A Pilot Use of Letters to Clients before the Initial Session

This paper explores the nature of engagement in the therapy process, and proposes that engagement may be facilitated when both client and therapist are able to develop an appreciation of each other's position within the therapeutic relationship. Some ways that a therapist can assist in this process are explored. An experiment is described in which information letters are sent to clients before the initial therapy session, as a possible way to enhance the engagement process.     

An Obstacle Race: A Case Study of a Child's Schooling in Australia and England

This account of the struggle by a 'disabled' child to experience a normal education, to lead a normal life, is the basis for a critique of science and the professions, for her struggle has been against those specialists who shape our ideologies, the high priests of the religion of science. Her story reveals the deep-seated prejudices of our society, prejudices which derive from the increasing domination, since the sixteenth century, of a mechanistic, phallogocentric scientism which, in the name of reason, denies individuality, creativity, spirituality, variability, defining and thus condemning those suffering physical or perceptual disabilities beyond the pale. They are deemed 'unnatural', 'negative', 'abnormal' through recourse to a narrow, mechanistic and artificial view of nature. A disabled child sets out on the race through life weighed down by ruthless handicappers but in her triumph shows how ignorant the medical model is of humanity and how restrictive our schools are of creativity. Her success questions our most deeply-rooted assumptions.     

The Epileptic: A Study in Status-Role Relationships

The status-role of the epileptic in the United States and elsewhere is such that he is handicapped in gaining employment and education. In fact, it is not epilepsy per se which prevents epileptics from adequately participating in our society, but the beliefs about epilepsy. These beliefs have a long history and are derived from ancient and mythical sources. They have no validity in the light of medical advances made in this field over the past thirty years. Hence it is now necessary to give epileptics those educational and vocational opportunities which others have and of which epileptics have been unjustly deprived.     

Family-directed structural therapy

Family-Directed Structural Therapy (FDST) is an approach to family therapy built on traditional concepts of Structural Family Therapy, the Strengths Model, and Group Work Theory. The FDST approach is a goal-oriented, time limited approach that enables the family to identify strengths and areas of concern, as well as to enhance family functioning. This process is facilitated via the use of a common vocabulary and a concretely organized, easily administered FDST Assessment Tool that is completed by adult family members. This article presents the essential features of the FDST approach, including the use and scoring of the FDST Assessment Tool. It concludes with an extensive case example.     

On Graphing Paired Data

Techniques for graphing paired data are considered. A conventional method frequently used when reporting scientific results, particularly in medical journals, involves representing pairs of measurements by straight line segments titled at different angles related to the differences between the components of the data pairs. However when the sample size is only moderately large, this type of display can become cluttered and thus uninformative due to overlap. It is suggested that a new graph that combines features of ANOVA plots and multivalued dot charts may provide a more effective visual display of paired data. A designed experiment in data perception using simulated data provides some evidence in favor of this parallel line plot.