Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Theoretical Model

Childhood sexual abuse is a prevalent social and health care problem. The processes by which individuals heal from childhood sexual abuse are not clearly understood. The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical model to describe how adults heal from childhood sexual abuse. Community recruitment for an ongoing broader project on sexual violence throughout the lifespan, referred to as the Sexual Violence Study, yielded a subsample of 48 women and 47 men who had experienced childhood sexual abuse. During semistructured, open-ended interviews, they were asked to describe their experiences with healing from childhood sexual abuse and other victimization throughout their lives. Constructivist grounded theory methods were used with these data to develop constructs and hypotheses about healing. For the Sexual Violence Study, frameworks were developed to describe the participants' life patterns, parenting experiences, disclosures about sexual violence, spirituality, and altruism. Several analytic techniques were used to synthesize the findings of these frameworks to develop an overarching theoretical model that describes healing from childhood sexual abuse. The model includes four stages of healing, five domains of functioning, and six enabling factors that facilitate movement from one stage to the next. The findings indicate that healing is a complex and dynamic trajectory. The model can be used to alert clinicians to a variety of processes and enabling factors that facilitate healing in several domains and to guide discussions on important issues related to healing from childhood sexual abuse.     

The grief process in physical illness 1

Abstract

Constructivism, a view that we cannot know reality apart from our constructions of it, along with social constructionism, a belief that knowledge is socially, historically, and culturally situated, form the basis of a new approach to clinical practice. In the explication of this perspective, assessment is defined as a collaborative inquiry. Multiple theoretical perspectives are used as viable alternative explanations, with no single perspective privileged. In treatment, clients’ narratives are emphasized and meaning is co‐constructed. The therapeutic relationship is construed as reciprocal, with more attention given to the client's perceptions. Values have a central role in treatment.     

Mental Retardation: Impairment or Handicap?

A social psychological approach to mental retardation is outlined in which (1) mental retardation is seen as a social construct rather than a within-individual pathology and (2) the meaning of the construct is related to social interests and purposes. Hence, between group differences in beliefs about retardates are seen as the expression of different group norms, i.e. a social psychological phenomenon rather than an aggregate of individual differences. Empirical support for the approach is provided by contrasting lay people's and psychologists' beliefs about 'retardates', most strikingly in the form of a differential effect of personal contact, which as predicted, 'improves' lay evaluation, but leaves psychologists' beliefs unchanged.     

The Meanings of Career Revisited: Implications for Theory and Practice

In everyday conversation, the term 'career' is generally understood to refer to the sequence of work-related experiences one has over the course of one's working lifetime. For many people, a career is distinct from a job, since it also conjures up images of steady, even logical, progression up organizational hierarchies. It is not simply about what one does for a living, but about what one has done, does now and might do in the future; the notion of career therefore embraces the dimension of time. In light of widespread organizational restructuring and economic uncertainty since the late 1980s, many of the taken-for-granted assumptions which have underpinned traditional notions of career, and in particular the organizational career, no longer seem valid. Both individuals and organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to conceptualize the idea of a logical, long-term sequence of work-related experiences; there is thus no longer a clear and mutual understanding of what the career means to both. This paper argues that individuals and organizations can meaningfully redefine the notion of career by reconsidering its broader, theoretical underpinnings.     

Territorial Politics,Devolution and Spatial Planning in the UK: Results,Prospects, Lessons

This article critically analyses the debates which have unfolded in the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum of 18 September 2014 concerning the constitutional arrangements of the UK as a plurinational state and the internal governmental structure of England. The debates unfolding in the UK reflect and illustrate two central themes in planning, territorial development and public policy. First, they highlight the contested distribution of power across multiple layers of government in states with an inherited centralized pattern of governance that are now facing strengthening regionalist and nationalist claims. Second, they illustrate the linked growth in the demand for new governance and strategic planning arrangements in large metropolitan areas with fragmented administrative and institutional boundaries. The article first discusses what the outcome of the Scottish referendum (and its aftermath) means for planning in Scotland. It then turns to the debates on devolution in the rest of UK which were stoked in the wake of the referendum, looking at the planning implications of further devolution in Northern Ireland and Wales, and at the possible consequences of the various options currently being aired to solve the ‘English question’. Finally, ongoing debates on decentralization to regions and city-regions in England are briefly considered.     

The Exact Formula for Tumor Incidence in the Two-Stage Model

An exact formula for the tumor incidence rate in the usual two-stage model of carcinogenesis is presented. This formula is simple and easily implemented on calculators and computers.     

Monitoring and evaluation under the PRSP: solid rock or quicksand?

Over the last few years a shift has taken place in the aid instruments advocated for low-income countries, characterised by a conversion from project to more programme-oriented aid and by the inclusion of 'broad-based civil society participation' as an aid conditionality. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) constitute a new framework for policy negotiations with the recipient government as well as a new set of rules for aid implementation. So far scant attention has been paid to strengthening monitoring and evaluation. This paper contributes to this under-exploited field of research by stocktaking and assessing different aspects of M&E systems for a selected number of Sub-Saharan African countries. Findings of our desk study confirm that M&E is among the weaker parts of the new aid architecture. The PRSP approach seeks improvements in M&E, but its unrealistic ambitions put embryonic national M&E systems under undue stress.     

Hug drug or thug drug? Ecstasy use and aggressive behavior

While clinical studies have established a link between aggression and ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymeth-amphetamine [MDMA]), no research has attempted to explore how this link manifests itself in behavioral outcomes. In this research we examine the effects of ecstasy on aggressive and violent behavior in a sample of active users. Data were collected from 260 ecstasy users in Atlanta, Georgia. Data analysis included ordered logit regression to examine the likelihood of engaging in aggressive behavior, controlling for key predictors of aggression independent of ecstasy use. Our results indicate that those with a higher prevalence of lifetime ecstasy use exhibit higher levels of aggressive and violent behavior. However, the effect of lifetime ecstasy use differs by levels of low self-control as a measure of propensity for aggression. Those who exhibit low self-control are more affected by ecstasy use than those who do not in terms of aggression. Our findings add an important dimension to our current knowledge about the relationship between aggression and ecstasy.