Black client,white therapist: Working with race in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in South Africa

In post‐apartheid South Africa we speak about race extensively. It permeates our workplace, weaves a thread through the fabric of our professional and personal lives, as well as our private conversations and public interactions with others. From within psychoanalytic theory, the thread weaves through the unknown content of our racialized unconscious. When there is a focus on race in the South African psychoanalytic context it largely takes the form of the struggle to articulate the complexities of working with difference, as Swartz notes, or the struggle to map out issues of race. Such struggles are not localized in South Africa, but strongly reflect a much broader struggle within the global psychoanalytic community, as mirrored in the expanding focus on race. Although the consulting rooms seem far removed from the ongoing political tensions that have recently emerged in South Africa, psychoanalytic psychotherapy remains a space of meaningful engagement with the other, and where the therapeutic dyad is one of racial difference it permits an encounter with our racialized unconscious. This article seeks to document the experience of my black client and my white response to her racial pain and struggle; in doing so, I describe the racial ‘contact’ between us and within us that triggers a racialized transference and countertransference dynamic, which contains the space for racial healing for both of us.     

Identification du harcèlement sexuel et légitimité des futurs managers à intervenir : Effets du genre et des informations délivrées

Sexual harassment (S.H) is an offense having a significant impact on the victims. On the basis of researches on prosociality and social control, we conducted an experimental study including 136 future manager students exploring the effect of provided information and evaluator’s gender on S.H identification scenarios. We also checked the legitimacy and motivation of subjects to intervene with the protagonists. Compared to the control, the specific information significantly reduces the number of scenarios unrecognized as S.H. There is no gender difference on both S.H identification scenarios and legitimacy to intervene with the protagonists. However the men express more anger and social control motivations of harassers. Their legitimacy to intervene with harassers is higher than the women one. The results are discussed in order to provide recommendations for SH prevention plan.     

Letters, Notes, & Comments

Comment by Aaron L. Mackler on 'Through Her I Too Shall Bear a Child': Birth Surrogates in Jewish Law by Elie Spitz
Reply by Elie Kaplan Spitz
Research Note by G. Scott Davis     

Eschewing Community: Black Metal

There is a great deal of literature that examines community orientations, in particular consumption‐based subcultures rooted in the appreciation of music scenes such as heavy metal and its subgenres. Much of this literature focuses on aspects of community maintenance, reaffirmation of shared identities and building of social bonds. In the present article, we report a study in which consumption of, and fandom in a specific scene in extreme metal, namely black metal, may lead to very unique consumer cultural orientations. Our analyses reveal that black metal fans' identities reside in a realm outside of a desired collective identification and tightly knit community, but rather one that uses signification, or representational means to convey meaning and belonging, as a way to signal repugnance with society and a reverence of individuality. The study engages a mixed qualitative approach utilizing interviews, observational research and content analysis to demonstrate how self‐identity related to the black metal music scene can thrive through an ideological and semiotic rejection of traditional community orientations seen in the majority of other extreme metal music scenes. This paper challenges traditional conceptualizations of group identity in music scenes by closely examining aspects of signification and fandom in black metal that represent a unique system of shared identities devoid of community building. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Black Women's Body Image: An Analysis of Culture-Specific Influences

A review of the literature on racial differences in body image in Black and White women indicates body image dissatisfaction is more common in White females than Black females. However, Black women are not protected from body image issues. Research on body image concerns specifically related to Black women is limited. The present study involves focus group and individual interviews conducted with 16 Black women. Data were analyzed using qualitative methodology. Results indicate 6 major themes, with shapely and curvaceous ideal body image standards within the Black community as the most prevalent theme across data sources. Therapeutic implications emphasize recognition of culture-specific ideal standards of beauty, as well as the influence of external factors such as men, family, peers, and media on Black women's self-evaluations.     

中国组织情境下企业管理者责任领导力维度结构

企业管理者责任领导力,作为一个刚刚兴起的研究话题,在西方已经引起广泛关注。本研究首次着眼于中国组织情境,对企业管理者责任领导力的维度结构进行了实证研究。通过两次问卷调查分别获得166个、233个有效样本,进行探索性因素与验证性因素分析,构建了包括诚信道德、社会责任意识、战略思维、沟通开放性、人性化关怀和卓越导向等六个维度的责任领导力六维结构模型,并验证了该结构模型的合理性与优越性。本研究进一步探究了企业管理者责任领导力的深刻内涵,继承与发展了中国传统领导理论,为我国责任领导力的研究开创了一个良好的开端。     

Black churches and HIV/AIDS: factors influencing congregations’ responsiveness to social issues

The ambivalent response of many black churches to current social issues has caused some scholars to question the centrality of black churches within African-American communities. Using a nationally representative sample of black congregations, this study engages the debate about the institutional centrality of black churches by focusing on their response to HIV/AIDS. Although many congregational studies treat black churches as a monolithic whole, this analysis identifies heterogeneity among black churches that shapes their responsiveness to social issues. Contrary to prior claims, a congregation's liberal-conservative ideological orientation does not significantly affect its likelihood of having an HIV/AIDS program. Beyond assessing churches’ internal characteristics, this study uses institutional theory to analyze churches as open systems that can be influenced by their surrounding environment. It demonstrates that externally engaged congregations are significantly more likely to have a program. These results indicate that black churches maintain institutional centrality by engaging their external environment.     

Morning Passages from Home to Work Among Managers in Israel: Intergender Differences

This paper presents a study on morning passages from home to work. The sample consisted of 226 Israeli parents working in managerial positions (136 men and 90 women). Eighty percent of the participants were Israeli-born, and the rest immigrated to Israel at a young age. In the study, I examined gender differences in emphasis on domestic and work activities at 3 main transitional stages in the morning: home transitions (30 min before leaving for work), on the way to work, and at work (the first 30 min after arrival at work). The findings indicate that in the home-transition women focused more on domestic tasks than on work tasks, whereas men showed the opposite tendency. On the way to work, women tended to intensify their involvement in work activities, but remained strongly concerned with domestic activities. Men, however, focused primarily on work tasks during this transition. In the work transition, both men and women were more concerned with work tasks than domestic tasks. Therefore, even though men and women focused on different tasks in the initial transition, by the time they arrived at the workplace, they were immersed to the same extent in work activities. Furthermore, the participants' age, children's ages, and years of marriage correlated negatively with emphasis on domestic tasks during the home transition regardless of gender.     

职业经理人问题的中国式解决——以富大集团为例

因公司管理权交付经理阶层而导致的管理经济的发展,提出了如何使管理层忠于公司利益的问题即“职业经理人问题”。这是西方也是中国公众公司都面临的难题。这问题是否能解决如何解决,也是我国民营企业极为关心的问题。上海富大集团公司在这方面做了令人感兴趣的尝试,他们立足中国国情和公司实践,创始了一种基于“好人文化”之上的选拔和培养经理人的办法,并尝试建立一种“新型的公私合营企业”,来解决管理层的铁心负责和忠诚问题。目前这一探索还在进行中,但它对上述世界性难题的研究和解决,具有值得重视的理论意义和现实意义。     

中西医结合的现状与思考

根据中西医结合的现状,分析中、西医学的可结合性;从中西医学的“共通”点,根据临床结合已取得较好成果的客观事实,从能结合宏观与微观的“黑箱方法”这一角度,通过分析人健康状态时的输入变量、输出变量和疾病状态时的输入变量、输出变量之间的关系,浅析中西医结合切入点,并提及未来医学发展的整体性方向。