Empathic connection or addictive flight? : helping fathers in recovery from addiction develop empathic relationships with their children

This thesis explores the relationship between empathy and parenting in a sample of fathers recovering from addiction. It considers whether and how the development of empathic parenting skills can facilitate changes in emotion regulation and positive attachment to their children, and considers the implications of focusing on supporting men as fathers for their recovery. Previous research has identified reduced capacities for empathy and emotion regulation in people experiencing addictions compared to those without addictions. The present study investigated firstly whether differences in attachment, empathy and emotion regulation would correlate with the presence or absence of addiction in a sample of fathers. Having established this to be the case, particularly with respect to empathy and emotion regulation, phase 2 of this study explored whether training in empathic parenting skills could help fathers undergoing treatment for addictions to improve their relationships with their children, their perceptions of themselves as fathers, and their sense of wellbeing. While the link between addictions in fathers and diminished health outcomes in their children is well established, there has been little research to date that has studied the perspectives of fathers themselves during the recovery process. Accordingly, this research also sought to explore the parenting experiences of a sample of fathers as they recovered from addictions in two residential rehabilitation centres in Sydney, Australia, in 2013. The focus on the men’s experiences encompassed two key questions: How do fathers recovering from addictions experience changing relationships with their children? What other changes take place for these recovering fathers throughout the parenting program? The two phases of this research were designed as a mixed-method study, consisting of an initial quantitative survey of 169 fathers who responded to questionnaires that assessed their attachment to their children, their difficulties with emotion regulation, their mental and physical health symptoms, and their social, cognitive and affective empathy. The following second phase was designed as an in-depth multiple case study that involved seven fathers in the two residential rehabilitation centres. The results were encouraging, as each of the seven fathers told of positive change in their lives. Through the recovery process the men described themselves and their children differently, as their children became more important to them and their confidence grew in those relationships. It was clear that fatherhood was a significant concern for these men, and their relationships with their children a central motivator for them. The men were thus able to develop greater emotion regulation themselves through learning about how their children learn to manage emotions and how they as fathers can help, in addition to emotion regulation exercises focusing on their own wellbeing as fathers. The change in the fathers’ comments and questionnaire responses between the beginning and end of the parenting program also showed evidence of closer empathy-related attachment (‘empathic connection’) to their children, which is thought to underlie both the recovery process and their relationships with their children. The implications of these results are profound. Firstly, this study has found that men with major histories of addiction still have the ability, with positive support and improved emotional awareness, to form an empathic connection with their children. Secondly, providing a means for these men to focus on fatherhood within their recovery program has also helped facilitate a greater awareness of being positive role models for their children. This in turn led some of the fathers to report that their children showed not only more respect towards them, but perhaps most importantly, improved wellbeing

Realism, understanding and truth

Realism, as Michael Dummett understands it, is a thesis about the meanings of sentences of a natural language. The Realist's thesis is that the correct model of meaning for those sentences is a truth-conditional one. Dummett has sought to prove that Realism thus defined faces insuperable objections. Those objections centre around the communicability of the Realist’s truth-conditions - how, when these truth-conditions are ones that can obtain without speakers being aware that they do, could speakers possibly evince in their linguistic behaviour an understanding of those conditions? This thesis is an attempt to meet Dummett's arguments against Realism. In the first chapter, I outline Davidson's form of Realism, ultimately disagreeing with his views on the nature of mind (§§1.1.2, 1.4), but endorsing his holistic approach to meaning, truth and interpretation. Meaning for Davidson is a theoretical notion, underdetermined by linguistic usage. Central to Davidson's position is the belief that truth is primitive, a belief which Frege argued for. I argue that Frege and Davidson are right about this and that this doctrine is inconsistent with a correspondence theory of truth (§1.2). The second chapter sets out Dummett's Anti-Realism, noting Dummett's requirements for acceptable theories of meaning. With one reservation, I accept Dummett's characterisation of Realism (§2.1 ). Dummett thinks that our use of language is guided by implicit knowledge of a theory of meaning for our language (§2.2), our grasp of all sentences, in particular the undecidable sentences, consisting in a grasp of their assertibility conditions. Essentially defeasible statements present a problem for Anti-Realism (§2.4). I then present Dummett's Manifestation Argument against Realism, questioning some central assumptions of that argument (§2.4). I conclude the chapter with a discussion of Dummett's objections to holistic theories of meaning- some of these are cogent, but others are based upon misunderstandings, I contend (§2.5). In chapter three, I critically discuss Dummett's idea that truth is a construct from the more primitive notion of correct assertibility. I argue that Dummett's formulation of the latter notion is unsatisfactory (§3.1.1) and that his most convincing argument for truth's arising from assertibility, which is based on our understanding of time and tense, does not, even if sound, prove what he needs to prove if he is to create problems for Realism (§3.1.2). I then examine Dummett's reasons for holding that a theory of meaning must contain a subpart which pairs truth-conditions with practical recognitional abilities on the parts of speakers (§3.2). I argue that first person avowals or others require a truth-condtional model for their meanings (§3.3 ). With this as a counterexample to a global Anti-Realist semantics, I seek to show that Dummett's Manifestation Challenge can be answered provided one can rebut Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. Although I do not investigate whether it really does so, I suppose with Dummett that Wittgenstein's argument entails that meaning must be exhaustively manifest in use. I took at the most cogent form or this argument, which is due to Saul Kripke in the final chapter. I contend that Kripke's semantic scepticism is self-refuting (§5.2). The penultimate chapter seeks to examine the intuitionistic foundations of Dummett's Anti-Realism. I begin with a discussion of the intuitionist's philosophical position, attending particularly to his views on quantification over infinite totalities (§4.1 ). Dummett and Dag Prawitz have developed a proof-theoretic approach to the meanings or the logical constants (§§4.2,4.3). Dummett uses a generalised version of the proof-theoretic notion of a conservative extension to press for revision in our Realist-inspired logical practices (§§4.2,4.5). I examine and reject the most persuasive form of the argument for revisionism (§4.5.1 ). I argue that theories of meaning based upon the notions of assertibility or deniability cannot explicate the meanings of the logical constants (§4.4)- to do this, the Anti-Realist must develop an acceptable theory of truth; in this connection, Dummett's suggestions are inadequate (§4.:S). I conclude the chapter with a discussion of Dummett's ingenious attempt to justify deduction (§4.6). This is Dummett at his very best and here I argue that, somewhat in contrast to the overall tenor of my other conclusions, Dummett is absolutely right

Implementation of social and emotional learning

While social and emotional learning (SEL) can have many benefits for psychosocial development and well-being, the extent to which the benefits of SEL are realised depends to a large extent on how well it is implemented. This chapter takes up the question of what is necessary for effective implementation of SEL initiatives and why it is important to attend to implementation factors when undertaking SEL in schools and other settings. Included in the discussion is a consideration of policy settings and curriculum frameworks that provide important context and support for SEL implementation in schools. Critical research-based factors for effective implementation of SEL programmes are identified and discussed. The chapter also provides a detailed examination of the benefits and components of systemic approaches to implementation using a whole school approach

The Dialogical Entailment Task

In this paper, a critical discussion is made of the role of entailments in the so-called New Paradigm of psychology of reasoning based on Bayesian models of rationality (Elqayam & Over, 2013). It is argued that assessments of probabilistic coherence cannot stand on their own, but that they need to be integrated with empirical studies of intuitive entailment judgments. This need is motivated not just by the requirements of probability theory itself, but also by a need to enhance the interdisciplinary integration of the psychology of reasoning with formal semantics in linguistics. The constructive goal of the paper is to introduce a new experimental paradigm, called the Dialogical Entailment task, to supplement current trends in the psychology of reasoning towards investigating knowledge-rich, social reasoning under uncertainty (Oaksford and Chater, 2019). As a case study, this experimental paradigm is applied to reasoning with conditionals and negation operators (e.g. CEM, wide and narrow negation). As part of the investigation, participants’ entailment judgments are evaluated against their probability evaluations to assess participants’ cross-task consistency over two experimental sessions

Realism, Rationality and Truth

The aim of this book is to present in an accessible form Michael Dummett's arguments against metaphysical realism together with a realist reply to them. Dummett's arguments are highly ingenious but are difficult to follow and have been widely misunderstood by realists. My presentation aims to correct this so that the realist should be in no doubt as to what these arguments are. Realists often complain that Dummett's characterization of their position is incorrect, that it confuses metaphysics with semantics. Whilst there is a great deal of justice in these complaints it is hardly surprising that Dummett should do this since he believes that at bottom fundamental metaphysical issues such as those that divide realists from anti-realists just are semantic in nature

Challenges to metaphysical realism [encyclopaedia entry]

24 page(s

Semantic Challenges to Realism

According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independently of how humans take it to be. The objects the world contains, together with their properties and the relations they enter into, fix the world's nature and these objects exist independently of our ability to discover they do. Unless this is so, realists argue, none of our beliefs about our world could be objectively true since true beliefs tell us how things are and beliefs are objective when true or false independently of what anyone might think. The issue of objectivity affects all of us deeply - when we think the State has an obligation to provide adequate health care to all its citizens we mean to be describing what the State's obligations really are, independently of what anyone might think about the matter. If someone disagrees with us over this matter, we think they've got it wrong - are mistaken about how things are as regards the State and its obligations. If there can be no objectivity without a mind-independent world, as realists claim, then there had better be a mind-independent world.Henceforth, by 'realism' I shall mean metaphysical realism unless otherwise stated. Many philosophers believe realism is just plain common sense. Others believe it to be a direct implication of modern science which paints humans as fallible creatures adrift in an inhospitable world not of their making. Nonetheless, realism is controversial. There are epistemological problems connected with it - how can we obtain knowledge of a mind-independent world? There are also prior semantic problems - how are the links between our beliefs and the mind-independent states of affairs they allegedly represent set up? This is the Representation Problem