Resolving the Curious Paradox of the (A)Sexual Lesbian

SUMMARY

Lesbians' erotic lives have been bracketed by opposing sexual narratives. According to a variety of experts, sex between two women is an unnatural and unlikely event. Data from a number of other sources suggest that lesbian sex is both frequent and ecstatic. For many long term partners, these polarized narratives serve as filters, screening out a myriad of middle ground practices and scenarios. Because more subtle possibilities are invisible or discounted, couple's only alternative-after the passionate courtship phase of the relationship has ended-is lesbian bed death. In such cases, renewed erotic contact depends on the restoration of the erased sexual middle-ground. This paper focuses on the strategies clinicians can use to neutralize the hegemonic either/or lesbian sexual narratives and expand their client's erotic repertoires.     

Christian Life Emphasis in the Retirement Community: A Koinonia of Spiritual Awareness

ABSTRACT

Retirement Community living sponsored by groups of churches or related, in any direct sense, to a purpose that is called Christian, should, in very specific ways, demonstrate that faith in Christ is an integral part of resident life.

An organization, within the retirement community of Holly Hall in Houston, Texas, seeks to fulfill that requirement by a deliberate commitment to what is called Christian Life Emphasis. It involves a variety of bonding rituals and a ministry of resident to resident that enables spiritual awareness to permeate the continuum of care.     

Beyond the Biomedical Paradigm: Generating a Spiritual Vision of Ageing

SUMMARY

The time has come to enlarge our understanding of what an ageing older person truly is. What is called for is an approach to ageing and its multiple processes that moves beyond an empirical research model, which is limited to a positivistic focus on the bio-medical and social conditions of ageing. The spiritual dimension of the individual as well as the physical and social need to be acknowledged and valued in any definition of human existence. A segmental approach to the ageing process can only result on a reductionistic, one-dimensional caricature of the older person. There is an imperative need for the inclusion of the spiritual dimension in the study of ageing and its meaning. By issuing a call for a new wholistic paradigm that moves beyond the bio-medical model, and understanding the personhood is affirmed which includes a person's capacity to find meaning in life, indeed, even in ageing, suffering and dying.     

Editorial: Sex,Shit, Money and Marxism – The Continued Demise of the ‘Third Way’

Existential phenomena such as ‘thrownness’, ‘angst’, authenticity, being-with-others, co-constitutionality, being-in-time and death are linked to aspects of the transition to retirement such as ageing, choice paralysis, identity, persona use, continuity, nostalgia, conformity, friendships and the end of existence. The attempt to integrate these two different but overlapping perspectives upon experiencing the transition to retirement is intended to promote a broader perspective for those counsellors and psychotherapists with clients who have retired or are close to doing so.     

Religiosity and fear of death: a three‐nation comparison

Numerous studies have sought to determine if religiosity is correlated with fear of death. Findings have been anything but consistent, with reports of negative relationships, positive relationships, no relationship, and even curvilinear associations. To shed light on this still contentious issue, the present study was undertaken among college students in three countries – Malaysia, Turkey, and the United States. Overall, the patterns in all three countries were similar. When linearity was assumed, there is a substantial positive correlation between most religiosity measures and fear of death. Assuming curvilinearity added slightly to the strength of the relationships in the US data and nothing to data from Malaysia or Turkey. Other findings were that on average females were more religious and feared death more than did males, and Muslims expressed considerably greater fear than did members of any other major religion. Results were discussed in the context of a new theory – called death apprehension theory. Among other things, it specifically predicts that death apprehension will be positively related to most religious beliefs and practices.     

Love, drive and desire in the works of Freud, Lacan and Proust

Both Freud and Lacan have made love the object of scientific enquiry, which is in itself remarkable, since we usually turn this subject over to literary and philosophical treatment. This article discusses Freud and Lacan's contributions to the psychology of love through dialogue with Marcel Proust's seminal novel, Remembrance of Things Past, with special emphasis on the middle sections. The point of departure is love's manifestation in the analytical situation. Freud has described transference love as both resistance and as an extreme variant of normal falling in love, to which Lacan adds the deceptive character of transference. From transference love the investigation continues to the contradictions Freud has described in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality as love's affectionate and sensual currents. Lacan contributes the concept of desire, which must be distinguished from drive and love. The differentiation between desire, drive and love introduces the perspective necessary for a psychoanalytic reading of Proust's opus. The main objective is a reading of the protagonists, Albertine and the Baron de Charlus, as representatives of the vicissitudes of love and drive, respectively.     

Sex drive, attachment style, relationship status and previous infidelity as predictors of sex differences in romantic jealousy

Recent research examining sex differences in jealousy suggests that more men than women tend to be distressed by sexual infidelity, and that more women than men tend to be distressed by emotional infidelity. The primary explanation for these findings is that evolution has shaped men’s and women’s responses to enhance their chances of reproductive success. However, within-sex differences are also found in terms of relative level of distress at sexual or emotional infidelity. This study examined the effect of alternative variables, particularly those associated with attachment and sexual motivations, on both between- and within-sex differences in relative distress at sexual and emotional infidelity. A community sample of 437 adults provided data using a self-report questionnaire. The results showed that sex drive was a significant predictor of distress at jealousy for both men and women, while attachment avoidance and previously being the victim of a sexual infidelity were significant predictors for men only, and relationship status was a significant predictor for women only. Overall, these findings support the evolutionary model of jealousy, and suggest that sex-specific evolved psychological mechanisms underpinning jealousy are influenced by attachment and sexual motivations.     

浅析死刑认同的心理根源

我国民众普遍认同死刑,这种"死刑认同"具有三种心理情绪根源:死亡情结、社会情感以及正义报复感。死刑认同实质上是国民的一种个人情绪和社会情感的表达和要求。取消死刑是必然趋势,但必须具备相应的社会条件。     

Parental reactions to the loss of an infant child: A review

This article examines methodological problems, and describes and evaluates commonly explored variables regarding research on the effect of an infant's death on the family. The components of parents' and siblings' grief reactions, and the similarities and differences in parental grief are reviewed. The research shows marked differences between mothers' and fathers' reactions--the grief reactions in mothers being stronger and more prolonged. Different explanations for this are put forward. The effect of different types of loss as well as the effect of the child's life span before death are also reviewed and discussed. Further knowledge is needed to single out the influence of these factors' on the families' reactions. It is concluded that the death of an infant makes the family prone to develop short-term and/or long-term problems in their adaptation to the loss. An integrated effort by health professionals is needed to develop systematic ways of helping families to cope with the death of a child.     

NATURE AS THE IMAGE OF GOD: REFLECTIONS ON THE SIGNS OF THE SACRED

Abstract. This is a brief survey of aspects of the modern scientific view of nature to see if implied therein are signs or traces of the sacred–as early religious apprehension surely supposed. Nature's power and order are discussed as is the strange dialectic of death and life, evident in modern biology as it also is in all early religion.