Introduction to Special Issue. Counselors Be Aware: Clients Come in Every Size,Shape, Color,and Sexual Orientation

In order to guarantee that each individual is free to pursue his/her potential, each member of AACD is charged to (a) engage in ongoing examination of his/her own attitudes, feelings, stereotypic views, perceptions and behaviors that might have prejudicial or limiting impact on women, ethnic, minorities, elderly persons, gay/lesbian persons and persons with handicapping conditions; (b) contribute to an increased sensitivity on the part of other individuals, groups or institutions to the barriers to opportunity imposed by discrimination; (c) advocate equal rights for all individuals through concerted personal, professional and political activity. (Position paper of the Human Rights Committee of the American Association for Counseling and Development, 1987, p.1)     

Rational Ignorance and Political Morality*

People frequently advance political proposals in the name of a goal while remaining apparently indifferent to the fact that those proposals, if implemented, would frustrate that goal. Theorists of “deliberative democracy” purport to avoid this difficulty by arguing that deliberation is primarily about moral not empirical issues. We reject this view (the moral turn) and propose a method (The Display Test) to check whether a political utterance is best explained by the rational ignorance hypothesis or by the moral turn: the speaker must be prepared to openly acknowledge the bad consequences of his political position. If he is, the position is genuinely moral; if he is not, the position evinces either rational ignorance or posturing. We introduce deontological notions to explain when the moral turn works and when it does not. We discuss and reject possible replies, in particular the view that a moral‐political stance insensitive to consequences relies on a distribution of moral responsibility in evildoing. Finally, we show that even the most plausible candidates for the category of purely moral political proposals are best explained by the rational ignorance/posturing hypothesis, if only because enforcing morality gives rise to complex causal issues.     

Family Ties and Child Placement

The fundamental premise of this paper is the primacy of the child's experience of biological-familial continuity in establishing his sense of self and personal significance. This paper examines the effects of current child placement practices on the child's ties to his biological, foster, and adoptive families. It explores alternative practices that would take into account biological-familial continuity.Comment is invited.     

Long‐term partners' relationship satisfaction and their perceptions of each other's attachment insecurities

In this research, we examined actors' and partners' perceptions of each other's attachment insecurities and the associations of these perceptions with relationship satisfaction. A sample of 148 heterosexual couples completed measures of self and partner attachment insecurities and relationship satisfaction. Results indicate that partners agree in their perceptions of their own and each other's attachment insecurities (anxiety and avoidance). Based on the actor–partner interdependence model (APIM), we also found that both actors' scores on avoidance and their perceptions of their partner's degree of avoidanc are associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Finally, we found that the way an actor perceives his or her partner's avoidance plays a mediational role in the association between partner's self‐reported avoidance and actor's relationship satisfaction.     

THOUGHT,LANGUAGE, AND THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPLICITNESS

Abstract: This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the “argument from explicitness”—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: (1) the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and (2) natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe they are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language.     

In Search of One's Past: An Identity Trip

The experience of being “cut off,” either emotionally or physically, from one's family of origin and extended families is an experience that at times confronts us all, be we the children of natural, adoptive, foster or divorced parents. The goal of this paper is to show that a person's identity is profoundly related to, and affected by, his sense of connection to his family of origin. This paper will take as its point of departure the author's story as a foster child and will describe his successful effort to get himself reconnected to his natural family. The story raises questions about the policies of foster-care agencies and, by implication, questions about adoptive agency policy. Finally, the paper may have something to say not only to family therapists and researchers but to all of us who wish to more fully “know” our parents and our extended families.