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The purpose of this article is to address the psychic tension that arises between theological conviction and personal striving. In particular, it addresses the tension between the author's possessing both a Lutheran theology of grace and an opposing personal striving toward self-justification, signified in a fitness regimen. Drawing upon William James' (1902/2012) and his concept of the conservative nature of conversion in his Varieties of Religious Experience, the author "experiments" with this urge to self-justify, particularly through fitness as a form of playing, in which he generates new religious ways of being in the process of self-reconciliation. Ultimately, such playing involves experimenting within the tension between "forbidden" impulses and religious ideals. Playing, then, can be particularly of service to men, who often struggle to be their own saviors while desiring a salvation derived from without. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay draws on the psychodynamic theory of D.W. Winnicott to argue for eight interrelated reasons informing the playing of men. Through playing, men seek to reestablish a holding environment; (re) discover their bodies; dabble with non-pathological insanity or madness; support their true self; experience transformation and enter transitional spaces; toy with destruction; seek healing from physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual wounds; they play to experience ego orgasms; and, men play for play's own sake. The author's own playing, in the form of long-distance motorcycling provides a backdrop of lived experience for the essay. The article mirrors Winnicott's methodology, which resisted grand theory making as it focuses on specific psychodynamic insights and themes. Winnicott's thought is used to extend William Blake's wisdom around toys and reasons, wisdom Erik Erikson explored previously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses Bernard Stiegler's critique of infantilization. Contemporary education—and society in general—would no longer develop children into adults, but would keep them in their childish state. Stiegler's critique is explicitly inspired by Enlightenment ideals, characterized by a positive notion of maturity and a negative notion of childhood and immaturity. Infantilization is for Stiegler therefore immediately a negative development. However, Stiegler's works also contain a positive understanding of childhood and of the extension of childish characteristics into adulthood. The main thesis of this article is that this results in an unresolved tension in Stiegler's work. I therefore propose a notion of infantilization not as solely negative, but as fundamentally ambivalent and risky. The continuation of childhood into maturity is necessary for the life of the mind, yet it can also foreclose maturity altogether. I use this new notion of infantilization to correct some of Stiegler's radically conservative views on education and on the care for the new generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Aim: Despite many advances in paediatric dentistry, the greatest challenge for any paediatric dentist is to remove the anxiety related to a dental visit and have a child patient to accept dental treatment readily. Minor changes made in the waiting room design can have a major effect on the way any child perceives the upcoming dental experience. This study was carried out to determine children's preferences regarding the dental waiting area so as to improve their waiting experience and reduce their preoperative anxiety before a dental appointment. Study design: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study using survey methodology. Methods: A questionnaire designed to evaluate children's preferences regarding the waiting room was distributed to new paediatric patients, aged between 6 and 11 years of age, attending an outpatient dental facility and was completed by 212 children (127 males, 85 females). Statistics: The analyses were carried out on cross-tables using Phi (for 2 × 2 tables) or Cramer's V (for larger than 2 × 2 tables) to assess responses to the questionnaire items across age groups and gender. Results: A majority of children preferred music and the ability to play in a waiting room. They also preferred natural light and walls with pictures. They preferred looking at an aquarium or a television and sitting on beanbags and chairs and also preferred plants and oral hygiene posters Repetious. Conclusions: The results obtained from this study may help the dental team decide on an appropriate design of their paediatric waiting room so as to make children comfortable in the dental environment and improve delivery of health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donald Capps’s (Capps , , , ) male melancholia theory has been of interest to me during the past few years (Carlin , , ), and Capps (, , ) himself has been publishing more on the topic. In his psychobiographical book on Jesus, Capps () notes that psychologists of religion have been reluctant to psychoanalyze Jesus, and here I note that even fewer have been willing to diagnose God, one recent exception being J. Harold Ellens (). In this article, I explore the melancholia issue further, this time applying the theory to God by means of theological concepts that deal with the Trinity and the passion of God. And while this article is playful (Pruyser ; cf. Dykstra ), the upshot is more serious: If men are incurably religious and melancholic, as Capps argues, and if men, by and large, are the creators of religion, wouldn’t one expect to find traces of this melancholy in religion, particularly in its sacred texts and doctrines? By identifying these tendencies in religion, especially in God, the pastoral psychologist, I believe, is helping contemporary Christian men—especially fathers and sons—recognize their own melancholy selves and, perhaps, helping them get along a little better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce the design and development of the Learning Cube as a novel tangible learning appliance. Using the common shape of a cube we implemented a general learning platform that supports test based quizzes where questions and answers can be text or image based. Exploiting the physical affordances of the cube and augmenting it with embedded sensors and LCD displays placed on each face, we present different learning appliances as playful learning interfaces for children. Based on the initial observations of the experience with children, we argue that breaking conventions about how a computer has to look like, and providing children with a playful interface is a promising approach to embed and integrate technology into children’s everyday context and activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]