Language,politics and dreams: the challenges of building resilience in refugees

This paper describes a case study of a 60-year-old Peruvian refugee in some detail, focusing on the importance of building emotional resilience in a patient in Spanish in order to create a space for learning the English language – the patient did not speak English after 20 years of living in Britain. The work was carried out with an interpreter and some of the literature on working with interpreters is referred to. The paper also briefly outlines the refugee journey in broad terms, which is a journey from the culturally known to the culturally unknown. The question of how well the literature on resilience, which sits firmly within a Western developmental perspective, can be applied to refugees, most of whom come from group and family-based cultures dominated by ideas of honour and shame, is discussed. The paper also touches on the importance of the receiving country enabling or not, as the case may be, a transitional space for refugees who have lost their home and are seeking to find a safe haven in a strange culture.     

On the relationship between the sense of self and the structure of dreams examined through questionnaire research for Japanese university students

In this paper, the author attempts to show some structural changes in the adolescent mind in modern Japan through examination of our quantitative research of the dreams of university students. Two questionnaires, Scale of Anthropophobia Mentality and Scale of Sense of Self, were administered while asking students about the contents of their ‘impressive dreams’ in childhood as well as their recent dreams. By paying attention to the relationship between the sense of self of dream-ego and the structure of dreams, the author demonstrates the subjects’ difficulty, or inability, to ‘have’ anxiety and thereby become active enough both on the surface of their consciousness and in the depth of their unconscious to effect change in their situation. The author concludes with a suggestion regarding the necessity of a cross-cultural study in this field and adds some points of comparison between German and Japanese dreams reported in psychotherapies.     

Infant illness severity and family adjustment in the aftermath of NICU hospitalization

Up to 15% of parents have an infant who will spend time in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). After discharge, parents may care for a medically fragile infant and worry about their development. The current study examined how infant illness severity is associated with family adjustment. Participants included parents with infants who had been discharged from the NICU 6 months to 3 years prior to study participation (N = 199). Via a Qualtrics online survey, parents reported their infants’ medical history, parenting stress, family burden, couple functioning, and access to resources. Multivariable regression analyses revealed that more severe infant medical issues during hospitalization (e.g., longer length of stay and more medical devices) were associated with greater family burden, but not stress or couple functioning. Infant health issues following hospitalization (i.e., medical diagnosis and more medical specialists) were associated with greater stress, poorer couple functioning, and greater family burden. Less time for parents was associated with increased stress and poorer couple functioning. Surprisingly, parents of infants who were rehospitalized reported less stress and better couple functioning, but greater family burden. Family-focused interventions that incorporate psychoeducation about provider−patient communication, partner support, and self-care may be effective to prevent negative psychosocial sequelae among families.     

Male callers to an Australian perinatal depression and anxiety help line—Understanding issues and concerns

There is increasing recognition of the issues facing men in the perinatal period. Vulnerability factors and issues in the partner relationship contribute to mental health risk and can impact the quality of the father–infant relationship. Yet, there is limited understanding of fathers’ help-seeking when they or their partner are experiencing mental health issues in the context of caring for a new baby. The present study examines fathers’ contacts with the Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA) National Helpline. The study reviewed contacts from fathers and their identified needs for assistance, relationship issues, and support needs; 70% of male callers (N = 129) reported concerns about the mother's mental health, and 57% were concerned about relationship breakdown. Significant numbers of men raised issues about their own mental health (43%) and many were concerned about the impact of maternal mental state on the relationship with the infant. When compared to community data, there were elevated rates of concerns about depression and anxiety. Men also described difficulties with the fathering role and with regulating their own feelings of guilt and frustration. These findings highlight the needs of men for support when a mother experiences perinatal problems and also the risk for distress in fathers.     

Les pratiques d’evaluation utilisees dans les structures de conseil en recrutement : quelques determinants

Referring to the work of Bruchon-Schweitzer & Ferrieux (1991) and Balicco (1999), the present study describes the recruitment practices of different types of organizations (N=327, 134 consulting companies and 193 temporary placement firms). We hypothesised that job position and recruiter characteristics (sex, age, level and type of education, status, and recruitment experience) would influence the use of selection techniques. Results revealed that choice of selection techniques is not based on a scientific evaluation of applicants. Job position seems to strongly determine use of personality assessment techniques. Further, recruiter characteristics only seem to determine choice of less valid techniques. In the discussion, a theoretical model of choices made by recruiters and some courses of action are proposed.     

Pour une approche contextuelle et clinique de la demande de recrutement : la transformation d’une demande initiale dans une entreprise familiale

Studies of psychology in the work place usually analyse job offers from an explicit and functional point of view, forgetting the more implicit and strategic dimensions associated with them. This activity of recruitment takes into account the understanding of the specific context of the job offer and of the structure of the organisation which is looking to recruit. The clinical case study described here takes into consideration these contextual elements of very small company and proposes recruitment methods which include a third party, emphasising the particular role of psychologists or consultancies as recruitment advisers.     

Le rattachement lexical de la liaison : une expérience d’amorçage chez des enfants prélecteurs

The goal of the present study is a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in child segmentation of words in liaison context, where the boundary between a word1 and a word2 is ambiguous. In a priming experiment in prereaders aged 5–6 years, we examined the nature of the lexical representations, using a picture-naming task (deux ours). Targets were preceded by lexically related or unrelated auditory primes, that share the same liaison consonant or not (trois ours, un ours, trois oublis, un oubli). The results suggest that the liaison consonant is lexically encoded at the initial of variants of the word2 (/nurs/, /zurs/ for ours). They support the usage-based model of liaison acquisition [J Child Lang 36 (2009) 557–596].     

Democracy,Equality and Toleration

In this paper I comment on a recent “letter” by Burleigh Wilkins addressed to nascent egalitarian democracies which offers advice on the achievement of religious toleration. I argue that while Wilkins’ advice is sound as far as it goes, it is nevertheless underdeveloped insofar as his letter fails to distinguish two competing conceptions of toleration – liberal-pluralist and republican-secularist – both of which are consistent with the advice he offers, but each of which yields very different policy recommendations (as can be seen by consideration of The United States v. Lee in America and, I’affaire du foulard in France). I argue that a democratic society of equals must be committed to liberal-pluralist rather than republican-secularist toleration. Some material in this paper is drawn from Catriona McKinnon, Toleration: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge, 2006). This paper was written during a Fellowship on the Philosophy Program, School of Advanced Study, University of London. I am grateful to the University of York for a sabbatical term, and the Leverhulme Trust for a Study Abroad Fellowship, during which this paper was written. I would like to thank John Horton and Cécile Laborde for very useful written comments, and two anonymous referees for The Journal of Ethics for their reports.     

Les effets de la modalité sensorielle sur la perception du temps

The subjective duration of an event can be influenced by the modality of the signal demarcating that event. For example, auditory signals are often judged as of longer duration than equivalent duration visual signals. Within the framework of pacemaker-accumulator models of timing, such modality effects raise the question of whether the internal clock is modality specific or amodal. The answer to this question is quite important for the development of cognitively and neurologically realistic models of timing and time perception. Here, we argue that the internal clock has both modality specific and amodal components. Specifically, we claim there is a common amodal pacemaker, but the switch-accumulator systems are modality specific. Moreover, we also posit that long-term memory representations of duration are stored amodally.     

La mémoire à long terme des durées : fonctionnement et développement

Estimating the duration of an event often requires that we reference our own knowledge about the duration of similar events stored in long-term memory. The ability to preserve these durations in long-term memory therefore seems to serve an important function in time estimation. However, relatively few studies on this topic appear in the psychology literature. In the present article, we describe how time estimation models have treated long-term memory, and discuss relevant empirical data obtained from adults. Then, we present the results of recent experiments that examine 3- to 8-year-old children’s ability to maintain durations in memory, depending on the kind of previous experience the children have had with these durations.