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In thinking about the death and loss of a professional colleague the authors identify with the "tumult of feelings" that Simone Beauvoir notes in speaking of death. They occasion the void of understanding of this loss with a reflection on the nature of friendship. In doing so they align themselves with philosopher, Alexander Nehamas, who, in contrast to Aristotle and Cicero, sees not virtue as central to friendship but, instead, the enhanced opportunity to feel generously complete and yet safely incomplete. The reflection weaves in the thoughts of a variety of literary authors and considers a coming of age movie, "Stand by Me," as exemplary of the ideas that are presented.

The treatment of college students who have experienced trauma in their lives is commonplace in University and College Counseling Centers. Despite this, there is almost no literature on navigating the challenges of treating trauma in this context. Accordingly, in this paper, we discuss the importance for college counselors to consider the "fishbowl effect" when working with traumatized students. This refers to the ways that college students often share their concerns with a wide range of people, who in turn offer good-hearted advice. While this can be very useful as we discuss, it can also pose unique challenges for the treatment of trauma as these people do not often have an understanding of dissociation and enactment. We introduce these ideas and then use case examples throughout the paper to demonstrate their relevance to college counseling. Finally, we offer some thoughts on treating trauma within the fishbowl of higher education.

Responding to the call for papers on "The Future of College Student Mental Health," we analyze the current "crisis" in college student mental health, and we discuss how it is co-constructed by our students and we who are the faculty and the administrators. We identify three factors: (1) A shift from offering value-based education, toward promoting transformative experience, (2) ambivalence around recognizing systematic and structural factors contributing to suffering, and (3) anxiety about the use of "authority." We consider in detail our understanding of these factors as well as how our existential-relational model of development can help make sense of the complex phenomena facing our students and our field to make suggestions for how counseling centers can respond to student needs in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the topic of resilience. We consider some of the ways that resilience relates to managing stress levels, with the intention of developing a capacity to "keep going." However, we find that this model does not match our clinical experience and propose instead that resilience is about the ability to think perpendicularly. We define this as the developmental capacity to take perspective and alter one's coordinates to think and feel about things in new lights. We locate this achievement in a developmental model originating with Object Relations, and relate it to achieving the "depressive position," which recognizes the substantial gray areas in life. Finally, we use Plato's allegory of the Cave to underscore our thinking.

In an effort to better understand our world, which is so challenged to find kind recognition of otherness, we look at the "not much" and "yet much" epistemological differences between Judeo-Christian-Islamic theists and agnostic, post-modernists. We propose that such theists devolve into particularism or inclusivism and that agnostics correspondingly devolve into positive or negative atheism. We propose that these stances align with either a paranoid-schizoid or a depressive level existential-relational position in psychological development. We hope that articulation of this helps locate us all in our ongoing challenge to engage respectfully both the otherness of others and the otherness we have to our own selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we look at negation from a developmental perspective. We propose that in the march toward the embodiment of the virtuous "Yes" of agency the "No" of childhood is different from the "No" of adolescence and young adulthood. In the former the "No" of negation reflects an epistemological strategy of obedience/disobedience and in the latter a strategy of wondering. How "No" is negotiated in development reflects an important interplay between the child/adolescent and their caregivers with the existential-relational position occupied most typically by the caregivers as central to whether the "No" can be one of negation or devolve into negativism. To illustrate our ideas we offer four vignettes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this brief report about one small college's experience in providing personal counseling and psychotherapy to its students is on how the students used the services over their, generally, four years of matriculation. The 404 student users of counseling services from six classes of graduating students had an average number of sessions over their entire college career of 15.5 while the mean number of sessions was 9, and the mode, 1, and the range 1-126. The authors hope this report will serve as a call for more comprehensive surveys to include this new variable.

The authors question the assertions made by Gregory Hatchett in his article in Volume 19, Number 2, of this "Journal" (2004) and the suggestions that follow. We review the appropriateness of using data from outpatient clinics with adults in contrast to data from surveys of students. We look at average numbers of sessions of students in therapy according to regional and national surveys by Kenneth John (2003) and Robert Gallagher (2002) and place these numbers in the context of developmental and institutional issues. We comment on Hatchett's assumption about his role as a therapist and evaluate the nature of the suggestions he makes to counter "premature termination" by students. (Contains 1 note.)

Difficult romantic relationships are common in college, with painful breakups often leading students to seek help from the college counseling center. However, these already painful situations are further complicated when one member of the couple refuses to allow the relationship to end. An area of particular confusion on the part of the college counselor is when to seek the Dean's campus equivalent of a restraining order. In the following we suggest the Dean's intervention can be both sensitive to the unique psychological struggles of a person in such a relationship and important to further the student's personal development. Several of Shakespeare's sonnets and the work of Jacques Lacan are used to further develop an appreciation of the obsessive dynamic. (Contains 1 note.)

In thinking about the death and loss of a professional colleague the authors identify with the "tumult of feelings" that Simone Beauvoir notes in speaking of death. They occasion the void of understanding of this loss with a reflection on the nature of friendship. In doing so they align themselves with philosopher, Alexander Nehamas, who, in contrast to Aristotle and Cicero, sees not virtue as central to friendship but, instead, the enhanced opportunity to feel generously complete and yet safely incomplete. The reflection weaves in the thoughts of a variety of literary authors and considers a coming of age movie, Stand by Me, as exemplary of the ideas that are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typical considerations of mortality are discussed from the perspective of four "existential" positions that have been explicated over many years by the Object Relations school of psychoanalysis. These positions describe various relationships to self and other that in the course of development we progress through and move between. The middle two positions, termed paranoid-schizoid and depressive are especially useful for making sense of reasons why it is commonly accepted that one begins life liberal and becomes increasingly conservative with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of college students who have experienced trauma in their lives is commonplace in University and College Counseling Centers. Despite this, there is almost no literature on navigating the challenges of treating trauma in this context. Accordingly, in this paper, we discuss the importance for college counselors to consider the "fishbowl effect" when working with traumatized students. This refers to the ways that college students often share their concerns with a wide range of people, who in turn offer good-hearted advice. While this can be very useful as we discuss, it can also pose unique challenges for the treatment of trauma as these people do not often have an understanding of dissociation and enactment. We introduce these ideas and then use case examples throughout the paper to demonstrate their relevance to college counseling. Finally, we offer some thoughts on treating trauma within the fishbowl of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors respond to Dr. Amada's comment on their paper. They feel that several of his points, though related to their topic, go beyond the scope of their paper, for example, reflecting on the potential for legal involvement when the intensity of the obsessive relationship warrants urgent intervention. In the latter case the authors agree that it is "abundantly clear" that practitioners do what is necessary to prevent harm. This point strikes them as quite obvious. However, one area of Amada's consideration compels their comment. Amada makes the point that the primary function of the dean's restraining order is to send a message to the rejected and less stable member of the couple that to continue his pursuit of his rejecting paramour would be to jeopardize his college career. Few would argue that the potentially punitive nature of a restraining order is an important reality of its strategic use. However, the authors hope they have shown that a fuller appreciation of the story is a bit more complicated than this. In essence the authors are saying that the "restraining order" might be thought of as more than only a legally or administratively appropriate intervention. It might also be viewed as a developmentally appropriate intervention. The restraining order might also in some sense be sustaining. The authors are not wondering "if" a restraining order can work (they have experienced that it can.) What they are more interested in is "how" it works, with a specific focus on the internal worlds and developmental needs of lovers in this kind of difficult situation.

In this article, we explore the topic of resilience. We consider some of the ways that resilience relates to managing stress levels, with the intention of developing a capacity to "keep going." However, we find that this model does not match our clinical experience and propose instead that resilience is about the ability to think perpendicularly. We define this as the developmental capacity to take perspective and alter one's coordinates to think and feel about things in new lights. We locate this achievement in a developmental model originating with Object Relations, and relate it to achieving the "depressive position," which recognizes the substantial gray areas in life. Finally, we use Plato's allegory of the Cave to underscore our thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]