Q&A with Amy Banks, M.D. and Judith Jordan, Ph.D
The Stone Theory Group developed Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) in the 1970s and the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute has been teaching and applying these ideas for over ten years. Why is it that so much research on the brain is coming out just now?
AB: It’s partly about the technology. Twenty years ago we could take snapshots of the brain but now we are able to scan the brain in action. Using SPECT* scans we can record functioning brains responding in different situations. It’s like getting an MRI when your brain is doing something.
The Women's Review of Books is published monthly at the Center for Research on Women. It is the only U.S. publication to focus exclusively on books by and about women. Linda Gardiner founded The Women's Review of Books in 1983 and has been its editor ever since.
This September, as thousands of men and women headed back to college in pursuit of higher education, many welfare recipients were deprived of this opportunity. Current restrictive welfare policies, with their stringent time limits and work requirements, make access to post-secondary education extremely difficult. Both the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 and the institution of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) emphasize moving welfare recipients into the workforce as quickly as possible, making it difficult for them to pursue higher education. According to Haskins and Blank, writing in Poverty Research News (Joint Center for Poverty Research, 2001), the work-first approach has raised the employment rate without improving job quality, pushing low-income women in particular into low-wage, unstable jobs.
On September 12, 2001, as the whole country was trying to make sense of the events of the previous day, parents and teachers had the even tougher task of helping young children deal with trauma. For participants of Open Circle, a social competency program of the Wellesley Centers for Women, the task was slightly easier.
Page 55 of 64