The Adoptee’s Journey

The subject of adoption has often been mired in wishful thinking and denial. Because of the secrecy in the system, adopted children have beenforced to repress their need to know about their origins; many feel invisible because an essential part of them is unacknowledged by their adoptive parents and society. The purpose of this article is to help mental health and legal professionals, as well as those in the extended community, to see what is specific about the formation of the adoptee’s inner world. It introduces the concept of cumulative adoption trauma and discusses the adoptee's need to dissociate feelings of loss, grief and anger. The struggle to form a coherent sense of selfmay eventually lead to the adoptee's need to search out the birth parents in order to integrate the past and the present and move on into the future.     

Why Do Countries Regulate Environmental Health Risks Differently? A Theoretical Perspective

Why do countries regulate, or prefer to regulate, environmental health risks such as radiofrequency electromagnetic fields and endocrine disruptors differently? A wide variety of theories, models, and frameworks can be used to help answer this question, though the resulting answer will strongly depend on the theoretical perspective that is applied. In this theoretical review, we will explore eight conceptual frameworks, from different areas of science, which will offer eight different potential explanations as to why international differences occur in environmental health risk management. We are particularly interested in frameworks that could shed light on the role of scientific expertise within risk management processes. The frameworks included in this review are the Risk Assessment Paradigm, research into the roles of experts as policy advisors, the Psychometric Paradigm, the Cultural Theory of Risk, participatory approaches to risk assessment and risk management, the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, and Hofstede's Model of National Cultures. We drew from our knowledge and experiences regarding a diverse set of academic disciplines to pragmatically assemble a multidisciplinary set of frameworks. From the ideas and concepts offered by the eight frameworks, we derive pertinent questions to be used in further empirical work and we present an overarching framework to depict the various links that could be drawn between the frameworks.     

Enhancing Palliative Care for Low-Income Elders with Chronic Disease: Feasibility of a Hospice Consultation Model

Challenges exist in assimilating palliative care within community-based services for nursing home eligible low-income elders with complex chronic illness as they approach the end of life (EOL). This study assessed the feasibility of a consultation model, with hospice clinicians working with three Care Wisconsin Partnership Program teams. Consults occurred primarily during team meetings and also informally and on joint patient visits and were primarily with the palliative care nurse addressing physical issues. Fifty-seven percent of consultant recommendations were implemented. Benefits of consultation were identified with focus groups of clinical staff as were opportunities and barriers to the implementation. Models of integration are proposed.     

Preparing Social Workers for the Inevitable

Despite the centrality of grief as a universal response to loss, and its prevalence in the social work domain, little empirical attention has been given to the impact of grief instruction in social work courses. This article presents results of a study examining the impact of a multimethod grief course on graduate social work students' level of death acceptance and sense of preparedness to respond to personal and professional losses. A quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design was used. Findings suggest that the grief course assisted students to perceive greater competence in their knowledge, skills, and sense of preparation for working with grieving clients, and that the course increased cognitive and affective dimensions of death acceptance in students. Implications for future research and for social work education are discussed in light of the study limitations.     

Prisons,workhouses, and the control of slave labour in low country Georgia, 1763–1815

Engendering History. Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective. Edited by VERENE SHEPHERD, BRIDGET BRERETON, BARBARA BAILEY. London: James Currey, Kingston: Ian Randle. 1995. xxii, 406pp. £35.00 and £12.50.

Haiti, History and the Gods. JOAN DAYAN. Los Angeles; University of California Press. 1995. xxiii, 339pp. $35.00. ISBN 0–520–08900–6.

From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves: The Dynamics of Labour Bargaining in the Americas. Edited by MARY TURNER. Kingston, Bloomington and Indianapolis, and London: Ian Randle Publishers, Indiana University Press, and James Currey. 1995. x, 309pp. £35.00 (cloth); £12.95 (paper). ISBN 0–253–32972–8; 0–253–21001–1.

The Black Loyalist Directory. African Americans in Exile After the American Revolution. Edited and with an Introduction by GRAHAM RUSSELL HODGES. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1996. li. 318pp. $37.00. ISBN 0–8153–2172–4.

The Abolitionists and the South, 1831–1861. STANLEY HARROLD. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press ofKentucky, 1995. x, 245 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0–8131–1906–5.

The Salmon P. Chase Papers. Volume 2: Correspondence, 1823–1857. Edited by JOHN NIVEN. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1994. xxv, 489 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0–87338–508‐X.

The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War. JAMES G. HOLLANDSWORTH, Jr. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press. 1995. xiv, 140pp. £23.95. ISBN 0–8071–1939–3.

The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns. JOSEPH T. GLATTHAAR. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1995 (orig. pub. 1985). xvi, 318pp. £13.95. ISBN 0–80712028–6.

Caste &; Class: The Black Experience in Arkansas, 1880–1920. FON LOUISE GORDON. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1995. xvi, 179pp. £31.50. ISBN 0–8203–1711‐X.

African Americans at Mars Bluff, South Carolina. AMELIA WALLACE VERNON. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1995. xiii, 309pp. $16.95.

Agentes de su propia libertad: Los esclavos de Lima y la desintegración de la esclavitud, 1821–1854. CARLOS AGU1RRE. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cató1ica del Perú, Fondo Editorial. 1993. 335pp. ISBN 84–89309–63–9.

Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor among Lima's Slaves, 1800–1854. CHRISTINE HÜNEFELDT. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994. xi, 269pp. ISBN 0–520–08235–4 (cloth); 0–520–08292–3 (paper).

Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change along the Western Sahel. 1600–1850. JAMES L.A. WEBB, Jr. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. xxvi, 227pp. £40.95 (cloth); £17.95 (paper). ISBN 0–299–14330–9.

From Slave Trade to ‘legitimate’ Commerce: The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth‐Century West Africa. Edited by ROBIN LAW. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, African Studies Series 86. xi, 278pp. £35.00.

Slavery and Slaving in World History. A Bibliography. 1900–1991. JOSEPH C. MILLER. Millwood, NY. 1993. xvii, 556pp. $90.00. ISBN 0–527–63660–6.