The Theoretical Base of Clinical Sociology: Root Metaphors and Key Principles

The theoretical base of clinical sociology is analyzed through Pepper\u27s root metaphor method. Practice is found to be framed by the analogy between society and a complex ecosystem. The resulting world hypothesis is identified as Ecologism, within which the four relatively adequate world hypotheses identified by Pepper (Formism, Mechanism, Contextualism and Organicism) take their place as complementary alternatives differentially informing or guiding practice with respect to the analysis of categories, evaluation of linkages, intervention at the microsocial level of social actors and mesosocial level of organizations and other integrated social systems, respectively. Examples are drawn from the literature, and key analytical and methodological principles are identified for practice at each level

Clinical Sociology on the One-to-One Level: A Social Behavioral Approach to Counseling

Clinical sociology involves interventions for change at any or all levels of social organization, based upon and/or guided by sociological principles and perspectives (Straus, 1979a,b). Although sociologists are typically envisioned as working with groups, organizations, communities and other large social units, sociological social psychologists have, for some fifty years, demonstrated an interest in working with individuals and their intimate groups (Wirth, 1931). In this paper, I examine the social behavioral approach to individual counseling which has evolved from my experience as a private practitioner working with problems of conduct, substance abuse, sexuality, interpersonal relationships, job and life stress, and the enhancement of personal performance generally. Discussion centers around this context of training subjects to use their own self-interactions strategically in order to overcome blockages and positively to maximize performance. Generically, however, I show how sociological social psychology can be translated into clinical practice, and the strategies of intervention appropriate to a social behavioral approach

Changing the Definition of the Situation: Toward a Theory of Sociological Intervention

The sociological intervention is identified as (1) directed at the operational definition of the situation and (2) taking into account the multiple, interacting layers of social participation framing human predicaments and their resolution. These are further differentiated, employing case examples, in terms of mode of attack—direct, indirect, or cooperative—and level of social context at which the intervention is directed—the personal, group, organizational, or social world being described here as quantum levels of interest. While others may conduct such interventions, the sociological intervention is characterized as the special domain of the clinical sociologist

Changing the Definition of the Situation: Toward a Theory of Sociological Intervention

The sociological intervention is identified as (1) directed at the operational definition of the situation and (2) taking into account the multiple, interacting layers of social participation framing human predicaments and their resolution. These are further differentiated, employing case examples, in terms of mode of attack — direct, indirect, or cooperative — and level of social context at which the intervention is directed — the personal, group, organizational, or social world being described here as quantum\u27\u27 levels of interest. While others may conduct such interventions, the sociological intervention is characterized as the special domain of the clinical sociologist

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival