Life designing: A paradigm for career construction in the 21st century

At the beginning of the 21st century, a new social arrangement of work poses a series of questions and challenges to scholars who aim to help people develop their working lives. Given the globalization of career counseling, we decided to address these issues and then to formulate potentially innovative responses in an international forum. We used this approach to avoid the difficulties of creating models and methods in one country and then trying to export them to other countries where they would be adapted for use. This article presents the initial outcome of this collaboration, a counseling model and methods. The life-designing model for career intervention endorses five presuppositions about people and their work lives: contextual possibilities, dynamic processes, non-linear progression, multiple perspectives, and personal patterns. Thinking from these five presuppositions, we have crafted a contextualized model based on the epistemology of social constructionism, particularly recognizing that an individual's knowledge and identity are the product of social interaction and that meaning is co-constructed through discourse. The life-design framework for counseling implements the theories of self-constructing [Guichard, J. (2005). Life-long self-construction. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 5, 111-124] and career construction [Savickas, M. L. (2005). The theory and practice of career construction. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counselling: putting theory and research to work (pp. 42-70). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley] that describe vocational behavior and its development. Thus, the framework is structured to be life-long, holistic, contextual, and preventive.

Five-year monitoring of a gay-friendly voluntary counselling and testing facility in Switzerland: who got tested and why?

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: An increase in new HIV cases among men who have sex with men (MSM) has been reported in Switzerland since 2001. A rapid result HIV testing for MSM through voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) facility ("Checkpoint") was opened in Geneva in 2005. This gay-friendly facility, the first to open in Switzerland, provides testing for sexually transmitted infections (STI) and rapid result HIV testing and counselling. Our objective was to analyze Checkpoint's activity over its first five years of activity and its ability to attract at-risk MSM. METHODS: We used routine data collected anonymously about the facility activity (number of clients, number of tests, and test results) and about the characteristics of the clientele (sociodemographic data, sexual risk behaviour, and reasons for testing) from 2005 to 2009. RESULTS: The yearly number of HIV tests performed increased from 249 in 2005 to 561 in 2009. The annual proportion of positive tests among tests performed varied between 2% and 3%. Among MSM clients, the median annual number of anal intercourse (AI) partners was three. Roughly 30% of all MSM clients had at least one unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) experience in the previous 12 months with a partner of different/unknown HIV status.The main reason for testing in 2007, 2008, and 2009 was "sexual risk exposure" (~40%), followed by "routine" testing (~30%) and "condom stopping in the beginning of a new steady relationship" (~10%). Clients who came to the facility after a sexual risk exposure, compared to clients who came for "routine testing" or "condom stopping" reasons, had the highest number of AI partners in the previous 12 months, were more likely to have had UAI with a partner of different/unknown HIV status in the previous 12 months (respectively 57.3%, 12.5%, 23.5%), more likely to have had an STI diagnosed in the past (41.6%, 32.2%, 22.9%), and more likely to report recent feelings of sadness or depression (42.6%; 32.8%, 18.5%). CONCLUSION: Many of Checkpoint's clients reported elevated sexual risk exposure and risk factors, and the annual proportion of new HIV cases in the facility is stable. This VCT facility attracts the intended population and appears to be a useful tool contributing to the fight against the HIV epidemic among MSM in Switzerland.

Commentary on "The Cognitive-Emotional Brain: From Interactions to Integration" by Luiz Pessoa - "On theory integration: Toward developing affective components within cognitive architectures"

In The Cognitive-Emotional Brain, Pessoa (2013) suggests that cognition and emotion should not be considered separately. We agree with this and argue that cognitive architectures can provide steady ground for this kind of theory integration and for investigating interactions among underlying cognitive processes. We briefly explore how affective components can be implemented and how neuroimaging measures can help validate models and influence theory development.

The challenges of building theory by combining lenses

The article presents a discussion of foundational issues in the field of management science, focusing on advances in management theory and research. The metaphor of explanatory lenses is used as a rubric to illustrate the theoretical challenges involved in elucidating the interrelationships of various factors in organizational behavior. The importance of clarifying such interrelationships is emphasized, from the standpoint of editing scholarly papers on such topics for publication. Topics discussed include communication and psychology in management, economics, and behavioral finance.

Theory of mind impairment in patients with behavioural variant fronto-temporal dementia (bv-FTD) increases caregiver burden.

BACKGROUND: Theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to infer the intention, beliefs and emotional states of others, is frequently impaired in behavioural variant fronto-temporal dementia patients (bv-FTDp); however, its impact on caregiver burden is unexplored. SETTING: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health. SUBJECTS: bv-FTDp (n = 28), a subgroup of their caregivers (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 32). METHODS: we applied a faux-pas (FP) task as a ToM measure in bv-FTDp and healthy controls and the Zarit Burden Interview as a measure of burden in patients' caregivers. Patients underwent structural MRI; we used voxel-based morphometry to examine relationships between regional atrophy and ToM impairment and caregiver burden. RESULTS: FP task performance was impaired in bv-FTDp and negatively associated with caregiver burden. Atrophy was found in areas involved in ToM. Caregiver burden increased with greater atrophy in left lateral premotor cortex, a region associated in animal models with the presence of mirror neurons, possibly involved in empathy. CONCLUSION: ToM impairment in bv-FTDp is associated with increased caregiver burden.