Domestic Violence and Health Care: Opening Pandora¿s Box ¿ Challenges and Dilemmas

In this article we take a critical stance toward the rational progressive narrative surrounding the integration of domestic violence within health care. Whilst changes in recent UK policy and practice have resulted in several tangible benefits, it is argued that there may be hidden dilemmas and challenges. We suggest that the medical model of care and its discursive practices position women as individually accountable for domestic violence-related symptoms and injuries. This may not only be ineffective in terms of service provision but could also have the potential to reduce the political significance of domestic violence as an issue of concern for all women. Furthermore, it is argued that the use of specific metaphors enables practitioners to distance themselves from interactions that may prove to be less comfortable and provide less than certain outcomes. Our analysis explores the possibilities for change that might currently be available. This would appear to involve a consideration of alternative discourses and the reformulation of power relations and subject positions in health care

Using Realistic Virtual Environments in the Study of Spatial Encoding

Computer generated virtual environments have reached a level of sophistication and ease of production that they are readily available for use in the average psychology laboratory. The potential benefits include cue control, incorporation of interactivity and novelty of environments used. The draw-backs include limitations in realism and lack of fidelity. In this chapter we describe our use of virtual environments to study how 3D space is encoded in humans with special emphasis on realism and interactivity. We describe the computational methods used to implement this realism and give examples from studies concerning spatial memory for object form, spatial layout and scene recognition