The Threat or Promise of Popular Therapy? A Feminist Reading of Narratives of “the Good Couple”

Popular therapeutic culture—such as self-help books, TV programmes, and Internet resources—is growing rapidly and posing important questions for feminist research and politics. On the one hand, it can be seen as a challenge to the public sphere in terms of what can be shown and said and by whom, with the emancipatory potential of giving political credentials to the personal. On the other, it can be seen as exploiting, and thereby reproducing, stereotypes and inequalities, such as those related to gender. In this article, the discussion is advanced by the use of Swedish popular therapy for couples as a point of departure. It is argued that a cultural narrative of the “good couple” is constructed in self-help books and TV programmes on relationship issues, a narrative that seems to keep the unequal nature of this heterosexual institution from being challenged. However, in the individual narratives of consumers of this culture, apparent on web discussion boards, the cultural narrative of the “good couple” is being challenged, not least with reference to gender and gender inequality.     

Towards a Grotesque Phenomenology of Ethical Eroticism

Abstract: Over the course of this article, the author argues that ethics and the erotic are interrelated. The author also contends that the way subjectivities are constructed has a strong impact on the development of the ethical and the erotic character of these same subjectivities. Against this backdrop, the author postulates that envisioning or creating oneself as a grotesque subject promises to facilitate one's own development into a moral and erotic human being by triggering a process of inner estrangement that enables one to recognize the otherness within oneself. This analysis is based mainly on Mikhail Bakhtin's grotesque as presented in his Rabelais and His World (1965). This self-introspection serves as the basis for an ethical eroticism through which one shall transform oneself into a fully fledged moral and sensual subject. In formulating this argument, the author draws on Simone de Beauvoir's own attempt to link the erotic to the ethical. As will be seen, the same principle that stands at the heart of a phenomenological ethics also steers the author's phenomenological conception of the erotic. The principle in question is carnal intersubjectivity-bodies that penetrate one another and merge, yet never lose themselves in the other's carnality. Put differently, they remain non-objectified subjects. The grotesque subject is presented as a figuration that helps shed light on the way the subject has been conceived by, above all, phenomenological and postmodern theorists. The author then explores some of the ethical ramifications of this conceptualization. Drawing on these insights, the author fashions an ethical eroticism that derives from a grotesque subjectivity.     

Does Professional or Social Network Support Meet the Needs of Victimized and Polyvictimized Youths in Sweden?

The authors use survey data on 2,160 young victims of crime and/or abuse in Sweden to examine whether professional psychosocial and/or social network support meets their needs. The results show that the likelihood of having sought and/or received professional psychosocial support increases with being a victim of more types of crime and/or abuse, as does the likelihood of experiencing anxiety and/or posttraumatic stress.     

Postmortem urine immunoassay showing false-positive phencyclidine reactivity in a case of fatal tramadol overdose

This is a report of postmortem false-positive reactivity using an enzyme-multiplied urine phencyclidine (PCP) immunoassay (EMIT II+) due to a single-agent fatal tramadol overdose. An autopsy of a 42-year-old male who died alone at home revealed no identifiable lethal anatomic abnormalities, thus leading to toxicologic analysis. Femoral blood was obtained for drug testing by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and showed a tramadol level of 14.0 mg/L, 2 orders of magnitude greater than the therapeutic range (0.1 to 0.3 mg/L). Urine was also obtained and EMIT II+ immunoassay revealed positivity for PCP at 88 mAU/min. However, confirmatory testing by HPLC failed to identify PCP in either the urine or serum. To verify the suspicion that this was a false-positive PCP result, stock solutions of tramadol and its major metabolite (O-desmethyltramadol) at concentrations of 100 mg/L in 10% methanol/H2O were compared with a blank solution (10% methanol/H2O) for EMIT II+ PCP reactivity and demonstrated reactivities of 44 mAU/min and 27 mAU/min, respectively. While these individual results were below the cutoff reactivity for a positive EMIT II+ PCP result (ca. 85 mAU/min), they were much more reactive than the blank calibrator (set at 0 mAU/min). Therefore, we conclude that the immunoreactivity of tramadol and its metabolites in aggregate is responsible for the PCP immunoassay interference and false-positive result.     

Chinese adolescents' self-concept as measured by the offer self-image questionnaire

This article reports results of a study of self-image among 426 adolescents from the Republic of China (Taiwan). Self-image was studied through use of a Chinese translation of the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire. Subjects were from public schools and a factory setting in the Republic of China. Implications for understanding Chinese youth as well as problems in doing cross-cultural research are discussed.Received M.A. from the University of Chicago. Major interests are crosscultural differences in socialization, and social gerontology.Received M.A. from Case Western Reserve University. Major interests are hospital social work and family counseling.