Exploring Power and Gender Issues Emergent in an Institutional Workshop on Preventing Clergy Sexual Misconduct

The Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) sponsors the Crossing the Boundaries (CTB) workshop, a program that focuses on the maintenance of appropriate boundaries in clergy-congregant relationships as a means to prevent clergy sexual misconduct. Drawing primarily on an analysis of the synod-sanctioned workshop materials, an observation of the workshop, and interviews with 10 pastors who have attended the workshop, this paper explores differing conceptions of power and gender held by the synod officials and workshop participants.     

A perceptual account of definitions

The traditional definition per genus et differentiam is argued to be cognitively grounded in perception and in order to avoid needless argument, definitions are stipulated to assert boundaries. An analysis of the notion of perspective shows that a boundary is a composite of two distinctions: similarity that includes and difference that excludes. The concept is applied to the type-token distinction and percepts are shown to be the result of a comparison between a token as representing some phenomenon and a type as representing the kind of object the phenomenon might be. The Principle of Connection is proposed as the mental architecture that gives rise to percepts. The value of a percept is shown to be one of Identical, Similar, Different or Contrary and its perceptual aspects represent the cognitive schema of Essence, Quality, Quantity and Relation. The two notions of similarity and difference are claimed to constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for definitions. Accordingly, the qualitative elements of a definition signify the genus as representing the similarity of the defined entity in terms of others of its kind and the quantitative elements signify the differentia as representing the difference it has from everything else. Paying proper attention to both qualitative and quantitative aspects will enable formulation of definitions that are ‘good’. This paper is based on my master’s thesis at Monash University (2003). I thank Keith Allan for commenting on an earlier draft—any remaining infelicities are mine only.     

Boundaries and intimacies: Ethics and the (re)performance of “The Law” in psychoanalysis

The notion of a boundary as it pertains to psychoanalysis is explored, and the distinctiveness of psychoanalysis as a healing science that is ethical and amoral is discussed. The difference between such a science and psychotherapies, which are committed to ideological ideals of maturation and adaptation, is elucidated. Five characteristics of psychological boundaries are discussed, and the significance of each individual's “encounter” with the incest taboo is elaborated, in terms of the dynamic formation of the repression barrier. In this context, the strict ethicality and moral neutrality of psychoanalytic practice is understood in terms of the emancipative way in which free-associative discourse works and plays along the repression barrier.     

Book Review: Contemporary Perspectives on Psychotherapy and Homosexualities

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to illustrate some of the ethical and clinical difficulties which may arise when student counselling takes place under conditions which pay insufficient attention to the ground rules of therapy. It considers the importance of the frame in psychotherapy and the implications for this of working in an institutional setting. It also looks at the changes that may be made in the way the counsellor functions in the institution in order to secure the best conditions for effective counselling work with students, based on the author's personal experience.     

Consciousness and topologically structured phenomenal spaces

There are strong reasons to believe that our conscious inner life is structured, suggested both by introspection as well as scientific psychology. One of the most salient structural characteristics of conscious experiences is known as unity of consciousness. In this contribution, we wish to demonstrate how features of experience that pertain to the unity of consciousness could be made precise in terms of mathematical relations that hold between phenomenal objects.Based on phenomenological considerations, we first outline three such features. These are (i) environmental embedding, (ii) the mutual constraint between local and global representations, and (iii) a top-down process of object formation in consciousness. We then introduce a formal model based on the notion of phenomenal space, defined in terms of a set of quasi-elementary and extended entities. We describe the structure of phenomenal space by appealing to mereological and topological concepts, and we outline a projector-based calculus to account for the idea that the structure of phenomenal space is ultimately dynamical.Using the above concepts, one could approach the mind-matter problem by relating environmentally embedded agents to topologically well-defined objects that result from decompositions of phenomenal space. We conclude our discussion by putting it into the context of some recent conceptual questions that appear in cognitive science and consciousness studies. We opt for the possibility to regard the phenomenon of consciousness not in terms of a singular transition that happens between “brain” and “mind” but rather in terms of a series of transitions between structured layers of experience.     

Spatial categories and the estimation of location

Four experiments are reported in which people organize a space hierarchically when they estimate particular locations in that space. Earlier work showed that people subdivide circles into quadrants bounded at the vertical and horizontal axes, biasing their estimates towards prototypical diagonal locations within those spatial categories (Psychological Review 98 (1991) 352). In this work Huttenlocher, Hedges, and Duncan showed that the use of such spatial categories can increase the accuracy of estimation of inexactly represented locations. The stimulus locations we examined were uniformly distributed across the circle. In the present study we explore whether variation in the distribution of locations affects how the circle is categorized. Other things being equal, categories that capture high density regions in a stimulus space should contribute most to accuracy of estimation. However, precision of boundaries is also important to accuracy; with imprecise boundaries stimuli may be misclassified, leading to large errors in estimation. We found that people use the same spatial categories regardless of the distribution of the locations. We argue that this spatial organization nevertheless can maximize the accuracy of estimates because vertical and horizontal category boundaries are the most exact, minimizing misclassification of stimuli.     

Spatialising skin: Pushing the boundaries of trauma geographies

By focusing on the somatic qualities of trauma this paper addresses emotion and affect as a means to link together trauma's spatial, physical, subconscious and psychosocial dimensions. Its aim is to extend theoretical discussion on spatially located affectual moments of trauma by utilising the concept of skin. Skin is used here as a metaphorical and theoretical framework for examining ideas of boundaries and containment. A container is a deceptively simple idea but requires constant maintenance. Trauma, however, often threatens to spill over the boundaries of containers exposing the fluidity of boundaries both theoretical and material. Close attention is paid to the psychoanalytic idea of skin to extrapolate how trauma draws in ideas of surfaces and abjection. In some ways abjection exposes the fragility of borders, how they can be threatened from both without and within. When working across the skin, an examination of what bodies do in both the post-disaster environment (Christchurch) and in relocated spaces (Waikato) is undertaken to illuminate the theoretical premises of this work. People move toward others in order to share their experiences, thus, trauma is encountered as both: individual and social, interior and exterior, incorporating body and psyche rather than separating the terms.     

Distorted distance estimation induced by a self-relevant national boundary

Six experiments explored the possibility that the categorization of self versus not-self can distort visual estimations of distance. In Experiments 1-3, Americans overestimated the distance between a U.S. location and a foreign location relative to a visually equidistant U.S. location. In Experiment 4, Canadians overestimated foreign relative to Canadian locations. Experiment 5 showed that this effect occurs even when the domestic context is not physically contiguous. Experiment 6 showed that distance distortion occurs only when crossing one’s own border to a foreign location, not when crossing borders from one foreign location to another. Thus, crossing the psychological boundary between self and not-self creates a visual illusion that distorts on-line distance estimates.