form and forming a focus: In brief dynamic therapy

This paper describes a model of training for individual work which treats as essential the consideration of group and institutional dynamics, as contrasted with the ‘prevailing model’ in which such issues are not overtly attended to. The author outlines key elements of such a ‘group-aware’ model and endeavours to show the value of it in terms of the students’ self-development, their fuller use of the training experience and in relation to their clients. She suggests that such a model has key advantages over the ‘prevailing model' for all counselling and psychotherapy students, but places emphasis on its particular relevance and value for those training to work with children, adolescents and young people.     

‘Mon petit essai’: Émilie du Châtelet’s Essai sur l’optique and her early natural philosophy

ABSTRACT

Émilie du Châtelet’s recently-discovered Essai sur l’optique offers new insights into her early natural philosophy. Here I analyse the Essai in detail, focusing on Du Châtelet’s use of attraction and her discussion of the laws governing it. These features of the Essai are crucial to her early thought. I also analyse how other contemporaneous sources augment the Essai, including her review of Voltaire’s Elémens and her correspondence with Maupertuis. These sources track her growing appreciation of the need for a metaphysical framework in science. I also discuss the Essai’s implications for key passages of the Institutions de physique.