One Counselor's Intervention in the Aftermath of a Middle School Student's Suicide: A Case Study

The authors discuss the application of Gestalt theory as a means of dealing with the surviving classmates of a student who committed suicide.     

Counseling Child Sexual Abuse Victims: Myths and Realities

The goal of the authors is to (a) create an awareness among counselors about the nature and prevalence of child sexual abuse, (b) examine myths and realities about the topic, and (c) present recommendations for interviewing suspected victims of child sexual abuse.     

A Systems Dilemma

The current shift of interest, reflected in public policy, from the production of goods to the provision of services, has caused a major re-examination of the nature of the services the individual can expect from his society. This re-examination is producing a number of insights, some of them shocking. In particular, we are learning that many of the systems we have created to deliver services are, in the name of “progress” and “civilization,” contributing to the conditions of human distress they were designed to alleviate. Much has been written lately about how service systems of one kind or another subvert their announced goals—how a welfare system perpetuates poverty, or how the medical profession creates iatrogenic illness. There has not been very much written, however, about how several systems inadvertently combine in their day to day operations in such a way as to frustrate each others' activities, and how, in so doing, they destroy in varying degrees the lives of people, or render it difficult for them to improve their lives. We have all been much too tightly locked in our own niches by training, experience, and various types of private interest to see this kind of interlock. It comes into sharp perspective only when one studies the problems of a single person in terms of his total life space, his “ecology.” This paper represents an effort to describe one such situation in a family as viewed from a community health services program designed to approach human crises as ecological phenomena, and to explore and respond to them within this framework. We have found that the best way to organize our view of the environmental field people move in is according to the diverse systems which make it up, so we have labeled our theoretical base “ecological systems theory.” ( 1 ) What is of particular interest to the behavioral scientist in the situation described is that neither individual nor family diagnosis, nor the contributions of the larger systems (in this case a housing system and a system of medical care) will, if viewed separately, explain the state of the man in question. Only when the contributions of all of these systems are made clear, and their interrelationships explored, do the origins of the phenomena described begin to emerge.     

Anatomy of a campus crisis center

This article describes the organization and implementation of a crisis calling center for college students at Southern Colorado State College. The “Help Anonymous” telephone service was established in November of 1968 to make counseling help readily available to students in distress. Volunteers staffed the service after they had completed special training supervised by professional personnel. Calls received as of May 28, 1969, totalled 380. Problem areas mentioned most frequently by callers included dating, family, college classes, loneliness, and lack of information. Help Anonymous thus far has evolved three functions: a listening service, an information service, and a referral service. In addition, the program has revealed unusual potential for a variety of future applications within the college community.     

“The Lot of Gifted Ladies Is Hard”: A Study of Harriet Taylor Mill Criticism

The question, “Why has Harriet Taylor MM appeared in the history of philosophy as she has?” has several answers. The answers intertwine the personality and polities of Harriet, the sexism of those who wrote of her (which was a reflection of the overall status of women during the period the commentator wrote), misunderstandings of the means and meaning of her collaboration with John Stuart Mill, and the disturbing challenge of her questioning.     

An experimental investigation of the labelling effect of psychiatric diagnosis

Eighty-six college students in four different classes were shown a videotaped, staged group situation. Two classes viewed a version in which one of the actors behaved in a 'neurotic' fashion. The other two viewed a tape where all actors behaved 'normally'. One class from each of these conditions was told that the actor had been described as severely neurotic, resulting in a total of four experimental conditions. Ratings of subjects' questionnaire data indicated more attribution of psychological disorder when the 'neurotic' label was used. A significant difference between the two tape conditions was also found, indicating a successful behavior manipulation on the tapes. The label also appeared to influence subjects' evaluation of the actor's past.