JBMTI's Director Judith Jordan appeared on the 4/26/12 edition of "All Together Now" Charlene Spretnack on the Progressive Radio Network.

The Relational Shift in Psychology: a conversation with Judith V. Jordan, director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (housed at Wellesley College), about the Relational-Cultural Model of the self and human development, which she co-developed beginning in 1978; the relational shift in the field of psychology from a Freudian model (the separative self) to a more realistic model of dynamic interrelatedness, with attention to the effects of social systems as well. - (Program description)

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Richmond - Many people question why some sex trafficking victims stay with their traffickers. As a survivor, I know this simple question requires a rather complex explanation.

I am a survivor of sex trafficking and of child abuse by a family member. My story demonstrates that an untreated case of child sexual abuse can lead to the sex trafficking of that child victim. 

My history of sexual abuse began when I was under the age of ten. To make this trauma worse, my parents instructed me to lie about it when confronted by a social worker at home. My parents seemed to believe that they needed to protect our family from the social stigma associated with child sexual abuse. But by squelching the truth, they in turn sentenced me to an adolescence of misunderstanding and distrust. My resilience and sense of self-worth further diminished.

Without proper counseling, I harbored a secret of past abuse, a secret which slowly ate away at my self-confidence. The day I met my trafficker, I was shuffling behind my friends in the mall.  I was feeling angry and depressed.  I hated my parents and teachers.  At the same time, I was losing my friends in the naturally changing social circles between middle and high school.

My self-esteem had spiraled downward throughout intermediate and middle school. I endured several exploitations by older high school boys and men who prowled the neighborhood and local skating rink for unsupervised girls.

By the time the trafficker spotted me in that New Jersey shopping mall, I had already been broken down.

Smith goes on to quote Price:

Kate Price, M.A. lectured in a Wellesley Centers for Women seminar titled, Longing to Belong: Relational Risks and Resilience in U.S. Prostituted Children. Price stated a link between the prior history of sexual abuse and the prostitution of minor victims.  She stated it really is that history of betrayal that really is a risk, and oftentimes…the entryway, into how children even end up in prostitution.

Price reports that at least 60 percent of sexually exploited children, which includes prostituted children, have a prior history of sexual abuse. Studies also show that roughly one in four girls—and one in six boys—will be victims of childhood sexual abuse. (Excerpt, Washington Times, 4/8/12. Photo credit: Holly Smith)

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Editor's note:Dr. Charles Raison, CNNhealth's mental health expert, is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Ever noticed how scientific opinions swing from one extreme to the other?

Take the importance of mothers in the development of children. In the early days of psychiatry almost every mental illness, from depression to schizophrenia to autism was blamed on bad mothering. Then in the 1960’s and 70’s the discovery of medications that helped these illnesses allowed psychiatry to reframe them as biological conditions, no different from cancer or heart disease. Parents were fully absolved for the mental illnesses of their children, except to the degree that they passed along bad genes that caused chemical imbalances in the brain.

Myths inevitably survive long after they’ve been scientifically disproven. Such is the case with the fantasy that mental illnesses can be written off solely to genes and chemicals. Over the last decade a string of scientific discoveries has shown that the biology driving mental illness has at least as much to do with the environment as with chemicals or genetic inheritance. And it increasingly appears that the single most powerful environmental factor is the love - or its lack - that children receive from their parents. So in a very real way we parents are back on the hook for the lifelong emotional well-being of our kids. (Excerpt from CNN.com's "The Chart," 3/12/12. Photo credit: ThinkStock)

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Conference at Brandeis University, Monday, March 19th, 12-6:30pm

In Speaking Truth to Power, Anita Hill highlighted the particular hurdles Black rape survivors face in U.S. criminal justice system. Together, Anita Hill and Bernadette Brooten seek to enhance public discussion of this problem in order to promote both social and legal change. The conference will draw upon theater, religion, law, history, and public policy to help participants become agents for change.

We will begin with award-winning actor Vanessa Adams-Harris’s “Who Will Sing for Lena?” a dramatic representation of a woman’s response to a rape. Panelists will then offer insights from their respective disciplines.

The Brandeis Feminist Sexual Ethics Project commissioned two meta-analyses of legal and social-scientific research confirming that Black rape survivors face greater hurdles than do those of European origin. 

The research found that societal myths about race and sexuality combine to play a significant role in responses to sexual assault—from the victim’s reaction to an assault, to a prosecutor or judge’s confidence in the validity of her story, to the credibility members of the jury give to her testimony and their willingness to accept the act described as a sexual violation.

Because these responses are societal and cultural, we recognize that any effort to address them must go beyond the legal system itself, to the larger society. Please join us in this interdisciplinary conversation.

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To have and to be able to maintain healthy and supportive relationships throughout life is central to growth and well-being for persons and society (J. B. Miller, 1986). However, when persons or societies assert patterns of interaction based on inequality and devaluing differences, marginalizing and oppressing those they consider "less than", persons and societies are harmed.

Such is the case with human trafficking. Human trafficking is a violation of human rights (Art. 4 United Nations Human Rights) and an extreme form of social injustice. It is perpetuated by dominant-subordinate attitudes that condone violence, resulting in significant suffering for individuals, and harm to societies.

The conference will mutually explore the challenges facing the international community to address human trafficking. The goals of the conference include: increased insight into the needs of trafficked victims and their communities, comprehension of the complexities of international cooperation, support for a collaborative path forward to care for those affected, and renewed resolve to help put a stop to violence and exploitation.

Conference Style

• 3-day International Conference
• Theory and Practice Oriented - involving experts in academics/ research and service providers
• Open to the public with educational credits available for ongoing training for students and professionals
• Main speakers and workshops

Conference Target Groups

• Researchers and (Higher) Education Instructors
• Professional Service Providers: Criminal, victim-service providers, NGOs, international organizations , church organizations, social service agencies, women‘s and men‘s organizations, health services, etc
• Students
• General public with interest in this issue

Sponsors and Supporters

• European Information Centre of Lower Saxony (Europäisches Informations-Zentrum Niedersachsen)
• European Commission
• Hans Böckler foundation
• HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, Office for Gender Equality
• HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, IIW
• HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, Faculty of Social Work und Health, Hildesheim
• HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, Faculty of Management, Social Work, Construction, Holzminden
• HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, International Office
• Centre for interdisciplinary women’s and gender studies (ZIF)

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The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation has rejected charges that its decision to discontinue funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America was politically motivated.

In a statement posted on its website and a video on YouTube late Wednesday, Komen said its action had been "mischaracterized" so the organization needed to "set the record straight."

In the video, Nancy G. Brinker, who founded and leads the organization, said that the decision was made as part of a broad effort to use donations more efficiently.

The foundation regretted the impact of its new policy on groups such as Planned Parenthood, Brinker said. But she denied politics played any role and called accusations against Komen "scurrilous" and a "dangerous distraction" from the battle against breast cancer.

"Susan G. Komen will always fight for and serve the poeple who need us the most. We won't rest until every woman — rich, poor, insured or uninsured — can face a life without breast cancer," said Brinker, whose sister died from breast cancer. "That was my promise to my sister and my promise to you."

The foundation, known for its pink ribbon campaigns and Race for the Cure fundraisers, is a powerhouse in the world of breast cancer in the United States, raising billions of dollars for breast cancer research, care and advocacy. (Excerpt from www.wbur.org)

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Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how? One of the hottest trends in education reform lately is looking at the stunning success of the West's reigning education superpower, Finland. Trouble is, when it comes to the lessons that Finnish schools have to offer, most of the discussion seems to be missing the point.

The small Nordic country of Finland used to be known -- if it was known for anything at all -- as the home of Nokia, the mobile phone giant. But lately Finland has been attracting attention on global surveys of quality of life -- Newsweek ranked it number one last year -- and Finland's national education system has been receiving particular praise, because in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world.

Finland's schools owe their newfound fame primarily to one study: the PISA survey, conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science. Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies on every survey since 2000, neck and neck with superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore. In the most recent survey in 2009 Finland slipped slightly, with students in Shanghai, China, taking the best scores, but the Finns are still near the very top. Throughout the same period, the PISA performance of the United States has been middling, at best. (Excerpt from the article, "What American Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success, in the 12/29/11 Atlantic)

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Workers are dropping out of the labor force in droves, and they are mostly women. In fact, many are young women. But they are not dropping out forever; instead, these young women seem to be postponing their working lives to get more education. There are now — for the first time in three decades — more young women in school than in the work force. 

“I was working part-time at Starbucks for a year and a half,” said Laura Baker, 24, who started a master’s program in strategic communications this fall at the University of Denver. “I wasn’t willing to just stay there. I had to do something.”

Many economists initially thought that the shrinking labor force — which drove down November’s unemployment rate — was caused primarily by discouraged older workers giving up on the job market. Instead, many of the workers on the sidelines are young people upgrading their skills, which could portend something like the postwar economic boom, when millions of World War II veterans went to college through the G.I. Bill instead of immediately entering, and overwhelming, the job market. (Excerpt from NY Times, Instead of Work, Younger Women Head to School, 12/28/11.  Graph: Women Departing Labor Force, source Bureau of Labor Statistics)

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The Jean Baker Miller Training Institute will be on holiday break until after New Years. We will begin posting items to the blog again in January 2012.

Thank you to all of our amazing RCT practitioners and supporters around the globe. We had an wonderful 2011 and look forward to connecting with you in 2012.

Happy holidays, everyone. We hope you have a peaceful holiday season.

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Too many suits: And not nearly enough skirts in the boardrooms

Nov 26th 2011 | from the print edition of The Economist

“PERHAPS WE WOMEN should just keep out of this male circus,” said one of the participants in a forum on “German Female Executives” run by Odgers Berndtson, a firm of headhunters. Gabriele Stahl, a partner in the firm’s Frankfurt office, recalls this comment because it seems to sum up the way many female managers feel about getting to the top of the corporate tree.

If they ever do. A study by Elke Holst and Julia Schimeta by the German Institute of Economic Research in Berlin found that in 2010 women held only 3.2% of all executive board seats in Germany’s 200 biggest non-financial firms. In the largest companies their share was even smaller. Financial institutions and insurance companies, where at least half of all employees are female, did no better than the rest, and state-owned companies were only slightly ahead. On the supervisory boards, the other component of Germany’s two-tier board structure, women are slightly better represented because some of the seats are reserved for employees, but last year they still made up only 11% of the total—and one-third of these boards had none at all. That list includes household names like Porsche, E.ON and Robert Bosch. The glass ceiling, like everything else in Germany, is pretty solid. (Article excerpt)

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