Prospective Elementary Teachers Learning to Reason Flexibly with Sums and Differences: Number Sense Development Viewed Through the Lens of Collective Activity

I present a viable learning trajectory for prospective elementary teachers’ number sense development with a focus on whole-number place value, addition, and subtraction. I document a chronology of classroom mathematical practices in a Number and Operations course. The findings provide insights into prospective elementary teachers’ number sense development. These include the role of standard algorithms and their relationship to the evolution of classroom mathematical practices that involve reasoning flexibly about number composition, sums, and differences.     

Positive psychotherapy: A strength-based approach

Positive psychotherapy (PPT) is a therapeutic approach broadly based on the principles of positive psychology. Rooted in Chris Peterson’s groundbreaking work on character strengths, PPT integrates symptoms with strengths, resources with risks, weaknesses with values, and hopes with regrets in order to understand the inherent complexities of human experiences in a way that is more balanced than the traditional deficit-oriented approach to psychotherapy. This paper makes the case of an alternative approach to psychotherapy that pays equal attention and effort to negatives and positives. It discusses PPT’s assumptions and describes in detail how PPT exercises work in clinical settings. The paper summarizes results of pilot studies using this approach, discusses caveats in conducting PPT, and suggests potential directions.     

Experience of Parental Marital Dissolution Earlier in Life and the Disposition to Forgive Among Older Violent and Non-Violent Prisoners

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in self-reported dispositional forgiveness types among older male prison inmates who experienced parental separation/divorce earlier in life. Participants included a sample of N = 261 incarcerated men, aged 45 and older, residing in state-managed prisons in Oklahoma. IBM/SPSS 22.0 was used to examine mean differences across forgiveness of self, situation, and others. Significant mean differences were evident only for forgiveness of situation. In particular, significant differences emerged relative to depressive affect F (1, 192) = 19.90, p < .001, and social support F (1, 192) = 18.64, p < .001. After controlling for age, race, religiosity, depression, social support, perceived health, crime type, and parental separation/divorce, one significant interaction (crime type X parental separation/divorce) emerged, F (1, 192) = 4.42, p < .05. It appears that the disposition to forgive the situation among older prison inmates depends on criminal offender type as well as whether the older inmate experienced parental dissolution earlier in life. Implications for pastoral counseling programing and forgiveness therapy treatment for older male prison inmates who experienced parental separation/divorce earlier in life are discussed.     

Expressions of vernacular psychoanalysis

The present paper examines the clinical integration of theory and experience from the perspective of clinicians’ subjective shaping of inquiry. The author suggests that the historical, conceptual development of clinical psychoanalysis parallels the progressive articulations of consensual understanding within the clinical hour. He suggests that the clinician's utilization of vernacular elements, derivative of direct experience as well as of reference to the wider range of psychoanalytic thinking, addresses gaps and disconnections within the abstract understanding of the clinical psychoanalytic process. Providing examples from psychoanalytic history, he concludes with a contemporary example of psychoanalytic papers, reflecting vernacular elements that are of use to practicing clinicians.     

Iranian Psychotherapists’ Behaviors and Beliefs Toward Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The aim of this study is to investigate Iranian psychotherapists’ behaviors and beliefs toward sexual orientation and gender identity. The sample consisted of 358 Iranian psychotherapists, of whom 29.3% (n = 105) were male and 67% (n = 24) were female. Results from the chi-square analyses showed that more male participants reported accepting homosexual clients and treating them as having a pathological disorder than their female counterparts; and licensed respondents reported engaging more in accepting only male or female clients, accepting more homosexual and transgender clients for treatment, and treating them as having a pathological disorder when compared with their unlicensed counterparts. Furthermore supervised respondents reported accepting more homosexual clients than their unsupervised counterparts. However results from the multivariate analysis of variance has indicated that the female participants reported “accepting homosexuals or transgender clients for treatment” more often than the male participants; unsupervised participants reported “accepting homosexual or transgender clients for treatment” and “treating homosexuality per se as a pathological disorder” more often than their supervised counterparts.     

Ethics in Supervision: Consideration of the Supervisory Alliance and Countertransference Management of Psychology Doctoral Students

Clinical supervision provides the foundation for cultivating ethical practice and professionalism for mental health trainees. Exploration and management of a supervisee’s personal reactivity or countertransference (CT) is a critical component of supervision and has clear ethical implications for clinical management and the development of clinical competence. This article discusses supervision practice and presents the results of a study that investigated the influence of supervisor–supervisee relationship on clinical and counseling doctoral students’ CT disclosures. Respondents completed the Working Alliance Inventory–Supervisee form and the Personal Reaction Disclosure Questionnaire, which assessed respondents’ comfort and likelihood of reporting CT reactions to hypothetical clinical interactions. Results of this analogue study demonstrated positive associations between supervisory alliance and reported comfort and likelihood of CT disclosures, highlighting the importance of the alliance and drawing attention to supervisors their responsibility to particularly attend to the bond dimension of the relationship.     

The Community Psychologist as Critical Friend: Promoting Critical Community Praxis

Community‐engaged researchers have a responsibility to community partners to get beyond the traditional researcher stance to take on the active role of critical friend. On the basis of my own community research experiences in the USA, in this article, I argue that there is added value in taking on the practice of critical friendship to encourage a higher degree of critical reflection and critical practice in our partners and in our work together. In the context of long‐term, trusting relationships with community partners, researchers can play the role of critical friend working together to shape critical community praxis on the basis of critical theorizing, critical reflection, and a shared commitment to working for social justice. Those trying to make a difference in communities are often isolated and can benefit from opportunities for dialogue with other community practitioners within a critical frame of reference. Although not without risks and challenges, stepping into this role allows us to put into sharper relief the gap between community practice that challenges injustice and practice that maintains it. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How similar are the changes in neural activity resulting from mindfulness practice in contrast to spiritual practice?

Meditation and spiritual practices are conceptually similar, eliciting similar subjective experiences, and both appear to provide similar benefits to the practicing individuals. However, no research has examined whether the mechanism of action leading to the beneficial effects is similar in both practices. This review examines the neuroimaging research that has focused on groups of meditating individuals, groups who engage in religious/spiritual practices, and research that has examined groups who perform both practices together, in an attempt to assess whether this may be the case. Differences in the balance of activity between the parietal and prefrontal cortical activation were found between the three groups. A relative prefrontal increase was reflective of mindfulness, which related to decreased anxiety and improved well-being. A relative decrease in activation of the parietal cortex, specifically the inferior parietal cortex, appears to be reflective of spiritual belief, whether within the context of meditation or not. Because mindful and spiritual practices differ in focus regarding the ‘self’ or ‘other’ (higher being), these observations about neurological components that reflect spirituality may continue work towards understanding how the definition of ‘self’ and ‘other’ is represented in the brain, and how this may be reflected in behaviour. Future research can begin to use cohorts of participants in mindfulness studies which are controlled for using the variable of spirituality to explicitly examine how functional and structural similarities and differences may arise.