A “very interested” third party intervenes in a divorce settlement

Conclusion There is no universal formula for dealing with the painful products of a bitter divorce. Mixed motives, distorted perceptions, and irreconcilable differences are all interwoven into an intricate web of confused and conflicting emotions. The web eventually becomes so complex that often tangible issues cannot be pulled apart from intangible ones. Mediation in such situations cannot be seen as a panacea. The individual propensities and dissimilarities that originally lead spouses to separate may obstruct future interaction as well. A third party in such situations may, however, serve a catalytic role in fostering movement toward agreement by identifying the issues, increasing the understanding of the problem, reducing the risk of loss of face, and facilitating the efficient use of communication channels. One goal is to bring conflicting parties to think clearly about their own feelings, expectations, and desires as well as those of their opponent. Striving to achieve superordinate goals and recognizing that common interests often exist beneath the turbulent surface of positional arguments will ultimately move parties closer toward agreement. Resolving the conflict depends not only on the effectiveness of the third party, but on the willingness of the disputants to commit themselves to an exhaustive search for a solution. Lisa J. Hirsch is a senior at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. 02155. She expects to receive her bachelor's degree, with a concentration in psychology, this spring. She plans to continue her studies toward a doctorate in psychology and eventually to specialize in counseling for children of divorced parents.     

Problems of Cross-Cultural Comparison: Analyzing Linguistic Strategies in Tanzanian Domestic Violence Workshops

Campaigns against domestic violence and projects designed to reform laws are increasingly part of the development initiatives undertaken in African nations. Such projects are subject to standard criticisms of development (e. g., its tendency to enhance the power of donors over recipients) and to more recent concerns raised by postcolonial feminist scholarship (e. g., its tendency to ignore how women's condition in developing nations emerges from relations between donors and recipients). Mindful of these criticisms, many gender and law reform projects begun in Tanzania in the 1990s were designed to foster egalitarian relations between donors and recipients as well as to change laws and legal practices with respect to domestic violence. In addition, many projects relied on interactive workshops to impart information about law reform while empowering local participants. This essay focuses on two domestic violence workshops held in Tanzania in 1998. Linguistic analysis is used to expose the multiple relations of power in these development initiatives. The article demonstrates that demands on the structure of interaction-that is, everyone must be encouraged to participate-can work against creating egalitarian relations and suggests that some challenges to reforming development lie at the level of linguistic interaction.     

Use of "therapeutic complication" as a manner of death

Analyses of deaths due to therapeutic complications (TCs) provide important quality of care information for medical providers. In New York City, 463 deaths were investigated by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner and certified with TC as the manner of death in 2003. The TC manner of death is used for fatalities due to predictable complications of appropriate medical therapy. All death certificates and select autopsy, hospital, and investigation reports were reviewed. Data concerning cause of death, contributing conditions, age, race, and sex were extracted. The types of complications and the causes of death were classified into various types of surgical and nonsurgical categories of complications. These included: postoperative infections, pulmonary emboli, and technical and medication complications. The use of TC as a manner of death has benefits and limitations. Without the TC option, one is forced to certify certain deaths (e.g., penicillin anaphylaxis) either as natural or accident. The TC option allows easy identification and tracking of medical complications for public health purposes and also allows more consistent reporting of natural and medical-accidental deaths. In general, complications that occur during emergency surgeries/procedures for natural disease, tend to be certified with a natural manner. The "but for" test may be used to distinguish natural from TC deaths. There are criteria for distinguishing TC from accidents and homicides. TCs that occur during treatment of a potentially life-threatening injury, are superseded by the manner dictated by the circumstances of the initiating injury. The certification of TC usually does not address errors of omission, clinical judgement/management, or missed diagnoses.