Pitirim A. Sorokin's Integralism and Public Sociology

Major features of the thought of Pitirim A. Sorokin are related to Michael Burawoy's four forms of sociology. The article develops the theme that Sorokin's system of sociology makes major contributions to identifying standards of excellence for professional, critical, policy, and public sociology and for their interrelationships. Sorokin's integral ontology and epistemology are described and identified as sources of the distinctive characteristics of his system of thought.     

Pitirim A. Sorokin’s integralism and public sociology

Major features of the thought of Pitirim A. Sorokin are related to Michael Burawoy’s four forms of sociology. The article develops the theme that Sorokin’s system of sociology makes major contributions to identifying standards of excellence for professional, critical, policy, and public sociology and for their interrelationships. Sorokin’s integral ontology and epistemology are described and identified as sources of the distinctive characteristics of his system of thought.     

Immigration and the evolution of economic theory

This is a review of "the limited and scant contributions made to immigration theory in the context of the evolution of economic thought over a protracted historical time span." The economic theories considered include those of the mercantilists, Adam Smith, the classical economists, and J. M. Keynes. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Paulo Freire: Neglected Mentor for Social Work

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and author, advocated radical educational approaches to empower oppressed peoples. Social workers contributing to English-language journals and other literature have made only limited use of Freire's ideas. Explanations may include social work's clinical drift, discomfort with radical ideas, obliviousness to contributions from the developing world, unease with religious thought, and avoidance of primary sources, in addition to the complexity of Freire's writing style. This article introduces Freire's contributions and suggests consistent approaches in social work practice, past and present, illustrating that those who practice with marginalized and disempowered people can benefit from reading Freire as a mentor.     

Juggling Paradoxes Commentary on the Work or Jessica Benjamin

Jessica Benjamin's contributions have exerted an enormous influence on contemporary psychoanalytic thought in general and on me in particular. I consider here some of the concepts basic to her approach that 1 find most helpful: recognition, identification and identificatory love, and gender overinclusiveness. I then point to the ways in which overinclusiveness in retaining certain lines of theorizing poses occasional problems for me.     

Look Who's Talking: Compositional Effects of Gender and Status on Verbal Contributions at Sociology Conferences

Making a verbal contribution is an efficient means to increase one's visibility in the academic job market. Therefore, we examine the duration and word density of spoken contributions made in debates at sociology conferences held in Germany, thus enriching the discussion on the gender gap in scientific careers. We differentiate between the contributors' age and gender, and the social context of the conferences. Hidden observation of 392 verbal contributions on 64 topics at five different conferences using hierarchical linear models shows that with increasing age, women speak more slowly and for longer, while the duration of verbal contributions of men rises up to the age of 53 and then decreases again. Contrary to our hypothesis, the duration of spoken contributions of men is not longer than that of women; in fact if there is a majority of female associate or full professors in the audience, contributions by women become significantly longer. This finding underlines the importance of social context for gender‐related features of communication. In addition, we find that word density depends on the age and gender of the speaker.     

Reconceptualizing Substance Abuse Treatment in Therapeutic Communities: Resiliency Theory and the Role of Social Work Practitioners

ABSTRACT

Although therapeutic communities (TC) have achieved promising results in the treatment of substance abusers, several areas have been identified which might further enhance TC treatment effectiveness. Two of these, resiliency theory and the role of social work practitioners, are discussed. Resiliency theory provides a framework for re-conceptualizing interventions as they apply to therapeutic communities. Resiliency is explicated and illustrated via a case study of a therapeutic community TROSA (Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers), a non-profit TC in Durham, North Carolina. A number of contributions that social work practitioners can make to TCs are described.     

A 20-Year Review of Common Factors Research in Marriage and Family Therapy: A Mixed Methods Content Analysis

Introduced by Sprenkle, Blow & Dickey (1999), common factors in marriage and family therapy (MFT) have been discussed over the past two decades. Although the MFT common factors literature has grown, there are misconceptions and disagreements about their role in theory, practice, research, and training. This content analysis examined the contributions of the common factors paradigm to MFT theory, practice, research, and training over the past 20 years. We identified 37 scholarly works including peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and chapters. Using mixed methods content analysis, we analyze and synthesize the contributions of this literature in terms of theoretical development about therapeutic effectiveness in MFT, MFT training, research, and practice. We provide commentary on the substantive contributions that the common factors paradigm has made to these areas, and we discuss the implications and limitations of the common factors literature, and provide recommendations for moving common factors research forward.     

Understanding the strategic decisions women make in farming families

Decision-systems theory (DST) was developed from in-depth interviews with farming families and provides an interpretation of the processes farming families use in making strategic decisions in regard to the family members, the farm and the businesses the farming family run. Understanding the nature and justifications used for different decisions can help farming families improve their strategic decision making. When combined with the 4-group stakeholder model, DST can help policy developers appreciate what kinds of policies are most likely to influence the decisions farming families make. Family decisions are a result of ongoing negotiation processes within the family. An additional set of interviews with farming women provided insight into women's contributions to family decision-making processes. Their contributions are discussed in terms of the concept of lenses which is one of five concepts in DST. Women make particular contributions in four of the five lenses in the concept for lenses. This leads to the conclusions that, in terms of improving the technical and economic aspects of farming, policy developers should develop new pathways of providing relevant information to women farmers. And, in terms of implementing sustainable development ideals to improve future rural livelihoods, policy developers ought to work closely with farming women as their contribution to strategic decisions in this area is very important.     

Seeing Like a DSM: Therapeutic Governance,Welfare, and Social Workers

This article suggests considering the processes affiliated with therapeutic governance through the relationships between social workers and prisoners’ wives. Research findings reveal unique practices of therapeutic governance that in turn maintain the state gazes that help regulate welfare individuals and populations: the invention of psychiatric categories and the conviction that they appear in the hegemonic psychiatric classification manual (DSM); definition of two selected emotions (shame and anger) as critical to therapeutic subjectivity; the internalization of a specific femininity expressed, inter alia, by “therapeutic clothing” and the absence of “grotesque excess,” as an indicator of recovery and normal subjectivity, which in turn increases the chances of receiving financial assistance from the welfare authorities. The discussion section maps out the unique research contributions of the article to the links between welfare, therapy, and surveillance in the everyday life of subaltern populations.     

The Three Fallacies: Evaluating Three Problematic Trends in Clinical Practice

In an era of condensed treatment and managed care, three trends are gaining prevalence in some graduate training programs and in some circles of the practicing community, limiting clinicians from utilizing the therapeutic techniques needed to help a client achieve long-standing intrapsychic change, a precondition for maintaining therapeutic gains post treatment. The first trend, the equation of empathy with sympathy, hinders the therapeutic dyad from truly understanding a client’s internal experience and implicitly conveys the message that anxiety-provoking material is less welcome in the consulting room. The second trend, prizing cognition over affect, results in a primary focus on secondary thought process, discounting the affective experience that unconsciously steers behavior and thought. This trend is, in large part, due to the widespread dissemination of cognitive-behavioral therapy efficacy research and the belief by some individuals that psychodynamic forms of treatment lack empirical support. The last and most problematic trend, the rigid utilization of treatment manuals, tends to result in a reductionistic approach to treatment, limiting psychotherapy to a set of techniques while also overlooking salient aspects of treatment that can predict positive outcomes. Treatment manuals oversimplify the process of therapy; as a result, the therapeutic dyad is less likely to uncover and discover the multiple origins of one’s suffering, contributory factors that are not always readily available to conscious awareness. This paper discusses each trend and the therapeutic implications that result.     

Distinguishing Between Mastery and Domination: Response to Discussants

Therapeutic impasse, while often heralding the destruction of the analytical treatment process, may provide an unexpected opportunity for setting it back into motion. While not deliberately sought after, the impasse sets the stage for both patient and analyst to shift sufficiently to forge a more meaningful dialogue and connection. Pizer's discussion highlighted the analyst's struggle to keep his patient in mind while maintaining a working grasp on his capacity for reflective, analytical thought. Ringstrom's contributions offered the framework of improvisational drama, allowing a greater range of experimentation and play between patient and analyst, facilitating their collaborative creation of new ways of connecting, while exploring what is mutually safe and manageable. Harris's thoughts on phallic potency provided clinically valuable insights into the patient's undercurrent of conflict between desire and dread/hatred, in his strivings for master y and a meaningful connection. The discussants' contributions also allowed a deeper understanding of the analyst's own conflicts over mastery and the self-protective urge to retreat.     

HERBERT BLUMER'S CONCEPTUAL IMPACT

Blumer's conceptual development was particularly crucial to the development of sociology. Despite his many talents, Blumer's importance as a sociologist stems from his profound theoretical contributions. He affected the discipline through his insistence on precision of thought in a field that let fuzzy ideas and meaningless numbers take its place. In addition, he offered a serious axiomatic-deductive theory to sociology. Although we do not always recognize his impact, few sociologists are untouched by his work. Ultimately Blumer's impact is what we make it by our own practice.     

Therapist Differentiation and Couple Clients' Perceptions of Therapeutic Alliance

Therapeutic alliance has been acknowledged as one of the catalysts for change within a therapeutic relationship. The contributions of therapists' characteristics to alliance are not often studied. From a Bowen System's Theory perspective, the therapist's level of differentiation would be highly relevant to the development of a therapeutic alliance. The hypothesis for this study was that therapists who are able to take a more differentiated stance in therapy will build a stronger therapeutic alliance. To test this hypothesis, multilevel modeling procedures were performed, using data from nine therapists and 93 couple cases collected at a large, Midwestern university. Therapist differentiation of self was found to be weakly associated with the clients' perception of therapeutic alliance across the early sessions of therapy, but not in the expected direction. Although the results were unexpected, this study provides an example of the potential of examining therapist characteristics from within one model of therapy, that can be applied across various clients and various models of therapy.     

From the attic of theAmerican Journal of Sociology: Unusual contributions to American sociology, 1895–1935

This study examines articles published in theAmerican Journal of Sociology (AJS) from its inception in 1895 through 1935 in a search for contributions that have escaped the attention of most contemporary sociologists. The articles reviewed here provide a glimpse of a less well-known, and sometimes more unseemly, side of American sociological history. My primary focus is on the criticism of the emergent discipline, the extraordinary diversity of thought found in the earlyAJS, and antiquated or prescient ideas, particularly in the fields of deviance, race, and gender.     

A therapist's pregnancy: An opportunity for conflict resolution and growth in the treatment of homosexual men

The author discusses the impact of a therapist's pregnancy on the therapeutic process, adding her experience with homosexual patients to the growing literature on this subject. Clinical illustration and a discussion of theoretical conceptualization related to a therapist's pregnancy specifically dealing with issues of the arousal of the maternal transference, infantile and sexual conflicts, competition and identification with the creative process, are presented. The author shows how the reality of her pregnancy seemed to facilitate rather than hinder the therapeutic process when she could openly deal with the patient's reactions.This article is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for certification in The Post Masters Program in Advanced Clinical Social Work at Hunter College (1986). The Author thanks Dr. Lucille Spira for her contributions to this paper.     

New directions for research on the organizational and institutional context of child welfare agencies: Introduction to the symposium on “The Organizational and Managerial Context of Private Child Welfare Agencies”

This paper argues for a conceptual reorientation to research and practice that emphasizes the prominence of institutional and organizational factors in the lives of those who are involved in child welfare systems. Current child welfare reform efforts are premised on the idea that agencies—their structures, management, and internal approaches to organizing their workforce and frontline services—may be influential drivers of and barriers to innovation in practice and policy. We unpack this premise by providing an introduction to the institutional and organizational context of child welfare practice that highlights the diverse contexts and contributions of public and private child welfare agencies. We then review five domains for future research and present examples of studies that might be undertaken. The paper concludes by introducing the symposium papers and identifying their contributions to child welfare and human service research.     

Public relations’ place in corporate social responsibility: Practitioners define their role

Qualitative responses from 173 PR practitioners were used to analyze their roles and contribution to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Practitioners identified five roles for public relations in CSR—significant management, philanthropic, value-driven, communication, and none. PR professionals illustrated these roles by describing their contributions to social responsibility programs. They also expressed limitations to their ability to contribute to CSR programs.     

Kitwood's thought and relational social work

Tom Kitwood is a key figure in the development of thought about dementia, but generally no references are made to his work outside of elderly care. This article argues that Kitwood's thought has much to offer to all the professional caregivers, regardless of the users’ category they are caring for, and to the broader field of professional social work. Some key themes from the writings of Kitwood are examined, namely the critique of the ‘standard paradigm’; the conception of malignant social psychology; the respect for otherness in the positive person work; the person with dementia as a resource for reciprocity processes; the new culture of dementia. For each of these issues similarities between Kitwood's approach and relational social work are identified. Relational social work considers the helping process and the well-being development as co-constructions, in which the contributions not only by the helper (or the caregiver, or the social worker), but also by the helpee (or by the care recipient, or by the user) are essential: both at the same time are helped and helpers, and both are empowered by this. This idea—of great value to all social work fields—is remarkably close to the Kitwood's thought about the dementia care.     

Public Relations in a Democratic Society: Value and Values

Each of the articles in this special issue merit attention based solely on the authors' contributions to alternative ways of doing and understanding public relations. More important, as a body of work, the authors expand on Schudson's (1997) provocative article about the role of conversation in a democratic society. In this review, I summarize the strengths of each article, discuss the focus on activist publics, highlight concepts new to the study of public relations, and suggest avenues for further thought based on the ideas presented in this issue. I conclude with the proposal that in a democratic society, public relations should facilitate making profoundly uncomfortable conversations more comfortable.