Robert Burns in the counsellor's chair: A socio-cultural analysis of the Burns myth

To illustrate how difficult endings are, this paper first cites an Italian therapist's experience of the use of time with university students in Naples and then associates to contrasting examples in the novel, art, music and the cinema. It uses a dialogue about ending in the film Brief Encounter as a possible paradigm for what is needed in brief therapy. It then refers to the work of James Mann on different experiences of time which underlie the resistance to brief work. How can brief therapy contain the paradox between finite and infinite time? Incorporating another model of therapeutic intervention with the use of Milton Erickson's attitude to time and the unconscious, the paper then moves on to a clinical example, where treatment consisted of an assessment and five sessions. Here the practice of not interpreting the transference is challenged, along with an exploration of the concept of transference to the organization and the use of pre-treatment ‘maternal reverie’ associations. Using the combination of informal trance-like states with a clear focus on the ‘here and now’, the process of the therapeutic relationship is then worked with in the case material.     

Instituting heteronormative belief in the law: the case of California's Proposition 22

This paper is based on ethnography of the ‘worship time’ at ‘Breakfree’ Church, a Pentecostal congregation in suburban Perth. I begin by exploring the ritualistic ways in which music is used to catalyse an ecstatic experience. Making use of the metaphor of ‘break free’, borrowed from a popular worship song, I demonstrate that music is used in deliberate ways to assist people in leaving behind the profane and encountering the sacred. Drawing on the thought of theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, I explore the ways music facilitates and symbolises this experience. I demonstrate that for church members, the ecstatic divine-human encounter is the centre of their church worship and the antidote to difficult experiences such as grief or illness.     

The Developmental Origin of Metacognition

We explain metacognition as a management of cognitive resources that does not necessitate algorithmic strategies or metarepresentation. When pragmatic, world‐directed actions cannot reduce the distance to the goal, agents engage in epistemic action directed at cognition. Such actions often are physical and involve other people, and so are open to observation. Taking a dynamic systems approach to development, we suggest that implicit and perceptual metacognition emerges from dyadic reciprocal interaction. Early intersubjectivity allows infants to internalize and construct rudimentary strategies for monitoring and control of their own and others' cognitions by emotion and attention. The functions of initiating, maintaining, and achieving turns make proto‐conversation a productive platform for developing metacognition. It enables caregiver and infant to create shared routines for epistemic actions that permit training of metacognitive skills. The adult is of double epistemic use to the infant—as a teacher that comments on and corrects the infant's efforts, and as the infant's cognitive resource in its own right. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accidental Communities: Race,Emergency Medicine,and the Problem of PolyHeme®

This article focuses on emergency medical care in black urban populations, suggesting that the classification of a “community” within clinical trial language is problematic. The article references a cultural history of black Americans with pre-hospital emergency medical treatment as relevant to contemporary emergency medicine paradigms. Part I explores a relationship between “autonomy” and “community.” The idea of community emerges as a displacement for the ethical principle of autonomy precisely at the moment that institutionalized medicine focuses on diversity. Part II examines a clinical trial for the blood substitute PolyHeme^® (Northfield Laboratories, Inc., Evanston, IL). It illustrates the ways in which bias in research paradigms and Institutional Review Board decisions attach to the notion and utility of the language of “community.” The conclusion's contemporary anecdote makes apparent the vitality of the issues of prehospital emergency medical care and the ways in which decisions and practices fall too easily into a narrative of culturally biased treatment.     

Toward a Reconstruction of Medical Morality

At the center of medical morality is the healing relationship. It is defined by three phenomena: the fact of illness, the act of profession, and the act of medicine. The first puts the patient in a vulnerable and dependent position; it results in an unequal relationship. The second implies a promise to help. The third involves those actions that will lead to a medically competent healing decision. But it must also be good for the patient in the fullest possible sense. The physician cannot fully heal without giving the patient an understanding of alternatives such that he or she can freely arrive—together with the physician—at a decision in keeping with his or her personal morality and values. In today's pluralistic society, universal agreement on moral issues between physicians and patients is no longer possible. Nevertheless, a reconstruction of professional ethics based on a new appreciation of what makes for a true healing relationship between patient and physician is both possible and necessary.     

Multicultural Issues in Evidence-Based Interventions

SUMMARY

School psychologists involved in the delivery of psychological and educational interventions face the challenge of identifying interventions that will work within their schools. The evidence-based intervention (EBI) approach has received attention as a promising way to identify effective interventions. The national Task Force on Evidence Based Interventions in School Psychology (sponsored by the American Psychological Association Division 16 and the Society for the Study of School Psychology, and endorsed by the National Association of School Psychologists) has developed coding criteria to review, evaluate, and identify efficacious interventions. This paper expands the work of the Multicultural and Diversity Committee of the EBI Task Force and offers direction for school psychologists in selecting and implementing interventions appropriate for their settings. We explore the meaning of EBIs in the context of a diverse world and discuss the cultural considerations that are necessary to responsibly adopt an EBI perspective. The paper is organized into three sections where we (a) examine EBIs from a multicultural perspective, (b) describe recent advances in infusing a multicultural perspective into EBI work and the Procedural and Coding Manual for Review of EBIs, and (c) offer a set of guidelines for making decisions about implementing an EBI in a new setting.     

The Microcomputer as Perceptual Tool:

The microcomputer as a medium of instruction is not inherently better or worse than any other medium be it lecture, television, print or practical experience. However, the microcomputer can simultaneously present instruction and collect data on student performance. In order for educators to evaluate the success of instruction presented by computer they must use the microcomputer as a perceptual tool to more sensitively monitor and modify the educational process. Thoughtful consideration of monitoring data by special educators promises to make the microcomputer a revolutionary aspect of school instruction. Such an educational revolution can extend to the delivery of special services provided that the time and ancillary supports needed to utilize performance are made available to school personnel.     

Social skills and sex‐role functioning in borderline personality disorder: relationship to self‐mutilating behavior

This study compared the social skills functioning and sex role affiliation of female inpatients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder who engaged in self‐mutilating behavior (n?=?30) with female patients with borderline personality disorder who did not engage in such behavior (n?=?18). Patients with borderline personality disorder who engaged in self‐mutilating behavior were found to have relatively poorer skills in communicating non‐verbal emotional information to others and in receiving and interpreting such information from others. In terms of sex role orientation, patients who engaged in self‐mutilating behavior were significantly more likely than non‐mutilators to be typed as undifferentiated using the Bem Sex Role Inventory. These participants were less likely to identify with either masculine or feminine sex roles. Patients who did not self‐mutilate were found to be significantly more likely than those who did self‐mutilate to identify with the masculine sex role.     

孤独症群体的孤岛能力

孤岛能力是个体在一般能力普遍落后的情况下某一个或几个领域表现出来的与其整体能力极不匹配的超常能力。令人惊讶的是,人类近一半的孤岛能力产自于孤独症谱系障碍。本文系统回顾了孤独症孤岛能力的特征、传统的各种心理学解释和当前最有力的认知神经科学发现:脑病理性优势假说和孤独症特质假说。在此基础上,本文认为脑优势中心的转移和混乱的大脑连接可能是孤岛能力产生的前提,而特定技能的遗传和后天的反复练习则是孤岛能力得以强化和巩固的重要因素。