A new look at child abuse tragedies

Thirty-five child abuse inquiry reports, published in Britain between 1973 and 1989, were reviewed and the cases reanalysed using a systemic framework. Problematic interactions were identified within the families, among members of the professional networks and between the families and professionals. These relational aspects of each case interacted and progressively skewed the course of events. The findings have important implications for the practice of child protection, including the assessment of risk and decisions by statutory professionals to employ controlling interventions such as Emergency Protection Orders.     

Institutional transference: a new look at an old concept

In reviewing the early development of institutional transference, the concept was defined as the patient's identifying the treatment relationship with a clinic rather than with an individual therapist and a form of "distancing." More recently, the literature reflects a debate about whether the phenomenon is an outcome of patients' inability to maintain an individual relationship or their adaptation to changing therapists within a clinic over time. In our clinical experience, we have observed that institutional transference is strongly associated with the clinical outcome. In the clinical examples, we demonstrated that being aware of the potential for institutional transference and allowing it to develop can facilitate the development of a more trusting relationship between the patient and clinic staff. Institutional transference can coexist with individual transference and help facilitate rather than hinder the development of a therapeutic relationship. In our experience, the sense of a relationship with the clinic or treatment center is an important aspect of care. Therefore, recognizing institutional transference enables the clinician to pace the development of the relationship with the patient.     

Unravelling of the conspiracy theory: A new look at the pogroms

Michael I. Aronson, Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti‐Jewish Pogroms in Russia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. 286 pp. Maps. Tables. Bibliography. Index.

Michael F. Hamm, Kiev: A Portrait, 1800–1917. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. 304 pp. Map. Tables. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index.

Edward H. Judge, Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom. New York and London: New York University Press, 1992. 186 pp. Bibliography. Index.

Robert Weinberg, The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993. 302 pp. Tables. Bibliography. Index.

Charters Wynn, Workers, Strikes, and Pogroms: The Donbass‐Dnepr Bend in Late Imperial Russia, 1870–1905. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. 289 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index.     

A new look at clustering coefficients with generalization to weighted and multi-faction networks

In this paper we propose a new method for studying local and global clustering in networks employing random walk pairs. The method is intuitive and directly generalizes standard local and global clustering coefficients to weighted networks and networks containing nodes of multiple types. In the case of two-mode networks the values obtained for commonly considered social networks are in sharp contrast to those obtained, for instance, by the method of Opsahl (2013), and provide a different viewpoint for clustering. The approach is also applicable in questions related to the general study of segregation and homophily. Applications to existent data sets are considered.     

A new look at the health and homeless experience of a cohort of five-year olds

Homelessness is increasing and health workers and others need to be ever vigilant about the risk that this has on children's health. What is that risk and what are children's experiences of homelessness? A retrospective case note study was carried out to compare the health of a group of five-year olds who had experienced homelessness and compare them with matched ‘non-homeless’ controls. A home interview questionnaire was used to give a profile of the children's housing experience and the health issues faced during their time in temporary accommodation. Fifty-three cases when compared with 41 controls showed a statistically greater prevalence of child protection issues and an increased number of health needs identified at the school nurse health appraisal. The housing profile identified that the case children moved homes many times (37 per cent more than five times), were homeless much longer than the officially registered period (67 per cent more than 12 months) and 61 per cent were made homeless through domestic violence. The study reinforces the need for us to acknowledge important environmental stress and to continue to advocate for this group of disadvantaged children.     

Differential labeling of mental illness by social status: a new look at an old problem

Whether the higher rates of mental hospitalization and involuntary treatment for marginal social groups are due to differential labeling or simply to the occurrence of higher rates of disorder in these groups remains unresolved. I reexamine this issue with data from the National Comorbidity Survey (N = 5,877) that allow comparisons between disturbed individuals living in the community untreated and disturbed persons who have been hospitalized or seen a professional for their mental health problems under pressure or voluntarily. Contrary to labeling theory, members of lower status groups are not consistently overrepresented among those who have been hospitalized or seen a professional against their will. Consistent with self-labeling theory, persons with greater education and those not in poverty are disproportionately present among individuals who sought treatment by choice. Additional analyses show that factors that predict service utilization are important determinants of mental health service use but do not account systematically for status disparities in hospital or outpatient treatment, especially disparities by poverty status. Although I do not confirm a central tenet of labeling theory here, the negative consequences of labeling and stigma continue to be well-supported in the literature.     

What circles look like

Over the past decade, under the influence of the Catholic charismatic movement, the Ambonwari people of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea have radically altered their relationships with bush spirits and, simultaneously, their attitudes towards their landscape. During the current process of abolishing prohibitions pertaining to taboo places, the Ambonwari have also abolished a set of cultural activities that were characteristic of ancestral placemaking and have weakened the effect these places and their spirits have on the Ambonwari's contemporary life world. By abandoning their relationships with bush spirits and embracing God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and by moving their eyes, thoughts and feelings from earth to heaven, the Ambonwari want to transcend their familiar landscape and the life world that it sustains.     

The prevalence rates of pathological gambling: A look at methods

Planning the gambling environment requires protection of the public's health, safety and welfare. Whereas most public gaming provisions and statutes address the public's fears of organized crime as well as some welfare needs, rarely do they safeguard the public's health regarding the spread of the mental disease known as pathological gambling. Measurement of the prevalence and incidence of this disease would enable policy planners to evaluate both the state's responsibility for an epidemic and the adequacy of publicly funded treatment programs. The purpose of this paper is to examine the methods which underlie three different estimates of the prevalence rate of pathological gambling and to critique them in the light of sound epidemiological procedure. In 1975, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) of the University of Michigan conducted a national survey and a survey of the state of Nevada on behalf of the U.S. Commission on a National Policy Toward Gambling. Using discriminant function analysis coupled with subjective inspection of cases in the at-risk pool, the researchers estimated rates of probable and potential pathological gamblers. In 1984 and 1985, this author surveyed residents in the Delaware Valley and the state of Ohio using the cumulative clinical signs method which also posited rates of probable and potential pathological gamblers. In 1986, researchers at the Office of Mental Health for the State of New York employed a formal screening device to survey residents and proposed a rate of probable pathological gamblers and a rate of problem — although not pathological — gamblers. All three approaches produced different estimates. The utility of prevalence and incidence rate research in this field is threatened by a lack of consensus about the proper epidemiological procedure to be employed in arriving at these estimates. There is also confusion about the distinction between a probable and a potential pathological gambler. The planning purpose, method, validity and reliability of prevalence rate research about pathological gambling are addressed in this paper.     

'The look of hope or the look of sadness': Robert Frank's dialogical vision

Abstract

This article examines the work of Robert Frank with reference to his seminal photographic work, The Americans, and its relationships to his later post-1970s images. It argues that the 'outside eye' he brought to the US post-war consensus offered him a new comparative critical position and represented a fundamental, counter-cultural shift in the tradition of documentary photography. This vision formed around Frank's multiple 'dialogues', with the US social landscape, with earlier traditions of documentary and 'street' photography in Europe and the USA, and with the Beat generation's radical challenges to dominant post-war values. This 'moment' of overlapping and interconnected relations forms the basis for this discussion of Frank's importance as a 'political' commentator whose work has influenced generations of photographers and shares much with those writers who emerged as the Beats.     

Video primacy—A further look

This paper reviews the literature on the complex question of the relative importance of the verbal, visual and vocal channels in various types of judgments. It is noted that a wide variety of methodologies are used in such research with studies differing in terms of the type of stimuli used (varying on the dimension of stylised to naturally occurring), the task required of the subjects (particularly varying on the cognitive-affective dimension) and the method used to assess the relative importance of the channels. An attempt is made to assess the important variables which affect the way the various channels are used by decoders, including whether deception is involved or expected, whether the message is discrepant, the particular judgment being made and the dimension on which the stimulus varies, the sex of the encoder and the decoder and the relationship between them, and the age of the decoder. The possibility of other related variables also acting as moderators is discussed.     

The new populism and the new Marxism

Theory and Society -