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.     

Exploring the Concepts of Recognition and Shame for Social Work

Recognition and shame are both concepts that potentially offer social workers a structure to build practice on; two states experienced by both social workers and service users. ‘Recognition’, within social, political and economic thought, has been established as a field in which inequality and exclusion can be analysed. Social work theorists have also made inroads into exploring its reach. ‘Shame’ in twentieth century and contemporary sociological and psychoanalytical accounts, is understood as a force in limiting human agency, well-being and capacity This paper briefly outlines some of the defining ideas in circulation in relation to recognition and shame, and then briefly considers how psychoanalytical and contemporary social structural analysis builds on this, making links to contemporary social work thinking throughout. The paper also specifically considers some of the uses of recognition and shame for thinking about social worker and service user ‘well-being’, and the connections, through both the relational and the socio-political, which inflect social work practice.     

A Commentary on the Admission and Retention of Students with Disabilities in Social Work Programs

Abstract

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is the federal law upon which the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is built. Both laws are designed to prevent discrimination against students with disabilities. This commentary offers a comparison of section 504 with the ADA. An analysis of the case law under Section 504 is also presented; this analysis provides guidelines that universities and colleges will have to follow under the ADA. The implications of the ADA are offered for social work programs in the areas of admission and retention of students with disabilities.     

Phallus or Penis: Commentary on Cornelia St. John's Paper

The Lacanian concept of the masculine and feminine as symbolic positions, which may or may not correspond to anatomy, is clinically useful in the case of Mr. M. This discussion suggests that these concerns can be addressed by the feminist Lacanian theorists (Ragland, 1995), who discuss language within the landscape of primary repression as well as secondary repression. The analyst here illustrates the insufficiency of listening or speaking from only a preoedipal/maternal or an oedipal/paternal position; both are needed. In this discussion, the factors of sexual difference, psychosexual identification, gender definitions, and object choice are described in their different relations to one another when in preoedipal land (the Law of Language) versus the oedipal territory (Law of the father/culture). In summary, it could be said that stuttering or the inability to speak one's name is an incomplete weaning–there is no “I” who speaks from a secure symbolic indentification.     

Bringing Work Home or Bringing Family to Work: Personal and Relational Consequences for Working Parents

This study examined the impact of work–family and family–work role blurring on personal and, consequently, relational well-being among parents. A sample of 402 working parents of children between the ages of 2–12 completed measures of role blurring, well-being, and marital satisfaction. Both directions of role blurring were indirectly associated with lower marital satisfaction in mothers through a decreased psychological well-being. For fathers, family–work role blurring was also indirectly associated with poorer marital satisfaction through decreased psychological well-being, whereas work–family role blurring was directly associated with higher marital satisfaction. However, for both parents, the effects of work–family role blurring on well-being and marital satisfaction became non-significant when levels of family–work role blurring were held constant.     

In Recognition of Their Desperation: Sonic Relationality and the Work of Deep Listening

This essay places composer Pauline Oliveros’s philosophy and practice of Deep Listening in conversation with analytic theories of listening in a duet that explores one central question: What can listening do? Thinking through the impact of cultivated listening practices on the sensorium, the relational implications of listening across difference, and the centrality of practices of listening to the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis as well as the transformational capacity of performance, this essay claims Oliveros as a practitioner and theorist of a central psychoanalytic practice: listening. Deep Listening has the capacity to act as an amplifier for extending the reach of analytic listening beyond the clinic into an expanded cultural field. Likewise, psychoanalytic thinking allows for a rich exploration of the interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics of Oliveros’s sonic meditations as they resonate in the circuits between the psyche and the social. Her 1970 composition To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe In Recognition of Their Desperation acts as a case study for exploring the dynamics of feminist listening.     

Loving America and Longing for Home: Isma'il al-Faruqi and the Emergence of the Muslim Diaspora in North America

In this paper, I weave the experience of an emerging community of Muslim diaspora around a biographical narrative of the Muslim activist and scholar Isma'il al‐Faruqi. Through this narrative, I illustrate that the diasporic experience begins in the place of origin and it does not inevitably lead toward a perpetual hybridization. The latter point is particularly significant because notions of diaspora and hybridity are conceptually linked and are often understood as a unidirectional cutting and mixing between the West and the East, or between the modern and the traditional. Al‐Faruqi's experience shows that, in a Fanonian sense of colonialism, diasporic experience conveys living as a “stranger”, at and away from home. The postcolonial condition has made it possible for ethnically diverse communities of Muslims to reside in the West, but maintain strong connections with their place of origin. Adopting the allegory of the Prophet's migration or hijra, al‐Faruqi constructed a fantastic notion of the ummah and a normative homo islamicus subject. Although he was profoundly influenced by the diversity of the Muslim Student Associations' constituency, al‐Faruqi encouraged Muslims to transcend their differences and sought to conceive a discursively homogenous ummah. Ultimately, however, his project failed because it did not correspond to real life experiences of Muslims of the West. Historically, Muslim communities have negotiated the boundaries of Muslimhood and the social responsibilities it entails, both in their homelands and in their new home in the West — a new home that increasingly becomes hostile to their presence, and thereby further complicates their triangular diaspora/host society/homeland relationship.     

Reading Some Fragments From the Work of Muriel Dimen,or Contradictions on the Spicy Side

ABSTRACT

My piece is concerned with some of Muriel Dimen’s feminist writing of the 1980s and her bold and unyielding pleasure in elaborating a sexual politics rooted in an acceptance of the proliferation of sexual diversities and the ambivalent relations of feelings and theories that so marked the moment. Between subjective narrative, social theory and psychoanalysis Muriel found a new kind of space for a feminist enunciation that could be undertaken while wearing extravagantly lascivious red lizard skin shoes.     

Commentary on the Status of Sex Research

No abstract available for this article.     

Reframing the Discourse on Social Work in the Arab World: Considerations for the Accreditation of Social Work in the UAE

Drawing on the author's experience of teaching social work in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this paper will interrogate the pervasive question, significant within academic circles and the wider public discourse, on the issue of values and how they are framed or not by their relevant cultural contexts. This is a critical period in the history of the development of social work in the UAE where the International Association of Schools of Social Work subjected the first professional social work education and training programme offered to the rigour of a review process. Currently most social work programmes are evaluated against Western social work accreditation frameworks and quality assurance processes. While this practice may be appropriate in certain contexts, in others, such as in the Arab world, a more authentic frame of reference is required. To this end, the frame of reference lies in the Islamic prophetic traditions and culture, uniquely characteristic of the Arab world in the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC). It not only provides the backdrop to the ideological context for practice and education but also for quality assurance purposes as in the case of accreditation. A quick perusal of global accreditations of social work programmes reveals intense scholarly debates about what should constitute a dynamic curricula, necessary resources, ideology, administrative needs, processes and structure of social work programmes. Given that all of these criteria satisfy the conditions for accreditation, there is still ample opportunity within the different socio-cultural contexts for variations in the curricula of social work programmes being offered universally.

There is little doubt, despite the recent debates on the accreditation processes, that the primary goal is to ensure quality programmes and competent preparation for social work practice. In this paper the author will argue that while subscribing to this academic rigour, a paradigm shift is imperative to understand what constitutes culturally sensitive social work education and training. This paper will demonstrate that the values and ethics rooted in the ideology of the Arab world should determine and influence academic and practice paradigms.     

Working in the Trenches Commentary on Ruth Fallenbaum's Paper

In this paper I respond to Ruth Fallenbaum's account of clinical work with a group of women postal workers. I raise questions about the intersect of political analysis and psychoanalysis, the particular dynamic and structural demands on women workers, as well as the dynamics of precocity in relation to poverty and striving. The work Fallenbaum reports is a wonderful exemplar of clinical work that must remain sensitive on its own terms while the clinician keeps an eye on matters of class, race, and gender. Her essay makes a good argument for the importance of interdisciplinary thinking in clinical psychoanalysis as well as the importance of models of subjectivity in which multiple narratives, loyalties, and experiences are normative.     

Beyond the Mommy Track: The Influence of New-Concept Part-Time Work for Professional Women on Work and Family

This study investigates how the option for new-concept part-time work influences the ability of mothers of preschool children working in professional occupations to successfully integrate work and family responsibilities while maintaining career opportunities. Data are from a subset of the 1996 IBM Work and Life Issues Survey in the United States (n = 687). Compared to their counterparts who worked full time, mothers who worked in these part-time positions reported significantly greater work-family balance and did not report significantly less career opportunity. The part-time group reported 47% fewer work hours and 41% lower income than the full-time group. These data support the notion that new-concept part-time work is a viable option to assist women in professional careers to successfully integrate their family career. Implications of these findings are presented.