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Trauma counselors are vulnerable to negative impacts such as secondary traumatic stress and vicarious traumatization. This study investigated Mindfulness Training as a self-care strategy for counselors in South Africa, examining the effect of MT on negative and positive secondary trauma impacts (STI), and employing a quasi-experimental embedded mixed methods research model to investigate the impact of MT and areas of greatest post-intervention change. The study compared pre- and posttest scores across an MT intervention group and an active control group. A mixed Between-Within Subjects ANOVA was tested for mean differences between the two independent groups, while simultaneously subjecting participants to repeated measures, to establish whether mean changes in the outcome scores on the dependent variables from pretest to posttest differed significantly for individuals over time within the groups. Results indicated that MT was effective in reducing negative STI and in increasing trait mindfulness. Benefits were sustained three months post-intervention. MT was associated with variable rates of change on each outcome measure. The evidence supports the role of MT in reducing negative STIs in trauma counselors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I engage with some of the ideas presented by Burkhalter in his article -- Playing with the father in memory and desire: Exilic thirdness in transitional space -- in which he journeys with the reader into the intricacies of his particular relational response to, and understanding of, the concept of paternal function. Responding to his invitation to readers to adopt a subjective stance in relation to his writing, I have gathered a mix of associations and thoughts as they emerged in my reading of this highly complex and layered offering, focussing on three themes which are especially salient for me. I engage initially with the meaning of paternal function from my perspective, both as a mother and clinician. Through this enquiry I contemplate the relative absence of the mother's subjectivity in the historical mainstream psychoanalytic canon, and I consider the increasing visibility afforded maternal subjectivity when mothering is regarded through the lens of recognition theory, as posited by contemporary relational theorists. In particular I focus on the experience of loss which I suggest is intrinsic to the experience of mothering. My paper then shifts from the maternal and paternal within the familial enclave, to the global stage where I contemplate the idea of authority as seductive, considering the notion of a perverted paternal container, activated in service of authoritarian and malignant leadership. This discussion offers a springboard from which to engage the paper's third and concluding point of focus, that of 'hope', which Burkhalter describes hope as 'maternal residue', differentiating between the wish-fulfilling optimism which is accessible through the denial of reality and the idea of radical hope, grounded in depressive functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the experience of a group of South African clinicians who have met monthly since 2011 to engage with race as it pertains to our clinical contexts, our identities as clinicians and, inevitably, our private selves. Written from a relational psychoanalytic perspective, the paper is contextualised within the prevailing sociopolitical climate and the local profession of psychoanalytic practice. With the aim of crafting a collaborative paper, individual group members were asked to reflect on their experience of the group in order to distil dominant themes and processes. What became evident through the collation of these reflections was a shared experience of various manifestations of a third position which, it is suggested, have facilitated reflective functioning, allowing the group to traverse multiple iterations of rupture and repair. The paper suggests that it is the repeated processes of misrecognition and rupture and subsequent repair and mutual recognition, that largely account for the group's longevity, continuity and challenging generativity. The paper highlights the potency of thirdness in facilitating thinking about race through dialogue. However, the limitations and fragility of the group and its process in the context of the restless and fractured socio-political landscape of contemporary South Africa are also acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]