Maturing Religious Experience and the Postmodern Self

Past attempts to define mature religion have been rooted in a modernist theological anthropology which assumes an atomistic, universal, rational, and stable human self. Yet postmodernists resist universal statements about humanity and understand the self as an ever-changing social construct. This paper suggests a theological anthropology more adequate to the postmodern world, examines maturing religious experience from this perspective, and considers ways pastoral care/counseling can nurture healthy, integrative, and maturing Christian faith in postmodern culture.     

Field Independence and Change Agent Correlation in Emerging Communities of Irian Jaya,Indonesia

Communities that are limited by oral traditions find theological truths communicated by missions a challenge to understand. Currently, linguists work in many of these minority language groups in order to create vital written languages and produce various literature titles that include the Scriptures. Development of a writing system requires indigenous language assistants who are adept in drawing meaning from unfamiliar cultural paradigms and accurately articulating them. Empirical studies in cognitive style conducted among the minority language groups of Irian Jaya, Indonesia show a correlation between field independence (a dimension of cognitive style) and the ability to grasp abstract linguistic concepts. The Brantley/Larsen Test was developed to identify language assistants, also known as change agents, in a culturally appropriate manner for Irian Jaya. Furthermore, this study suggests that the church would benefit from community lay counselors who manifest field independence, which indicates comprehension of abstract and complex linguistic notions found in Scriptures.Indonesia as Organizational Consultant;     

The Humanizing Brain: An Introduction

The rediscovery of the sacred needs to take into account the neural underpinnings of faith and meaning and also draw on the insights of the emerging discipline of complexity studies, which explore a tendency toward adaptive self-organization that seemingly is inherent in the universe. Both neuroscience and complexity studies contribute to our understanding of the brain's activity as it transforms raw stimuli into recognizable patterns, and thus "humanizes" all our perceptions and understandings. The brain is our physical anchor in the natural environment— and its human capacities orbit us into the emerging world of culture (including religion), which provides a template for the brain's function of making sense of an ambiguous reality. The humanizing brain holds together scientific causality and religious meaning, working both bottom-up (linking the physical and the experiential) and top-down (beginning with the whole of things, or God). These processes we know as "mind" (experienced as intentionality, subjective consciousness, empathy, imagination, memory, adaptability). We maintain that such processes are not only subjective but built into "the way things really are." Thus, they carry the most privileged information about the nature of reality to which we human beings have access. For not only are we humans observers and logicians, but we are embedded in the larger reality; and as we strive to make sense of it all, we become both Homo sapiens and Homo religiosus .     

Psychotherapy Process Measure Research and the Evaluation of Psychotherapy Orientation: A Narrative Analysis

This article discusses the need for a systematic method that enables researchers to evaluate integrative therapy approaches using a range of therapy process measures. The Narrative System Process Coding (NPCS; Angus, Hardtke, & Levitt, 1996) is proposed as such a method, and is applied with the Experiencing Scale (Klein, Mathieu, Gendlin, & Keisler, 1970) and the Levels of Client Perceptual Processing (LCPP; Toukmanian, 1986) to three brief good outcome integrative therapy modalities to illustrate this need. The study found higher Experiencing Scale scores to be most strongly related to an experiential approach to therapy and to the NPCS internal narrative processes. Higher LCPP scores were most strongly related to the NPCS reflexive narrative process and to a perceptual-processing approach. The discussion initiates a discourse on the importance of explicating process measures' origins when comparing different therapy approaches in order to allow for the meaningful consolidation of process research findings.     

A Systems/Dialectical Model of Supervision: A Symbolic Process

Although there has been a proliferation of models of supervision in the marriage and family therapy literature recently, most tend to focus on methods rather than on the process of supervision. The model presented here is grounded in developmental concepts and focuses on student learning through a dialectical process of cognitive and emotional growth and incorporates three stages: 1) developing relationships; 2) breaking impasses, and 3) orchestrating changes. Students discover that supervision becomes isomorphic with relationship issues that arise in their therapy sessions. Dialectical in nature in that each stage is characterized by the resolution of contradictory emotions, the supervision process helps supervisees experience emotional shifts in their interactions with others, referred to as emotional restructuring.     

Betrayal And Paranoia: The Psychotherapist's Function as an Intermediary

We present an approach to the problem of structuring a therapeutic alliance with patients presenting paranoid symptoms, using both psychoanalytical and cognitive techniques. Initially, we focused on one of the main aspects of the paranoid worldview: the fear of being betrayed and the tendency to betray. This is a defense maneuver, through which patients deny their passivity, and the impotence in the relationship with their own internal needs and with the significant people in the external world, including the therapist. In our experience to build up a working relationship, both a psychoanalytical interpretation of unconscious conflicts and the cognitive analysis of dysfunctional beliefs are needed. Often, in more serious cases, the role of nonqualified object must be accepted at the beginning, due to the patient's need to be in control of the situation. Only then can a therapeutic phase begin, in most cases, through an integrated approach that includes pharmacological, psychodynamic, and cognitive modalities.     

Research misconduct—Have we reached the turning point at last?

The laissez-faire attitude towards dishonesty in research has simply created an environment for widespread escalation of the problem. Can we now believe anything we read? Why should we have confidence in an author because of his eminence? Should we automatically accept that clinical trials are always conducted with total integrity? Why have we been afraid to tackle this crisis head-on?     

Keeping Up with the Cloneses -- Issues in Human Cloning

The advent of cloning animals has created a maelstrom of social concern about the ethical issues associated with the possibility of cloning humans. When the ethical concerns are clearly examined, however, many of them turn out to be less matters of rational ethics than knee-jerk emotion, religious bias, or fear of that which is not understood. Three categories of real and spurious ethical concerns are presented and discussed: 1) that cloning is intrinsically wrong, 2) that cloning must lead to bad consequences, and 3) that cloning harms the organism generated. The need for a rational ethical framework for discussing biotechnological advances is presented and defended.     

认知方式与幼儿部分遮挡绘画关系的研究

本研究考察了５—６岁儿童不同认知方式对部分遮挡绘画任务的影响。实验设定不同形式的误导情境,共有两部分组成。研究结果表明：１．儿童绘画表征水平的发展存在个别差异。２．在误导情境下,场独立儿童比场依存儿童能保持较稳定的策略选择倾向。３．画两个相同物体的遮挡要难于画两个不同物体的遮挡。４．在符号概念编码和空间编码中间存在着一些过渡形态。     

Mother Knows Best? Mother and Child Report of Behavioral Difficulties of Children of HIV-Infected Mothers

Children of HIV-infected mothers have more psychosocial adjustment difficulties than do those of noninfected mothers. In this study, child psychosocial adjustment in children of HIV-infected women is examined across the three stages of HIV-infected: asymptomatic, symptomatic and AIDS. Participants were 99 HIV-infected women and 148 noninfected women. Children were not identified as being HIV infected. Mother and child reports of behavioral difficulties are compared, and competing hypotheses about mother report of child behavior difficulties are tested. Results indicate an ascending linear trend for child report of internalizing and externalizing difficulties from the noninfected stage through increasingly severe stages of HIV-infection. According to mother report, child externalizing and internalizing difficulties are nonlinear, as mothers report an increase through the infected symptomatic stage, then a decrease in the AIDS stage. Implications for assessment, prevention and intervention in families with maternal HIV infection are discussed.