Becoming Each Other: A Single Case Exploration of Relational Consciousness in Couple Therapy

The concept of “relational consciousness” has gained increasing attention in the last decades in the fields of philosophy, sociology, and psychotherapy. Yet human consciousness with its concomitant awareness of self and other as distinct is linguistically and culturally situated in the individual mind. This article explores the lived experience of shared consciousness in the practice of “becoming the other” with a focus on therapy with one couple. The historical development of our understanding of consciousness as a relational phenomenon is addressed with particular attention to the observations, insights, and practices of Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, and Gregory Bateson, who have each contributed substantially to our understanding of mind as relationally experienced and constructed. The article explores implications for practice and future directions this methodology might take.

Comparing combination acts: French and English papermaking in the age of revolution

In 1796, both France and England banned combinations among paperworkers. Most notably, these measures read as if they issued from a single pen. The twin efforts outlawed the coalitions and covenants that enabled the journeymen to organize strikes and walkouts, influence wages or output quotas, restrain the manufacturers’ latitude in hiring, and burden, even fine, unco-operative masters. By linking the lived experience of the labour process and the law, this article explores the real grit of comparative history. In doing so, it reveals the risk of emphasizing national industrial culture in the age of manufactures and nascent mechanization. It also suggests the shortcomings of Foucauldian analysis and metaphors when they are brought to the ground, that is, the actual shopfloor struggles and everyday relations of papermaking. Moreover, this article contends that authorities in Paris and London brewed a subtle blend of intervention and retreat in the governance of the trade. In the end, however, the effective regulation of papermaking, from below, survived the sister combination acts. Mechanization tipped the balance in favour of the manufacturers, but the workers’ tactics and habits of resistance persisted into the new era.     

Some Correlates of Emotional Well-Being Among New England College Students

Abstract

In a questionnaire survey of New England college students, a large number of undergraduate men and women reported problems related to their personal, social, or academic adjustment. Given a list of 22 items described as “common concerns or feelings experienced by college students,” respondents were asked to rate the extent to which each item had been a problem for them in the past year. Most students (86%) reported having very much or somewhat of a problem with one or more items on the list. Pressure to do well in school, problems with weight control, anxiety, poor concentration and depression were among the most commonly reported concerns. The prevalence of these self-reported concerns and problems was found to be significantly associated with the respondents' sex, their perceptions of their health status, and academic standing.     

Performance of traditional f tests in repeated measures designs under covariance heterogeneity

This study investigates the performance of two traditional F tests, one for main effects and the other for interaction in repeated measures designs under several conditions of covariance heterogeneity. Overall, the test for interaction is more vulnerable than the one for main effects. Distortion in the level of significance is less serious for the case of equal group size.     

Tribal affiliation and fertility: A note

This not extends T. L. F. Devis's recent investigation of the relationship between tribal affiliation and fertility in Sierra Leone. Controls are introduced for age structure and economic variables. The findings suggest that tribal affiliation does not have much independent influence on fertility after these factors are allowed for.     

Changes in Higher Education

The social work profession has been too little concerned with policy, program, and practice issues related to human sexuality. Changing times and new knowledge require that the profession deal with this area more competently. Studies indicate that human sexuality is affected by biological, cultural, and psychological factors; that the female and male sex drives and physiological responses are similar; that the incidence of premarital and extramarital sexual relations are probably increasing along with more emphasis on the quality of the total interpersonal relationship; and that sexual behavior and values vary between socioeconomic groups.     

Risk Homeostasis Theory and Traffic Accident Data

The risk homeostasis theory posits, in essence, that a control mechanism analogous to the thermal homeostatic system in warm-blooded animals tends to keep risk per unit time constant, and, as a consequence, the number of traffic accidents per unit time of driving also tends to remain constant, essentially independent of changes in the traffic safety system. It is the purpose of the present research to examine the validity of this claim using a wide variety of traffic accident data. All the data examined are found to be incompatible with the risk homeostasis theory. The only specific field accident data offered in the literature to support the risk homeostasis theory are found to, in fact, refute the theory. The accident data provide evidence that a rich variety of user responses occur. While it is possible for users to collectively respond in such a way that safety benefits are completely cancelled, such a response is not particularly common; it is certainly not universally occurring, as suggested by the risk homeostasis theory. It is concluded that the risk homeostasis theory should be rejected because there is no convincing evidence supporting it and much evidence refuting it.     

Estimating Fatality Reductions from Increased Safety Belt Use

Fatality reductions from increases in safety belt use are estimated taking into account that drivers who change from being nonusers to being users have lower accident involvement rates than the remaining nonusers, a process referred to as "selective recruitment." Analytical functions are derived which express expected fatality reductions in terms of changes in safety belt use rates from an initial rate. The function parameters are determined by requiring that computed average crash rates for nonusers be 53% higher than the rates for users, a recently determined empirical value. These functions show that, depending on the initial use rate and use rate increase, selective recruitment may increase or decrease expected fatality reductions. However, effects are relatively small, in no case exceeding +/- 5.3%.