Procesos de aprendizaje y terapia de conducta en la adicción a la heroína

Resumen

Múltiples principios de condicionamiento clásico y operante interaccionan en la adición a la heroína. Destacan la presencia de RC Compensatorias en forma de Síndrome de Abstinencia Condicionado (SAC) y distintos programas de reforzamiento en el estilo de vida, argot y efectos de la heroína. En evaluación conductual se estudian los correlatos subjetivos y psicofisiológicos del SAC; la validez externa de los autorregistros se logra mediante análisis de orina. En terapia de conducta los programas de amplio espectro se combinan con la intervención comunitaria y apoyo médico. A nivel metodológico se resalta la necesidad de usar múltiples criterios de medición, introducción del análisis multivariado y uso de diseños estadísticos, realización de seguimientos a largo plazo.     

Breakthrough to Modernity,Apologia for Traditionalism: the Russian Orthodox View of Society and Culture in Comparative Perspective

Since the end of the socialist period in 1990, Buddhism in Mongolia has been undergoing a resurgence. Temples no longer oversee vast tracts of land and receive income from the activities of bonded nomadic herders as they did in the presocialist period. They must instead fund themselves from the freely given donations of lay Buddhists. Whilst the majority of the Mongolian population self-identify as Buddhist, regular donations to temples are not an assumed part of social and economic relationships. Unlike the case in most other Asian Buddhist societies, the concept of giving donations as a way to make merit was not present amongst my interlocutors. The urban Mongolians that I spoke to viewed their donations as payments for highly valued ritual services. The act of donating to temples was for some an ambivalent activity, bringing to the fore broader issues relating to spiritual authority, religious education and observance, and the necessary conditions for spiritual efficacy. In this article I investigate patterns of religious giving in Ulaanbaatar in relation to ideas about donation, the role of religious specialists and concerns about the intersections between capitalism and religion.     

AGNOSTIC MEDITATIONS ON BUDDHIST MEDITATION

I first attempt a taxonomy of meditation in traditional Indian Buddhism. Based on the main psychological or somatic function at which the meditative effort is directed, the following classes can be distinguished: (1) emotion‐centered meditation (coinciding with the traditional samatha approach); (2) consciousness‐centered meditation (with two subclasses: consciousness reduction/elimination and ideation obliteration); (3) reflection‐centered meditation (with two subtypes: morality‐directed reflection and reality‐directed observation, the latter corresponding to the vipassanā method); (4) visualization‐centered meditation; and (5) physiology‐centered meditation. In the second part of the essay I tackle the problem of the epistemic validity and happiness‐engendering value of Buddhist meditation. In my highly conjectural view, the claim that meditation represents an infallible tool for realizing the (Supreme) Truth as well as a universally valid method for attaining the highest forms of happiness is largely based on the crēdō effect, that is, a placebolike process. I do not deny that meditation may have some positive effects on mental and physical health or that its practice may bring changes to the mind. Meditation may be a valuable alternative approach in life and clinical treatment, but it is far from being a must or a panacea.     

INVESTIGATING THE “SCIENCE” IN “EASTERN RELIGIONS”: A METHODOLOGICAL INQUIRY

This article explores some of the understandings of “science” that are often employed in the literature on “science and Eastern religions.” These understandings crucially shape the raging debates between the avid proponents and the keen detractors of the thesis that Eastern forms of spirituality are uniquely able to subsume the sciences into their metaphysical–axiological horizons. More specifically, the author discusses some of the proposed relations between “science” and “Eastern religions” by highlighting three themes: (a) the relation between science and metaphysics, (b) the relation between science and experience, and (c) the European origins of science. The analysis of these relations requires a methodological inquiry into some of the culturally freighted valences of “science,” “metaphysics,” and “experience.”     

Love Incessantly Flows: Mae Naak,a New Asian Opera Heroine Born out of a Thai Buddhist Narrative

The folklore of Nak (Naak) or ‘Mae Nak Phrakhanong’ (Mother Nak of Phrakhanong District) permeates Thailand as the most popular story of a ghostly haunting. The story, originating in the nineteenth century, has been made into a plethora of versions including more than 20 film adaptations. My research focuses on the 2003 opera Mae Naak composed by Somtow Sucharitkul. The opera contains idiosyncratic traits different from other versions, which reflect Thais’ multiple feelings of horror, veneration and affection to Nak. Somtow creates a new Asian heroine in opera, who bears powerful emotions of love and desire to live, unlike the stereotype such as Madama Butterfly. The conclusion, however, does not define the emotional aspect of the story as merely the ignorance of impermanence and attachment. Instead, the narrative helps each individual to concretise and personalise the more abstract concepts of Buddhism. The opera depicts true love that continues through rebirths with her beloved in a karmic journey.     

Cooking Living Beings:

Bodies play important and diverse roles in Buddhist ethics. Drawing upon an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist compendium of bodhisattva practice, this paper explores the role bodhisattva bodies play in the ethical development of other living beings. Bodhisattvas adopt certain disciplinary practices in order to produce bodies whose very sight, sound, touch, and even taste transform living beings in physical and moral ways. The compendium uses a common South Asian and Buddhist metaphor to describe a bodhisattva's physical and moral impact on others. Bodhisattvas are said to “cook living beings.” The paper considers how this metaphor suggests ways of nuancing modern Western conceptions of ethical self‐cultivation, particularly as articulated by Michel Foucault in his studies of the technologies of the self.