Mahler, Margaret

Born into a Jewish family in Sopron, Hungary, Margaret Mahler (1897–1985) is one of the founding pioneers in psychoanalytical theory and practice. She is most noted for her separation-individuation theory of child development, which emphasizes identity formation as occurring within the context of relationships. After immigrating to the United States in 1938, Mahler’s work as a child psychiatrist informed her theory regarding the interplay between our internal (psychological) development and our external social environment. This approach was considered scandalous within her professional community, which tended to minimize sociocultural and relational contributors to our sense of self. Her conceptual framework regarding the nature of attachment relating, specifically our need for both closeness and distance, is imbedded in many theoretical constructs regarding attachment, interpersonal relationships, family, and broader social system functioning

Incorporating Spirituality into the Therapeutic Setting: Safeguarding Ethical Use of Spirituality Through Therapist Self-Reflection

As various mental health professions are increasingly open to incorporating the client\u27s spirituality into the therapeutic process, therapists now more than ever feel greater freedom to discuss topics that heretofore may have been perceived as off limits. Yet, inviting discussion about a client\u27s spirituality within the context of therapy is fraught with danger due in large part to the subjective nature of such a deeply personal, life changing, and in today\u27s world, political aspect of human experience. This chapter invites the therapist to consider one\u27s ethical obligations to the client before attempting to utilize a client\u27s spirituality as a therapeutic tool. Specifically, the therapist is invited to engage in a self-examination process in which one\u27s clinical and spiritual orientations are articulated as part of a process of safeguarding against a pejorative, reactive, and/or prescriptive use of spirituality in the therapeutic setting

Trauma-informed school programming: Applications for Mental Health professionals and Educator partnerships

An alarming number of children experience significant trauma or chronic stress throughout childhood, manifesting in cognitive, social, physical, and emotional impairment. These challenges are expressed in the P-12 academic setting through difficulties with behavioral and emotional self-regulation, academic functioning, and physical ailments and illness. Advances in trauma-informed care, as applied to the school environment, have inspired new hope for educators who observe first-hand the learning challenges facing traumatized children. This article defines the nature of the problem along with a guiding framework to assist educators and mental health professionals in transforming to a trauma-informed school culture

Maximizing Academic Success for Foster Care Students: A Trauma-Informed Approach

Children in foster care have experienced significant trauma due to the loss of primary attachment figures and the circumstances associated with that loss. Children who have suffered trauma generally present with cognitive, social, physical, and emotional vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities are often expressed in the P–12 academic setting through difficulties with behavioral and emotional self-regulation, academic functioning, and physical ailments and illness related to chronic stress-induced compromised immune systems. This results in academic failure for half of all children in care. Training in how to respond to children who have suffered trauma is essential to ensure that children are comfortable and feel secure in the classroom so that they can access their education. To that end, a framework to support children in P–12 settings who are particularly vulnerable to academic failure due to trauma is presented

Counselor Formation and Gatekeeping Best Practices

Counselor educators and supervisors contribute to students’ development while determining fitness for the profession. How we intervene can either help students work through internal conflicts that prevent them from embracing professional skills and dispositions or undermine that process. Facilitators will interactively engage participants in the application of a developmental framework that maximizes students’ dissonance in service to their counselor identity development process

Trauma-Informed School Practices in Response to the Impact of Social-Cultural Trauma (Chapter in How Shall We Then Care? A Christian Educator\u27s Guide to Caring for Self, Learners, Colleagues, and Community)

Excerpt: In this chapter we present a model for addressing the academic and behavioral challenges of students impacted by unmitigated stress and trauma. Typically, trauma-informed school literature addresses trauma resulting from abusive, or neglectful behaviors that occur in the home (Bailey, 2015; Craig, 2016; Massachusetts Advocates for Children, 2005; Souers & Hall, 2016). Here, the type of trauma we are addressing is threats to the physical and emotional health of students due to social and cultural factors. Perhaps most detrimental and deadly is trauma resulting from war, economic collapse, civil unrest, and social-political attitudes, laws, and customs that exclude, marginalize, exploit, or subjugate an identified vulnerable population. Like members of a family in which chronic conflict and abuse occur, this type of violence involves all of us, whether we are direct recipients of abuse, observers of those supporting such abuse (oftentimes people we love), or searching for ways to effectively intervene on behalf of the victims. We can not stay in a merely objective observer position as all of us are stressed by events happening across the globe, and emotionally, socially, and perhaps economically impacted as these events occur within our own communities

Against the Smart City

Hoje em dia, as possibilidades oferecidas pelos novos dispositivos tecnoloÌgicos e informaÌticos que permeiam nossas existeÌ‚ncias urbanas são infinitas, mas o nosso conhecimento sobre as formas como esses sistemas e seu uso irão alterar nosso mundo eÌ limitado. Em Against the smart city, Adam Greenfield nos oferece uma leitura criÌtica de um novo paradigma de organização urbana, o das cidades inteligentes, procurando trazer ao debate a narrativa de grandes corporações multinacionais e seus patrocinadores-clientes governamentais, incapazes de se tornarem porta-vozes de dinaÌ‚micas socioculturais e tecnoloÌgicas que, em boas mãos, poderiam levar ao renascimento da vida na cidade.

Trauma-Informed School Practices: Building Expertise to Transform Schools

This textbook represents the combined insight and experience of Morton, a k12 educator, and Berardi, a psychotherapist, both of whom are also university educators with extensive work experience serving districts and their teachers seeking to incorporate trauma-informed principles into their school culture and classroom. The authors identify that the field of education is now ready to deepen its level of response to the paradigm shift created by advances in neuroscience and traumatology. Hence, the primary focus is on identifying and applying trauma-informed educator competencies needed to transform districts, schools, educators, classrooms, and the field of education itself, while also including community members such as parents and board members in these processes - a total system makeover. At the conclusion of this text, the student, educator, or mental health professional will have a deeper understanding of what trauma-informed practice requires of them. This includes practical strategies on how to transform our learning communities in response to the devastating effect of unmitigated stress and trauma on our student\u27s ability to learn and thrive throughout the lifespan.https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/pennington_epress/1003/thumbnail.jp

Physical activity scale for the elderly: translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the Italian version

Objective. The aim of the study was to translate and culturally adapt the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly into Italian (PASE-I) and to evaluate its psychometric properties in the Italian older adults healthy population. Methods. For translation and cultural adaptation, the "Translation and Cultural Adaptation of Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures" guidelines have been followed. Participants included healthy individuals between 55 and 75 years old. The reliability and validity were assessed following the "Consensus-Based Standards for the Selection of Health Status Measurement Instruments" checklist. To evaluate internal consistency and test-retest reliability, Cronbach's α and Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) were, respectively, calculated. The Berg Balance Score (BBS) and the PASE-I were administered together, and Pearson's correlation coefficient was calculated for validity. Results. All the PASE-I items were identical or similar to the original version. The scale was administered twice within a week to 94 Italian healthy older people. The mean PASE-I score in this study was 159±77.88. Cronbach's α was 0.815 (p < 0.01) and ICC was 0.977 (p < 0.01). The correlation with the BBS was 0.817 (p < 0.01). Conclusions. The PASE-I showed positive results for reliability and validity. This scale will be of great use to clinicians and researchers in evaluating and managing physical activities in the Italian older adults population