The Performance of Healing.
Carol Laderman and Marina Roseman, editors. Routledge, 7625 Empire Dr., Florence, KY 41042. Softcover, 330 pages. $18.95.
This text is a collection of essays by anthropologists covering a wide range of medical, holistic, and religious aspects of healing and death. The contributors broaden the field of medical anthropology by demonstrating that healing involves the senses in treatments whose efficacy depends in part on dramatic performance.
Music, movement, and dialogue; comedy and poetry; audience, players, and props--all constitute the performance of healing. If healing is to be effective, the patient's body and mind must be engaged through the sensory impact of dramatic media, the articles show. Curing is not just about "making people well," but also forms a crucial means of reproducing relations of power. A performance directed toward a particular individual might also heal a traumatized social group, expanding the definition of "cure" from its narrow sense of restoring a victim to health to the larger goal of restoring social relations.
The Romance of American Psychology. Political Culture in the Age of Experts.
Ellen Herman. University of California Press, 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94720 and/or 50 East 42nd Street, Room 513, New York, NY 10017. Hardcover, 419 pages. $35.
A quiet academic discipline two generations ago, psychology has become a voice of great cultural authority. From family structure to government policy, child abuse to urban violence, few social institutions or political issues in America remain untouched by the wisdom of psychological "experts."
Attempting to fully explore the political and cultural significance of American psychology in the post-World War II era, the author tells the story of this country's love affair with the behavioral sciences.
Mental Health in a Multi-ethnic Society. A Multi-disciplinary Handbook.
Suman Fernando, editor. Routledge, 7625 Empire Dr., Florence, KY 41042. Softcover, 235 pages. $18.95.
As services in the community continue to replace institution-based care there is an increasing need for professionals from medical, social work, clinical psychology, nursing, and other backgrounds to address the diverse needs of a multi-ethnic society using a common frame of reference. Those who provide mental health services must now face up to challenges from service users and strive for a closer, more effective working relationship with voluntary organizations. This book attempts to address all these issues. It offers an approach to the meaning of mental health and suggests constructive and imaginative ways of providing care for people with mental health problems.
Contributions from a multi-ethnic team of professionals are organized in three parts: "Current setting" describes the background to contemporary mental health services, the legal framework, and the role of the voluntary sector and examines the experience of black people. "Confronting issues" considers practical problems in delivering services to a multi-ethnic society and offers some innovative approaches. The final part, "Seeking change," draws together the various issues in order to indicate a way forward, with suggestions for change on both a practical and theoretical level.
Intended primarily as a handbook for practitioners working in the mental health field, it is also suitable for multidisciplinary, basic, and in-service postgraduate trainings in a variety of professions, including social work, psychology, psychiatry, and nursing.
Occupational and Physical Therapy in Educational Environments.
Irene R. McEwen, editor. The Haworth Medical Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 139041580. Hardcover, 110 pages. $29.95.
Covers the major issues involved in providing lawful, team-oriented, and effective occupational and physical therapy services for students with disabilities in public schools. For those involved with students with disabilities, this book helps them make sound decisions about services that will make a meaningful difference in the lives or these children.
Since the 1975 enactment of Public Law 94142, which mandated that occupational and physical therapy be provided "as may be required by a handicapped child to benefit from special education," this required link between therapy and education has continued to lead to confusion and controversy about which students should receive therapy in school and what types of services should be provided. The purpose of this text is to clarify the major issues surrounding occupational and physical therapy in public schools and to provide a framework for delivery of team and family oriented services that meet individual needs of students with disabilities.
This book should be useful for occupational and physical therapists who work in public schools, school administrators, teachers, and parents of disabled children.
Mental Health in a Multi-ethnic Society. A Multi-disciplinary Handbook.
Suman Fernando, editor. Routledge, 7625 Empire Dr., Florence, KY 41042. Softcover, 235 pages. $18.95.
As services in the community continue to replace institution-based care there is an increasing need for professionals from medical, social work, clinical psychology, nursing, and other backgrounds to address the diverse needs of a multi-ethnic society using a common frame of reference. Those who provide mental health services must now face up to challenges from service users and strive for a closer, more effective working relationship with voluntary organizations. This book offers an approach to the meaning of mental health and suggests constructive and imaginative ways of providing care for people with mental health problems.
Sexuality After Spinal Cord Injury. Answers to Your Questions.
Stanley H. Ducharme and Kathleen M. Gill. Brookes Publishing Company, The Maple Press Distribution Center, I83 Industrial Park POB 15100, York, PA 17405. Softcover, 244 pages, $22.
Anatomy, fertility, sexually transmitted diseases, self-esteem, sexual satisfaction, and parenting are some of the topics included in this volume, which attempts to deliver honest answers to urgent questions on the subject of sexuality and spinal cord injury (SCI). It draws heavily on the experiences of men and women living with SCI for the authors to relay practical information acknowledging different lifestyles, tastes, values, and orientations.
Directory of Education Grants. First Edition.
Research Grant Guides, Inc., Dept. 3A, P.O. Box 1214, Loxahatchee, FL 33470. Telephone: (561) 7956129. Fax: (561) 7957794. $59.50, plus $6.00 for shipping and handling.
This directory identifies 650 qualified foundations awarding education grants to all types of nonprofits. The state-by-state arrangement allows the reader to target only those sources awarding grants in his/her geographic area. The following categories are included: adult education, cultural education, disabled, elementary education, health education, higher education, libraries, literacy, medical education, minorities, religious education, scholarships/financial aid, science/mathematics, secondary education, and special education.
Living in the State of Stuck. How Technology Impacts the Lives of People with Disabilities. Second Edition.
Marcia J. Scherer. Brookline Books, P.O. Box 1047, Cambridge, MA 022381047. Telephone: (617) 8680360. Fax: (617) 8681772. Softcover, 181 pages. $17.95.
The author describes assistive devices that enhance the quality of the lives of disabled persons, their mobility, speech, and ability to work. He further shows how, paradoxically, "the more technology became available and the more free from limitations individuals became, the more stuck they seemed." He goes on to explain how friends and relatives can better understand the personal issues and needs that arise from living with a disability and "needing" these devices.
Alcohol Problems in the Community.
Larry Harrison, editor. Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 100012299. Telephone: (212) 2443336. Fax: (212) 5647854. Hardcover, $59.95 (U.S.) and $83.95 (Canada); softcover, 275 pages, $19.95 (U.S.) and $27.95 (Canada).
This book examines the wide range of difficulties that vulnerable people experience in relation to drinking. The first part of the book begins with a report on recent U.S. research on the role of alcohol in the perpetration of child abuse and recent research on young people's drinking problems. This is followed by a study on the prevalence of drinking problems among older people which, the authors argue, has been underestimated. In the second half of the book, empirical evidence is presented on the particular difficulties faced by ethnic, migrant, and homeless groups and this emphasis on the centrality of social disadvantage leads on to a consideration of a specific social work role in the assessment and management of acohol-related problems.
Clinical Bulletin of Myofascial Therapy: The practical journal for the soft-tissue practitioner.
John C. Lowe, editor. The Haworth Medical Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. Quarterly. Subscription rates: individuals, $36; institutions, $48; and libraries, $105.
Like its predecessor, the Journal of Myofascial Therapy, the peer-reviewed Clinical Bulletin of Myofascial Therapy is directed towards doctors and therapists in active clinical practice. Its main purpose is to publish clinically useful information on myofascial therapy, which the editor defines as: "any technique or procedure that may relieve or prevent pain, dysfunction, or other signs or symptoms of abnormality related to the myofascial tissues of the body."
Who's Fit to be a Parent?
Mukti Jain Campion. Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 100012299. Telephone: (212) 2443336. Fax: (212) 5647854. Softcover, 311 pages, $19.95; hardcover, $62.95.
Who's Fit to be Parent conducts a thorough investigation into how society currently judges parents by looking at the professionals who assess parenting and by examining the charges made against certain "unfit" groups who are, nonetheless, becoming more widespread as parents--for example, those who are single, gay, disabled, or drug-addicted. It brings together professional and academic research which challenges traditional views of how to assess parenting with the personal experiences of a wide range of "nonconventional" families. Chapters in this book include those on disabled parents, mentally handicapped parents, drug addicted mothers, gay parents, teenage mothers, older mothers, single mothers, lone fathers, working mothers, and black parents.
| Contents Spring 1997 | American Rehabilitation Home | Department of ED Home |