The Use of Sandtray Therapy With Adoptive Families

Providing mental health services to adoptive families is an increasing need, and research indicates that many mental health professionals are not proficient in issues commonly affecting adoptive families. Research shows that adopted children exhibit more emotional, behavioral, and social struggles than non-adopted children, often as the result of abuse and neglect in early life. Primarily, though, the needs in adoptive families are relational and identified as needing focus on family dynamics, attachment styles, and trauma exposure. This article suggests using sandtray therapy as a therapeutic method that is trauma-informed, attachment-friendly, and supportive of adoptive families.     

The offender group reconviction scale: a statistical reconviction score for use by probation officers

The criminal courts in England and Wales may request the probation service to submit pre-sentence reports which are considered by magistrates and judges before making their sentencing decision. Pre-sentence reports must include an assessment of the risk of reoffending and the risk of harm to the public which the convicted offender presents. The offender group reconviction scale is a statistical aid to such risk assessment. We describe the scale and the statistical analysis on which it is based, and we discuss some statistical aspects of its interpretation and use.     

Sector policy in government

This paper is concerned with Sector Policy and more specifically Energy Policy and Government Policy for public corporations.     

The Potential Contribution of Land Use Policies Towards Sustainable Mobility through Activation of Travel Reduction Mechanisms

This paper explores the ways in which land use planning and the layout of the built environment may assist towards the objectives of sustainable mobility by influencing travel behaviour, in particular towards achieving travel reduction. The paper firstly discusses the different types of land use policy which may be used to assist with the objectives of sustainability and travel reduction, with reference to examples of implementation from Europe and elsewhere. It then places these in a framework distinguishing the nature of land use policies and the mechanisms activated in reducing travel or otherwise promoting sustainable mobility. The paper then goes on to explore in more detail the different mechanisms by which more sustainable travel patterns may be effected through land use considerations, noting how these mechanisms may be combined to amplify the potential scope for travel reduction. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of these explorations for land use policy and hence draws conclusions on the importance of the contribution of land use planning towards sustainable mobility.     

THE DANGERS OF PURITY: ON THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF "PURE SOCIOLOGY" AND SCIENCE

Donald Black insists that sociology must be purged of its psychological elements in order to become a genuinely distinct and scientific discipline. But such "purification" is simultaneously unnecessary, undesirable, and unattainable. It is unnecessary because the scientific shortcomings of sociology are indigenous and have nothing to do with psychologism. Indeed, a more scientific sociology would look more, not less, like psychology. Purity is undesirable in that it is not only not a scientific virtue, but is antithetical to the very scientific values that Black invokes to justify it. His systems are neither theories nor laws, but heuristics, more akin to common sense than to scientific theory. Finally, purity is unattainable because though society is indeed discontinuous with the individuals who make it up, it and all theorizing about it, are ontologically and conceptually dependent upon them.     

PERCEPTIONS OF MARRIAGE AND RATIONALITY BY LEVELS OF PERCEIVED HEALTH IN THE FAMILY OF ORIGIN*

The family therapy field has witnessed a beneficial dedication to the study of the transmission of pathology (Mueller & Pope, 1977). Of late however, there is a concern that pathology has been overly stressed (Stachowiak, 1975). It is perhaps with this overemphasis in mind, and that the absence of pathology does not necessarily equal health (Kleiman, 1981), that researchers have recently pursued the study of family health (Olson, Russell & Sprenkle, 1983; Walsh, 1982). The concept of family health has particular significance when considering the family of origin. Bowen (1978) and Framo (1981), in particular, have described the transmission of pathology from one generation to the next. It is less clear, however, whether health follows a similar transmission process, although the notion seems appealingly logical. Anderson (1981) pointed to the dearth of investigations studying the consequences of health in the family of origin and offspring characteristics. This study addresses these concerns by investigating the extent to which subjects' rational thinking and perceptions of marriage are associated with their level of perceived health in their families of origin.     

The quality of manhood: masculinity and embodiment in the sociological tradition

This paper argues for the need to revisit classical sociological texts with a view to excavating the masculinity that inheres in these texts and saturates the concept of the social. Primarily through an examination of Durkheim and Simmel, it explores the strategies whereby masculine individuals could be released from corporeality and granted the sort of embodiment that allowed them to transcend their particularity and become social agents. It is argued that male embodiment is deeply sedimented in the sociological imaginary as the very condition of social action and the constituent of social agency. Thinking through the conceptual lenses of corporeality, embodiment and agency exposes some of the ways in which the analytical scaffolding of ‘the social’ rests on a deeply gendered ontological foundation. While the sociological tradition may indeed have continued salience for contemporary sociologies of the body, a relatively unreflexive recuperation of these texts is problematic. This paper challenges those who seek to rehabilitate the classics in the service of an embodied sociology to produce a much fuller accounting of the truncated corporeal terrain upon which classical sociology developed, and one which explicitly recognizes its gender.     

Spatiotemporal Regularity and Interevent Contingencies as Information for Infants' Visual Expectations

This study examined infants' use of picture‐location contingencies and spatiotemporal regularity in forming visual expectations. Ninety‐six 3‐month‐olds watched an event sequence in which pictures appeared at 3 locations, either in regular left‐center‐right alternation or in a random center‐side pattern. For half of the infants, the content of the central picture was predictive of the location of the upcoming peripheral event. Analyses of anticipations and interpicture fixation shifts revealed that both spatiotemporal regularity and consistent interevent contingencies fostered increased anticipation of peripheral pictures. The type of spatiotemporal sequence that infants observed also differentially biased their responses to test trials that followed the picture sequence: Infants who experienced regular alternation sequences continued the side‐to‐side pattern during the 2‐choice test trials, whereas infants who experienced irregular sequences looked back to the location of the previous picture. Stable interevent contingencies, in contrast, did not bias infants' responses toward the contingent side during the choice test trials.     

HEALTH AND ILLNESS ISSUES FACING AN AGING WORKFORCE IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

This article raises key social issues facing an aging workforce, including the increasing levels of employment after retirement, the concentration of older workers in the service industries and in part-time work, and the impact of technological innovation on older workers. The article examines the experiences of older workers in the context of the other major social roles occupied by women and men aged 55 and older. This review provides medical sociologists several suggestions for new or continued areas for research as we move into the new millennium on health and illness issues relevant to older workers in the United States.     

Critical Thinking and the Web

TechNotes is designed to bring to readers’ attention new developments in technology of relevance to social work education. In this second column, the authors recommend strategies for teaching students to critically evaluate online sources.