The Clinical Effects of Massive Psychic Trauma in Families of Holocaust Survivors*

For years we have been treating numerous concentration camp survivors in the psychiatric clinics and hospitals of Israel. In recent years we have been seeing increasing numbers of the second generation suffering from a wide spectrum of emotional disorders, personality disturbances, borderline and psychotic states which are clearly related to the long-term effects of massive traumatization in the survivor parents. These effects are manifest in four inter-related areas of disturbance within the family—the parents' mental state, the family atmosphere, inter-personal functioning in the family and specific distortions in the parent-child interaction. Excessive talking about holocaust experiences to children, or the opposite —lack of communication, avoidance and denial of these experiences—are patterns frequently found in the children of survivors who seem to be most affected by the massive traumatization of the parents. It is postulated that therapy of the survivor parents can modify the transmissions of affects to the children. Family therapy is indicated whenever possible.     

Making visits better: the perspectives of parents,foster parents,and child welfare workers

Mothers of children recently placed in foster care, foster mothers, and child welfare workers participated in semistructured, clinical interviews focusing on the challenges of parent visitation with young children. Mothers described their feelings of grief, trauma, and rage about the forced separation from their children and stressed the importance of emotional expression and communication during visits. Child welfare workers described the complexities of supporting emotionally close parent-child interactions while monitoring and assessing parental behavior during visits. Foster mothers described the importance of preparing children for visits and the difficulties of supporting the children afterward. Implications of understanding mothers', foster mothers', and child welfare workers' perspectives on enhancing the quality of visits with young children are discussed.     

Media interventions to promote responsible sexual behavior

While the media have been used effectively to promote sexual responsibility in other countries for decades, few such opportunities have been seized in the United States. Mass media may be especially useful for teaching young people about reproductive health because elements of popular culture can be used to articulate messages in young people s terms, in language that won t embarrass them and may even make safe sex more attractive. Media can potentially change the way people think about sex, amidst cultural pressures to have sex at a young age, to have sex forcefully, or to have unsafe sex. Information can be communicated through a variety of channels--small media (e.g., pamphlets, brochures, and the Internet) and mass media--and in a variety of formats--campaigns, news coverage, and educational messages inserted into regular entertainment programming. Several international studies show that exposure to family planning messages through television, radio, and print media are strongly associated with contraceptive use. Domestically, safe sex media campaigns have been associated with increased teen condom use with casual partners, and reductions in the numbers of teenagers reporting sexual activity. Due to private ownership and First Amendment concerns, U.S. sexual health advocates have been working with the commercial media to incorporate subtle health messages into existing entertainment programming.     

Can 401(k) accumulations generate significant income for future retirees?

This Issue Brief develops a model that project the proportion of an individual's preretirement income that might be replaced by 401(k) plan accumulations at retirement, under several different projected scenarios. The 401(k) participant behaviors in the model are based on the year-end 2000 database collected by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and the Investment Company Institute (ICI) in their collaborative effort known as the EBRI/ICI Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Data Collection Project. The most significant factor affecting projected replacement rates at retirement is having access to a 401(k) plan. Projected replacement rates from 401(k) accumulations at retirement are reduced significantly when participants are not offered a 401(k) plan in all portions of their careers. Most 401(k) participants tend to have contributions in any given year. Thus, projecting that participants always have contributions (their own and/or employer contributions) every year raises projected replacement rates, but not by much compared with the importance of being offered a plan to begin with. The model simulations show that participant activities such as taking loans, taking preretirement withdrawals, or cashing out account balances at job change reduce projected 401(k) accumulations and thus replacement rates at age 65. Because loans are forecast to be paid back to the account in full, their effect on replacement rates at retirement in the model is the smallest. Even if equity returns in the future are projected to replicate the worst 50-year segment in the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 history (1929 to 1978), 401(k) accumulations are still projected to replace significant proportions of projected preretirement income. Another projection scenario forecasts participants experiencing a simulated three-year bear market (negative equity returns) either early in their careers, near the middle of their careers, or at the end of their careers. Forecasts of the effects of bear markets on 401(k) balances show that a bear market in equities is projected to have the largest effect the closer it occurs to age 65 (retirement), even though older participants typically have diversified their portfolios away from equities. A three-year bear market for those early in their careers would reduce median replacement rates from 401(k) accumulations by an estimated 2.9-3.7 percentage points, compared with 13.4-17.7 percentage points for those immediately before retirement. Similarly, a simulated three-year bull market (positive equity returns) is projected to have a larger positive effect on projected account balances and replacement rates the closer it occurs to retirement.     

Popular Opinion on Homosexuality: The Shared Moral Language of Opposing Views

Those on one side of a hostile political debate may feel that their opponents "just speak a different language." I argue that proponents of deeply conflicting opinions may have more in common than they think. I use textual analysis of arguments for and against gay parenting to demonstrate that the opponents–both pro and con–structure their arguments using the same basic set of concepts: family, rights, and prejudice. I argue that people's statements of opinion can be understood as more than manifestations of individual psychology. Rather, people's one-sided arguments are rhetorical attempts to leverage powerful basic ideas of right and wrong as support. Debates, therefore, become battles of competing claims to ownership of basic concepts of good and bad. The basic concepts are beyond debate; the struggle takes place over appropriating them for one's side. In a debate, therefore, those on opposite sides of an issue often "talk right past each other"; those on one side cannot deny the significance of the basic concepts claimed by their opponents, so they generally ignore their opponents'models and instead keep repeating their own.     

Why can't a fetus be more like a sperm? The woman's role in fetal tissue research and how women are left out of the discussion

The use of fetal tissue for scientific research is a good example of the ways that cultural definitions have enveloped and galvanized the link between culture, science, and politics. Since the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973, use of fetal tissue has been connected to arguably one of the hottest political firestorms of the century…abortion. While the abortion issue, as well as the use of fetal tissue for research, has been debated and discussed in almost every major field of thought, the debate consistently fails to address some of the key cultural interpretations we give to issues such as gender, science, and the role of women, who have largely been forgotten, and how these interpretations influence the national debate. To gain understanding of how these issues affect the fetal tissue dialogue, one must explore the role these cultural interpretations have in the discussion on the use of fetal tissue for research by looking at the cultural meanings we give to the terms “mother” and “fetus” and how these scientific metaphors affect the way we think about women who donate fetal tissue. These concepts must then be applied to fetal tissue use by exploring both political and ethical arguments surrounding the issue.     

More visualising, more methodologies: on video, reflexivity and qualitative research

This article was conceived as a response to Ruth Holliday's article published in The Sociological Review in 2001 (48 (4): 503–22) ‘We've been framed: visualising methodology’. Whilst recognising that Holliday's work makes both an important contribution to her substantive area and describes an innovative use of video in qualitative research, her critique of visual anthropology as a discipline that uses reflexivity as a muse to hide its positivist truth quest has some serious problems that need to be redressed. Here I shall draw from existing work to discuss how reflexivity has been a key theme in the development of visual anthropology since the latter part of the twentieth century.     

Crime in the Movies: Investigating the Efficacy of Measures of Both Sex and Gender for Predicting Victimization and Offending in Film

In the wake of several recent school shootings claims have been made that teens, particularly males, learn violence from the media. This paper investigates depictions of criminals and victims in film, specifically in reference to the gendered nature of violent crime, utilizing a content analysis of popular domestic movies in 1996. We develop a gender measure that is separate and distinct from sex in order to test the relationship between both variables and movie offending and victimization. In our sample, masculinity was significantly related to both movie offending and victimization, but sex was not. This pattern of results indicate that the media may be influential in establishing values that accept violence as one means to accomplish masculinity.     

Any Difference? An Analysis of Gender and Divisional Management Styles in a Large Airline

There has been much debate as to whether women manage differently from men and whether this may constitute a reason for women's lack of progress to the top echelons of organizations (Tanton 1994; Coyle 1993; Still 1994; Wajcman 1998). This article locates the sameness/difference debate in a wider analysis of management styles, with particular attention paid to the business function. It is also suggested that any debate on styles must take place within a feminist theoretical framework which acknowledges inequalities of power, economic and patriarchal interests. Management skills are socially constructed (Phillips and Taylor 1980) and change according to social and economic conditions. The article shows that business function is the most important influence on management style. The author contends, like others, that even in times of great change, men seem to be able to hold on to the most powerful positions in organizations (Cockburn 1986; Savage and Witz 1992; Collinson et al. 1990). The convergence of patriarchal interests with business interests ultimately determines what style is valued. The much vaunted feminization of management (Rosener 1990) does not mean that more women are to be found in senior positions in organizations. Nor do large numbers of women managers necessarily lead to a more feminized management style (Kanter 1977). Stereotypes of women still act against their acceptance into positions of power while men's ability to adopt some of traditionally feminine skills of communication means that women's supposed advantage (Rosener 1990) may have been leapfrogged.     

Beyond Assessment: Social Work Intervention in Family Court Enquiries

Most parents or carers who separate or divorce are able to makearrangements themselves about where their children will resideand how the children’s contact with the non-resident parentwill be managed. A further group of parents or carers are ableto come to agreement with the assistance of community- or court-baseddispute resolution/ mediation services. There are times, however,when disputes cannot be resolved without recourse to the courtsand, when this happens, the court will normally request thata welfare report be prepared by a CAFCASS (Children and FamilyCourt Advisory and Support Service) practitioner. While theboundary between assessment and intervention in social workis often less than clear, the commissioning of a court welfarereport in family proceedings strongly suggests an assessmentfocus and appears to carry little expectation that the practitionershould intervene in order to meet the needs of the childrenor adults involved. This article presents recent research findingsthat illustrate ways in which CAFCASS practitioners do go beyondthe assessment role expected of them in the course of the enquiriesthey undertake. Implications for policy and practice in thisarea of social work are then discussed.