Imaginative Interventions Research Articles

Books as Memorials: The Politics of Consolation

My starting point is the curious fact that our knowledge of the poetry written during the I630s, in the reign of Charles I, comes largely from a series of books published in the I64os and I650s after that reign had ended, as conscious memorials and acts of homage to the dead. Defeat can have two contrasting effects, to expunge or to drench in falsifying retrospective sentiment: Auden, in lines which gain additional irony from the author's unsuccessful attempts to disown them, claims that 'History to the defeated I May say Alas but can never help or pardon'.' My own thoroughly nonrevisionist view is that history can say a great deal more than this, depending on what questions we ask it. The works discussed in this essay all actively seek to give a pattern to history, and in doing so both defy time and serve its sovereign power, in conscious acts of imaginative intervention. The curious belatedness of these twice-born poems enacts a process by which the 'flying minute', rapidly slipping out of sight, is transmuted into a made object, a testament.2

An Ecological Approach to Study of the Family

An ecological approach for examination of the interdependnece of family and its interacting environments is presented. Attention is given to the function the family plays as an energy transformation system, with particular emphasis on its role in the production of human capital through the building of family and individual competences. These competences are essential for families and individuals to cope with crises and problems on many levels: individual, family, community and societal. Use of an ecological approach can enhance the understanding of the relationship of behavior to environmental conditions and the effects on families of the institutions and the organizations with which they interact. This approach can also provide a framework for design and implementation of imaginative intervention programs and support systems based on knowledge of family/environment interaction.

Games and Language Activities in the Italian High School Classroom

ABSTRACT The author suggests that available Italian textbooks can be improved through the imaginative intervention on the part of the teacher. Games which will recall and / or expand the vocabulary of a given lesson and activities which will promote and encourage language interaction should constitute an integral part of the basic program. To help students recall and expand basic vocabulary, the teacher should make use of word puzzles, mazes, and word‐search puzzles. To encourage interaction, there are mathematical and detective puzzles, legal cases, dialogues, as well as picturesque speech. A unit on Italian geography shows how different types of games will help the student to become better acquainted with Italy. Although the article is based on Basic Italian by Speroni and Golino, the exercises can be adapted to any other Italian text, and the ideas to any other language.

Imaginative play training and perceptual-motor interventions with emotionally-disturbed hospitalized children.

This study evaluates fantasy play training and perceptual-motor intervention methods which temporarily increased the imaginative behavior of severely emotionally-disturbed, hospitalized children. Increases in imaginative behavior were accompanied by positive changes in body image and by affective and social gains. Implications for further development and implementation of these methods are discussed.