Conflict-Oriented Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CO-CBT): An Integrative Approach to the Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa Patients

The paper describes an integrative approach to the treatment of Bulimia Nervosa that combines Cognitive Behavioral Treatment (CBT) with short-term dynamic treatment, called conflict-oriented cognitive behavioral treatment (CO-CBT). The need to develop an integrative model emerges from the lack of focus on the underlying emotional dynamics in the traditional CBT approach. This article provides a brief literature review of CBT and short-term dynamic therapy as applied to Bulimia Nervosa patients. It describes the CO-CBT treatment model, followed by clinical examples, and a discussion of the importance of incorporating this additional dimension in order to most successfully treat Bulimia Nervosa.

The Therapeutic Action of Play in the Psychodynamic Treatment of Children: A Critical Analysis

This paper critically appraises the therapeutic action of play in psychodynamic child therapy and identifies obstacles to utilizing play therapeutically with children. An examination of the functions of action and verbal means of communication as well as their roles in shaping therapeutic relationships in treating children is provided in light of recent theoretical advances. The significance of engaging children directly through play and for redressing the balance between action and verbalization in child therapy is discussed.

Use of Self in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has not traditionally utilized “use of self” to describe the clinician’s role in counseling but much attention has been given to the importance of the therapeutic relationship and the components necessary and appropriate for a strong working alliance. The CBT approach is discussed within the framework of previously articulated five uses of selves. A case example is presented.

Disrupting Power and Privilege in Couples Therapy

Power disparities underlie many of the issues that couples bring for therapy. People in relationships are not equal; often one partner is systematically conferred unearned advantage and dominance. This article synthesizes results from three qualitative research studies to propose a social justice approach for clinical practice with couples. Interventions are suggested to keep issues of power and privilege a central focus while addressing the ordinary issues partners present for therapy.

Paining Out: An Integrative Pain Therapy Model

This article describes and evaluates an integrative pain therapy model as a beneficial form of pain-management for chronic pain. The author based his model on cognitive-behavioral modalities, progressive relaxation combined with art therapy, sensory awareness combined with indirect clinical hypnosis, formal clinical hypnosis and self-hypnosis. Those techniques were applied in small group settings to systematically alter pain perception, pain interpretations and response to pain for the group participants’ benefit. As a result, the group participants gained a greater sense of control over the pain, eased or abolished the pain, and decreased the stress, anxiety and depression associated with chronic pain. The techniques used were synthesized into ten group therapy sessions. A small data sample suggests that the model has clinical utility and maintained its benefits in a 6- to12-month follow-up.

The scoring rules in an endogenous election

Plurality rule is mostly criticized from being capable of choosing an alternative considered as worst by a strict majority. This paper considers elections in which the agenda consists of potential candidates strategically choosing whether or not to enter the election. In this context, we examine the ability of scoring rules to fulfil the Condorcet criterion. We show for the case of three potential candidates that Plurality rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies a version of the Condorcet criterion in two cases: 1) when preferences are single-peaked and, 2) when preferences are single-dipped.

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After the Assault: Cognitive Trauma Therapy with a Single Event Trauma Survivor

This article explores the specific context of a single event criminal assault, (i.e., a stranger non-sexual assault that occurred during a robbery) and shares the theoretical framework that successfully guided the clinician’s assessment, treatment planning, and interventions. Based on a literature review and employing a case study, this article presents the potential norms of trauma aftermath following a single event non-sexual criminal assault. It provides an overview of those theoretical frameworks that have consistently proven effective with this population; this article shares the rationale for selecting cognitive trauma therapy and illustrates its application to an assault survivor.

Between Market and Civic Governance Regimes: Civicness in the Governance of Social Services in Europe

The paper proposes to discuss the issue of civicness in the governance of social services by analyzing policy changes relative to the regulation and governance of social services in Europe. The empirical analysis is structured around the concept of “governance regime.” The paper shows that modernization processes within the field of social services in Europe develop along two radically different regulative conceptions reflected into two different governance regimes: market-based or competitive governance vs civic-based or partnership governance. The governance of social services in Europe appears to take place within a mix between two ideal-typical governance regimes: the market-based and partnership-based governance regimes.

Myths of Women and Their Reflection in a Therapy Group

One essential dilemma for modern clinical social work involves the relationship between the processes taking place inside the self and the social, cultural, and political developments affecting a person from the outside. The group-analysis approach focuses on four levels of relationships and communication within the group, among others a primordial level of shared myths, archetypical images, and the collective unconscious as an important component of psychotherapy. This article describes group-analysis therapy with women, analyzing a therapeutic process that used social myths to explore the formative institutionalization processes participants had undergone, thereby expanding themselves, growing, and changing.

The inverse plurality rule—an axiomatization

Under the ‘inverse plurality rule’, voters specify only their least preferred alternative. Our first result establishes that this rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies the minimal veto condition (MV). We then prove that the inverse plurality rule is characterized by MV and the four well known conditions that characterize scoring rules; namely, Anonymity (A), Neutrality (N), Reinforcement (RE) and Continuity (CO). Our new characterization result is related to the characterizations of approval voting and of the widely used plurality rule. We finally show how the axiomatization of the inverse plurality rule can be extended to the axiomatization of elementary scoring rules (vote for t-alternatives scoring rules). We are indebted to two anonymous referees for their most useful comments.

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Engaging Absent Fathers in the Treatment of Children

Absent fathers are often excluded from the treatment of their children for various reasons. They are often marginalized by mothers, and unintentionally excluded by clinicians. Absent fathers are also excluded from treatment in fear that their presence might undermine the competencies of single mothers, which social service agencies serve to empower. This article will discuss the potential benefits of including absent fathers in family therapy, and how to work with them once engaged in treatment.

Efficient nonanthropocentric nature protection

This paper analyzes nature protection by a social planner under different ‘utilitarian’ social welfare functions. For that purpose we construct an integrated model of the economy and the ecosystem with explicit consideration of nonhuman species and with competition between human and nonhuman species for land and prey biomass. We characterize and compare the efficient allocations when social welfare is anthropocentric (only consumers have positive welfare weights), when social welfare is biocentric (only nonhuman species have positive welfare weights) and when social welfare is nonanthropocentric (all species have positive welfare weights). Not surprisingly, biocentric social welfare calls for suspending all economic activities. It is more important, however, that both anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism make the case for nature protection through different channels, though. Our analysis suggests that one may dispense with the concept of nonanthropocentric social welfare provided that in the anthropocentric framework the consumers' intrinsic valuation of nature is properly accounted for.

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Therapeutic Ambition,Uncertainty, and Psychotherapy with Heterosexually Married Gay Men: A Short Commentary

A Short Commentary on the article 'Staying Put in the Closet: Examining Clinical Practice and Countertransference Issues in Work with Gay Men Married to Straight Women' by Edward Alessi. The focus is upon countertransference issues, especially therapeutic ambition, in working clinically with heterosexually married gay men. The work of the interpersonal school is emphasized as providing a creative approach to therapeutic ambition with Otto Allen Will's concept of the governing principle of uncertainty.

Financial Issues Associated with Having a Child with Autism

Data from the Family Experiences with Autism Survey are used to identify factors associated with financial problems in families that have a child with autism. Likelihood of financial problems was positively associated with use of medical interventions, having unreimbursed medical or therapy expenses, and having relatively lower income. Use of speech and language therapy was negatively associated with likelihood of financial problems. Many survey respondents forfeited future financial security and even experienced bankruptcy to provide needed therapy for a child with autism. Specific ways that financial advisors can help families that have a child with autism are outlined.

Becoming Each Other: A Single Case Exploration of Relational Consciousness in Couple Therapy

The concept of “relational consciousness” has gained increasing attention in the last decades in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and psychotherapy. Yet human consciousness with its concomitant awareness of self and other as distinct is linguistically and culturally situated in the individual mind. This article explores the lived experience of shared consciousness in the practice of “becoming the other” with a focus on therapy with one couple. The historical development of our understanding of consciousness as a relational phenomenon is addressed with particular attention to the observations, insights, and practices of Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, and Gregory Bateson, who have each contributed substantially to our understanding of mind as relationally experienced and constructed. The article explores implications for practice and future directions this methodology might take.

Sustained Empathic Focus and its Application in the Treatment of Couples

Although all psychoanalytically informed approaches to couples therapy recognize the importance of underlying dynamics, there are important differences in the focus of the treatment. This paper suggests a focus that is based on a self-psychological/intersubjective viewpoint. Two concepts that exemplify this model, a sustained empathic focus and an appreciation of the experience of vulnerability, are discussed and applied to a couples session. What is emphasized in this material is a process of focusing on underlying vulnerability, affect and subjective experience.

Justice Sector Reform in Afghanistan: From a ‘Lead Nation’ Approach to a ‘Mixed Ownership’ Regime?

The article describes the policy-making structure which governs the reform of justice in Afghanistan. It is characterized by an evolution from a bilateral to a multilateral approach, aimed at increasing the Afghan ownership. However, observing the system ‘from within’, it seems currently ruled by a mixed regime, being still deeply influenced by external inputs. As a consequence, the final outcome of the process remains uncertain.

Reduced prizes and increased effort in contests

We study the general class of two-player public-policy contests and specify the asymmetry condition under which a more restrained government intervention that reduces the contestants’ prizes has the “perverse” effect of increasing their aggregate lobbying efforts.

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Informalization and contemporary manners: The Wouters studies

This is a discussion of two books by Cas Wouters, Sex and Manners: Female Emancipation in the West 1890–2000 (London: Sage, 2004), and Informalization: Manners and Emotions since 1890 (Sage, forthcoming 2007, English version).

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