Benjamin John and other poems

Benjamin John is a narrative made up of lyrics in the present tense: But it covers a considerable length of time. The result is a collapse of time, or should be, so that the reader, at the end of it, wonders where Benjamin John's life has gone. But the Lyric Cycle uses a static story line and a confusion in tense and address to do the opposite: So that although little or no time passes, the reader, at the end, feels, I hope, that at least a year has gone by. I think these techniques, if indeed they do work, are more than mere tricks. The male sense of time seems to me often heavily weighted with a sense of bereavement. "It might have been" sums up Benjamin John's view of his life. I wished to collapse the time in his poems because these sad words are so by virtue of their utter inability to move within time

Exploring the Succulent Wilderness of a Contemporary Mind through Encounters with Material

First, I discuss my role as an artist as twofold: as an observer and a creator. I then examine how abstraction in painting offers me a way to create that is complementary to the way I wish to view the world. The process of my work is explored further to clarify certain subjective definitions important to my practice, such as my personal definition of the sublime. I begin with a discussion of how I approach the canvas including the first decisions made in a painting: decisions centered around the palette. I follow with a description of the middle of the process in which forms and surface textures begin to emerge while also examining the editing process of those forms and textures. In this way, criteria for what constructs a finished piece are clarified. I then turn to broader philosophical consequences of that process: namely, what it entails to approach painting from the role of a shamaness and with what reservations I attempt to enact this persona. Through this lens, I approach art historical contexts including my connection to Abstract Expressionists and also specific contemporary painters

International Implications of Revolution

A historical analysis of revolution throughout the world to determine both the international implications of it, as well as the methodology for determining a response to it

Euphemism's usefulness: elusive eros in the novels of Charlotte Brontë

In this project, I examine the uses of euphemistic language and concealed erotic content in Charlotte Brontë's novels Villette and Jane Eyre with additional support from Shirley. Based on historicized readings of repression, I argue that the author includes non-traditional gender roles and sexualities in her novels to question the status quo. Because of the culture of publishing in the mid-nineteenth century, however, she was not free to write openly about sexual activities. Instead, Brontë used figurative language and sensual imagery to convey non-traditional gender performance and moments of eroticism

A comparison of kernel equating and IRT true score equating methods

"This two-part study investigates 1) the impact of loglinear model selection in pre-smoothing observed score distributions on the kernel method of test equating and 2) the differences between kernel equating, chained equipercentile equating, and true score methods of concurrent calibration and Stocking and Lord's transformation method. Data were simulated to emulate realistic situations in which test difficulty differed, sample sizes varied, anchor test lengths were of varying lengths, and test lengths ranged from 20 items to 100 items. Difficulty of anchor tests were held constant. Because data were simulated in a single group (SG) format, traditional unsmoothed equipercentile equating was used as a criterion by which all other methods, which use the non-equivalent groups with an anchor test design (NEAT), were compared. Data were simulated using IceDog (ETS, 2007) and analyzed using KE software (ETS, 2007), MULTILOG (Thissen, 2003), IceDog (ETS, 2007), PARSCALE (Muraki & Bock, 2003) and Fortran programming code developed by the author. Results indicate the impact of equating technique chosen on examinees' test scores in a variety of realistic situations, and have further recommendations for further study."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

Development and evaluation of assessments for counseling professionals

It is imperative that counselors understand how to critically evaluate assessments before using them to make clinical decisions. This evaluation can be conducted through integrating the 5 sources of validity. Each source of validity is discussed, along with methods to appraise psychometric quality, throughout this special issue

Family Communication Patterns and the Mediating Role of Communication Competence and Alexithymia in Relation to Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Citation metadata

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) affects a growing number of youth and transitional-aged youth. Nock's (2009) comprehensive model of NSSI engagement points to a range of factors that combine to predict who is at a heightened risk for self-injury. The present study examined the impact of specific interpersonal factors, family communication patterns (i.e., conversation and conformity orientations), and communication competence on five supported measures of self-injurious behaviors. We further tested whether alexithymia, or a person's inability to identify and describe their emotions, mediated family communication patterns and communication competence in predicting NSSI behavior. Family communication patterns, specifically conversation orientation, had a positive impact on lifetime NSSI behaviors. While communication competence positively related to both lifetime and current NSSI behaviors, alexithymia mediated these relationships. Implications for treatment are provided

The use of masks in counseling: Creating reflective space

Using expressive art techniques in counseling is one way in which to open space for a client to reflect on his or her concerns or problems in therapy. One form of expressive art is the use of masks. Masks have been used throughout history in theatre and counseling. In therapy, masks have been used as projective tools for clients to reflect their experiences onto. This article discusses one client's experience in creating a mask while working on her issues as a survivor of sexual abuse. In addition, recommendations are discussed for using masks with different populations

Voices of recovery: an exploration of stigma experienced by college students in recovery from alcohol and/or other drug addiction through photovoice

Researchers have estimated that on any given college campus, 4% of students are in recovery from alcohol and/or other drug addiction (Harris, Baker, & Thompson, 2005). Over the past several years, Collegiate Recovery Programs (CRPs) and Collegiate Recovery Communities (CRCs) have started to become more widespread, focusing on the welfare of those students who identify as being in recovery from alcohol and/or other drug addiction. Despite the growing number of CRPs/CRCs in the country, many students have reported that the negative stigma associated with substance use disorders (SUDs) has stopped them from utilizing these recovery-based services (Mackert, Mabry, Hubbard, Grahovac, & Holleran Steiker, 2014). Although this statement has not yet been supported by empirical evidence, the effects of stigma on students seeking mental health services have been demonstrated. In fact, stigma has been identified as one of the greatest barriers to seeking mental health services for college students (Martin, 2010). It is also noteworthy that several studies have shown that substance use disorders are viewed as more stigmatized than any other mental health disorder (Corrigan, Kuwabara, & O’Shaughnessy, 2009; Livingston, Milne, Fang, & Amari, 2011; Room, 2005; Schomerus et al., 2011). The purpose of this study was to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the stigma experienced by college students in recovery from alcohol and/or other drug addiction. The researcher conducted a qualitative research study using Photovoice methodology to gain an in-depth, foundational understanding of how stigma was experienced by the participants involved in the study. Wang and Burris (1997), the founders of Photovoice, stated that this approach may be “particularly powerful for . . . people with socially stigmatized health conditions or status” (p. 370). Participants in this study included undergraduate college students who self-identified as being in recovery from alcohol and/or other drug addiction. They were asked to take photographs that represented their experiences of stigma and to answer questions related to the portrayal of these experiences. The participants then shared and discussed these photographs in a focus group. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze the data. Participants identified several common themes that were present in both the focus group discussions and the photographs. These themes were then placed into categories and mapped onto Frost’s (2011) model of social stigma in order to create a conceptual framework for understanding how college students in recovery from alcohol and/or other drug addiction experience stigma. The categories include: sources of stigma, experiences of stigma, consequences of stigma, coping and support strategies and intersectionality. Finally, implications for practice and research are discussed

Parental alcoholism and coping : a comparison of female children of alcoholics with female children of non-alcoholics

The purpose of this research was; 1. to assess differences in level of depression between female children of alcoholics (COAs) and female children of non-alcoholics, 2. to assess potential differences in choice of coping strategies between COAs and children of non-alcoholics, and 3. to determine the extent to which the eight coping strategies under study were useful in predicting group (COA group or children of non-alcoholic group) placement. A sample of 103 (76 children of non-alcoholics and 27 COAs) traditional-aged undergraduate college students comprised the sample. An independent two-sample t-test revealed statistically significant differences in level of depression between the COAs and the children of non-alcoholics, with the children of alcoholics exhibiting a higher level of depression. However, the mean depression scores for both groups were within the no depression range