Abstracts from other Journals

 Journal of Substance Use  7,  198-206, 2002

Bernie Carter

The small-scale evaluation of one initiative set up to try and support the children of parents who are the substance users is presented. The service, consisting of one worker, aims to safeguard and promote the child's welfare through direct work with children and their families and through liaison and collaboration with a range of professionals. Data were generated through a mix of semistructured interviews with key professionals and questionnaires distributed to professionals and parents currently using the service. The findings of the study demonstrate how professionals and parents perceive that the service reduces the social isolation the children experience and provides them with opportunities for sharing their experiences with a trustworthy adult and with other children in a similar situation. Parents report benefiting from the service through the support they receive outside mainstream drug, health and social services. Professionals benefit from the expertise that the worker has and the opportunity to work creatively with the children and their families.

 International Forum for Psychoanalysis  11,  264-274, 2002

Postmodernism: Its Origins and Its Threat to Psychoanalysis

Robert R. Holt

Postmodernism originated in an over-reaction to ‘modernist’ sociocultural trends of the past few centuries. Flaws of postmodern writers include: ignorance and distortion of the history of science and philosophy; the erroneous assumption that such faults of some natural scientists as reductionism and narrowness are intrinsic to the entire enterprise, even to rationality; overgeneralizing such valid criticisms to the level of metaphysical relativism; and deliberately obscure and pretentious writing. Its vogue is a threat to science in general and to psychoanalysis in particular. Psychoanalysis was vulnerable to a postmodernist attack because of Freud's rejection of scientific standard