A Defense of the Knowledge Argument

Philosophical Studies -     

“I’m NOT the Problem!” Externalizing Children’s “Problems” Using Play Therapy and Developmental Considerations

Many children are brought into therapy because parents view them as having a “problem.” Children will often internalize these negative perspectives from others and create an identity based upon these notions. This paper presents a novel way for marriage and family therapists to integrate narrative and play therapy techniques for children and their families. It provides a model that is organized according to Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stage theory to ensure that developmentally appropriate techniques are being utilized. During each stage, an example is provided for further clarification.     

How High Schools Become Empowering Communities: A Mixed‐Method Explanatory Inquiry into Youth‐Adult Partnership and School Engagement

Educational reform efforts emphasize empowerment and engagement, but these concepts are rarely translated into policy or classroom practice. This inquiry explores how schools can become places where students take ownership over their own learning. Phase 1 of this inquiry, a survey of students from diverse high schools, examines pathways to school engagement. Results indicated that youth voice in decision‐making, particularly when the experience is situated within supportive adult relationships and a sense of safety, significantly predicts emotional and cognitive engagement. Phase 2, a case study of an exemplary high school, sought to explain these pathways. Grounded in the theoretical perspectives of “empowered community settings” and “youth‐adult partnership,” analyses highlighted the importance of a shared belief system and core instructional activities that were student‐centered, affirmative, and strength‐based. Within this context, the opportunity role structure allowed students to exercise voice in creating their own educational program. The relational environment offered partnership and safety for academic risk‐taking. Teachers broke down traditional roles and power hierarchies in ways that helped students discover their own sources of engagement. The article identifies ways that community psychologists, as policy framers and as researchers, can help schools become places of empowerment and engagement.     

Stability in aggression revisited

Research on the stability of aggression tends to show patterns of continuity and to a lesser extent discontinuity. In this study, we provide a review of research published in four specific journals that target the stability of aggression across distinct periods of the life course. Findings from these studies identify considerable support for both instability and stability of aggression, but with some unique findings related to aggression among females as well as adult-onset aggression. The review closes with an original empirical analysis using longitudinal data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development linking teacher-rated aggression in childhood/adolescence to official conviction records in mid-adulthood, the findings of which suggest a strong degree of continuity in aggression/antisocial behavior among the most aggressive youths/chronic offenders. Conclusions and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Supporting Those Holding the Thin Blue Line: Using Solution-Focused Brief Therapy for Law Enforcement Families

Law enforcement officers have one of the most dangerous and demanding careers in the United States (Price in JAMA 35:113–123, 2017). Challenges such as shiftwork, hypervigilance, and anti-police rhetoric can lead to burnout and trauma responses (e.g. Neylan et al., in JAMA 27:1493–1508, 2010). These stressful trials do not only impact the officer, but also their spouses and families (e.g. Alexander & Walker in JAMA 10:131–138 1994; as reported by Bibbins (in:Resse (ed) Psychological Services for Law Enforcement, US Government Printing Office, 1986). Unfortunately, there are minimal suggestions for use of a systemic psychotherapy approach involving the entire family. This article discusses challenges officers and their families frequently face and proposes the use of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy for law enforcement families. This article also provides suggestions for altering interventions to increase sensitivity for families and an example dialogue.

     

A Threshold Task to Determine Help-Seeking for Deliberate Self-Injury: a Proof of Concept Study

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Those engaging in deliberate self-injury have low rates of help-seeking (HS) behaviour. There is a lack of a consolidated theory of HS and...     

Self‐Knowledge and Rational Agency: A Defense of Empiricism

How does one know one's own beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes? Many responses to this question are broadly empiricist, in that they take self‐knowledge to be epistemically based in empirical justification or warrant. Empiricism about self‐knowledge faces an influential objection: that it portrays us as mere observers of a passing cognitive show, and neglects the fact that believing and intending are things we do, for reasons. According to the competing, agentialist conception of self‐knowledge, our capacity for self‐knowledge derives from our rational agency—our ability to conform our attitudes to our reasons, and to commit ourselves to those attitudes through avowals (Burge 1996; Moran 2001; Bilgrami 2006; Boyle 2009). This paper has two goals. The first is exegetical: to identify agentialism's defining thesis and precisely formulate the agentialist challenge to empiricism. The second goal is to defend empiricism from the agentialist challenge. I propose a way to understand the role of agency in reasoning and avowals, one that does justice to what is distinctive about these phenomena yet is compatible with empiricism about self‐knowledge.