Perceptions of motives in intimate partner violence: expressive versus coercive violence

This study examined perceptions of motives in the perpetration of intimate partner violence. Respondents (N = 401) of diverse professions read three vignettes and indicated their perception of the aggressor's motive (from 1 = Exclusively Expressive; 5 = Exclusively Coercive). Half of respondents read vignettes describing male-perpetrated violence against a female partner; the other half, female-perpetrated violence against a male partner. Overall, male-perpetrated aggression was seen as more coercive than female-perpetrated aggression, particularly by shelter workers and victim advocates. Further analyses revealed that men generally gave higher ratings than women, and that women rated female-perpetrated aggression as less coercive than male-perpetrated aggression. In contrast, men did not differ in their ratings of male versus female perpetration. Implications are discussed with respect to the assessment and treatment of partner violence.     

Moments,Monuments and Explication: The Standing of the Millennium Dome

The construction of the Millennium Dome near the origin of Greenwich, at a cost of something in the order of one billion pounds to the British taxpayer, 1 see, for example, Nick Mathiason 'Downturn hits Dome sale,' The Observer , Sunday October 21, 2001. provides an excellent, if somewhat expensive, opportunity to reconsider the interrelations of time and space. For the Dome seeks to monumentalise and celebrate a moment of time as it simultaneously takes the form of a material structure that will persist. 2 Although the extent of this persistence has been a constant matter for considerable debate. This trade between moment and monument is replayed between the Dome as a startling visual immediacy, a whole to be apprehended in wonder, and the serialisation in progressive fashion of its staged contents. But it also represents an opportunity to see in the Dome a reflection of the society in which we live, and the possibilities it delivers. And we contend that the monumentalisation of the Dome may be read as an evisceration of the power of the moment, of the capacity of the human subject to engage in 'authentic unconditional ethical' ( i ek;, 2001, p. 151) action. In Britain, at least, much of the millennial moment was mediated through the Domic narrative. Nowhere else, after all, 'has anything like it'. An organising symbol for both malcontents and modernizers, reactions to the product were certainly diverse. But the majority of these reactions to the contents of the monument, and indeed the monument itself, represent a retreat from and obfuscation of our own complicity in the monumentalisation of our current society, of our refusal to treat the institution of society as an active product of our own imaginary making (Castoriadis, 1997). In their and our lack of reflection on, and problematisation of, the moment in time that is being monumentalised, we and they re-institute a denial of the possibility of 'real' time and thus of 'real' action and change. Through consideration of the work of Castoriadis (1997) and i ek (2001) we attempt to take back the millennial moment from the conservatism of the monument. Through a collage of media commentary on the Dome and constructivist and poststructualist commentary on our social condition, we attempt to show how a particular reading of the Dome as reflection of the impoverishment of our contemporary, progressivist modernity can open up an opportunity to engage in a project that wills a different society.     

Gin Lane Revisited: Intoxication and Society in the Gin Epidemic

The massive increase in gin consumption which occurred in eighteenth-century London produced a marked shift in the cultural understanding of alcohol consumption. Prior to the formalization of addiction as a medical concept, gin consumption produced both sustained legal intervention and a wealth of concerned social commentary. This suggests that the medical construction of addiction is pre-dated by a social and political problematization of intoxication, and in many ways emerges from that process. Using William Hogarth's 1751 prints Beer Street and Gin Lane as its focal point, this paper argues that intoxication raised specific political and metaphysical problems for an emergent modernity. On the one hand, Hogarth reflects a series of common anxieties over urbanization, consumption, mass production and economic prosperity. On the other hand, he articulates a relationship between art, intoxication, and social class that prefigures modernist aesthetics and practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper explores both the ways in which intoxication was problematized in the gin epidemic and how that process inflected contemporary and subsequent representations of modern life in the arts.     

Report of the President of the Australian Association of Social Workers

Currently there appears to be a spate of world, national and local disasters. Always there is concern, not only about how to manage the immediate emergency, but how to facilitate the long-term recovery period. This paper presents a six-months perspective of a particular disaster and recovery period, based on the experiences of a recovery worker. It emphasises the importance of routine training for workers in organisations who may be called upon in a disaster. It notes that because of the unique situation in every disaster, decision making on recovery structures and processes needs to remain invested in the local community, with assistance from external resources. It makes other suggestions for consideration in the continuing building of recovery theory. Finally, it underlines the importance of the social work role in most aspects of disaster recovery work, and the need to prepare not only undergraduates, but professional workers, for this role.     

The Psychological Contract of Volunteers: A New Research Agenda

This paper considers the ways in which research into the psychological contract of volunteers have been constrained by the direct transfer of measures from the study of employees, and more generally by the assumptions in the dominant psychological contract discourse. After examining these assumptions the paper proposes a revised research agenda, open to the possibility that the psychological contract of volunteers is affected by expectations arising from socio-cultural influences beyond the volunteer/manager relationships, and in particular, from the expectations of relative freedom in volunteering and from subjective perceptions of volunteering as (variously) serious leisure, unpaid work, or activism. Understanding the contract as socially constructed reveals the need to juxtapose the expectations of managers and volunteers in order to understand the contract as a social relationship.     

Developmental stability and leadership effectiveness

Developmental stability is the degree to which we can withstand environmental or genetic stressors during development. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), concerns the extent to which the right and left side of the body is asymmetrical and is one way to measure developmental stability. Two studies were carried out that examined both the predictive value of leader FA with leadership behaviors and its role in facilitating group performance. The first study examined the hypothesis that a leader's FA is correlated with scores on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The results revealed individuals with a more asymmetrical morphology scored higher on the transformational, but not transactional, dimensions of leadership behavior. A second study examined the hypothesis that asymmetrical morphology and leadership effectiveness would share a positive relationship. In this study participants who led a business game exercise, revealed a positive relationship between FA and self-reported well-being and task satisfaction. Importantly, there was also a positive correlation between the leader's FA score and group performance. The role that developmental stability may play in leadership effectiveness is discussed in the wider context of evolutionary psychology.     

Making Decisions about Parental Mental Health: An Exploratory Study of Community Mental Health Team Staff

Adult mental health problems can impact on parents, and research highlights that their children are at higher risk of developing mental health problems. In extreme cases, mental health problems are associated with a risk of fatal child abuse. Despite this, there are few studies exploring clinical decision‐making by adult mental health professionals.

‘In extreme cases, mental health problems are associated with a risk of fatal child abuse’

This study used qualitative methods to explore Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) workers' experiences of decision‐making in the interface between mental health and child welfare. Workers were interviewed about their experiences of clinical decision‐making regarding child welfare. Interviews and accounts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Influences on decision‐making were explored and triangulated with the accounts of Named Nurses for Child Protection. The findings revealed that CMHT participants were aware of their responsibilities towards children, but a complex synthesis of factors impacted on their sense‐making about risk and welfare. Three superordinate themes emerged: the tensions of working across systems; trying to balance the perceptions and feelings involved in sense‐making; and the role that interpersonal dynamics play in the understanding and management of risk. This paper focuses in particular on perceptions and feelings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

‘A complex synthesis of factors impacted on their sense‐making about risk and welfare’

Citing Literature

Number of times cited according to CrossRef: 8

• Natalie Elizabeth Anderson, Julia Slark, Merryn Gott, Unlocking intuition and expertise: using interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore clinical decision making, Journal of Research in Nursing, 10.1177/1744987118809528, 24 , 1-2, (88-101), (2019). Crossref
• Phillip Tchernegovski, Andrea E. Reupert, Darryl J. Maybery, How do Australian adult mental health clinicians manage the challenges of working with parental mental illness? A phenomenological study, Child & Family Social Work, 10.1111/cfs.12426, 23 , 3, (381-389), (2017). Wiley Online Library
• Maria Afzelius, Lars Plantin, Margareta Östman, Children of Parents With Serious Mental Illness: The Perspective of Social Workers, Practice, 10.1080/09503153.2016.1260705, 29 , 4, (293-310), (2016). Crossref
• Louise Everitt, Caroline Homer, Jennifer Fenwick, Working with Vulnerable Pregnant Women Who Are At Risk of Having their Babies Removed by the Child Protection Agency in New South Wales, Australia, Child Abuse Review, 10.1002/car.2432, 26 , 5, (351-363), (2016). Wiley Online Library
• Joe Duffy, Gavin Davidson, Damien Kavanagh, Applying the recovery approach to the interface between mental health and child protection services, Child Care in Practice, 10.1080/13575279.2015.1064358, 22 , 1, (35-49), (2015). Crossref
• Peter Sidebotham, What did you do at Work Today, Daddy?, Child Abuse Review, 10.1002/car.2357, 23 , 5, (307-310), (2014). Wiley Online Library
• Peter Sidebotham, Rethinking Filicide, Child Abuse Review, 10.1002/car.2303, 22 , 5, (305-310), (2013). Wiley Online Library
• Jane V. Appleton, Peter Sidebotham, Child Protection and Mental Health, Child Abuse Review, 10.1002/car.2220, 21 , 3, (153-156), (2012). Wiley Online Library

Volume 21 , Issue 3 May/June 2012

Pages 173-189