Wisdom and Life Experience: How Grandfathers Mentor Their Grandchildren

This exploratory study uses qualitative methods to focus on the largely unexamined role of the grandfather and to examine men's experiences as grandfathers. We gathered information through both surveys and individual interviews to explore men's feelings and attitudes toward the grandfather role. Of the 51 grandfathers that completed a survey, 20 participated in interviews. Our examination of the data collected reveals the life lessons men teach their grandchildren. The grandfathers in this study expressed strong desires for purposeful involvement in their grandchildren's lives and indicated desires for transferring values to grandchildren and teaching interpersonal relationships. Through this involvement, they educate through life experiences and serve as mentors for their grandchildren. We suggest that this mentoring role makes a positive contribution to the lives of grandchildren and to the identity of grandfathers.     

The mentor and the trainee in academic clinical medicine

Medicine is a scientific discipline, but it is sometimes difficult to separate what is scientific and what is a clinical, practical activity. Man is the object, but he is always the subject of medical research and therefore these two elements become closely bound together by a thread of moral interdependencies. Every mentor of a young academic and all institutions dealing with the teaching of and research into medicine must understand multidimensional, multifaceted, and multilevel aspects of their activity and give them due regard in the educational process. The educational mission of an academic institution and of the teacher working there may be summed up in one phrase: Teach thinking! At the same time, the task of a school and the individual mentor is to teach the student to distinguish personal freedom from a lack of the feeling of responsibility. The medieval principle “Universitas magistrorum et scholarium”, and thus the corporation, the community of teachers and students, has not lost any of its relevance and value today. The situation is, in its far-reaching consequences, tragic in which the “insufficiently tutored teach”. Both physician and teacher, and especially physician-teacher, are not only professions, but also callings. This paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference on the subject of ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005.     

Mentoring: Some ethical considerations

To counter confusion about the term ‘mentor’, and address concerns about the scarcity of mentoring, I argue for an “honorific” definition, according to which a mentor is virtuous like a saint or hero. Given the unbounded commitment of mentors, mentoring relationships must be voluntary. In contrast, the role of advisor can be specified, mandated, and monitored. I argue that departments and research groups have a moral responsibility to devise a system of roles and structures to meet graduate students’ and postdoctoral fellows’ needs for information and advice. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference sponsored by the National Science Foundation on Mentoring and Research Values: Students as Vital Human Resources, Chicago, March 1995.     

Mentors, advisors and supervisors: Their role in teaching responsible research conduct

Although the terms mentor and thesis advisor (or research supervisor) are often used interchangeably, the responsibilities associated with these roles are distinct, even when they overlap. Neither are role models necessarily mentors, though mentors are role models: good examples are necessary but not sufficient. Mentorship is both a personal and a professional relationship. It has the potential for raising a number of ethical concerns, including issues of accuracy and reliability of the information conveyed, access, stereotyping and tracking of advisees, and the abuse of power. Nevertheless, mentors can be critically important for professional success and are one of a number of elements that affect the responsible conduct of research. In addition, the community as a whole has a responsibility to mentor junior members. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference sponsored by the National Science Foundation on Mentoring and Research Values: Students as Vital Human Resources, Chicago, USA, March 1995.     

The effects of similarity and liking in formal relationships between mentors and protégés

A longitudinal study of mentoring dyads was used to investigate the antecedents and consequences of liking in formal mentoring relationships. Demographic and deep-level similarity were examined as antecedents to liking in mentoring relationships. Following this, the association between the degree of liking and reports of mentoring functions provided was examined. Mentors and protégés differed in the similarity characteristics that impacted their perceptions of the mentoring relationship. Results also indicated that mentors’ level of liking for protégés was not related to protégés’ perceptions of mentoring functions received. Longitudinal data allowed examination of whether early perceptions of similarity predict final evaluations of mentoring functions. Analyses indicate that relationships change over time, further emphasizing the need to examine developmental relationships longitudinally.     

Natural mentor relationships among latina adolescent mothers: Psychological adjustment,moderating processes,and the role of early parental acceptance

Investigated the antecedents, effects, and underlying characteristics of natural mentor relationships in a sample of 54 inner-city, Latina adolescent mothers. Women with mentors reported significantly lower levels of depression and anxiety than those without mentors despite similar levels of stress exposure and overall support resources. Young women with natural mentors were also more satisfied with their support resources and appeared better able to cope effectively with relationship problems. Finally, women with mentors recalled their childhood relationships with their mothers as more accepting. Mentor relationships appear to enhance young women's capacity to benefit from their support resources and offset the effects of relationship problems. Implications for future research and intervention strategies are discussed. This study was conducted while Josefina Contreras was supported by a training grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development which was awarded to the Psychology Department of the University of Illinois. Assistance was also provided by grants from the W. T. Grant Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Office of Research on Women's Health to Jean Rhodes, and the University of Illinois Research Board to Sarah Mangelsdorf. We also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Fabricio Balkazar, James Kelly, Joseph McGrath, Adena Meyers, the staff and participants at the service settings, and the anonymous reviewers.     

Sexual identity and choice of sexual object: From bisexuality to implicate order

Abstract

Stensson J. Sexual Identity and Choice of Sexual Object: From Bisexuality to Implicate Order. Int Forum Psychoanal 1992; 1:93-97. Stockholm. ISSN 0803-706 X

Freud's concept of bisexuality leads to contradictory consequences. Seeing choice of sexual object in the light of unconscious primal phantasies as coding systems, unfolds new possibilities. Taking the primal scene phantasy as a preconceptual code for mature sexuality, I make a limited and preliminary attempt to outline some possible outcomes of interactions between primal scene and oral phantasies, taking help from the theoretical physicist David Bohm's ideas on implicate order.     

岗位特征及相关因素对辅导员工作倦怠的影响

本研究旨在探讨岗位特征及相关因素对高校辅导员工作倦怠的影响。在高校辅导员培训课堂上共收取有效数据342份。结果表明：⑴岗位特征包括职业价值感、职业无意义感、岗位消极特征和岗位积极特征四个因子;⑵希望和职业价值感能显著正向预测,角色压力能显著负向预测工作倦怠;⑶角色压力在职业无意义感、岗位消极特征、社会支持对工作倦怠的影响中起完全中介作用,而在职业价值感、希望对工作倦怠的影响中起部分中介作用。本研究初步发现了岗位特征及相关因素对辅导员工作倦怠的作用路径。     

Dynamics of psychoanalytic supervision: a heuristic model

This paper presents a heuristic model for the dynamics of psychoanalytic supervision. It is not a manual for how to perform supervision, but a model for how to identify and think about the complex elements and forces influencing the supervisory process. The point of departure is that psychoanalysis is a composite craft in which seemingly contrary elements like strict rules and creative intuitions have their place and interact. Several aspects of supervision are discussed: aims, learning processes, teaching methods, relationship, emotional atmosphere and evaluation. Competence is given a pivotal place in the model. The main feature of the model is that these aspects of supervision are all seen as suspended in a field of dynamic tensions between phenomena in real or apparent opposition. One example of this is the tension in the supervisory relationship between supervisor as instructor acting as an authority for the candidate whilst being a mentor fostering autonomy in the candidate. It is argued that related kinds of dynamics characterize several aspects of psychoanalytic supervision and that these tensions are inherent in analytic work. In conclusion a key word picture of the model is presented.     

Superaddressee or Who Will Succeed a Mentor?

This philosophical essay is inspired by a four-year pedagogical relationship that continues in its altered form today. The main focus of this piece is the transformation of a mentor as an immediate addressee into mentor as a superaddressee, an influential third listener who oversees observable dialogues. I explore the mutual responsibilities of a student and a mentor in order to uncover the elements in the pedagogical chemistry responsible for the transformation of an addressee into a superaddressee. Confirmation (a perfect form of understanding) of a student’s intellectual and moral uniqueness, incarnation of a particular value deemed desirable by a student, and education of a student into the dialogic ways of being on his or her own are the necessary ingredients of the process of becoming a superaddressee. Initially a mentor engages in the pedagogy of understanding whose ideal outcome is confirmation of a student’s intellectual and moral makeup. After the dialogue is over, a mentor often moves into the domain of inner speech from where he or she continues to offer perfect understanding, especially in the absence of such understanding from an immediate addressee. Two types of superaddressees are identified and their relationship with the invoking consciousness is explored. I conclude that becoming a superaddressee is the most generous pedagogical contribution to a student’s future: a mentor thus makes his or her voice available to a student’s inner dialogue, often without receiving anything in return. Mikhail Bakhtin is highly influential in my writing. “Superaddressee” or “a third listener” is one of his coinages. The term is treated in “The Problem of the Text” as part of the collection “Speech genres and other late essays” (1986), alluded to in Voloshinov’s (1976) “Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art” and expanded upon in Frank Farmer’s (2001) “Saying and Silence.”