First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This chapter directs attention to calls to integrate compassion training in curricula throughout the education system. Following a review of current Higher Education aims and objectives, and the potential psychological impacts that these can have on staff and students, we outline a case for compassion based initiatives in education. We discuss the nature and functions of compassion, as well as how compassion can heighten prosocial competencies. We then consider how compassion based approaches can be - and have been - implemented (...) in education settings, including HE, to promote the health and well-being of staff and students, as well as academic performance. We argue that elements of compassion should underpin the training of lecturers, as well as students, if UK institutes of learning truly embrace the various core values they advertise. (shrink)

The authors discuss some of the conceptual issues that must be considered in using and understanding psychiatric classification. DSM-IV is a practical and common sense nosology of psychiatric disorders that is intended to improve communication in clinical practice and in research studies. DSM-IV has no philosophic pretensions but does raise many philosphical questions. This paper describes the development of DSM-IV and the way in which it addresses a number of philosophic issues: nominalism vs. realism, epistemology in science, the mind/body dichotomy, (...) the definition of mental disorders, and dimensional vs. categorical classification. (shrink)

Recent research has demonstrated the importance of positive emotions, and especially compassion, for well-being. Via two investigations, we set out to determine if facial expressions of happiness,...

Teaching competency in bioethics has been a concern of the field since its start. In 1976, The Hastings Center published the first report on the teaching of contemporary bioethics. Graduate programs culminating in an MA or PhD were not needed at the time, concluded the report. “In the future, however,” the report speculated, “the development and/or changing social priorities may at some point allow, or even require, the creation of new academic structures for graduate education in bioethics.” Although that future (...) might be upon us, the creation of a terminal degree in bioethics has its detractors. Scholars have debated whether bioethics is a discipline with its own methods and theoretical grounding, a multidisciplinary field bringing various professional perspectives to bear on particular types of problems, a set of problem-solving skills to resolve moral disagreements, or something else entirely. Whether or not efforts to develop the methods and theory of bioethics have matured to the point that it is now a discipline in the strictest sense, new bioethics training programs have appeared at all postsecondary levels. In this essay, we examine the number and types of U.S. programs and degrees in this growing field. (shrink)