Nothing to Fear? Thoughts on the History of Family Therapy and the Potential Contribution of Research

The aim of this plenary address is to advocate for the role that research can play in family therapy, with particular reference to our future as a field in Australia. I will argue: 1) that we have been in transition as a field in the past 15 years or so, from a fairly closed system, to one that is more amenable to holding itself to account through research; 2) that we hold a number of misconceptions about research that need to be explored if we are to continue; 3) that we need to develop a research agenda that is consistent with our values and 4) that there are a host of research methodologies that are consistent with our epistemologies and modes of practice.     

Rap Music and the Empowerment of Today’s Youth: Evidence in Everyday Music Listening, Music Therapy, and Commercial Rap Music

Pioneers of various elements of Hip-Hop culture have been empowered through the ability to voice their reality and find a meaningful identity alongside others who found purpose and function in embracing Hip-Hop culture (Chang, Can’t stop won’t stop: A history of the hip-hop generation, 2005). This empowerment persists in various reinventions of the culture within the United States and worldwide. The present study examines whether evidence exists in research to support the value of esteem, resilience, growth, community and change as empowering dimensions outlined in the individual and community empowerment framework. Research questions ask: (1) Does youth self-expression in rap music created within music therapy sessions reflect framework dimensions? (2) Does content in commercially recognizable rap music reflect framework dimensions? (3) How well does the framework align with a model of empowerment-based positive youth development? First, data collected to examine the validity of the framework were reviewed. Next, two peer-reviewed research studies published after articulation of the original framework, were examined to investigate commonality between themes and framework dimensions. One study was in a music therapy context and another explored themes in commercial Hip-Hop recordings. Original framework data supports theorizing that rap music content actually comprises developmental narratives (Travis and Deepak, 2011; Travis and Bowman, 2012). Data in the present study further suggest that these developmental narratives are relevant for Hip-Hop in every day music engagement, in therapeutic self-expression, and within commercially available musical content. Framework dimensions also aligned with a conceptual model of positive youth development that allows specification of intervention pathways and empirically testable outcomes for Hip-Hop integrated change strategies. Results suggest that rap music is a discourse in lifespan development. Rap music’s developmental narratives may be used by practitioners, parents and researchers. The narratives exist within a framework and model that (a) provides a template for better understanding these narratives and (b) positions this understanding for use as a tool to promote and research positive change strategies for individuals and the communities that they value.     

Same-Sex Marriage and the Boundaries of Diversity: Will Marriage and Family Therapy Remain Inclusive of Religious and Social Conservatives?

The expanding legalization of same-sex marriage in the Western World may pose significant challenges for the relationship between many religious and socially conservative marriage and family therapists and their professional associations. In the present analysis, I look to the field of moral psychology, particularly Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, to provide greater clarity regarding the nature of this tension and a resultant tightening of the boundaries of acceptable diversity that could ensue. I then outline some concerning indicators from mental health associations relative to their potential willingness to tolerate conservative perspectives in meaningful ways and identify some specific areas of possible tension for conservative therapists trying to integrate their deeply held moral values into ethical practice with same-sex couples, with a specific reference to the viability of “conscience clauses” and values-based referrals. I conclude with some recommendations through which the field of marriage and family therapy can reduce the potential for conflicts and thereby reassure these clinicians that they continue to be welcomed even if their vision of marriage differs from that which is formally endorsed by their professional associations.     

Rituals of complicity,the ‘humanities’ rhetoric,and the closing of the South African mind

A mail survey undertaken in 1977 showed that a clear majority (64%) of final year students polled at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, answered in the affirmative to a question asking them whether they would permanently settle in a country other than South Africa. Almost all the respondents in the survey were desirous of change to the socio‐political structure of this country; in particular the Apartheid, pass laws, job reservation, educational and residential policies; although students expressing attitudes favourable to emigrating seemed to be slightly more concerned in this regard. Thus it appears that South Africa may lose many of those of its citizens who, if they remained, would be most likely to contribute to peaceful change.     

The minority identity and the idea of the ‘unity’ of the nation: the case of Hungarian minorities from Romania,Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine

A comparison analysis of the ethno-national identity of Hungarian minorities living in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine is performed in the paper, including the identifications to majority community and the relationship with Hungary, respectively.

According to the empirical results in every country, the community with the pan-Hungarian ethnocultural nation, and the identification with actual Hungary, is less important than regional Hungarianness in the minority identity of Hungarian minority members from outside the borders of Hungary. The primary in-group is the self-minority community in every country. This may be empirically grasped both on the level of the perceptions of social distances and on stereotypes toward Hungarians from Hungary and toward majority populations (Romanians, Slovaks, etc.).     

Marriage and Family Therapy

About the author: Chen Yiyun graduated from the Russian Language and Literature Departraent at Beijing University in 1964. She then enrolled at the Sociology Institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences in 1978. Upon graduation, she remained at the Institute as a research fellow. She later became editor-in-chief of the magazine Sociology Abroad. She translated and edited dozens of sociology books. In 1988, after she returned from the United States, she devoted herself to the research of sociology and marriage consultation. In 1993, Chen set up the Jinglun Family Science Center, a non-governmental organization which is a combination of scientific research and social practice. She organized scholars, social workers and volunteers from sectors of public health, education and legislation to conduct useful activities to promote democracy in the family, equality, health and civilization.     

Modernity,the Individual,and the Foundations of Cultural–Historical Activity Theory

It is argued that the problem of individual agency in relation to social institutions can be resolved within Cultural–Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) by the use of the “subject” as a unit of analysis. Such an approach implies a reaffirmation of the fundamental tenets of CHAT but also a critique of the concepts of society and culture, which are appropriated by psychology. A successful critique of objectivist conceptions of society and culture requires an appropriate framing of the concept of subject.     

‘Cruel necessity’: capitalism,the discourse of sympathy,and the problem of the slave trade in the age of human rights

How did Frenchmen profiting from colonial slavery respond to the emergent discourse of human rights? Le commerce de l'Amérique par Marseille (1764), a trade manual by Auguste Chambon, provides exceptional insight into the moral imagination of eighteenth-century commercial capitalists. Chambon encouraged the French to pursue slaving more aggressively. Yet rather than deny the problem of slavery, he questioned openly whether slavery violated morality, religion, and natural rights, responding to Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire from a rare Catholic-inspired perspective. Lamenting slavery as a ‘cruel necessity’ for France, Chambon enabled merchants to represent themselves as sympathetic and patriotic while preserving profits.     

Direct,Facilitate, Enable—the Juxtaposition of the Duty of Care and the Duty of Disclosure in Social Work Field Education

This article examines the significance of field education placements within contemporary social work field education, particularly considering the increasingly complex issues of the duty of care (to student, agency and field teacher) and the duty to disclose (to student, to field teacher) which schools of social work must negotiate. The dilemmas facing schools and field educators, and the steps taken to resolve them at the University of Melbourne (Australia), are considered to highlight the ongoing liability and accountability difficulties which continue to face social work education.     

School Discipline,Race, and the Discursive Construction of the “Deficient” Student

Abstract

Research has demonstrated how, in the current era of mass incarceration, the punitive arm of the state now extends beyond traditional criminal justice structures into institutions typically associated with providing care or a social good. The negative effects of this shift have disproportionately impacted marginalized populations, particularly low-income black and Latino communities. This article examines one way that this extension has manifested in the realm of public education. Based on ethnographic data from a public Grade 6–12 Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (DAEP) in Texas, this article scrutinizes the program’s behavioral rules and disciplinary procedures. The analysis focuses on students’ introductory experience to the DAEP as a “strategic research site” to illuminate the program’s formal objectives, methods to achieve their institutional goals, and their intended effects on students. I find that the practices and procedures in place at the DAEP operate through racializing surveillance to constitute “disciplinary technologies” devoted to the transformation of “culturally deficient” students—a racialized and gendered classification—into docile bodies. Students are disciplined through punitive and rehabilitative methods premised on the discursive construction of “deficient” students and families.     

The Race to the Bottom of the Glass? Wine,Geography, and Globalization

The wine industry is becoming increasingly globalized as consumer demand, capital investment, and industry restructuring lead to higher volumes of trade, greater levels of multinational ownership, and the evolution of new networks of production and consumption that link the four corners of the world economy. While there are some tendencies towards increasingly homogenized and low-cost production, wine is an industry that exemplifies the complex and contradictory elements of globalization. This article outlines some key parameters of globalization drawing on empirical evidence from key cases. In particular, it focuses on the role of geography and how place and scale matter in production, marketing, and consumption. As globalization unfolds, restructuring in the wine industry is leading to the increased economic and social differentiation of rural space. The resultant geographies of place are influenced by a complex combination of local development history, national policy context, and the nature of the insertion of the given locality into global value chains for wine. As such, globalization has and will continue to produce increasingly complex and intricate geographies.

La industria del vino se ha venido globalizando cada vez más como una demanda del consumidor, inversión de capital y la restructuración de la industria da lugar a mayores volúmenes de comercio, mayores niveles de participación multinacional, y la evolución de nuevas redes de producción y consumo que unen las cuatro esquinas de la economía mundial. Mientras hay algunas tendencias hacia una producción cada vez más homogenizada y de bajo costo, el vino es una industria que ejemplifica los elementos complejos y contradictorios de la globalización. Este artículo subraya algunos parámetros claves de globalización sobre la base empírica de casos claves. Se enfoca particularmente en el rol de la geografía y cómo el lugar y la escala importan en la producción, mercadeo y consumo. A medida que la globalización evoluciona, la restructuración de la industria del vino da origen a un aumento en la diferenciación social y económica del espacio rural. Las geografías resultantes del lugar están influenciadas por una combinación compleja del desarrollo de la historia local, el contexto de la política nacional y la naturaleza de la inserción de la localidad dada, dentro de las redes del valor global para el vino. Como tal, la globalización ha producido y seguirá produciendo cada vez más complejas e intrincadas geografías.

葡萄酒产业正变得越来越全球化,消费需求、资本投入和产业结构重组都导致更高的贸易额、更扩大的跨国公司所有权以及连接世界经济各个角落的生产与消费新网络的演进。当存在日益同质化、低成本生产的一些趋势时,葡萄酒成为一种表征全球化复杂和矛盾要素的产业。本文通过引用来自关键案例的经验性证据来概括全球化的一些关键性参数。尤其是,本文关注地理扮演的角色以及地理位置和规模在生产、销售、消费中如何起作用。随着全球化的展开,葡萄酒产业的结构重组正导致乡村之间更大的经济和社会差异。其结果,一个地方的地理布局正受到当地发展的历史、国家政策背景以及特定地方纳入全球葡萄酒价值链的性质所形成复杂组合体的影响。因此,全球化已经并将继续产生更为错综复杂的地缘情况。

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Secrecy,publicity, and the bomb: Nuclear publics and objects of the Nevada Test Site, 1951–1992

This article provides an account of the nuclear test series carried out at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). We examine how practices of security produce publics and make particular forms of embodiment possible. This account focuses on three key moments to shift the debate on national security projects from audience to public by bringing intra-action and embodiment into the frame. First, we show how atomic testing operated on the terrain of public culture as much as physical territory. Second, we demonstrate how the materiality of the bomb, and its consequences for those who witnessed detonations, reveals the relation between publicity and secrecy as strategies for managing information about security projects. Finally, drawing on Barad's Agential Realism, we use the dosimetry film badge as a device through which to read the relationship between the atomic bomb and its nuclear publics.     

The dairymaid and the prince: race,memory, and the story of Benjamin Banneker’s grandmother

The list of white Englishwomen, who formed intimate relationships with African men between 1680 and 1750 in Maryland, is impressive, more so because by 1664, Maryland laws made interracial marriages between white women and African men illegal. Court records exist documenting the punishment of women both for ‘fornicating’ with men of African descent and for having children by them, though how rigorously early colonial Maryland marriage laws were enforced remains unknown. What is known and what increasingly stringent marriage laws in Maryland suggest is that after 1664 white English women continued to choose black partners (both slave and free), regardless of serious social consequences that included social exclusion, lengthened indenture service, forced servitude of their children and of their sexual partners, and public physical punishment including whipping. By 1715, it became illegal in Maryland for black women to engage in intimate relationships with men. Mixed-race women, commonly called ‘mulatto’ in early records, found themselves with few choices in their sexual partners, since legally they were not allowed to engage in intimate relationships with either white or black men. One of these women, Molly Welsh, serves as a reminder of the unusual and unique position for women during the seventeenth century as servants, slave owners, property owners, and as partners in interracial relationships.     

Examining the Incidence and Clients’ Experiences of Single Session Therapy in Italy: A Feasibility Study

Single session therapy (SST) postulates that one session can be sufficient for a client to take charge of the process and work toward their own solutions. Research has been conducted worldwide corroborating SST assumptions with several mental health conditions, but not in Italy. For the first time in Italy, this paper aims to explore: (1) if the most frequent number of sessions in traditional psychotherapy (not SST) is one (Study 1); and (2) the satisfaction of clients who attend SST services and the number who consider one session sufficient to address their presenting problem (Study 2). In Study 1, the records of 476 voluntary clients referred to three different traditional (not SST) psychological services in the west-central region of Latium, Italy, were retrospectively screened, and the number of sessions attended by each client recorded. In Study 2, 85 consecutive clients who voluntarily asked for SST with seven mental health professionals across Italy received a link to an online ad hoc survey, 1–3 weeks after the consultation, evaluating their experience. Study 1 found that the most frequent number of traditional psychotherapeutic (not intentionally SST) sessions was one (124 out of 476 clients (26%). Study 2 found that 44 out of 85 clients (52%) considered one session to be enough, as they felt better or much better and chose not to attend further sessions. Of those who asked for a second session (41 clients), 33 clients (80.5%) indicated that the first session was not enough and 8 clients (19.5%) wanted to address a new problem. These results converge with previous international studies and provide encouragement for the use of SST in both private and public psychological services to address the demand for timely mental health services in Italy. Further research is needed to support the efficacy of SST and to evaluate its cost-effectiveness.     

Strangers of the north: South Asians,cricket and the culture of ‘Yorkshireness’

As a county, Yorkshire is a ‘cultural region’: an imagined space, where culture is constructed, refined and articulated by a set of discursive relationships between local populations and a whole range of cultural forms. In this context however, culture is conceived as something which belongs to, and is only accessible by, certain groups of people. Our focus in this article is on the culture of Yorkshire cricket. Historically, Yorkshire cricket has been linked with White male privilege and some studies have shown that people within Yorkshire take a degree of pride in this. Consequently, the county and its cricket club have faced frequent accusations from minority ethnic communities of inveterate and institutionalised racism. Drawing upon Bauman’s notion of ‘liquid modernity’, we argue that the processes of deregulation and individualisation championed by New Right policies have led to a divorce between power and politics, a cornerstone of the old solid modern world. This in turn has led to an erosion of the state, causing individuals to navigate turbulent life projects which are consistently haunted by the spectres of fear and insecurity. Such an environment has caused cricket to be pushed further behind gated social spaces, in an attempt to maintain a semblance of ‘community’.