Assuring the quality of long-term care insurance benefits through care management: the California partnership for long-term care

Despite recent improvements in long-term care insurance (LTCI) policies, concerns have been raised regarding just how well LTCI benefits actually meet elderly consumers' health and financial needs. In this case study, we examined the quality assurance (QA) provisions in a state-sponsored LTCI program, the California Partnership for Long-Term Care (CPLTC). CPLTC invests the primary responsibility for QA with care management networks, which assure quality services through care monitoring, quarterly service record reviews, and annual documentation of care manager clinical competence. Study findings suggest a number of limitations in existing QA policies and procedures, which can undermine the ability of care managers and other third parties to identify and rectify potential unmet needs among LTCI policyholders. These findings, while based on an intensive analysis of QA provisions in a particular, state-sponsored LTCI program, are likely to have implications for other LTCI programs and policies, most of which have less well-developed QA provisions.     

Bridging the Theory–Practice Gap in Social Work Education: A Reflection on an Action Research in China

This article explores the background to, and issues associated with, the implementation of Personal Development Planning (PDP) within Higher Education (HE). Consideration of issues for social work educators follows as the authors seek to ground policy change in practice and debate issues so that reflection is not ‘little more than a mantra’ but rather a ‘model for practice’ (Kuit et al., 2001, Active Learning in Higher Education, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 128–142, at p. 129). Although educators have arguably always used a variety of strategies to encourage student reflection and evaluation of their learning experiences, implementation of PDPs codifies and institutionalises individual student reflection and the production of associated outputs. This is evidenced by the production of guidelines to promote what is billed as a core educational process by Universities UK, the Standing Conference on Principals, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the Learning and Teaching Subject Network (LTSN) Generic Centre. As social work academics consider and respond to the challenges associated with the re‐specification of programmes to meet new award requirements they might usefully reflect on the challenges PDP brings, and integrate responses into programme specifications. Avoiding fragmentation and duplication, for example around the personal tutor system and role of staff in PDP, is important for both social work students and staff within complex and, at times, contradictory organisational contexts such as Institutes of Higher Education (IHE).     

Reflections on the Therapeutic Action of Desire

When feelings of love and desire for an external object are so powerful that they distract from the treatment relationship or manifest as an erotic transference, they can undermine or destroy an analysis. Likewise, when the analyst's erotic responses are more than he or she can tolerate, acting out can prove fatal. Conversely, when the erotic is contained, desire can become an important part of the therapeutic action. An extended clinical example is presented to explore these themes and related variables of repressed and liberated desire as well as the connection between age and erotic longing.     

Synthesising Gellner,Smith, and Barth: building a preliminary analytical framework for exploring the relationships between ethnic groups,nations, and nationalism

This review article synthesises Gellner's, Smith's, and Barth's ideas about ethnic groups and nations. It redefines the concepts of the ethnic group, nation, and nationalism. An ethnic group can be defined as a group of people who are self-differentiated from other groups. A nation can be defined as an ethnic group or groups politically mobilised by elite-made nationalism. Furthermore, nationalism can be defined as an ideology which demands that an ethnic group or groups should have their own state. In effect, a conceptual framework is formulated, although how useful the framework can be is subject to further empirical research.     

Human beings, technology and the idea of man

Since ancient times philosophy has dealt with the relation between technology and man. Nowadays this is especially true in the context of the philosophy of technology. Technology is interpreted as an anthropological constant to construct an environment in which man can survive. Acting in the field of technology is to act rationally with a purpose, i.e., in the framework of a means-end relation, and it is employed for coping with “experiences” (Widerfahrnisse) by means of using tools. Like technology, language can be reconstructed as a symbolic form and thus as a technological means, as a tool so that the employment of metaphors can also be described as an employment of tools. Using technology has effects on man as well as on his self-image. Thus, philosophy of technology creates different ideas of man, which have to become subject to ethical discourses.     

Inoculation theory and public relations

Inoculation theory explains how an existing state (an attitude, a belief, a position) can be made more resistant to future influence, in much the same way a medical inoculation can make an existing state (a healthy body) more resistant to future viral influence: through pre-exposure to weakened forms of challenges. The theory has established efficacy as an effective messaging strategy in a number of contexts, including politics and health. Another area that has received attention in inoculation theory scholarship is public relations. A comprehensive review of this work, however, is long overdue. We outline existing work in inoculation theory and public relations, and then show how inoculation theory and public relations research can bring new applications and theoretical development to the public relations areas of (1) issues management; (2) crisis and risk communication; and (3) character assassination.     

The Socio-Economic Empowerment Assessment: Addressing Poverty and Economic Distress in Clients

In this paper, we introduce the Socio-Economic Empowerment Assessment (SEEA), a qualitative assessment that uses an ecological framework to better understand the psychological impact of poverty and financial insecurity. The assessment is designed as a practice tool and can be administered in a number of clinical settings, including agencies most likely to serve low-income populations. It can also be included as part of financial literacy or management sessions that social work agencies may offer. This paper explores how SEEA can be used to help develop specific and appropriate interventions that move low-income people and others toward economic empowerment. We examine the literature on financial literacy programs and theories on behavior regulation and social relationships related to consumption. A case study using an integrative assessment approach is included as an example of SEEA implementation.     

Transsexuality as Sinthome: Bracha L. Ettinger and the Other (Feminine) Sexual Difference

This article uses Bracha L. Ettinger’s theory of the matrixial borderspace in relation to Jacques Lacan’s analytic of sexuation to argue that transsexuality isn’t reducible to psychosis. Rather, transsexuality taps into an Other (feminine) sexual difference that is subjectifying and can be understood in relation to Ettinger’s conception of metramorphosis and the matrixial. Transsexuality involves the somatization of the Other sexual difference and the creative use of this difference as sinthome. The sinthome of transsexuality can enable the subject to negotiate the aporia of sexual difference. I establish parallels between the (neurotic) hysteric and the transsexual to argue that transsexuality can be a subset of neurosis. The transsexual transition (which often involves Sex Reassignment Surgery) can be understood as a metramorphical becoming, a borderlinking enabling separation and distance in proximity. It is not as Catherine Millot (1990) contends an attempt to abolish the “nature” of the Real but rather a means to achieve a sinthomatic reknotting of the 3 Registers such that one’s relation to a parental image and to an Other’s primordial traces can be reconfigured.     

Role Selection: The Influence of Internalized Vocabularies of Motive

The notion of internalized vocabulary of motive is introduced in an analysis of role selection that also incorporates the concepts person, self, identity, and role-taking. The selection process is described as being influenced by the person's attempt to assemble a role pattern which provides an overall source of validation and satisfaction for an internalized vocabulary of motive. The role-choice implications of the balance of satisfactions among what are called operating dominant roles, model dominant roles and ephemeral roles are considered, and a measurement technique is suggested. It is argued that what appears to be conformist role enactment by a person can actually be a creative act of role selection. The role taken “as is” can effectively contribute another component to an idiosyncratically balanced role array assembled and enacted by the individual.     

Clinical sociology between social disease and sociological disease

This essay's aim is to explore the potential for relieving suffering with which clinical sociology can provide social actors. The author carries out a theoretical reflection of culture's function in human societies. Culture is an instrument for social actors, to give a meaning to what is happening at each moment. If culture does not grant an effective interpretation of reality, phenomena of disease can arise. This can happen for many different reasons, such as incoherent cultural representations or conflicts between different cultural issues. The paper outlines the kinds of cultural disease that can occur, as well as the possible causes of each. It also sets a link between cultural disease and the contemporary, general lack of cognitive references, due to historical changes – such as globalization – that have been happening too fast to be fully accepted by all.     

Editorial

Undergoing a traumatic experience can be a life-changing event, having a significant impact on individuals, families, communities, workplaces and societies. Traumatology is therefore a complex field of study demanding a sophisticated level of understanding to serve as a theory base. This article explores the potential for existentialist philosophy to make an important contribution to our understanding of trauma and its effects. It presents trauma as an existential injury and explores the psychosocial basis of traumatic experience — that is, conceptualising trauma as having both psychological and sociological dimensions, the combination of which has profound existential resonances. While the theoretical ideas discussed can be applied to trauma at any stage in the life course, this paper focuses in particular on childhood trauma. Consequently, child abuse is used as an example of how trauma can have a significant (and detrimental) effect on identity development, invoking a need for a commitment to trauma recovery.     

MANIPULATING VOTING PROCEDURES

A voting procedure can be manipulated if, by misrepresenting his preferences, some individual can secure an outcome which he prefers to the outcome he gets when he is honest.
This is an expository paper on the theory of voting manipulation. Section I is an historical sketch of the contributions of Condorcet, de Borda, Arrow, and others. Section II provides a set of examples of manipulation: of plurality voting, of majority voting, of exhaustive voting, of the single transferable vote procedure, and of approval voting. It also contains an example of a nonmanipulable random voting scheme. Section HI provides a simple proof of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite manipulation theorem.     

The Extramarital Affair: A Language of Yearning and Loss

This paper presents an extramarital relationship as an experience of self-enhancement, not of pathological conflict. It will suggest that the simultaneous relationship with the lover AND an empathically attuned therapist can be healing for the patient. It is seen as often an opportunity for essential developmental needs to be fulfilled when damaging failures in the bond between child and caretaker have restricted the vitalizing atmosphere of mutual influence that results in unrecognized subjectivity. Rather than viewed as a reality-escaping midlife enactment, these relationships can be better thought of as efforts to revisit the traumatic experiences that have created the organizing patterns that have limited a patient's self-development. An extramarital affair is often about yearning and loss and the freedom to enact one's own desire.     

Analysis of projective identification: An object-relations approach to marital treatment

Projective identification is an important construct to both analytic and family therapy practice approaches. It is an especially useful concept in marital therapy, and can be used as the foundation for assessment and intervention. This paper provides an overview of projective identification and an illustration of its use in marital treatment.     

Integrating three approaches to counter resistance in a noncompliant elderly client

1. The term "resistance' has been defined primarily in the psychoanalytic literature and is a significant issue in the treatment of mentally ill people. This issue needs to be addressed for the change process to begin. 2. An understanding of resistance from psychoanalytic, cognitive, and behavioral perspectives will enable the nurse to assist the client in achieving mental health. 3. Countertransferance can be used to understand the client's motives, hence becoming aware of therapeutic goals, or it can hinder the therapeutic process. 4. The psychiatric-geriatric population is complex. With the acceptance that an elderly client can benefit from psychotherapy and with an understanding of different approaches, the client may experience symptom relief.     

Assaultive behavior. Does provocation begin in the front office?

1. Provocation is an important risk predictor because these issues can be recognized, assessed, and appropriate interventions can be implemented to reduce the associated risks. It is only by the reduction of such "non-fixed" risk factors that any reduction of assaults can be accomplished. 2. Involuntary admission, patients with dementia or organic brain disorder, physical or verbal limits, staff attitude, denial of the possibility of assaults, and the educational level and clinical experience of the staff may help provoke an assaultive episode. 3. An important step is assessing the assault to identify provocation due to certain medical causes, and to document the extent of degeneration in patients with dementia or organic brain disorder. Medical intervention would be indicated and would appropriately address the causes of some violent episodes.     

An ‘action‐poor’ human rights education: a critical review of the development of human rights education in the context of civic education in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, human rights education (HRE) is considered an aspect of civic education. For decades, HRE has been poorly attended. In 2009, a new compulsory subject, Liberal Studies, where HRE can be infused, will be introduced to senior secondary students (15–18 years old). This article reviews the development of HRE within civic education, followed by the analysis of Liberal Studies documents with reference to international human rights documents. It is concluded that Liberal Studies can be used as a vehicle for HRE. The aims and pedagogy proposed are similar to those adopted by HRE. International standards of human rights can be incorporated in the content. However, the HRE derived from Liberal Studies is a form of ‘action‐poor HRE’. Whether this ‘action‐ poor HRE’ can adequately cultivate a universal human rights culture is an issue for further research.     

对等理论与进口商标的翻译

好的商标翻译不仅可以为企业带来好的第一印象,而且可以对产品的销售起到很大的推动作用。尤金奈达的对等翻译理论在进口商标的翻译中有可应用性及可操作性。在该理论指导下翻译进口商标时应采取不同的策略。不仅要达到语言功能上的对等,也要具有对等的经济效益。     

Bullying in schools: what is the problem, and how can educators solve it?

This chapter reviews recent research on bullying from an educator's perspective. It is well known that bullying, a serious issue in schools, can be prevented when educators intervene. But research has shown that it is difficult for educators to detect bullying situations in their school and intervene competently and effectively. This chapter examines how educators can detect bullying, how they can best tackle serious cases of bullying, and how they can best prevent bullying in the long run.