Yogicchakra symbols: Mirrors of the human mind/heart

This paper describes the classical understanding of the system ofchakras, or centers of spiritual energy, in tantric yoga. Eachchakra is presented in terms of its traditional understanding. Each is also discussed in the light of contemporary psychological stage theories of development, showing that thechakras can be seen as a model of spiritual development. The preoccupations, concerns, and attitudes associated with eachchakra are portrayed as a mirror of the human mind/heart when spiritual energy is concentrated at that location.She is also founder and chair of the board of Resources for Ecumenical Spirituality.     

Doing gesture promotes learning a mental transformation task better than seeing gesture

Performing action has been found to have a greater impact on learning than observing action. Here we ask whether a particular type of action – the gestures that accompany talk – affect learning in a comparable way. We gave 158 6‐year‐old children instruction in a mental transformation task. Half the children were asked to produce a Move gesture relevant to the task; half were asked to produce a Point gesture. The children also observed the experimenter producing either a Move or Point gesture. Children who produced a Move gesture improved more than children who observed the Move gesture. Neither producing nor observing the Point gesture facilitated learning. Doing gesture promotes learning better than seeing gesture, as long as the gesture conveys information that could help solve the task.     

Teaching moral reasoning through gesture

Stem‐cell research. Euthanasia. Personhood. Marriage equality. School shootings. Gun control. Death penalty. Ethical dilemmas regularly spark fierce debate about the underlying moral fabric of societies. How do we prepare today's children to be fully informed and thoughtful citizens, capable of moral and ethical decisions? Current approaches to moral education are controversial, requiring adults to serve as either direct (‘top‐down’) or indirect (‘bottom‐up’) conduits of information about morality. A common thread weaving throughout these two educational initiatives is the ability to take multiple perspectives – increases in perspective taking ability have been found to precede advances in moral reasoning. We propose gesture as a behavior uniquely situated to augment perspective taking ability. Requiring gesture during spatial tasks has been shown to catalyze the production of more sophisticated problem‐solving strategies, allowing children to profit from instruction. Our data demonstrate that requiring gesture during moral reasoning tasks has similar effects, resulting in increased perspective taking ability subsequent to instruction. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v/gAcRIClU_GY     

Gesture for generalization: gesture facilitates flexible learning of words for actions on objects

Verb learning is difficult for children (Gentner, 1982 ), partially because children have a bias to associate a novel verb not only with the action it represents, but also with the object on which it is learned (Kersten & Smith, 2002 ). Here we investigate how well 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children (N = 48) generalize novel verbs for actions on objects after doing or seeing the action (e.g., twisting a knob on an object) or after doing or seeing a gesture for the action (e.g., twisting in the air near an object). We find not only that children generalize more effectively through gesture experience, but also that this ability to generalize persists after a 24‐hour delay.     

Sex differences in language first appear in gesture

Children differ in how quickly they reach linguistic milestones. Boys typically produce their first multi‐word sentences later than girls do. We ask here whether there are sex differences in children’s gestures that precede, and presage, these sex differences in speech. To explore this question, we observed 22 girls and 18 boys every 4 months as they progressed from one‐word speech to multi‐word speech. We found that boys not only produced speech + speech (S+S) combinations (‘drink juice’) 3 months later than girls, but they also produced gesture + speech (G+S) combinations expressing the same types of semantic relations (‘eat’ + point at cookie) 3 months later than girls. Because G+S combinations are produced earlier than S+S combinations, children’s gestures provide the first sign that boys are likely to lag behind girls in the onset of sentence constructions.     

Personality maturity and Teresa's interior castle

The ego development stage model theory of Jane Loevinger is compared to the understanding of St. Teresa of Avila regarding development in spiritual life. The paper first presents Loevinger's theory, then goes through the mansions Teresa described in the interior castle of the soul, comparing each mansion with Loevinger's understanding. The paper concludes that a very similar line of development is traced in both understandings.This paper is a revision of a paper first presented to Division 36, Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues, at the annual meeting of The American Psychological Association.     

Ethnicity, Culture, and Group Psychotherapy

Ethnicity and culture have great therapeutic import in the practice of group psychotherapy, especially given the increasing diversity of the population of North America, and this issue has not received appropriate recognition in the literature. In this paper these terms are defined, and the literature is reviewed. Ethnicity, culture, and psychopathology are discussed, focusing on treatment issues including transference, countertransference, resistance, group cohesion, group process, and multi-ethnic groups. The group therapist must be knowledgeable about ethnic and cultural issues in the lives of the group members in order to promote group cohesion and therapeutic effectiveness. The recognition and exploration of ethnic/cultural differences enhances the work of the group. Recommendations for treatment are discussed.     

Faith development and Teresa'sInterior Castle

James Fowler's model of faith development is compared with the course of development described by St. Teresa of Avila in her classic work,Interior Castle. Both Teresa and Fowler drew their models from the study of individual lives. The paper first presents a brief summary of Fowler's model, then goes through the different levels of development described by St. Teresa, comparing each of them with corresponding stages in Fowler's model. The paper concludes that, though these models were developed in different cultures, centuries apart, they appear to describe a similar course of religious or spiritual unfolding.This paper is a revised version of one originally delivered to Division 36, Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues, at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.References to Teresa'sInterior Castle in this paper are given by section (Mansions) and chapter within section so that the passages can be found in any translation.