Why a Mental Health Clinic Should Avoid Family Therapy*

Describing the unsettling effects of adding family therapy procedures to the offerings of a mental health clinic, the author argues that changes in the theory of causation, diagnosis, therapeutic technique, and clinical training are required in order to make such an innovation. Consequences are likely to include disorientation of the staff, radically changed administrative procedures, and others, including service to larger numbers of people and better treatment outcome. Editor.     

Race Differences in Abortion Attitudes

Abstract Public opinion surveys since 1965 find that black respondentsare less in favor of legal abortion than white respondents.Using the 1982 NORC General Social Survey, we replicate andexpand one of the few studies (Combs and Welch, 1982) that examinedthe structure and determinants of prochoice attitudes of blacksand whites. Our major findings are (1) the racial differencein prochoice attitude is as great in 1982 as in the 1970s, (2)contrary to the suggestion of Combs and Welch, the demographicand attitudinal determinants of abortion attitudes differ forblacks and for whites, and (3) for those respondents who differentiatetheir acceptance of legal abortion, the pattern of prochoiceattitudes also differs by race.     

The Sale of Two Cities: A Semiotic Comparison of Disneyland with Marriott's Great America

Much is revealed through the contrast of two related but divergent forms. In this essay, Elizabeth Mechlingand Jay Mechlingcontrast Disneyland with a later but more loosely themed park, Marriott's Great America in Santa Clara, California. Using the perspectives and methods of semiotics in Louis Marin's Marxist reading, this essay asks, “What are the stories that Disneyland and Marriott's Great America tell?…the ways in which popular culture both teaches and evokes stories that ‘think themselves’ in our minds.” These two parks, though allied in the theme format and rooted in a common bourgeois capitalist culture, are found to promote very different attitudes and values.     

Therapeutic Forgiveness: Developing a Model for Empowering Victims of Sexual Abuse

Forgiveness is increasingly popular in therapy as a way to facilitate healing, but there are definitional discrepancies and confusion regarding the degree to which it is conceptualized as either an interpersonal/relational or an independent/self-enhancing process. In this article forgiveness is conceptualized as an interpersonal process linked to apology or contrition on the part of the offender. Yet it is also independent. A model is described that was developed for the benefit of abuse victims whose offenders will not or cannot apologize. Using the model, victims can accomplish for themselves what would be accomplished for them through an apology.     

A Framework for Exploring Different Judgments of Social Need

Starting from the position that the source of definitions of social need must be examined, the paper suggests that it is also of value to analyse the sequential process through which a series of judgments about need is made by both consumers and providers of services. A framework is suggested by which the relationship between source and sequence of need judgments may be explored, and the factors influencing them identified. This framework is also used to clarify some ambiguities in the use of the term ‘need’, and to consider some implications for need studies. A consensus definition of need is offered in the light of this discussion.