Targets operation in Canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Targets operation in Canada - Essay Example The retail store failed miserably in its market strategies such as pricing. This stands out as a major influence on customers. From the start, Canadian shoppers felt that the prices maintained by Target were too high while compared to other stores. It created a perception that it was the most expensive among its competitors. Targets management was not observant and reactive about pricing. They failed to see the power of low pricing in Wal-Mart Canada. Additionally, Target did not compensate for its higher pricing with better services. The customers’ experience at Target stores was not good and prices made it worse. It has been shown that some customers are willing to forego a slight increase in price provided the experience they receive is a stand-out feature from the rest of the competition. Other competitors had the edge in pricing as well as customer service. Only 18% of the respondents questioned by Forum Research said that they were very satisfied with Target. This percen tage was the lowest level of satisfaction among all the other competitors. This shows that   Target’s management did not prioritize customer satisfaction.The supply chain management also attributed to the failure of the business in Canada. Customers were not pleased by empty shelves in stores. However, stocks were piling up in Target’s warehouses at a faster rate they were being sold. There were delays that caused the goods from hitting the shelves on time. Target’s supply chain was marred by inconsistencies between the actual inventory level and the computer records. There were delays caused by verification of the inventory. The shipments needed to be verified manually. This is a time-consuming process that increased work for the store workers while also leaving the shelves empty.

Effects of Divorce on Children Essay Example for Free

Effects of Divorce on Children Essay Although divorce is now allowed by law in some countries, it is still unhealthy for a family especially in the presence of a child. Due to the fact that they are still young, the children often do not understand why some couples need to separate and they respond in a variety of ways that parents should understand and deal with. When the divorce is settled, the children might wonder why their father or their mother is no longer around and this might be quite hard to explain to a young mind. This produces short and long term effects on the children and even sometimes causes teenagers to rebel against their parents causing more problems than there already is. Another issue regarding children and divorce is who will have custody of the children and alimony. Usually, the mother gets custody over the children while the father still provides financial support. Depending on the situation, the custody is being granted to the father. One problem about divorce is that couples think that the matter is only between them; failing to consider what effects it would have on their children. Little do they know that the changes that will occur once the divorce takes effect will have many negative effects on children. In a case to case basis, children might feel different because of the many changes that will take place once the divorce becomes effective such as changes in schedules and daily routines as well loss of contact with members of extended family (Parker). Children may also develop a fear that losing one parent will eventually lead to the lost of the other. The loss of attachment of a child to a parent may also lead to the loss of other secure relationships such as friends, siblings, neighbors and even pets. Children also, more often than not, are attached to their surroundings and divorce sometimes mean moving out or migrating which could prove unhealthy for the wellbeing of a child. A parent also has a tendency to create a dis-attachment between the child and the other parent which could prove to be a major predicament in the psychological health of the child (Parker). Many children tend to think that they are somehow the reason why their parents want to get divorced. Children often remember rough times that they had with their parents such as arguments, poor grades, getting into trouble, vices, etc. They start to think that the conflict came from them and they start to blame themselves. If this is the case, the parents should make clear that they are not responsible for the conflict and that both of the parents still love them. Explaining custody arrangements would also prove better to prepare the child and for a better understanding (Clandos). In some cases children try to bring their parents back together by either â€Å"acting out† in negative ways or trying â€Å"so good† so that his/her parents would think twice and reconsider about pursuing the divorce (Parker). As a reaction to a divorce, children especially teenagers show aggressive and defiant behavior. A problem here is that parents usually think that this is the normal behavior of the children instead of a reaction to problem. Parents should be keen observers and must be able to identify if the behavior is still normal. In such cases, children also show depression and parents must watch out for this kind of reactions (Parker). In one study, it has been proven that children have adapted to their parents divorce and have emerged as successful individuals. According to Constance Ahrons, the author of Were Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents Divorce, although they are now adults, children who belonged in families that divorced emerged â€Å"stronger and wiser† having coped with â€Å"difficult times and experienced stressful family changes†. The research indicated that 79 percent feel that their parents decision to have divorce proved to be a good one. On the other hand, according to David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values, â€Å"a good divorce is not nearly as important as having less divorce. No matter how good your divorce is, it is still a very painful experience for your child (Peterson). Many children who have grown up may have coped with the effects of divorce but still, a good number of children were affected and were not able to cope with it. It has been proven that children from divorced families are usually victims of abuse and exhibit more health, behavioral and emotional problems compared to children from intact families. Data also indicate that children from divorced families have more likely been associated with drugs, crime and even suicide (Fagan). According to a survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, fatherless children show a much greater risk of committing suicide while another study indicated that three out of four teenage suicide cases are from families where a parent is absent. Moreover, another study by Kalter and Rembar indicated from a sample of 144 children and adolescents that 63 percent showed subjective psychological problems such as anxiety, sadness, moodiness, phobias and depression while 56 percent had poor grades. Another 43 percent showed aggressive behavior towards their parents (Fatherless Homes Statistics). Children from divorced couples have been noted to perform poorly in academic subjects such as reading, spelling and math. They have also been identified to have higher drop-out rates and more often repeat a grade. It was also indicated that these children have a less likelihood of graduating from college. It was also noted that families that have gone through a divorce have experienced a 50 percent drop in their income levels resulting in poverty. Divorce also resulted in less religious worship which is associated with many positive outcomes such as better health, longer marriages and improved family life (Fagan). Divorce also affects the sexual behavior of children. Children from divorced families start to accept premarital sex and divorce. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth indicated that â€Å"African–American girls are 42 percent less likely to have sexual intercourse before age 18 if their biological father is present at home. For Hispanic–American girls, the stepfather’s presence increases the likelihood of sexual intercourse before age 18 by 72 percent† (Fagan). Robert Sampson, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, discovered that divorce rate is connected to the robbery rate in 171 cities in the United States that have a population of at least 100,000. Lower rate of divorce meant higher social control which in turn also results in lower crime rate. There is also a close line relating child abuse and crime rates. Higher divorce rates result in higher rates of child abuse but instead of curbing child abuse, remarriage only adds to it. Having a stepfather would most likely increase child abuse and data indicate that serious cases of abuse is much higher for stepchildren compared to children from whole families (Fagan). Likewise, a study by Kalter indicates that teenage and adult females that have been exposed to parental divorce resulted in lower self-esteem, heightened sexual activity, delinquent behavior and are unable to maintain a lasting heterosexual relationship. It was also stated that girls who grew without interaction from a father missed out on a key element. â€Å"The continuous sense of being valued and loved as a female seems an especially key element in the development of the conviction that one is indeed femininely lovable. Without this regular source of nourishment, a girls sense of being valued as a female does not seem to thrive† (Fatherless Homes Statistics). Children may suffer traumatic experiences in cases of divorce but steps can be taken to reduce these kinds of effects that divorce has on children. These steps are the following: â€Å"(1) be honest for the potential of emotional trauma on each of your kids; (2) allow your children to communicate openly; (3) offer your children choices, whenever possible, to increase their sense of power over their lives; (4) find support for yourself and your children; and (5) provide continuity† (Clandos). It is, likewise advised not to expose the children to any marital conflict. Talking about the spouses negative behavior should also be avoided while developing amicable relationship with the spouse is advisable for the sake of the children. Taking care of ones self will also help children adjust to the changes caused by the divorce. Moreover, discussing the separation with the children would also be helpful but one must always be mindful because what one says might affect the outlook of the child in a negative way (Clandos). Some changes in behavior may be observed from children that have been affected by the separation. Some children who are most of the time jolly and playful may become moody and may lose self-esteem. Sadness and moodiness may become excessive at times. Children also sometimes develop a fear of â€Å"clinginess† and may show anger outbursts (Clandos). Teen marriage account for a good percentage of divorce cases. Early marriages have been considered more unstable because of different factors such as the inability to support a family because of the absence of a good paying job having not finished college. It is estimated that one half of teen marriages with women ranging from 18 to 19 years of age result in divorce within 15 years time although the rate of divorce for women over 20 is also particularly high at around 33 percent. In cases of out-of -wedlock pregnancies, marrying before giving birth will increase paternal support because the male partner would have better access to the child and may provide better financial support even if there is a high risk that the marriage will result in an divorce (Seiler, 7). According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, over time, the rate of divorce per 100 marriages have increased from three in 1870 to 30 in 1945 and 51 in 1998 (Fagan). Half of the marriages in the US end in divorce and from this data, one may state that people now no longer consider marriage as a strong binding force for a couple. Marriage now no longer provides a perception that it is permanent. Marriage is also no longer considered as a life-changing decision because of the availability of divorce. Dating games such as The Bachelor which sometimes end in marriage is proof enough that people no longer take marriage seriously. A divorce is caused by many factors such as common misunderstandings, financial difficulties, adultery, vices, and other irreconcilable differences. Many couples experience financial difficulties and this is one cause of divorce but prior to what most believe, financial problems are not the top cause of divorce. It only ranks fourth or fifth next to other factors that produce higher divorce rates, namely, â€Å"incompatibility, lack of emotional support, abuse and sexual problems†. According to Jan Andersen, associate professor at California State University in Sacramento, only 5 percent of divorce cases are caused by a couples financial difficulties (Weston). Other usual causes of divorce aside from financial problems are â€Å"lack of commitment to the marriage, lack of communication between spouses, infidelity, abandonment, alcohol addiction, substance abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, inability to manage or resolve conflict, personality differences or ‘irreconcilable differences’,differences in personal and career goals, different expectations about household tasks,different expectations about having or rearing children, interference from parents or in-laws, lack of maturity, intellectual incompatibility, sexual incompatibility, insistence of sticking to traditional roles and not allowing room for personal growth, falling out of love, religious conversion or religious beliefs, cultural and lifestyle differences, inability to deal with each other’s petty idiosyncrasies, mental instability or mental illness, criminal behavior and incarceration for crime† (Panse). Even if many countries legal ly accept divorce, there are still some countries that do not approve of divorce and most of these countries are against divorce because of religious beliefs. In biblical texts, adultery is often mentioned but nothing is clearly mentioned about divorce. Even theology scholars and pastors do not share the same views regarding biblical teachings about divorce. Christian scholars have different positions regarding the controversial issue. They argue that â€Å"(1) divorce is never permitted under any circumstances; (2) divorce is permissible under certain, specified circumstances; and (3) divorce is permissible under many circumstances† (House). The first argument supports that â€Å"marriage is lifelong and permanent† and divorce is against Gods standards and Christians are strictly prohibited from having divorce. Those who support the second argument that divorce is permissible under specific circumstances believe that divorce is not prohibited by biblical texts. They believe that one spouse commiting adultery means that a divorce can be allowed. Desertion is also being considered as a valid reason for divorce in this argument. On the other hand, the third view argues that divorce is allowed not just for conditions of adultery and desertion but for many other conditions as well (House). Generally speaking, divorce has many adverse effects on children. It affects their behavior, emotional and psychological health. Although some research studies indicate that children have been able to overcome the behavioral, emotional and psychological effects caused by divorce and were able to break out as successful individuals, many children still suffer from the harmful effects of divorce. As discussed, children from divorced families have a higher tendency to commit suicide, are more likely to commit crime and premarital sex as well as having poorer performance in academics. To sum it up, divorce does not provide any good effects on children and because of the many negative effects, it would be better if couples do not resort to divorce so as not to disregard the well-being of their children. It would be better off if couples just settle their differences for the sake of the children. It is also recommended that the government take steps to at least be able to lessen the cases of divorce if not eliminate it. On the other hand, the church should re-orient people the importance of marriage and deciding who to marry as simple as it has become today. The Church must make the people know that marriage is a life-changing decision. The status of marriage, particularly in the United States which is one of the countries with the highest divorce rates, is not strong. Works Cited Parker, Wayne. The Effects of Divorce on Children and How to Cope. accessed April 2, 2008 from, http://fatherhood. about. com/cs/divorceddads/a/divorcekids. htm Clandos, Rosemary, Kemp, Gina M. A. , Jaffe, Jaelline Ph. D. , Segal, Jeanne Ph. D. 28 September 2007. Coping with Divorce: Helping Your Child Cope with Separation or Divorce. accessed April 2, 2008 from, http://www. helpguide. org/mental/children_divorce. htm Peterson, Karen. Is Divorce a Bad Thing? Does it often leave broken children in its wake? Apparently not. 2004 June. accessed April 2, 2008 from, http://www. dimaggio. org/Eye- Openers/is_divorce_a_bad_thing. htm

Freuds Cases of Hysteria: Birth of Psychoanalysis

Freuds Cases of Hysteria: Birth of Psychoanalysis Abstract This thesis returns to the original case histories that Freud wrote on the patients he treated for hysteria. Here in these early works, the beginnings of psychoanalytical theory take shape in the acceptance of purely psychological theories of hysteria. Catharsis leads to the first inklings of repression which requires the use of free association, which again leads into Freuds attempt to explain the strange neuroses he sees through seduction theory, which is again transformed as his thinking moves on. Through Anna O, Frau Emmy von N. and Dora, Freud discovered the seeds of what would become his all-encompassing theory of the human psyche. Modern reinterpretations (e.g. Rosenbaum Muroff, 1984) of those early cases that form the basis of modern psychoanalysis have come and gone, but the original texts remain as historical testament to the fermenting of those fundamental ideas. Introduction Hysteria has been a hugely popular subject for research in psychoanalysis and in the history of ideas. Its roots are clearly signalled by the Greek word from which the word comes: uterus. Indeed the uterus was seen by Egyptians as a mobile organism that could move about of its own will when it chose to do so this caused the disturbances only seen (or acknowledged) in women. Treatments for this disease included trying to entice the uterus back into the body with the use of attractive-smelling substances as well as the driving down of the uterus from above by the eating of noxious substances. Just under four thousand years later, the formulation and treatment of hysterics had barely improved. The history of hysteria shows how it has often been seen as a physical disorder, rather than a mental one. Borossa (2001) describes some of the most common symptoms of hysteria as involving paralysis of the limbs, coughing, fainting, the loss of speech and parallel to this the sudden proficiency in another language. The change of viewpoint that lead up to Freuds analysis was slow in coming, and, as Bernheimer (1985) describes, only showed the first signs of changing in the seventeenth century with the first questions being raised that perhaps hysteria had its origins in a mental disturbance of some kind. Antecedent to Freuds interest in hysteria, it was the clinical neurologist, Charcot, who had a great influence on the field and accepted, by his methods, a more psychological explanation. Although sexual factors had long been implicated in the aetiology of hysteria (Ellenberger, 1970), Charcot did not agree that they were a sine qua non although he did maintain that they played an important part. He treated patients using a form of hypnosis and eventually his formulation of how hysteria was produced and treated was closely intertwined with the hypnosis itself. It was this use of hypnosis that interested Freud and it was the implication of sexual factors in hysteria that was eventually to become influential. It seemed that hysteria and hypnosis might offer Freud the chance to investigate the link between mind and body (Schoenwald, 1956). Anna O: The First Psychoanalytical Patient The literature often describes Anna O as the first ever patient of psychoanalysis. As it is notoriously difficult to define precisely what psychoanalysis might mean because of its shifting nature through time, this is a claim that is clearly interpretational. Still, the fact that this claim is made raises the interest into precisely what it was that marked out Anna Os treatment and the theories accompanying it from what had gone before. Although Anna O was not a patient of Freud, but a patient of his close colleague at the time, Joseph Breuer, he took a great interest in her case and its treatment, and from it flowed some of the foundational aspects of psychoanalysis both through the analysis of this case and Freuds reaction and reinterpretation of it. One of the reasons that Freud was interested in Anna O was that she represented an extremely unusual case of hysteria. Anna O had first been taken ill while she had been taking care of her dying father. At first she suffered from a harsh cough which soon expanded into a range of other perplexing symptoms. Freud Breuer (1991) describe these symptoms as going through four separate stages. The first stage, the latent incubation, occurred while she was nursing her dying father she had become weak, was not eating and would spend much of the afternoons sleeping, which was then unexpectedly followed by a period of excited activity in the evenings. The second stage, which had begun around the time Breuer started treating her, contained a strange confluence of symptoms. Her vision was affected by a squint, she could no longer move any of the extremities on the right side of her body. The third stage, which roughly coincided with the death of her father, heralded alternating states of somnam bulism with relative normality. The fourth stage, according to Breuer, is the slow leaking away of these symptoms up until June 1882, almost two years after she had first come to see her physician. The question is, how had these symptoms been interpreted and what had Breuer done in claiming to effect a cure? It is in the case of Anna O that the most basic elements of a new talking cure can be seen. As told by Breuer, it is a treatment that grew organically, as if by its own power, as he continued to see the patient. Often, in the afternoons, when the patient would habitually fall into an auto-hypnotic state, she would utter odd words or phrases, which, when questioned by those around her, would become elaborated into stories, sometimes taking the form of fairytales. These stories told to Breuer, changed in character over the period of Anna Os treatment, moving from those that were light and poetic, through to those that contained dark and frightening imagery. The unusual thing about these stories was that after they were told, it was as though a demon had been released from the patient and she became calmer and open to reason, cheerful even, often for a period of twenty-four hours afterwards. There seemed to be, staring Breuer in the face, some kind of connection between the stories that Anna O told him and the symptoms which she was manifesting. It was here that Freud was to find the roots of a purely psychological explanation of hysteria. Breuer describes numerous examples of this connection. On one occasion Anna O appeared to be suffering from an uncontrollable thirst and was given to demanding water, although when it was brought, she would refuse to touch it. After six weeks of this continuing, one day, again in an auto-hypnotic state, she started to tell a story about a friend who had allowed her dog to drink out of a glass. This had apparently caused the patient considerable distress and seemed to have led to pent-up anger, which was expressed on this occasion to Breuer. Afterwards Breuer was surprised to find that her previous craving and then abhorrence of water had disappeared. Other similar connections between symptoms and a story told by the patient were also s een by Breuer so that eventually he came up with the theory that the patient could be cured systematically by going through the symptoms to find the event that had caused their onset. Once the event had been described, as long as it was with sufficient emotional vigour, the patient would show remission of that symptom. It was by this method that Breuer claimed to have effected a cure of Anna O over the period of the treatment. It is from this case, although not in the immediate reporting by Breuer, that some of the most fundamental principles of psychoanalysis begin to form. An element of the story that has now passed into psychoanalytic legend, with some accepting its truth while others rejecting it, provides a more dramatic ending to the therapeutic relationship than that presented by Breuer. According to Freud (1970) in his letters, he pieced together an alternative account of what had happened at the end of Anna Os therapy. According to Freud, Breuer had been treating Anna O in the way he had discovered, as previously described, and had finally reached the point where her symptoms had been removed. Later that day he was called back to his patient to find her in considerable apparent pain in her abdomen. When she was asked what was wrong she replied that, Dr. Bs child is coming! This immediately sent Breuer away from her at the highest speed as he was not able to cope with this new revelation. He then p assed her onto a colleague for further treatment as he had already realised that his wife was jealous of his treatment of Anna O and this new revelation only compounded the problem. Forrester (1990) draws attention to the fact that Breuer acknowledged the importance of sexuality in the causes of neuroses. But despite this, he backed away from Anna Os case as soon as it came to the surface. As Forrester (1990) points out, Freud sees this as Breuers mistake and sees in it the birth of a psychoanalysis, especially one of its most important aspects: transference, and more specifically: sexual transference. Through the way that Breuer describes Anna Os progress in his new type of therapy, the path which the theory of hysteria and its treatment takes gradually emerges. Although Anna Os case was reported later it was Breuer Freud (1893) that used her case as the basis for their theory of hysteria. Breuer Freud (1893) state that they believe that the symptoms of hysteria have, at their root cause, some kind of causal event, perhaps occurring many years before the symptoms expose themselves. The patient is unlikely to easily reveal what this event is simply because they are not consciously aware of what it is, or that there is a causal connection. They are not worried by the seeming disproportionate nature of the precipitating event and subsequent symptoms. In fact they welcome this disproportionate nature as a defining characteristic of hysteria. Their analysis likens the root cause, or pathogenesis, of hysteria to that caused by a traumatic neurosis    perhaps similar to what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. The patient has, therefore, suffered a psychical trauma that manifests itself in this hysteria. The idea that the psychical trauma simply has a precipitating effect on the symptoms is dismissed by the authors referring to the evidence they have from the case studies of the remarkable progress their patients made after the memory of the psychical trauma has been exorcised through its explication and re-experiencing. Importantly, in defining the problem, Breuer Freud (1893) see the symptoms as a kind of failure of reaction to the original event. The memory of the event can only fade if the reaction to that event has not been suppressed. And it is here that there is a clear precursor to ideas central to later Freudian theory about the nature and causes of repression. In normal reactions to psychical traumas, the authors talk of a cathartic effect resulting in a release of the energy. The reverse of this, the suppression of catharsis (Freeman, 1972), is seen here as the cause of the symptoms adequately evidenced by the new treatment of a kind of delayed catharsis that appears to release the patient from their symptoms. What, then, are the mechanisms by which a psychical trauma of some kind is not reacted to sufficiently? Two answers are provided here, the first that because of the circumstances of the trauma, it was not possible to form a reaction in other words the reactions is suppressed. The second is that a reaction may not have been possible due to the mental state of the person at that time for example during a period of paralysing fear. The circumstances in which the failure of a reaction occurs is also instrumental in the burying of these thoughts and feelings and helps to explain why the patient themselves is not able to access them in the normal ways. Frau Emmy von N. Freuds interest in hysteria and in hypnosis was certainly piqued by both Charcot and Breuer and having collaborated on the latters work with Anna O including the belief that he had found a theory of practical benefit it was only a matter of time before he became further involved in the treatment of hysteria himself. Reported as the second case history in The Studies on Hysteria, (Breuer Freud, 1991) a patient of Freuds, Frau Emmy von N., exhibited symptoms that typified hysteria and Freud resolved to treat her. He reports that the patient was 40 years old, was from a good family and of high education and intelligence. She had been widowed at a young age, leaving her to look after her two children this she ascribed as the cause of her current malady. Freud describes her first meeting as being continually interrupted by the patient breaking off, and suddenly displaying signs of disgust and horror on her face while telling him to, Keep still! and other similar remonstrations. Apart from this the patient also had a series of tics, some facial, but the most pronounced being a clacking sound which littered her utterances. Freuds initial treatment was more physical than mental. She was told to take warm baths and be given massages. This was combined with hypnosis in which Freud simply suggested that she sleep well and that her symptoms would lessen. This was helped by the fact that Freud reports that Frau Emmy von N. was an extremely good hypnotic subject he only had to raise his finger and make a few simple suggestions to put her into a trance. Freud wonders whether this compliance is due to previous exposure to hypnosis and a desire to please. A week later Freud asked his patient why she was so easily frightened. She replied with a story about a traumatic experience that had occurred when she was younger her older brothers and sisters had thrown dead animals at her. As she described these stories to Freud, he reports that she was, panting for breath as well as displaying obvious difficulty with the emotions that she was dealing with. After these emotions have been expressed, she became calmer and more peaceful. Freud also uses touch to reinforce his suggestion that these unnerving images have been removed. Under hypnosis, Freud continued to elicit these stories that demonstrated why she was so often nervous. She explained to Freud that she had once had a maidservant who told her stories of life in an asylum including beatings and patients being tied to chairs. Freud then explained to her that this was not the usual situation in asylums. She had also apparently seen hallucinations at one point, seeing the same person in tw o places and being transfixed by it. While she had been nursing her dying brother, who was taking large quantities of morphine for the pain he was in, he would frequently grab her suddenly. Freud saw this as part of a pattern of her being seized against her will and resolved to investigate it further. It was a few days after this that quite a significant point in the therapy came. Emmy von N. was again explaining about the frightening stories of the asylum and Freud stopped himself from correcting her, intuitively realising that he had to let her give full vent to her fears, without redirecting her course. This is perhaps a turning point in the way in which Freud treated his patient, made clearer by the historical context in which this scene operates. While still seen as authority figures now, physicians were much stronger authority figures then. This combined with the greater imbalance of power between men and women would have meant that the patient would be naturally hesitant about taking any control over their own treatment. Forrester (1990) sees this as a shift in the pattern of authority between the doctor and the patient that originated in Breuers treatment of Anna O a move from the telling the patient what to do, to listening to what the patient has to say. Forrester (1990 ) constructs the relationship that Freud began to build with Emmy von N. as more of a framework of authority within which the patient was able to express her thoughts and feelings to the doctor and in this sense the doctors job is to help the patient keep up this outpouring of stories. At this stage of the development of the therapy, the facilitation of the story-telling is being achieved by hypnosis, although later Freud was to move away from this. How great the shift in the power balance was, it is difficult to tell a this distance, but what is clear from the case report is that Emmy von N.s case provided a much more convoluted series of psychical traumas and symptoms than that presented by Anna O. While Anna Os symptoms seemed to match the traumatic events rather neatly, Emmy von Ns mind was not nearly as well organised. At one point Freud discovers that taking the lift to his office causes his patient a considerable amount of stress. To try and examine where this comes from he explores whether she has had any previous traumatic experiences in lifts a logical first step within the theoretical framework. Coincidentally, it appears, the patient mentions that she is very worried about her daughter in relation to elevators. The next logical step then should be that talking about this fear should release the affect and lead to catharsis, but this is not what Freud finds. The next part of the puzzle is revealed when he finds out t hat she is currently menstruating, then finally the last part falls into place when he finds out that as her daughter has been suffering ovarian problems, she has had to travel in a lift in order to meet with her doctor. After some deliberation Freud realises that there is in fact a false connection between the patients menstruation and the worry at her daughter using a lift. It is this confusion of connections that Freud begins to realise is a form of defence to the traumatic thoughts. Freuds Treatment of Hysteria In the final part of Studies in Hysteria Freud sets out his theory of hysteria and what he has learnt about its treatment. Not only does this part of the book recap some of the themes already discussed but it also highlights some future direction in which Freuds work would travel. Two key signposts are seen: first in his stance on hypnotism, and secondly in his view on what constitutes hysteria. In an attempt to be of benefit to patients with hysteria, who he believed this treatment would help, he tried to treat as many as possible. The problem for him was how to tell the difference between a patient with hysteria and one without. Freud chose an interesting solution to what might have been a protracted problem of diagnosis. He simply treated patients who seemed   to have hysteria and let the results of that treatment speak for themselves. What this immediately did was to widen out the object of his enquiry to neuroses in general. Picking up on the lightly touched theme of sexual tr ansference between Breuer and Anna O mentioned earlier, Freud made his feelings about the roots of neurotic problems quite clear, and in the process set the agenda for psychoanalysis for the next century or more. He believed that one of the primal factors in neuroses lay in sexual matters. In particular Freud came to acknowledge that peoples neuroses rarely came in a pure form, as the early and almost impossibly neat case of Anna O had signposted, and that in fact people were more of a mixed bag. Looking back through the cases reported in Studies on Hysteria Freud explains that he came to see a sexual undercurrent in his notes that had not been at the forefront of his mind when he had treated the patients. Especially in the case of Anna O as already noted Freud felt Breuer had missed a trick. What these ideas seem to be adding up to is almost a rejection of hysteria, if not as a separate diagnosis, certainly as a category of disease practically amenable to treatment. Freud, however, is defensive about rejecting the idea of hysteria as a separate diagnosis, despite the fact that that is the direction in which his thoughts are heading. At this stage he believes it can be treated as a separate part of a patients range of symptoms and the effect of this treatment will be governed by its relative importance overall. Those patients, like Anna O, who have relatively pure cases of hysteria will respond well to the cathartic treatment, while those diluted cases will not. The second key signpost for the future of psychoanalysis was Freuds use of hypnosis. What he found was that many of the patients he saw were simply not hypnotisable Freud claims unwillingness on their part but other writers are of the opinion that he was simply not that good at it (Forrester, 1990). This was a problem for Freud because Breuers formulation of the treatment for hysteria required that events were recollected that were not normally available to a person. Hypnosis had originally proved a good method and indeed in Anna Os case the only method for gaining access to these past events. In response, Freud now turned away from hypnosis to develop his own techniques for eliciting the patients traumatic events. These were quite simple: he insisted that the patient remember what the traumatic event was, and if they still could not, he would ask the patient to lie down and close their eyes nowadays one of the archetypal images of patient and analyst. Freud saw the patients relu ctance of his patients to report their traumatic events as a one of the biggest hurdles in his coalescing form of therapy. He came up with the idea that there was some psychical force within the patient that stopped the memories from being retrieved. From the patients he had treated, he had found that the memories that were being held back were often of an embarrassing or shameful nature. If was for this reason that the patient was activating psychical defence mechanisms. At this stage he hoped to be able to show in the future that it was this defence or repulsion of the traumatic event to the depths of the memory that was causing so much psychical pain to the patient. Overcoming this psychical force, Freud found, was not as simple as insisting, and he developed some further techniques. Patients would easily drift off their point or simply dry up and it needed more powerful persuasion to return them to the traumatic event. One particular technique he found extremely useful and would almost invariably use it when treating patients. This involved placing his hand on the patients head and instructing them that when they feel the pressure they will also see an image of their traumatic event. Having assured the patient that whatever they see, they should not worry that this image is inappropriate or too shameful to discuss, then they are asked to attempt a description of the image. Freud believed that this system worked by distracting the patient, in a similar way as hypnosis, from their conscious searching for the psychical trauma and allowed their mind to float free. Even using the new technique of applying pressure, it did not provide direct access to the psychical trauma. What Freud found was that it tended to signal a jumping off point or a way-station, somewhere on the way to or from the trauma. Sometimes the image produced would provide a new starting point from which the patient could work, sometimes it fitted into the flow of the subject of discussion. Occasionally the new image would bring a long-forgotten idea to the patients mind which would surprise them and initially seem to be unrelated, but later turn out to have a connection. Freud was so pleased with his new pressure technique that, in complex cases, he would often use it continuously on the patient. This procedure would bring to light memories that had been hitherto completely forgotten, as well as new connections between these memories and even, sometimes, thoughts that the patient doesnt even believe to be their own. Freud is careful to point out that although his pressure technique was useful, there were a number of very strong forms of defence that stopped him gaining easy access to the patients psychical trauma. He often found that in the first instance, applying pressure by his hand to the patient would not work, but when he insisted to the patient that it would work the next time, it often would. Still, the patient would sometimes immediately reinterpret or, indeed, begin to edit what was seen, thus making the reporting much less useful. Freud makes it clear that sometimes the most useful observations or memories of the patient are those that they consider to be of least use or relevance. Also, the memories will tend to emerge in a haphazard fashion, only later, and with the skill of the analyst, being fitted together into a coherent picture. Freud refers to this as a kind of censoring of the traumatic events, as though it can only be glimpsed in a mirror or partially occluded around a corne r. Slowly but sure the analyst begins to build up a picture with the accretion of material. There is nothing, Freud believed that is not relevant every piece of information is a link in the chain, another clue to the event that has traumatised the psyche. Another major component of psychoanalysis makes its first appearance in the Studies on Hysteria. Freud describes a final defence or block against the work of treating hysteria in the very relationship between the patient and doctor. Indeed, Freud sees this defence is sure to arise, and perhaps the most difficult defence of all to overcome. The first of the three circumstances in which it may arise is a simple, probably small, breakdown in the relationship between the physician and patient. It might be that the patient is unsure about the physicians techniques or alternatively has felt slighted in the treatment in some way. This can be rectified with a sensitive discussion. The second of the three circumstances occurs when the patient becomes fearful that they will lose their independence because of a reliance on their treating physician. As almost all of Freuds patients who had hysteria were women, this could be conceived as a sexual reliance. The third circumstance is where the pati ent begins to take the problem that they are trying to resolve and transfer it onto the physician, thereby seeing their problem there instead of where it really exists. Freud provides the straightforward example of the sexual transference of a female patient of his who suddenly developed the vision of kissing him. He reports that the patient could not be analysed any further until this block had been addressed. The mechanism by which this transference happens, he posits, is that the patient creates a false connection between the compulsion which is the basis for their treatment and the therapist, rather than its original recipient. In treating these defences Freud makes it clear that the main aim should be to make the patient aware that this problem exists, and then once they are aware of it, the problem is largely dealt with. The challenge, then, is getting the patient to admit to these potentially embarrassing feelings. The Aetiology of Hysteria The development of Freuds theory of the aetiology of hysteria provides one of the most insightful, and sometimes controversial, areas of his work. The formation of the theory, like the work on its treatment, provided another important testing ground for some of the basic elements of what would later become psychoanalysis. Previous authors, including Breuer in the joint work with Freud in Studies on Hysteria, gave great weight to the heredity factors in the causes of hysteria. Freud meanwhile acknowledged these ideas, but in Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses (Freud, 1896b) set out the three factors he believed were important and began to formulate a new theory. The causes of hysteria could be broken down into: (1) Preconditions this would include hereditary factors, (2) concurrent causes which are generalised causes and (3) specific causes, these being specific to the hysteria itself. It is in these specific causes he believed he had found an important contribution to aetiology of the condition. One of the common factors of the patients Freud was seeing, and the one he was coming to see as defining, was in their sexual problems. He reports that while many suffered from a range of different symptoms such as constipation, dyspepsia and fatigue, almost all of them had some kind of sexual problems. These ranged from the inability to achieve orgasm to a more general inability to have a satisfying sexually relationship. Freud saw this as a very significant problem as he maintains that the nervous systems needs to be regularly purged of sexual tension. This pattern across his patients, and the development of his theory of traumatic psychical events, led him to wonder what past events could have caused the sexual dysfunction the patients with hysteria were manifesting. Radically, and expecting no small amount of opposition to the idea, Freud advanced the theory that these neuroses were caused by sexual abuse before the age of sexual maturity. Of the thirteen cases that Freud had tre ated at the time of the paper, all of them had been subject to sexual abuse at an early age. However, Freud does make it clear that the information about their sexual lives is not obtained without some considerable pressure, and it only emerges in a fragmentary way that has later to be pieced together by the therapist. At this early stage of the theory, Freud believed that the sexual abuse left a psychical trace and formed the traumatic experience which was locked away in the depths of the mind. These ideas were much further developed and expanded on in Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence (Freud, 1896a). Earlier Freud had grouped together hysteria with hallucinatory states and obsessions (Freud, 1894) and had begun to formulate the idea that all of these conditions had a common aetiology. In particular, Freud felt these were all part of an area where the ideas of psychological defences and psychological repression were important. Freud had found that patients he had seen had suffered sexual abuse sometimes as early as two years old and up to the age of ten, which he drew as an artificial cut-off point. What other theorists saw as a heredity, Freud saw as the confluence of factors for example if a boy had been sexually abused when he was five then it was likely that his brother would have been abused by the same person. Rather than seeing heredity as a separate factor in hysteria, he saw the sexual abuse as a replacement for heredity, sometimes exclusively, as the root cause in itself. The theory shows an interesting divergence in the analysis of obsessional neuroses. Here, Freud believed that the obsessional neuroses were caused by a sexual activity   in childhood rather than the sexual passivity typical of abuse. These ideas linked in neatly to the greater preponderance of obsessional neuroses in males. A logical division is therefore made with the females, the apparently more passive sex suffering from hysteria, while the apparently more active sex suffering from obsessions. In searching for the aetiology of these two conditions, it is here that Freud prefigures his future thinking on stages of sexual development by introducing the idea that the development of neuroses and/or hysteria is/are dependent on when the sexual abuse occurs in the developmental stages of the child, with sexual maturation providing the cut-off point. In The Aetiology of Hysteria Freud again makes clear his divergence from his mentor, Charcot, in claiming that heredity is not the most important factor in the aetiology of hysteria (Freud 1896c). Freud (1896c) travels back through the life-histories of the patients he has treated looking for the original source of the psychical trauma, discounting all sexual experiences at puberty and later. It is only in pre-pubescent children, when the potential for harm is at its greatest that there lies a sufficient cause. Freuds theory revolves around the idea that at a

Differences Between the North and South that Led to the Civil War Essay

The Southern and Northern states varied on many issues, which eventually led them to the Civil War. There were deep economic, social, and political differences between the North and the South. These differences stemmed from the interpretation of the United States Constitution on both sides. In the end, all of these disagreements about the rights of states led to the Civil War. There were reasons other than slavery for the South?s secession. The manifestations of division in America were many: utopian communities, conflicts over public space, backlash against immigrants, urban riots, black protest, and Indian resistance (Norton 234). America was a divided land in need reform with the South in the most need. The South relied heavily on agriculture, as opposed to the North, which was highly populated and an industrialized society. The South grew cotton, which was its main cash crop and many Southerners knew that heavy reliance on slave labor would hurt the South eventually, but their warnings were not heeded. The South was based on a totalitarian system. Constitutionally the North favored a loose interpretation of the United States Constitution, and they wanted to grant the federal government increased powers. The South wanted to reserve all undefined powers to the individual states themselves. The South relied upon slave labor for their economic well being, and the economy of the North was not reliant on such labor or in need of this type of service. This main issue overshadowed all others. Southerners compared slavery to the wage-slave system of the North, and believed their slaves received better care than the northern factory workers received from their employers. Many Southern preachers proclaimed that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible. Southern leaders had constantly tried to seek new areas into which slavery might be extended (Oates 349). After the American Revolution, slavery began to decrease in the North, just as it was becoming more popular in the South. By the turn of the century, seven of the most Northern states had abolished slavery. During this time, a surge of democratic reform swept the North to the West, and there were demands for political equality, economic and social advances for all Americans. Northerners said that slavery revoked the human right of being a free person and when new territories became available i... ...in opinion. We should remember the great sacrifices our fellow citizens made during this time and appreciate their actions or endeavors. Especially that of Abraham Lincoln. The best way to assess the value of Lincoln is to think what the condition of American would be in today if he had never lived or never been President (Whitman 262). Yes, slavery was the cause of the Civil War, half of the country thought it was wrong, and the other half just could not let it go or continue. The war was fought overall in different places, and the monetary and property loss cannot be calculated. Arguments about the causes and consequences of the Civil War, as well as the reasons for Northern victory, will continue as long as there are historians to wield the pen ? which is, perhaps even for this bloody conflict, mightier than the sword (Oates 388). The Civil War was a great waste in terms of human life and possible accomplishment and should be considered shameful. Before its first centennial, tragedy struck a new country and altered it for an eternity. It will never be forgotten, but adversity builds strength and the United States of America is now a much stronger nation (Oates 388).

How Powerful Do You Find Atticus Finch’s Closing Speech?

In a final bid to secure freedom for Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch uses several linguistic tools in his last speech to the jury to attempt to sway their opinions of Tom’s guilt in the crime. Emotive language is used in Atticus’s speech to create a powerful effect in his audience. He first uses to make people feel sorry for Mayella Ewell: ‘She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance’. Use of the word ‘victim’ is effective in building pity for Mayella, as it implies that she is not at fault for her misfortunes and is instead the poor unfortunate soul suffering due to circumstances that she could not control. This pity is then used as a way for the jurors to feel a connection with Tom, who, as Atticus points out, is ‘a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman’. By reminding the jurors that Tom is not so different from them, in that they all pity Mayella, Atticus relates them with Tom. Pity for Tom is also evoked, as Atticus reminds the jurors that Tom was merely ‘a quiet, respectable, humble Negro’. Words such as ‘humble’ builds up an image of an unassuming man and plants a little seed of doubt about Tom’s guilt in the minds of the jurors. Atticus also tries to lead the jury to feel pity for Tom by putting a little emphasis on Tom’s plight: ‘[Tom] has had to put his word against two white people’s. In that time of racial prejudice, for Tom to contradict any white person was a desperate path, as black people are usually assumed to be in the wrong automatically, and therefore, through reminding the jurors of Tom’s testimony, Atticus is attempting to bring forth pity for Tom. The tone of the statement also suggests that such a drastic action was not by choice; with the phrase ‘h as had to’, Atticus is insinuating that it was Tom’s last resort, that Tom was forced by the circumstances to challenge the Ewells’s testimonies. The evidence is presented to the jury in a clear manner: ‘There is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left†¦ and Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses – his right hand. ’ Here, Atticus is very definite on the evidence and leaves no room for ambiguity; he emphasises the fact that Tom had only one functional hand, his right. The effect of this observation is powerful, because it forces the jury to take a moment and reconsider; Atticus’s statement clearly outlines that Mayella was beaten by a left-hander, a feat impossible for the crippled Tom, therefore reinforcing an earlier assertion by Atticus: ‘The defendant is not guilty, but someone in this court-room is. ’ The tone in this allegation adds a little dramatic tension to the atmosphere of the courtroom and helps Atticus gain the interest and attention of the audience as they wait to hear to whom Atticus has assigned the guilt. The tone of Atticus’s speech also brings in another persuasive element. An example of this is seen when Atticus disdains the assumption that all black people are liars and immoral beings not to be trusted around white women: ‘Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. ’ The words of this statement suggest a rather forceful tone as Atticus asserts that to stereotype is wrong. Through the use of inclusive phrases, such as ‘we know’, Atticus is also able to evoke a slight feeling of shame in the jurors as he indirectly reprimands their prejudice by implying that they ought to have known that their generalisation of black people was simply not true. Atticus tries further to break this long-ingrained prejudice by telling his audience that they are all the same: ‘You know the truth and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women – black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this court-room who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman with desire. ’ With this proclamation, Atticus is able to show that Tom is no different in character to anyone else and that the jury should not allow racist perceptions to influence their verdict and cause them to judge Tom basing their opinions on how likely they think those of his race are to commit this terrible offense. Atticus later augments his plea by noting that ideally, justice is blind: ‘But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal†¦ The institution, gentlemen, is a court†¦ in our courts, all men are created equal. ’ Atticus is beseeching the jurors to look upon the case with an unprejudiced eye, reminding all that everyone deserves justice, regardless of skin colour. His point, that ‘all men are created equal’, is also repeated, to emphasise that a jury, or indeed, anyone at all, should not judge based on race, but on the truth. Personally, I find Atticus’s speech extremely powerful in that it is deeply convincing. The manipulation and use of the words is also incredibly effective, causing the audience to feel exactly as intended and by the end of the speech, one could hardly doubt that Tom was truly innocent of the heinous crime of which he was accused.

A Dirty Job Chapter 2

2 A FINE EDGE There's a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality – there's mercy in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin. So Charlie was barely even aware of his own shrieks in Rachel's hospital room, of being sedated, of the filmy electric hysteria that netted everything he did for that first day. After that, it was a memory out of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombie's eye socket, as he ambled undead through explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony. â€Å"It's called a cerebral thromboembolism,† the doctor had said. â€Å"A blood clot forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, then moves to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. It's very rare, but it happens. There was nothing we could do. Even if the crash team had been able to revive her, she'd have had massive brain damage. There was no pain. She probably just felt sleepy and passed.† Charlie whispered to keep from screaming, â€Å"The man in mint green! He did something to her. He injected her with something. He was there and he knew that she was dying. I saw him when I brought her CD back.† They showed him the security tapes – the nurse, the doctor, the hospital's administrators and lawyers – they all watched the black-and-white images of him leaving Rachel's room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. No tall black man dressed in mint green. They didn't even find the CD. Sleep deprivation, they said. Hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Trauma. They gave him drugs to sleep, drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression, and they sent him home with his baby daughter. Charlie's older sister, Jane, held baby Sophie as they spoke over Rachel and buried her on the second day. He didn't remember picking out a casket or making arrangements. It was more of the somnambulant dream: his in-laws moving to and fro in black, like tottering specters, spouting the inadequate clichs of condolence: We're so sorry. She was so young. What a tragedy. If there's anything we can do†¦ Rachel's father and mother held him, their heads pressed together in the apex of a tripod. The slate floor in the funeral-home foyer spotted with their tears. Every time Charlie felt the shoulders of the older man heave with a sob, he felt his own heart break again. Saul took Charlie's face in his hands and said, â€Å"You can't imagine, because I can't imagine.† But Charlie could imagine, because he was a Beta Male, and imagination was his curse; and he could imagine because he had lost Rachel and now he had a daughter, that tiny stranger sleeping in his sister's arms. He could imagine the man in mint green taking her. Charlie looked at the tear-spotted floor and said, â€Å"That's why most funeral homes are carpeted. Someone could slip.† â€Å"Poor boy,† said Rachel's mother. â€Å"We'll sit shivah with you, of course.† Charlie made his way across the room to his sister, Jane, who wore a man's double-breasted suit in charcoal pinstripe gabardine, that along with her severe eighties pop-star hairstyle and the infant in the pink blanket that she held, made her appear not so much androgynous as confused. Charlie thought the suit actually looked better on her than it did on him, but she should have asked him for permission to wear it nonetheless. â€Å"I can't do this,† he said. He let himself fall forward until the receded peninsula of dark hair touched her gelled Flock of Seagulls platinum flip. It seemed like the best posture for sharing grief, this forehead lean, and it reminded him of standing drunkenly at a urinal and falling forward until his head hit the wall. Despair. â€Å"You're doing fine,† Jane said. â€Å"Nobody's good at this.† â€Å"What the fuck's a shivah?† â€Å"I think it's that Hindu god with all the arms.† â€Å"That can't be right. The Goldsteins are going to sit on it with me.† â€Å"Didn't Rachel teach you anything about being Jewish?† â€Å"I wasn't paying attention. I thought we had time.† Jane adjusted baby Sophie into a half-back, one-armed carry and put her free hand on the back of Charlie's neck. â€Å"You'll be okay, kid.† Seven,† said Mrs. Goldstein. â€Å"Shivah means ‘seven.' We used to sit for seven days, grieving for the dead, praying. That's Orthodox, now most people just sit for three.† They sat shivah in Charlie and Rachel's apartment that overlooked the cable-car line at the corner of Mason and Vallejo Streets. The building was a four-story brick Edwardian (architecturally, not quite the grand courtesan couture of the Victorians, but enough tarty trim and trash to toss off a sailor down a side street) built after the earthquake and fire of 1906 had leveled the whole area of what was now North Beach, Russian Hill, and Chinatown. Charlie and Jane had inherited the building, along with the thrift shop that occupied the ground floor, when their father died four years before. Charlie got the business, the large, double apartment they'd grown up in, and the upkeep on the old building, while Jane got half the rental income and one of the apartments on the top floor with a Bay Bridge view. At the instruction of Mrs. Goldstein, all the mirrors in the house were draped with black fabric and a large candle was placed on the coffee table in the center of the living room. They were supposed to sit on low benches or cushions, neither of which Charlie had in the house, so, for the first time since Rachel's death, he went downstairs into the thrift shop looking for something they could use. The back stairs descended from a pantry behind the kitchen into the stockroom, where Charlie kept his office among boxes of merchandise waiting to be sorted, priced, and placed in the store. The shop was dark except for the light that filtered in the front window from the streetlights out on Mason Street. Charlie stood there at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the light switch, just staring. Amid the shelves of knickknacks and books, the piles of old radios, the racks of clothes, all of them dark, just lumpy shapes in the dark, he could see objects glowing a dull red, nearly pulsing, like beating hearts. A sweater in the racks, a porcelain figure of a frog in a curio case, out by the front window an old Coca-Cola tray, a pair of shoes – all glowing red. Charlie flipped the switch, fluorescent tubes fired to life across the ceiling, flickering at first, and the shop lit up. The red glow disappeared. â€Å"Okaaaaaaay,† he said to himself, calmly, like everything was just fine now. He flipped off the lights. Glowing red stuff. On the counter, close to where he stood, there was a brass business-card holder cast in the shape of a whooping crane, glowing dull red. He took a second to study it, just to make sure there wasn't some red light source from outside refracting around the room and making him uneasy for no reason. He stepped into the dark shop, took a closer look, got an angle on the brass cranes. Nope, the brass was definitely pulsing red. He turned and ran back up the steps as fast as he could. He nearly ran over Jane, who stood in the kitchen, rocking Sophie gently in her arms, talking baby talk under her breath. â€Å"What?† Jane said. â€Å"I know you have some big cushions down in the shop somewhere.† â€Å"I can't,† Charlie said. â€Å"I'm on drugs.† He backed against the refrigerator, like he was holding it hostage. â€Å"I'll go get them. Here, hold the baby.† â€Å"I can't, I'm on drugs. I'm hallucinating.† Jane cradled the baby in the crook of her right arm and put a free arm around her younger brother. â€Å"Charlie, you are on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, not acid. Look around this apartment, there's not a person here that's not on something.† Charlie looked through the kitchen pass-through: women in black, most of them middle-aged or older, shaking their heads, men looking stoic, standing around the perimeter of the living room, each holding a stout tumbler of liquor and staring into space. â€Å"See, they're all fucked up.† â€Å"What about Mom?† Charlie nodded to their mother, who stood out among the other gray-haired women in black because she was draped in silver Navaho jewelry and was so darkly tanned that she appeared to be melting into her old-fashioned when she took a sip. â€Å"Especially Mom,† Jane said. â€Å"I'll go look for something to sit shivah on. I don't know why you can't just use the couches. Now take your daughter.† â€Å"I can't. I can't be trusted with her.† â€Å"Take her, bitch!† Jane barked in Charlie's ear – sort of a whisper bark. It had long ago been determined who was the Alpha Male between them and it was not Charlie. She handed off the baby and cut to the stairs. â€Å"Jane,† Charlie called after her. â€Å"Look around before you turn on the lights. See if you see anything weird, okay?† â€Å"Right. Weird.† She left him standing there in the kitchen, studying his daughter, thinking that her head might be a little oblong, but despite that, she looked a little like Rachel. â€Å"Your mommy loved Aunt Jane,† he said. â€Å"They used to gang up on me in Risk – and Monopoly – and arguments – and cooking.† He slid down the fridge door, sat splayed-legged on the floor, and buried his face in Sophie's blanket. In the dark, Jane barked her shin on a wooden box full of old telephones. â€Å"Well, this is just stupid,† she said to herself, and flipped on the lights. Nothing weird. Then, because Charlie was many things, but one of them was not crazy, she turned off the lights again, just to be sure that she hadn't missed something. â€Å"Right. Weird.† There was nothing weird about the store except that she was standing there in the dark rubbing her shin. But then, right before she turned on the light again, she saw someone peering in the front window, making a cup around his eyes to see through the reflection of the streetlights. A homeless guy or drunken tourist, she thought. She moved through the dark shop, between columns of comic books stacked on the floor, to a spot behind a rack of jackets where she could get a clear view of the window, which was filled with cheap cameras, vases, belt buckles, and all manner of objects that Charlie had judged worthy of interest, but obviously not worthy of a smash-and-grab. The guy looked tall, and not homeless, nicely dressed, but all in a single light color, she thought it might be yellow, but it was hard to tell under the streetlights. Could be light green. â€Å"We're closed,† Jane said, loud enough to be heard through the glass. The man outside peered around the shop, but couldn't spot her. He stepped back from the window and she could see that he was, indeed, tall. Very tall. The streetlight caught the line of his cheek as he turned. He was also very thin and very black. â€Å"I was looking for the owner,† the tall man said. â€Å"I have something I need to show him.† â€Å"There's been a death in the family,† Jane said. â€Å"We'll be closed for the week. Can you come back in a week?† The tall man nodded, looking up and down the street as he did. He rocked on one foot like he was about to bolt, but kept stopping himself, like a sprinter straining against the starting blocks. Jane didn't move. There were always people out on the street, and it wasn't even late yet, but this guy was too anxious for the situation. â€Å"Look, if you need to get something appraised – â€Å" â€Å"No,† he cut her off. â€Å"No. Just tell him she's, no – tell him to look for a package in the mail. I'm not sure when.† Jane smiled to herself. This guy had something – a brooch, a coin, a book – something that he thought was worth some money, maybe something he'd found in his grandmother's closet. She'd seen it a dozen times. They acted like they've found the lost city of Eldorado – they'd come in with it tucked in their coats, or wrapped in a thousand layers of tissue paper and tape. (The more tape, generally, the more worthless the item would turn out to be – there was an equation there somewhere.) Nine times out of ten it was crap. She'd watched her father try to finesse their ego and gently lower the owners into disappointment, convince them that the sentimental value made it priceless, and that he, a lowly secondhand-store owner, couldn't presume to put a value on it. Charlie, on the other hand, would just tell them that he didn't know about brooches, or coins, or whatever they had and let someone else bear the bad news. â€Å"Okay, I'll tell him,† Jane said from her cover behind the coats. With that, the tall man was away, taking great praying-mantis strides up the street and out of view. Jane shrugged, went back and turned on the lights, then proceeded to search for cushions among the piles. It was a big store, taking up nearly the whole bottom floor of the building, and not particularly well organized, as each system that Charlie adopted seemed to collapse after a few weeks under its own weight, and the result was not so much a patchwork of organizational systems, but a garden of mismatched piles. Lily, the maroon-haired Goth girl who worked for Charlie three afternoons a week, said that the fact that they ever found anything at all was proof of the chaos theory at work, then she would walk away muttering and go out in the alley to smoke clove cigarettes and stare into the Abyss. (Although Charlie noted that the Abyss looked an awful lot like a Dumpster.) It took Jane ten minutes to navigate the aisles and find three cushions that looked wide enough and thick enough that they might work for sitting shivah, and when she returned to Charlie's apartment she found her brother curled into the fetal position around baby Sophie, asleep on the kitchen floor. The other mourners had completely forgotten about him. â€Å"Hey, doofus.† She nudged his shoulder with her toe and he rolled onto his back, the baby still in his arms. â€Å"These okay?† â€Å"Did you see anything glowing?† Jane dropped the stack of cushions on the floor. â€Å"What?† â€Å"Glowing red. Did you see things in the shop glowing, like pulsating red?† â€Å"No. Did you?† â€Å"Kind of.† â€Å"Give 'em up.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"The drugs. Hand them over. They're obviously much better than you led me to believe.† â€Å"But you said they were just antianxiety.† â€Å"Give up the drugs. I'll watch the kid while you shivah.† â€Å"You can't watch my daughter if you're on drugs.† â€Å"Fine. Surrender the crumb snatcher and go sit.† Charlie handed the baby up to Jane. â€Å"You have to keep Mom out of the way, too.† â€Å"Oh no, not without drugs.† â€Å"They're in the medicine cabinet in the master bath. Bottom shelf.† He was sitting on the floor now, rubbing his forehead as if to stretch the skin out over his pain. She kneed him in the shoulder. â€Å"Hey, kid, I'm sorry, you know that, right? Goes without saying, right?† â€Å"Yeah.† A weak smile. She held the baby up by her face, then looked down in adoration, Mother of Jesus style. â€Å"What do you think? I should get one of these, huh?† â€Å"You can borrow mine whenever you need to.† â€Å"Nah, I should get my own. I already feel bad about borrowing your wife.† â€Å"Jane!† â€Å"Kidding! Jeez. You're such a wuss sometimes. Go sit shivah. Go. Go. Go.† Charlie gathered the cushions and went to the living room to grieve with his in-laws, nervous because the only prayer he knew was â€Å"Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,† and he wasn't sure that was going to cut it for three full days. Jane forgot to mention the tall guy from the shop.

Free Essays on Nursing Acceptance Essay

As a potential nursing student, I will strive to be a tremendous asset to Lehigh Carbon Community College by devoting all my time and life to becoming an excellent nurse. I believe that I am obligated to use my talents in a constructive manner, in a manner that benefits society. The medical career gives me the unique opportunity to express my many talents while benefiting human life. I believe that my ability to communicate makes me well suited to pursue a nursing career. While I possess the strong science background necessary for success in the profession, I also consider myself a â€Å" people† person. As a waitress and a CNA, I dramatically improved and expanded my communication skills since I was constantly meeting new people and discussing different topics. Because people constantly disclosed their personal issues to me as a CNA, I learned to become not only a good conversationalist, but also an excellent listener. Highly motivated to succeed, I dramatically improved my grades following a time of confusion and turmoil, which was brought on due to a car accident in the fall of 2001. Once I realized what goal I wanted to pursue in life, I worked hard to succeed, and this last semester of schooling is truly indicative of my intellectual capacity and motivation for success. My strength as a candidate to Lehigh Carbon Community College’s Nursing Program lies mostly in the objectives that I plan to fulfill upon becoming a nurse. They are, in no particular order of importance, as follows: 1) To provide excellence in comprehensive care by using my acquired skills as both a competent professional and also as a compassionate human being. 2) To cultivate my leadership role both in the community of my practice and in the nation to formulate and maintain health care principles and advancements. 3) To imply the latest knowledge and techniques in detection and prevention of disease, and the restoration of health. 4) To s... Free Essays on Nursing Acceptance Essay Free Essays on Nursing Acceptance Essay As a potential nursing student, I will strive to be a tremendous asset to Lehigh Carbon Community College by devoting all my time and life to becoming an excellent nurse. I believe that I am obligated to use my talents in a constructive manner, in a manner that benefits society. The medical career gives me the unique opportunity to express my many talents while benefiting human life. I believe that my ability to communicate makes me well suited to pursue a nursing career. While I possess the strong science background necessary for success in the profession, I also consider myself a â€Å" people† person. As a waitress and a CNA, I dramatically improved and expanded my communication skills since I was constantly meeting new people and discussing different topics. Because people constantly disclosed their personal issues to me as a CNA, I learned to become not only a good conversationalist, but also an excellent listener. Highly motivated to succeed, I dramatically improved my grades following a time of confusion and turmoil, which was brought on due to a car accident in the fall of 2001. Once I realized what goal I wanted to pursue in life, I worked hard to succeed, and this last semester of schooling is truly indicative of my intellectual capacity and motivation for success. My strength as a candidate to Lehigh Carbon Community College’s Nursing Program lies mostly in the objectives that I plan to fulfill upon becoming a nurse. They are, in no particular order of importance, as follows: 1) To provide excellence in comprehensive care by using my acquired skills as both a competent professional and also as a compassionate human being. 2) To cultivate my leadership role both in the community of my practice and in the nation to formulate and maintain health care principles and advancements. 3) To imply the latest knowledge and techniques in detection and prevention of disease, and the restoration of health. 4) To s...