A long shift against talking endlessly about childhood traumas and "confronting" old issues in favor of simply dealing with current problems:

Professor Norcross has surveyed American psychologists in an effort to figure out what is going on behind their closed doors.

Over the last 20 years, he has documented a radical shift. Psychotherapeutic techniques like psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy, which deal with emotional conflict and are based on the idea that the exploration of past trauma is critical to healing, have been totally eclipsed by cognitive behavioral approaches.

That relatively new school holds that reviewing the past is not only unnecessary to healing, but can be counterproductive.

Professor Norcross says he believes that cognitive behavioral therapy is the most widely practiced approach in America.

The method, known as C.B.T., was introduced in the late 1960's by Dr. Aaron T. Beck. The underlying theory says it is not important for patients to return to the origins of their problems, but instead to correct their current "cognitive distortions," errors in perception that lead them to the conclusion that life is hopeless or that everyday activity is unmanageable.

For example, when confronted with severely depressed patients, cognitive behavioral therapists will not ask about childhoods, but will work with them to identify the corrosive underlying assumptions that frame their psychic reality and lead them to feel bad about themselves. Then, systematically, patients learn to retrain their thinking.

The therapy dwells exclusively in the present. Unlike traditional psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy, it does not typically require a long course of treatment, usually 10 to 15 sessions.

When cognitive therapy was introduced, it met significant resistance to the notion that people could be cured without understanding the sources of the problems. Many therapists said that without working through the underlying problems change would be superficial and that the basic problems would simply express themselves in other ways.

Interestingly, the shift is partly due to actual science, or at least as close as one can get to science in this psuedoscientific venture. Randomized clinical trials -- eschewed and denigrated by classical "tell me about your father" psychologists -- established that CBT was more effective, especially among two key institutions: the academy and, crucially, insurers, who have to foot the bill for all this blather.

Posted by: Ace at 06:16 AM | Comments (26)
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Can he be stopped?

A dozen or so people were in attendance. At least two were among Bush's major national fundraisers. Virtually all had been on Bush's side in the bitter 2000 South Carolina primary that badly damaged McCain's chances of winning the presidential nomination and scarred the relationship between the two men and their rival political camps. McCain was there to woo them.

"For people who were really strong for Bush, I feel like this was a dating meeting," said Barry Wynn, Bush's state finance co-chairman in 2000 and 2004 and a Pioneer for Bush both times, meaning he raised $100,000 for each campaign. "He's not quite ready to ask us to go steady. But I was a little surprised at the reaction, including my own reaction. I was much more positive than I thought I'd be going to the meeting."

On the plus side, we may have seen the last of Troublesome McCain for a while. Now we'll be seeing conservative-friendly team-player McCain.

Unless he's asked to go on Hardball, of course. But what are the odds of that?

Posted by: Ace at 06:09 AM | Comments (8)
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Which Sci-Fi Crew Would You Best Fit In With?

If anyone comes up with the Enterprise after all those gaywad questions to smoke that one out ("I only live to serve humanity," etc.), probably best to keep it to yourself.

Posted by: Ace at 07:13 PM | Comments (92)
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$600,000 gets you not just a house but a bride.

You might be wondering why I have my listing at $600,000.00 plus myself for bid as “priceless”. First, I estimate the value of the house with furnishings at approximately $600,000.00. When I asked my girlfriends their advice on what I (the “bride”) was worth, most responded that I was “priceless”. I hope to find that special man, who wants to build a life with me and share this special home with me. ... Since I am the daughter of a minister, spirituality is also important to me.

Well, obviously.

One question: When does the high bidder get to "close escrow," if you know what I'm sayin'?

Picture at Right Wing Sparkle. Seems a bit of a fixer-upper, but then, I'm sure the house is in good shape.

Thanks to Slublog. I think. If it wasn't actually Slublog, well, I'm calling all tipsters "Slublog" now, kind of like "homies."

Posted by: Ace at 06:52 PM | Comments (21)
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First there's this typically, err, emotional outburst:

Dear Mr Cheney,

Just a word, if I may. You are employed by the American people. You are not a monarch; and you are not a Pope. You have seriously wounded another human being. The news was kept from the public for a day. ... Who are you hiding from? And who on earth do you think you are?

Eh. Yes, Cheney should have made an announcement sooner. Why didn't he? Well, just guessing, but to avoid the 24 news coverage titled "CHENEY'S VICTIM: UNDER THE KNIFE!!!" and "AMERICA WAITS: CHENEY'S VICTIM MAY DIE!!!" when it seemed, in all likelihood, to have been a fairly minor shooting (in as much as a shooting could be called "minor"). They hoped the news ("Cheney shoots man, and he liked that guy!") would be released at the same time the man left surgery in stable condition, thus denying the media 24 hours of death-watch coverage.

Self-serving? Yes. Bad faith? Well, yes, that too, but understandable given the media's own bad faith.

Impeachable? King-like? Pope-like? (PS, when did St. Andrew decide the Pope could shoot a guy and withhold that information? St. Andrew doesn't even believe the Pope is permitted to announce Catholic orthodoxy, for God's sake.)

No.

On to the next bit. This amuses me. A reader sends along Texas' negligent homicide statute, which is pretty much the same as every other state's negligent homicide statute.

'Sec. 19.05.Criminally Negligent Homicide.
(a) A person commits an offense if he causes the death of an individual by criminal negligence.

(b) An offense under this section is a state jail felony.
"Criminal negligence" is defined in Sec. 6.03(d) thusly:

A person acts with criminal negligence, or is criminally negligent, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.

Ever-helpful, Lawyer Andy translates this for you thusly:

From my reading of the statute, a person would be criminally negligent only where their conduct was grossly negligent under the circumstances.

Really? You got that from your reading of the statute? The statute mentions negligence of a gross nature and you translate that as "grossly negligent" for your readers?

Criminal negligence is a hard thing to define, but essentially it's super-negligence. There are almost no crimes at all that can be prosecuted with a mens rea (culpable mental state) of negligence; most require intent, wilfulness, etc. Homicide is a special kind of crime, though, so it's one of the only crimes(actually, it may be the only crime) on that allows a prosecution based on not intent or wilfulness so extreme as to be tantamount to intent but based on mere negligence.

But not mere negligence, really. Not the sort of negligence we know from civil actions, which is just a failure to act according to a reasonable standard of care. Negligent homicide requires a showing of criminal negligence, above and beyond the a deviation from a reasonable standard of care. Again, even in law school the point is sort of vague and defined more by what it's not than what it is ("it's not quite intent... it's not quite simple negligence... it's kinda sorta in between..."), but suffice to say it's a hard thing to prove. You pretty much have to be knowingly acting with extreme indifference to human safety to be found criminally negligent.

There's no way Cheney's accident qualifies. It's a... hunting accident. They happen, unfortunately, all the time, and unless Cheney can be proven to be acting not with normal carelessness (obviously he was careless, or else he wouldn't have plugged a guy) but with gross carelessness bordering on callousness to human life.

Posted by: Ace at 06:42 PM | Comments (67)
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Hell, Cheney started an illegal war for oil and now Bush is getting pissy just because he shot a guy?

I've got news for you-- if this bothers you, wait 'till you take a closer look at hitchhiker disappearances along the Baltimore-Washington Expressway.

Anyway:

According to CBS News, the source said the issue was no longer Cheney's view of press management but rather about Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and a range of other issues that play into the public's view of the administration's arrogance.

CBS News reported that private signals were being sent that the matter has been handled badly and Cheney needs to come out and say something.

And of course Drudge blares that if Whittington should die, there will most likely be a grand jury investigation.

Which isn't exactly news. Many if not most accidental homicides, I should think, get the grand jury treatment.

Still, it's hardly good PR for the VP to be facing a negligent homicide rap.

On Greta Van Sustern... a doctor says that Whittington most likely did not suffer a "heart attack," minor or otherwise, but an atrial fibrilation caused by irritation of the membrane around his heart. It's not a heart attack, not likely to lead to death, just the heart reacting to the pellet which has breached the outer membrane of the heart.

Posted by: Ace at 06:02 PM | Comments (37)
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A day late, yeah, but still, two great tastes in one. Jack Bauer and Dave Barry.

I haven't been watching long -- I sort of saw parts of previous seasons, but not really -- so I really don't understand, "Why does everyone want to take a swing at Audrey?" She seems unobjectionable to me.

Thanks to Laurie at Polipundit.

Posted by: Ace at 05:37 PM | Comments (10)
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Prettt funny, especially the one with Linus.

Hey, cool, I just linked Cracked Magazine. That thing still in business? Guess so.

Via Ken Wheaton, thanks to a tip by yls.

Posted by: Ace at 05:25 PM | Comments (5)
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Okay:

About a fifth of Americans think federal agents have listened in on their phone calls, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday suggests.

Twenty-one percent of the 1,000 adults who replied to the survey conducted Thursday through Sunday said it was very likely or somewhat likely their conversations had been wiretapped, while 52 percent said it was not at all likely.

Twenty-four percent said it was not too likely.

Other findings:

18% of Americans think it is "highly likely" that Dick Cheney will shoot them.

10% of Americans say Dick Cheney "already has" shot them.

3% of Americans could not respond, as Dick Cheney was at that moment pursuing them with a shotgun, a gladiator's trident, and a bottle of Firewater peppermint-flavored schnaaps.

Posted by: Ace at 04:33 PM | Comments (32)
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My guest today will be Julian Sanchez of Reason Magazine, who'll be making the libertarian case against Bush's intercept program.

We'll also discuss the continuing tension between libertarians and social cons in the GOP.

No Karol today... she's busy lately, and may or may not be resigning from her cohosting duties, alas.

Click here at 4:05 Eastern, or go to Rightalk.com and click on Channel One at 4:05.

Call in at 866-884-TALK.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (23)
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