What Can the Systems Community Contribute to Ensure the Survival of Civilization

Much of what we need to plan for our survival is already known, but what we know, how we know, and who knows is divided up between disciplines. Thus much of the problem of ensuring our survival is a matter of learning across the disciplines. We identify four modes through which we bring disciplinary knowledge together: the unity of science, integrated assessment, heuristic models, and distributed learning networks. Although none of them are perfect, we can learn how to put our knowledge together across the disciplines much better than we do.     

Commentary: Writing About Clients: Ethical and Professional Issues in Clinical Case Reports

From the standpoint of a former journal editor and long‐time professional, this commentary challenges the direction of the profession as demonstrated in this special section. The ongoing creation of more and more ethical constraints not only harms the profession but also loses sight of fundamental ethical principles.     

Introspection and perception

Sydney Shoemaker argues that introspection, unlike perception, provides no identification information about the self, and that knowledge of one's mental states should be conceived as arising in a direct and unmediated fashion from one's being in those states. I argue that while one does not identify aself as the subject of one's states, one does frequently identify and misidentify thestates, in ways analogous to the identification of objects in perception, and that in discourse about one's mental states the self plays the role of external reality in discourse about physical objects. Discourse about any sort of entity or property can be viewed as involving a domain or frame of reference which constrains what can be said about the entities; this view is related to Johnson-Laird's theory of mental models. On my approach evidence, including sensory evidence, may be involved in decisions about one's mental states. I conclude that while Shoemaker may well be right about different roles for sense impressions in introspection and perception, the exact differences and their significance remain to be established.     

Career Indecision: A Summary of the Research and Implications for Counselling

The vocationally-indecisive individual presents a major counselling problem. The theory and research behind career indecision is discussed and a counselling approach based on identity formation is outlined. Four identity statuses — Identity Achievements, Foreclosures, Identity Diffusions, and Moratoriums — are described and counselling approaches for each are explored.     

Men and women in the clergy: Stresses,strains, and resources

This essay reports a program of research as the occupational and personal stress experienced by contemporary American clergy. Three studies are reported. In the first survey a group of largely Roman Catholic religious reported less stress than the general population. In a replication of this investigation on over 510 Protestant clergy this impression of less experienced stress and greater personal resources was confirmed. In the most recent study of clergy in Southern California, a mixed picture was observed. Although the impression of less overall stress was confirmed, great differences in layclery role expectations were observed.He is the coauthorof Clergy Malpractice: How to Care Carefully (Westminster Press, 1986) and is engaged in a variety of ministerial studies.Paper presented at the meeting of the International Council of Psychologists, Mexico City, September, 1984.