Fear and Hope: Author's Response

This response seeks to pick up on the key questions and concerns raised by Nancy C. M. Hartsock and Karen Houle in their critiques of The Spectacle of Violence. I mold my response around two emotions that are never far from the question of violence: fear and hope. Is it fear of ambiguity that stops us from delicately blending the experiential with the discursive, the nodal with the circular, the corporeal with the epistemic, or the oppressive with the constitutive? If so, we can only hope that the power of such ambivalence lies in its ability to unsettle these treasured lines of force.     

Re-visioning Clients' Pathology Into Initiatory Desire

A perspective of therapy is presented that re-visions clients' pathology into desire for initiatory experience. Initiatory experience is understood as a symbolic template that lies over the biological and psychological developmental life cycle. A symbolic perspective is taken of clients' presenting problems in order to provide meaning to the symptoms and to eliminate the constraints that accompany diagnoses, treatments, or both. A developmental foundation is laid in support of the clinical application of this perspective in what will be called symbolic therapy. Anthropological and psychological models are reviewed in order to clarify the historical genesis and modern application of the ritual of initiation. Finally, a case study is offered to further explore this view of therapy.