Ambivalence; Will I? Should I? Can I? Do I want to?†

In all intimate relationships where difficulties are being experienced, one or both parties can feel ambivalent. Some individuals and couples resolve their ambivalence, discover lost aspects of themselves and new ways of relating, while others either remain together regardless of a satisfactory resolution, or decide to separate. In this paper I will address the nature of ambivalence and its influence and effect on individuals and couples. Understanding and working with ambivalence requires us as therapists to consider both the emotional patterns in relationships and the influence of early childhood experiences. Methods of assessing and working with ambivalence will be outlined and contra-indications for individual and joint sessions discussed.     

"BY PUBLIC OPINION I MEAN"--

"Where all people talk on the same subject, they should be agreedabout the vocabulary with which they discuss it: or, at anyrate, they should be aware that they are not agreed."     

“I am a cheerleader,but secretly I deal drugs” Authenticity through Concealment and Disclosure

Authenticity requires a balance between being true to others and being true to the self. People keep and disclose secrets in order to maintain authenticity contextually within relationships, as well as across contexts through self‐reflexive evaluations. Based upon a content and discourse analysis of 1600 submissions to the PostSecret mail‐art project, this study explores how secrets are used to manage disparate social, role, and personal identities to sustain coherent selves in some contexts and incoherent selves in others. Secrets are revealed anonymously through the PostSecret mail‐art project, which allows for a cathartic release without disrupting their performances in front of significant others. This project analyzes the attempts made to maintain or achieve authenticity through the dialectical acts of concealment and disclosure.     

"I Feel Happy that I Can be Useful to Others": Preliminary Study of East African Women and Their Remittance Behavior

Individuals and their families often migrate for various reasons (e.g., economic wellbeing, civic unrest, medical reasons). Yet often times economic strain can cause families to migrate at different times. This separation within the family units has created the development of transnational family interactions where immigrant families remain emotionally and financially connected across international borders. Remittances, the back and forth exchange of goods and resources between people in the host nation and their counterparts in the country of origin, can often play a vital role in these interactions. Black African immigrants, Black people from the continent of Africa, are one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the US and also one of the highest financial remitters. Women are consistent remitters, yet little is known about the financial contributions of women from this continent to their families in their countries of origin. The current study looked at a segment of this population by exploring the remittance experiences of seven immigrant women from the East African countries of Rwanda and Kenya. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted and our thematic analysis revealed five themes: (1) Women felt their families made financial sacrifices for them, (2) Women took on family financial responsibilities, (3) Women felt their families in the country of origin had skewed financial expectations of them, (4) Women felt guilty about their limited finances and inability to send more to their families, and lastly (5) Women invested or had plans to invest in their country of origin.     

What Must My Interest in Politics Be If I Just Told You "I Don't Know"?

How much people think they follow what's going on in governmentand public affairs depends upon the context in which they areasked the question. If asked immediately after difficult questionsabout what they know of their congressman's record, they aremuch less likely to think they pay attention to public affairsthan if they are asked, first, how interested they are in suchmatters. More important, data from two independent experimentsshow that this context effect cannot be eliminated, or significantlyreduced, by interposing a buffer of questions on unrelated topicsbetween the items that are known to affect one another. Theauthors discuss the psychological significance of these findingsand their implications for survey research.     

‘Don’t underestimate the things that I will do’

Based on a true story. It is about an awakening in which a single mother realizes that she has been manipulated by her society — rather, what the society instilled into her mind.     

I,we, and she: An ecological note on Etzioni's I & we paradigm

Ecology and environmental issues are almost completely lacking in socioeconomics. Results of environmental sciences demonstrate that nature plays an important role in the life of individuals and collectivities. Etzioni's I & We paradigm can be enlarged to include Mother Nature.     

“I want to move once I have got things straight”: Voluntary sector chief executives' career accounts

This article reports investigation into chief executives' career perceptions, experiences, and aspirations in small and mediumsized organizations in England, using career history and biographical narrative techniques. Career accounts from sixty chief executives—twenty‐seven women and thirty‐three men—were gathered and analyzed, drawing on career theory and typologies of career characterization. A typology for voluntary sector chief executives' career stances was developed: the Paid Philanthropists, the Careerists, and the Nonaligned. Within this typology, women chief executives appeared as predominantly Careerists, outnumbering male chief executives by two to one. Implications for developing career theory in voluntary sector contexts is discussed and directions for future research suggested.     

Do As I Say and Not As I Think: Parent Socialisation of Lie‐Telling Behaviour

This study explored parent (N = 146) perspectives about situations in which they think it is acceptable to lie, how this corresponds to how they socialise their children about lie‐telling and their children's actual behaviour. Results indicated the methods parents report using to teach their children about the acceptability of lie‐telling are consistent with what they report teaching their children about lie‐telling overall. Also, the frequency of lies that children told (N = 88) to protect themselves from psychological distress or conflict differed between those who were taught that lying is sometimes acceptable versus those taught it is never acceptable.     

“Sometimes,I think I might say too much”: Dark Secrets and the Performance of Inflammatory Bowel Disease*

This study examines the dramaturgical embodiment of chronically ill bodies managing “fecal matters” (Weinberg and Williams 2005) in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) support groups. Data were derived from my reflections as a person with IBD, a year of participant observation, and semi‐structured interviews with support group members. I first uncover the boundaries of the private body (Cahill 2006). Secondly, I focus on the entrenchment of IBD within the stigma of fecal matters. Lastly, I explore the disparate ways that support group members harnessed language to protect their embodied selves from symbolic fecal contamination, from a “soiled self.”     

‘I Eat the Vegetables because I Have Grown them with My Own Hands’: Children's Perspectives on School Gardening and Vegetable Consumption

Inadequate vegetable consumption is a global public health concern related to numerous health risks. A promising intervention to increase children's vegetable consumption is school gardening, although earlier studies have shown mixed results. This study explores how gardening might contribute to changed attitudes towards eating vegetables from a child's perspective. Findings are based on qualitative research with children in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We reflect on how children enact agency regarding their vegetables. Results show that children report that changes occur in their attitudes towards vegetables as they not only eat more vegetables but also advocate the consumption of vegetables at home.     

“I Learn as I Please”: The Construction of Children's Knowledge in,and about,a Buenos Aires Neighbourhood

This article summarises the findings of an ethnographic study among children of ages nine to fifteen who attend Aula Vereda, a community organisation in their neighbourhood with educational and recreational activities, once a week. On the assumption that children actively construct knowledge and do not merely repeat what adults impart, I'll identify three different ways in which these youths approach the instances of learning that the educators propose at the centre. These approaches, in turn, reveal a variety of cognitive productions and means for negotiating the spatial and generational meanings at work in the neighbourhood where they live.     

《海上传奇》

After having examined China＇s historic changes, through his films, in the past decade, Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke developed a growing interest in history. As a result, he visited Shanghai with his movie camera and traced the footsteps of Shanghai and its people who had stories about the city. The experience gave birth to his latest movie, I Wish I Knew.     

Systemic Approaches to Psychosis Part I — The Systemic Context

The context in which psychosis emerges is explored in relation to current theory and research. The family, social and cultural context is found to be highly significant in regard to the likelihood of psychosis emerging, the focus of therapeutic endeavour and treatment outcome. In particular, the ideas, beliefs and expectations of caregivers appear to exert a profound effect on outcome. Although belief is to the contrary, current research in relation to schizophrenia indicates that a typical course involves a long period (years) of relative incapacity followed by recovery.