The Use of Communication Technology in Private Practice: Ethical Implications and Boundary Dilemmas in Therapy

This study investigates the use of communication technology (CT) by therapists in private practice. CT has exploded in the last decade and therapists have begun to implement this technology in their work. It is important to understand better the types of technology therapists are using and how they decide which devices are most useful for clinical practice. Additionally, the availability of the therapist has long been debated and CT provides media to make therapists readily available. Results show that therapists have boundary concerns and ethical dilemmas regarding CT and often feel unprepared to handle inappropriate out-of-session contacts when they occur.     

儒学的一种缺弱:私德与公德

In a society dominated by Confucian ethics, a spirit of Confucian public morality can be seen in the Confucian debate over publicness and privateness, but it is usually activated in circumstances of large ethical crisis. Confucian theory mainly uses ethical relationships to create self and social identities, causing problems of identification in the public life and hindering the expression of moral feelings and actions, thus revealing a weakness in public morality. This is a space that Confucianism has not yet been able to cover, and also where it has room for growth. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Wen Shi Zhe 文史哲 (Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy), 2006, (1): 30–36     

Quand le genre s’en mêle : quelle conciliation entre vie professionnelle et vie privée ?

Declarations of conciliation between private life and professional life based on three factors (sex, gender and positions) are studied in this paper. Our goals were (i) to show that conciliation between the different life spheres need to be considered both in terms of conflict and of life enrichment; (ii) and to demonstrate that the gender variable has combined effects with sex variables, as well as with positions variables, over the perception of work in relation to family interferences in terms of nature (conflict/enrichment), intensity and direction (family over work versus work over family). The study, conducted with 240 employees of low or high professional positions, based on SWING and BSRI scales, shows the moderating effect of gender on the perceptions of conciliation, whether enriching or conflicting. Our results also allow us to conclude that congruent adjustment (masculine domination) of the levels of our three factors constitute a protecting factor for employees, while an incongruent adjustment can constitute a risk factor, this being especially verified for women.     

Book Review

This article is based on Ulkuniemi's key-note lecture in the Congress of Photo Therapy and Therapeutic Photography. The lecture dealt mainly with the history of family photography and the uses of family photographs in art education. Here Ulkuniemi has put her ideas in dialogue with some of the themes presented in the Special Issue (11.1) of European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling. Thus this article also serves as a commentary to some of the texts in this journal. The main approach of this article is to offer some hints about possibilities for using photographs in therapy by giving practical examples from the field of art education and art – Ulkuniemi's own visual-pedagogical installations. Another aim is to offer a general view of how a family photograph is constructed. Ulkuniemi will ‘break the frames’ by showing the various factors existing outside the frames that have influence on the outcome of the picture.     

Pre-operative transgender motivations for entering policing occupations

This article examines the motivations for American, English, and Welsh transgender motivations for entering policing. Historically and empirically, policing has been documented as a social environment where binary gendered ideologies are strictly enforced and upheld. Further, scant research on transgender perceptions of the police have highlighted fear of sexual assault, fear of arrest, heightened levels of police violence, and general uncomfortableness with interactions with the police. This article argues that instead of avoiding a perceived volatile binary gendered environment, pre-transition transgender identities seek out policing due to hyper masculine expectations of the job itself. I argue that MtF (male-to-female) and FtM (female-to-male) pre-transition transgender identities seek refuge within the hyper masculine environment of policing to ease internal conflicts as a result of gender dysphoria (i.e. pre-transition distress) prior to transition. In this study, 13 transgender police officers from America, England, and Wales were interviewed about their motivations for entering policing. This study found that a majority of male-to-female (MTF) and female-to-male (FTM) transgender identities chose to enter policing due to gender distress pre-transition. This research found that pre-transition people with MtF trasngender identies chose to enter policing to combat their gender dysphoria by proving their "masculinity," and people with FtM transgender identities enter policing to foster and embrace their “masculinity.”     

Food,faith, social service and institution building: the Annamrita programme of the Hare Krishna movement in India

Based on fieldwork with the Annamrita programme, a food-based social service of ISKCON or the Hare Krishna movement in India, I look at the intricate connection between food, faith, social service and institution building. Formally known as the ISKCON Food Relief Foundation, the Annamrita programme has partnered with the government’s midday meal scheme for school children. From the point of view of sociology of food and sociology of religion, I propose that food is a cultural, moral and emotional investment for ISKCON. I describe how a faith-based social service through the instrument of food becomes a mode of bridging and institution building. The governmentality of this food service and the sacred public–private partnership is a specific kind of cultural and macroeconomic intervention in a resource-limited setting such as India. Camouflaged and embedded in this programme is an element of cultural hegemony and a Krishna consciousness-governed nationalism, with the ideas of the nation as a sacred land. Krishna is considered as the vanguard of sacralisation and the faith messages of ISKCON inevitably accompany the service package.     

Impact of retailer image on private brand attitude: Halo effect and summary construct

The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of retailer image on consumers' attitude towards private brand. More specifically, we evaluate two alternative perspectives of retailer image—the halo effect and the summary construct—and include a moderator variable, consumer familiarity with a retailer's private label products, to discern which of the two models has better explanatory power. The findings indicate that there are moderating effects of consumer familiarity with a retailer's private brands and product categories in determining the efficacy of each model. In private brand foods, high familiarity is related to the summary construct model, and low familiarity is associated with the halo effect model. In private brand clothing, however, low familiarity is related to the halo effect model, but high familiarity is associated with both the halo effect and the summary construct model. Managerial and future research implications are also provided.     

The 'secret cocoon': fantasies about the private self in the absence of consensual reality

Clinical material is presented from an analysand whose defense of withdrawal to 'a private internal space' was mobilized when she became confused, within her relationships and within the transference, about whose understanding of a shared event was 'real.' Analysis of the defense as resistance revealed a disrupted sense of connection to others and to the analyst in the face of the difficulty in determining a consensual reality. This was accompanied by emotional withdrawal, with a complex fantasy of retreat to a protective inner hiding place, or cocoon. The phenomenology and functions of such withdrawals, the fantasies accompanying them, and the ways in which they changed during the analysis are discussed in this paper. For the patient described, the analysis of her shifting 'cocoon' states and of the fantasies connected with them eventually enabled her to access her creative 'private self' more freely and with less conflict.     

The Australian Psychology Workforce 3: A national profile of psychologists in salaried employment or in independent private practice

A detailed analysis of the different sectors of the psychology workforce was conducted as part of the National Psychology Workforce Survey: Independent Private Practice (IPP), Employed in Public Sector (EPuS) and Employed in Private Sector (EPrS). A total of 11,897 psychologists responded to the workforce survey, a response rate of 48%. Of these 8,086 were fully registered and currently working in a psychology role. Sectors were compared on a range of practice characteristics and differences were explored using a series of ANOVAs and post‐hoc analyses. Results of analyses revealed qualitative differences between the three sectors. Strategies for maintaining the employed workforce were also collected and are reported to be as much about increasing work satisfaction and support for professional and development opportunities as about salary.