An Exploration of Counselling Practices with Women Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Should Therapists Ask About Thoughts or Behaviour Involving Sex with Children?

Helping professionals and women, themselves, have been reluctant to recognize or acknowledge that females can and do sexually abuse children and adolescents. Research has also demonstrated that females most at risk to abuse children are those who were themselves victims of severe child sexual abuse (CSA) The purpose of this research was to explore whether or not current counselling practices with women survivors of CSA reflect the belief that women do not sexually abuse children. This study also focuses on whether or not therapists create space for discussion about thoughts and behaviour involving sexual abuse of children and adolescents with their women survivor clients, and if so, how this is done. This mixed methodological study examined social workers’ and other counsellors’ beliefs about what constitutes CSA, who commits sexual abuse, and the relationship between their beliefs and their self-reported behaviour in counselling practice with women survivors. During the first phase of the study, therapists from across Canada who work with women survivors were surveyed. Telephone interviews were conducted in the second phase with selected study participants to further examine their practice with women survivors. The survey demonstrated that 70% of respondents thought it was important to inquire about thoughts or behaviour involving sexual abuse of children, however, a key finding was the apparent discrepancy between the therapists’ stated ideals and their description of their actual practices. Also, the respondents’ beliefs about what constituted sexually abusive behaviour differed significantly depending on the gender of the person perpetrating the behaviour. Male perpetration was identified as more inappropriate than female-perpetration for a similar scenario. The telephone interviews provided further information regarding how to best approach women survivors about the possibility of thoughts or behaviours involving sex with children and the potential consequences to such an inquiry. The study concludes that counselling practices with women survivors of CSA should include the exploration of the woman’s experience in terms of thoughts or behaviours involving sex with children and/or adolescents and that this exploration should be conducted in a sensitive and professional manner. Recommendations of how to conduct the explorations sensitively were suggested by participants

“He told me my pain was in my head”: Testimonial injustice in patient-physician relationships

Women living with chronic pain are more likely than men to experience pain dismissal, receive nonspecific diagnostics, receive fewer follow-ups, have their condition undertreated, and be told that it results from a psychological condition. This is particularly concerning for adolescent girls living with scoliosis, who, given the progressive nature of their condition, require timely diagnosis to allow for less invasive treatment options to be explored. This population is also significantly more likely to have their condition progress to a curve angle where treatment such as bracing or spinal fusion surgery is required, both of which are associated with chronic pain. However, timely diagnosis depends on clinicians taking patients’ testimony regarding their health concerns seriously and investigating their claims. This presentation will dive into the gender gap in care for adolescent girls living with chronic pain caused by scoliosis, focusing on their experiences of pain dismissal and its negative short and long-term effects. Leveraging the concept of intersectionality, the authors argue that adolescent girls may suffer a testimonial injustice when their pain is dismissed by clinicians. This presentation will also explore gender-specific peer support groups as a possible mitigating factor to testimonial injustice and other negative outcomes from chronic pain and pain dismissal. The researchers interviewed members from scoliosis peer support group Curvy Girls using open-ended questions, gathering narrative data about their experiences that was subsequently analyzed using an applied philosophical hermeneutics approach, along with intersectionality and testimonial injustice as part of their framework

Synergistic Research in Medical Education: Some Philosophical Reflections

In this paper, we present and discuss the “synergistic research approach,” from quantitative and qualitative through mixed methods, as a term that refers to an academic endeavour in which researchers are not only committed to comprehensiveness and rigor, but also – and importantly – to excellence in peer processes that further enhance knowledge generation by emphasizing the philosophical underpinnings thereof. We outline the hermeneutic wager, which provides the philosophical grounds for synergistic research, and explain the reasons why we consider this perspective to be of particular interest in the health profession education field of inquiry. 

Invited Paper. The Hermeneutic Wager: Building Community in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hovey was contacted by the lead of a pan-Canadian working group on pediatric brain tumours (PBTWG). While all stakeholders (researchers, clinicians, regulators, patient advocates, ethicists, and industry experts) were highly motivated to address barriers through innovative strategies in collaboration, clinical research, regulation, and business models, advancement has been challenging on multiple levels. Hovey and his team were tasked to facilitate and successfully engage this diverse divisive group of stakeholders to achieve their goals. Inspired by Richard Kearney’s anatheistic wager, the hermeneutic wager acts simultaneously as a team building and research approach, as it serves to gain insight into the perspectives of members of a purposeful community. Through its five conversations, namely imagination, humility, commitment, discernment, and hospitality, the hermeneutic wager elicits responses from the participants that are based on meaningful participation in a relational approach of community co-creation. We individually interviewed the PBTWG facilitators (5). With informed consent, our research team also recorded all 5 of the PBTWG work group meetings (20 participants from 6 stakeholder groups) and break-out room meetings and took notes which consist of rich and extensive narrative data. This data was analyzed alongside the individual PBTWG interviews. The audio and visual data collected via a secure Zoom platform was then transcribed verbatim and analyzed interpretively according to the applied philosophical hermeneutic tradition. Findings centered around six points: “The Work of Stories,” “Changing Landscapes: Community / Communication not Consensus,” “Let the Words Lead You,” “Those Words Matter,” “Metaphors as a Bridge to Understanding,” and “A Road Map to be Inspired By.” Through these findings, we contend that the hermeneutic wager is an invitation for conversation that builds a path to the generation of new and creative understandings that transcend previous ways of knowing. The efficacy of the hermeneutic wager resides in its ability to help build a community of people who work together through and across difference to arrive at a shared understanding and collective outcome. &nbsp

Comparison of five different RNA sources to examine the lactating bovine mammary gland transcriptome using RNA-Sequencing.

The objective of this study was to examine five different sources of RNA, namely mammary gland tissue (MGT), milk somatic cells (SC), laser microdissected mammary epithelial cells (LCMEC), milk fat globules (MFG) and antibody-captured milk mammary epithelial cells (mMEC) to analyze the bovine mammary gland transcriptome using RNA-Sequencing. Our results provide a comparison between different sampling methods (invasive and non-invasive) to define the transcriptome of mammary gland tissue and milk cells. This information will be of value to investigators in choosing the most appropriate sampling method for different research applications to study specific physiological states during lactation. One of the simplest procedures to study the transcriptome associated with milk appears to be the isolation of total RNA directly from SC or MFG released into milk during lactation. Our results indicate that the SC and MFG transcriptome are representative of MGT and LCMEC and can be used as effective and alternative samples to study mammary gland expression without the need to perform a tissue biopsy

Invited Paper. The Hermeneutic Wager: Building Community in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hovey was contacted by the lead of a pan-Canadian working group on pediatric brain tumours (PBTWG). While all stakeholders (researchers, clinicians, regulators, patient advocates, ethicists, and industry experts) were highly motivated to address barriers through innovative strategies in collaboration, clinical research, regulation, and business models, advancement has been challenging on multiple levels. Hovey and his team were tasked to facilitate and successfully engage this diverse divisive group of stakeholders to achieve their goals. Inspired by Richard Kearney’s anatheistic wager, the hermeneutic wager acts simultaneously as a team building and research approach, as it serves to gain insight into the perspectives of members of a purposeful community. Through its five conversations, namely imagination, humility, commitment, discernment, and hospitality, the hermeneutic wager elicits responses from the participants that are based on meaningful participation in a relational approach of community co-creation. We individually interviewed the PBTWG facilitators (5). With informed consent, our research team also recorded all 5 of the PBTWG work group meetings (20 participants from 6 stakeholder groups) and break-out room meetings and took notes which consist of rich and extensive narrative data. This data was analyzed alongside the individual PBTWG interviews. The audio and visual data collected via a secure Zoom platform was then transcribed verbatim and analyzed interpretively according to the applied philosophical hermeneutic tradition. Findings centered around six points: “The Work of Stories,” “Changing Landscapes: Community / Communication not Consensus,” “Let the Words Lead You,” “Those Words Matter,” “Metaphors as a Bridge to Understanding,” and “A Road Map to be Inspired By.” Through these findings, we contend that the hermeneutic wager is an invitation for conversation that builds a path to the generation of new and creative understandings that transcend previous ways of knowing. The efficacy of the hermeneutic wager resides in its ability to help build a community of people who work together through and across difference to arrive at a shared understanding and collective outcome. 

Missed Opportunities for Growth in the Posttraumatic Helping Environment: The Role of Spirituality

This paper focuses on social work’s understanding of how posttraumatic counselling may help or hinder recovery from trauma. A qualitative case study was conducted using an autobiographic memoir that provides an in-depth personal narrative of one woman’s experience of trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, the posttraumatic helping environment, and healing journey. Inductive thematic analysis uncovered themes that align with the existing literature. Novel or understudied aspects for consideration also emerged, including the importance of psychoeducation, behavioural activation, and secondary factors related to the posttraumatic environment that impede healing. The analysis highlighted missed opportunities to clinically address issues of identity and meaning in a spiritually sensitive manner. Although the narrator made it clear to helping professionals that she was struggling with religious beliefs and was in spiritual crisis, helping professionals seemed to eschew exploration of these concerns. Implications for clinical social work practice and future research are discussed

When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It: Teaching Social Work Practice Using Blended Learning

The debates surrounding the effectiveness of teaching social work online highlight the challenges of adequately preparing students for face-to-face practice by way of web-based technologies. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to briefly describe how a particular School of Social Work when designing its part-time undergraduate degree program (BSW), arrived at a fork in the road and instead of choosing between the paths of in-class or online course delivery, the School decided to offer the entire degree using a blended learning platform. Secondly, to compare the development and implementation of three specific practice courses within the part-time degree program (interviewing and assessment, social work theory, and a practicum integration seminar) each of which was offered using blended learning. This paper contributes to the debate about the value of using web-based components when teaching social work practice and will be helpful to educators from within many disciplines, who are wishing to critique their own development processes when designing and teaching practice courses using blended learning