Brief psychosexual therapy: reflections on the provision of a time-limited therapy service in a sexual health clinic

Time-limited psychological therapy is increasingly the norm in publically funded healthcare systems. Although brevity of treatment is a characteristic of modern sex therapy, many practitioners would nevertheless consider the provision of effective psychosexual therapy in six or fewer sessions to be a daunting prospect. In this paper we reflect on the challenges, opportunities, and changes to practice associated with the development and delivery of a brief psychosexual therapy service within a specialist sexual health clinic in England. We endeavour to integrate our experiential learning with relevant research findings and principles from the fields of psychosexual therapy and brief psychological therapy. We also explore some of the broader issues associated with the development and provision of brief psychosexual therapy, including the possible implications for the education and training of psychosexual therapists

Transpeople in Performative Documentary: Self-Representation, Citizenship and Transparency

This paper explores the representation of transgendered identity within filmic and televisual documentary, focusing on issues of sexuality, gender and youth. A conceptual framework is established, examining historical foundations, documentary theory, and the aesthetics of domesticity. There are 8 major case studies – There is Something About Miriam (2004), My Dad Diane (2005), Trantasia (2007), She’s a Boy I Knew (2007), Lucy: Teenage Transsexual (2007), My Transsexual Summer (2007), Transsexual teen: Beauty Queen (2012) and I am Cait (2015)

Client processing is altered by novel myopathy-causing mutations in the HSP40 J domain

The misfolding and aggregation of proteins is often implicated in the development and progression of degenerative diseases. Heat shock proteins (HSPs), such as the ubiquitously expressed Type II Hsp40 molecular chaperone, DNAJB6, assist in protein folding and disaggregation. Historically, mutations within the DNAJB6 G/F domain have been associated with Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy type 1D, now referred to as LGMDD1, a dominantly inherited degenerative disease. Recently, novel mutations within the J domain of DNAJB6 have been reported in patients with LGMDD1. Since novel myopathy-causing mutations in the Hsp40 J domain have yet to be characterized and both the function of DNAJB6 in skeletal muscle and the clients of this chaperone are unknown, we set out to assess the effect of these mutations on chaperone function using the genetically tractable yeast system. The essential yeast Type II Hsp40, Sis1, is homologous to DNAJB6 and is involved in the propagation of yeast prions. Using phenotypic, biochemical, and functional assays we found that homologous mutations in the Sis1 J domain differentially alter the processing of specific yeast prion strains, as well as a non-prion substrate. These data suggest that the newly-identified mutations in the J domain of DNAJB6 cause aberrant chaperone function that leads to the pathogenesis in LGMDD1

Variational collocation for systems of coupled anharmonic oscillators

We have applied a collocation approach to obtain the numerical solution to the stationary Schr\"odinger equation for systems of coupled oscillators. The dependence of the discretized Hamiltonian on scale and angle parameters is exploited to obtain optimal convergence to the exact results. A careful comparison with results taken from the literature is performed, showing the advantages of the present approach.Comment: 14 pages, 10 table

A person-centred approach to psychosexual therapy: theorizing practice

There is little explicit referencing of the Person-Centred Approach in the psychosexual therapy literature and clients who experience sexual difficulties seem seldom to be discussed in publications on person-centred therapy. These ‘silences’ might suggest that there is little interest in establishing a greater dialogue between these two therapeutic approaches, yet there is, we would suggest, considerable value in doing so. Drawing on developments in person-centred theory and practice, we outline and extend in this article the ‘theorization of practice’ that has supported the development of a more person-centred approach to time-limited psychosexual therapy. While acknowledging the tensions that exist between the philosophical tenets underpinning the Person-Centred Approach and the practices that constitute psychosexual therapy, we suggest that the experiential therapies of Gendlin and Rennie provide useful meeting points between the Person-Centred Approach and psychosexual therapy. We argue that in addition to facilitating a more idiographic approach to psychosexual therapy, the Person-Centred Approach helps to widen the scope of practice within psychosexual therapy by placing greater emphasis on the promotion of sexual potential

Searching for Faint Comoving Companions to the α Centauri system in the VVV Survey Infrared Images

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2017 Crown Copyright. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.The VVV survey has observed the southern disk of the Milky Way in the near infrared, covering 240 deg$^{2}$ in the $ZYJHK_S$ filters. We search the VVV Survey images in a $\sim$19 deg$^{2}$ field around $\alpha$ Centauri, the nearest stellar system to the Sun, to look for possible overlooked companions that the baseline in time of VVV would be able to uncover. The photometric depth of our search reaches $Y\sim$19.3 mag, $J\sim$19 mag, and $K_S\sim$17 mag. This search has yielded no new companions in $\alpha$ Centauri system, setting an upper mass limit for any unseen companion well into the brown dwarf/planetary mass regime. The apparent magnitude limits were turned into effective temperature limits, and the presence of companion objects with effective temperatures warmer than 325K can be ruled out using different state-of-the-art atmospheric models. These limits were transformed into mass limits using evolutionary models, companions with masses above 11 M$_{Jup}$ were discarded, extending the constraints recently provided in the literature up to projected distances of dPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Sexual Harassment At Work: A Leadership Problem

Sexual violence against women in the workplace remains rife and poorly addressed. Sexual harassment is often perpetrated by leaders, managers, or supervisors as the result of abusive power relations. Recognising and addressing the cultural tolerance for sexual violence in organizations and society is one of the steps in addressing this issue. In this paper, we argue that violence is normalised through leadership practices. We suggest that leadership against sexual harassment is essential for organizational redress

Examination of Annular-Electrode Spark Discharges in Flowing Oxygen Experimental Nuances

Microsecond sparks and the resulting plume of hot gas/plasma were examined against a parametric pressure-distance matrix. Schlieren imaging is used to capture the spatial and temporal location of spark discharge exhaust for two milliseconds. Low pressure and larger gap widths created the largest size and intensity signal for the spark-affected plumes. Experimental exit-plume velocities trend well with analytic predictions using a mean pressure between the chamber and atmospheric conditions. Due to the quadratic relation of the annulus area and gap width, larger gap width velocities are more accurately represented by analytic predictions using atmospheric pressure as the larger exit area restricts the flow less. The same pressure adjustment, when applied to breakdown voltages, improves data alignment with Paschens Curve