BARING LIFE AND LIFESTYLE IN THE NON-PLACE

In this paper I offer an intervention into two prevailing approaches to the non-place – those spaces of transit that include hotels, airports, theme parks, and refugee camps. The non-place is treated on the one hand as an apolitical space of hypermediated consumption and mobility while, on the other hand, it also figures as exemplary of the biopolitical regulation of life within a ‘contemporary camp’. I argue that the non-place must be read, not as spectacle or camp, but as housing a very specific politics of place wherein the logic of the camp and the spectacle collide. What is of interest to me is not so much the camp as the hidden space of modernity, but how it finds a willing alibi in the spectacular media saturated spaces of capital. Within the non-place, the forces of global corporate capital have found an amiable space to both invest (lifestyle) and reduce (bare life) human life to maximize and optimize its own power.     

Network integration within a prison-based therapeutic community

Prison-based therapeutic communities (TCs) are a widespread, effective way to help incarcerated individuals address substance abuse problems. The TC philosophy is grounded in an explicitly relational paradigm that entails building community and conditioning residents to increasingly take responsibility for leadership therein. Although TCs are based on cultivating a network that continuously integrates new residents, many common structural features can jeopardize TC goals and are hence discouraged (e.g., clustering, homophily). In light of this tension, analyzing the TC from a network perspective can offer new insights to its functioning, as well as to broader questions surrounding how networks integrate new members. In this study we examine a men’s TC unit in a Pennsylvania prison over a 10-month span. Using data on residents’ informal networks, we examine: (1) how well individuals integrate into the TC network across time, (2) what predicts how well residents integrate into the TC, and (3) how well the TC network structure adheres to theoretical ideals. Results suggest that individual integration is driven by a range of hypothesized factors and, with limited exceptions, the observed TC is able to foster a network structure and integrate residents consistent with TC principles. We discuss the implications of these results for evaluating TCs and for understanding the process of network integration.     

Effects of a teen resident camp leadership program on changes in dimensions of self-control and interpersonal functioning,and their theory-based relationships

Camp leadership programs have the potential of improving important psychosocial factors in teens who might eventually become counselors. Accepted behavioral theory might increase understandings of those changes so program training architectures can be improved. As part of larger-scale longitudinal research, participants (N = 129; 64 % female, M_age = 14.6 years, SD = 0.6) were selected by senior camp administrators for a structured leadership training program that required in-person conferences, viewing training videos every 2 weeks, obtaining ongoing mentoring from senior camp staff, and attending several weeks of summer camp where further training was provided. Validated surveys of proposed dimensions of self-control and interpersonal functioning were administered twice over 6 months to assess training program-associated changes. There were significant improvements in total self-control, self-control specifically related to coping, and family-related functioning. Although no demographic factor was associated with score change, baseline score was a significant predictor across measures. After controlling for baseline scores, stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that higher self-control scores (i.e., planful behavior, coping efficacy, affective thought management) significantly predicted improvements in general, family, and peer-related functioning. Theory-based relationships between changes in self-control and interpersonal functioning enabled the identification of training program areas that might be targeted for improvement.     

Therapeutic mobilities

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue expands mobilities research through the idea of therapeutic mobilities, which consist of multiple movements of health-related things and beings, including, though not limited to, nurses, doctors, patients, narratives, information, gifts and pharmaceuticals. The therapeutic emerges from the encounters of mobile human and non-human, animate and inanimate subjects with places and environments and the individual components they are made of. We argue that an interaction of mobilities and health research offers essential benefits: First, it contributes to knowledge production in a field of tremendous social relevance, i.e. transnational health care. Second, it encourages researchers to think about and through functionally limited, ill, injured, mentally disturbed, unwell and hurting bodies. Third, it engages with the transformative character of mobilities at various scales. And fourth, it brings together different kinds of mobilities. The papers in this Special Issue contribute to three themes key for the therapeutic in mobilities: a) transformations (and stabilizations) of selves, bodies and positionalities, b) uneven im/mobilities and therapeutic inequalities and c) multiple and contingent im/mobilities. Therapeutic mobilities comprise practices and processes that are multi-layered and mutable; sometimes bizarre, sometimes ironic, often drastically uneven; sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful – and sometimes all of this at the same time.     

太平天国二破江南大营战役军事艺术评述

太平天国在二破江南大营战役中表现出的高超军事艺术,达到了太平天国农民战争的最高境界。太平军的战略决策是以外线为作战为主旨,默契的协同与指挥统一,这些军事指挥系统方面的特点使其对清军方面具有相对优势,故能成为太平天国后期战争史上一次最成功的战略决策。不过这成功经验也具有相对性,是有局限的。     

Relighting the Campfire: Rediscovering Activity-Based Group Work

Group Work Camp, sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups (AASWG) and held during the summers of 2009 and 2011 on the campus of George Williams College of Aurora University, provided unique opportunities for educators, practitioners, and students to experience the power of collective action and activity/experience-based groups. The camp reminded participants of the origins of the group work movement and how the prevalence of experientially based group practice has diminished over the past few decades. Further, this camp experience served as an awakening and may have particular import for U.S.-based practitioners to align with emerging trends in global social group work.     

和谐社会建设中的戒瘾康复研究

成瘾问题是国际社会共同关注的焦点,也是亟待解决的世界性难题。戒瘾者的康复过程分为生理康复、心理康复、社会康复等三个阶段,对成瘾者进行治疗而非强制性戒除是和谐社会介入成瘾行为的主要趋势。戒瘾社会工作对于戒瘾者的心理康复和社会康复发挥了巨大的作用。     

Service Process and Quality in Therapeutic Foster Care: An Exploratory Study of One County System

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the quality of services in the therapeutic foster care programs used by one county in the Midwest. Using a consultative quality assurance review methodology, evaluators examined 67 randomly sampled cases across seven agencies to assess the service quality issues experienced by children. Following interviews with staff, foster parents, and children, and a review of case records, reviewers observed failures in service and in adherence to national program model standards and state regulations. The research indicates the need for consistent monitoring of child-placing agencies and the need for additional research linking service quality with foster care outcomes.     

A Therapeutic Summer Weekend Camp for Grieving Children: Supporting Clinical Practice Through Empirical Evaluation

Through collaborative action-oriented community research, agency-based clinicians, and university-based researchers engaged in a two-year theory-driven evaluation of a therapeutic summer camp for grieving children. The evaluation examined the camp practice model and children’s engagement in therapeutic camp activities and psychosocial functioning based on the camp staff and parental caregivers’ assessments. The first year findings led to a synergistic decision-making process that strengthened one of camp therapeutic activities. The overall results reveal a high consistency among staff on assessments of engagement and psychosocial functioning, and parental caregivers’ satisfaction with the camp. Limitations of research evaluation and implications for practice are considered.     

The Therapeutic Action of Play in the Psychodynamic Treatment of Children: A Critical Analysis

This paper critically appraises the therapeutic action of play in psychodynamic child therapy and identifies obstacles to utilizing play therapeutically with children. An examination of the functions of action and verbal means of communication as well as their roles in shaping therapeutic relationships in treating children is provided in light of recent theoretical advances. The significance of engaging children directly through play and for redressing the balance between action and verbalization in child therapy is discussed.