Pam A Stavropoulos

There are a number of terms that people use when they talk about gender. Many of these, such as ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’, seem self-evident and we tend to think that such terms have always existed. It’s often surprising to discover that many of the terms we take for granted are relatively new, coined only in the nineteenth century. Somehow their Greek etymology (heterosexual using the Greek heteros meaning ‘other, different’; homosexual using the Greek homos meaning ‘same as’) makes them seem much older. In this chapter, we explore many of the terms which recur in our discussions of gender and sexuality, to discover what their actual history is and how this history reflects and shapes attitudes and values. We also begin to look at how subjectivity is formed, and provide some of the initial terms that you will need to navigate through the complex terrain of the various hypotheses on what processes govern the formation of the self. To think about gender is to think about the self, or the subject, in formation. Let us start with the most obvious term: gender.

In constructively responding to our Viewpoint paper on institutional abuse and societal silence, Haliburn (2014) articulates several core challenges for psychiatry. These are that the mental health consequences of early trauma are too compelling to ignore, that societal silence has a strong tendency to be pervasive, and that we thus have to avoid passively opting for silence if we are to be part of the solution rather than an extension of the problem. It is useful to reflect on the nature of this silence. Its mechanisms are age-old. Generally speaking, the more hierarchical and the more male-dominated societies are, the fewer the rights of women and children, and the less interest there is in holding accountable those who exploit and abuse them. From the late nineteenth century onwards, there have been patchy attempts to shine light on outwardly respectable individuals and institutions grievously abusing children and aggressively silencing those who tried to speak an inconvenient tr...

Depression is now recognized as a major and growing public health problem. But this paper argues that the increased publicity accorded the phenomenon of depression actually masks the social and political challenges depression poses. The norms of `mental health' are not neutral. Rather, they remain predicated on an individualist conception which is exclusionary of large numbers of people and groups. The paper argues that while not separable from the dynamics of class, age and ethnicity, the lens of gender is crucial to the urgent task of revisioning subjectivity along more inclusive - and more relational - lines. Depression is now regarded as a major public health problem which is wide- ranging in its effects. In contrast to as recently as five years ago, depression is now widely acknowledged. Establishment of national depression institutes (such as Beyondblue in Victoria) is testament to this. The publicity which now surrounds the topic of depression suggests that the long silen...

Controversy exists regarding the merits of exposure-based treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) versus a phased approach when prominent dissociative symptoms are present. The first aim of this study was to examine the degree to which diagnosing dissociation in two traumatized patients' vignettes influenced clinicians' preference for phase-oriented treatment and whether clinicians' treatment experience contributed to their treatment preference. The second aim was to assess the extent to which participants had observed traumatized patients worsen when treated with exposure therapy or phase-oriented therapy and whether the theoretical orientation and treatment experience of the clinician were related to the observed deterioration. In the tradition of expert and practitioner surveys, 263 clinicians completed a survey of their diagnoses and treatment preferences for two vignettes and their treatment experience, theoretical orientation, and observations of patien...

ABSTRACT This article discusses conservative intellectual attitudes to feminism, with reference to the journal Quadrant. It is argued that a conspicuous failure to seriously address the issues raised by feminist writers is both short‐sighted and self‐defeating, since such issues are not as compartmentalized as Australian conservative intellectuals appear to think. Contrasting attitudes to feminism are explored with reference to the respective approaches of conservative writers, John Carroll and Ronald Conway. While this comparison reveals that it is possible for conservatism and feminism to co‐exist, it is shown that Conway is almost alone among Quadrant intellectuals in appreciating this.

In Joan Rydon's Research Note—'Electoral Inequalities in the 1990 Federal Elections'—published in the last issue (28 (1): 142-45), Table 1 at p. 144 was incorrectly labelled during editing as presenting figures in percentages, rather than in thousands. The corrected table and the immediately preceding narrative are presented below:

Depression is now recognized as a major and growing public health problem. But this paper argues that the increased publicity accorded the phenomenon of depression actually masks the social and political challenges depression poses. The norms of `mental health' are not neutral. Rather, they remain predicated on an individualist conception which is exclusionary of large numbers of people and groups. The paper argues that while not separable from the dynamics of class, age and ethnicity, the lens of gender is crucial to the urgent task of revisioning subjectivity along more inclusive - and more relational - lines. Depression is now regarded as a major public health problem which is wide- ranging in its effects. In contrast to as recently as five years ago, depression is now widely acknowledged. Establishment of national depression institutes (such as Beyondblue in Victoria) is testament to this. The publicity which now surrounds the topic of depression suggests that the long silen...

ABSTRACT This article discusses conservative intellectual attitudes to feminism, with reference to the journal Quadrant. It is argued that a conspicuous failure to seriously address the issues raised by feminist writers is both short‐sighted and self‐defeating, since such issues are not as compartmentalized as Australian conservative intellectuals appear to think. Contrasting attitudes to feminism are explored with reference to the respective approaches of conservative writers, John Carroll and Ronald Conway. While this comparison reveals that it is possible for conservatism and feminism to co‐exist, it is shown that Conway is almost alone among Quadrant intellectuals in appreciating this.