The Summary of Debi Gerger’s Article

The article of Debi Gerger (2008), RDH, MPH, entitled ‘Xylitol several times a day†¦ may help keep caries away! ’ states that xylitol which is commercially available as a noncariogenic sugar substitute has the potential to reduce caries rates by preventing Mutans Streptococci growth. Gerger also mentions that to perform a caries risk assessment, pathological, risk factors and protective factors of caries must be first determined. After determining such factors, the next procedure would be determining the patient’s caries risk level.There are two approaches to determine risk levels including the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry’s Carries-Risk Assessment Tool (CAT) and the Caries Management by Risk Assessment (CAMBRA). According to Gerger’s article, managing dental carries include at-home and in-office recommendations. The at-home recommendations include daily oral hygiene with fluoride-containing toothpaste, mouth rinsing, drinking water, antibacterials and Xylitol-containing products.The in-office recommendations include dental procedures done by dental hygienists and dentist. In addition, Gerger’s article also mentioned that 25% of American children aged 2 to 5, and half of 12% of the ages 12 to 15 have tooth decay. He also mentions that tooth decay is highly infectious at any age bracket. Gerger states that Caries management with the use of xylitol decreases the amount of MS and raises the salivary pH level because MS is unable to metabolize xylitol and xylitol inhibits the attachment of MS to teeth.It is also said that xylitol is effective in preventing the transmission of the Mutans Streptococci frome parent to child (2008). Xylitol has been used since the early 1960s through infusion therapy and diabetic foods. It is a five-carbon sugar alcohol derived from forest and agricultural materials. Finnish researches are the first one to recognize its dental health benefits. Xylitol is commercially available in many forms which have different xylitol doses.For this reason, the patient is advised to check the xylitol content of a product to determine the needed dose to be taken (Gerger, 2008). Gerger argues that xylitol is a major addition to the treatment of caries. She proposes that considering the caries balance concept is vital to determine the appropriate recommendations. She also asserts that the prevention of the caries will be obtained by providing proper education by clinicians to their patients and producing xylitol-containing products.

Sg Cowen

9-402-028 REV: JANUARY 19, 2006 THOMAS DELONG VINEETA VIJAYARAGHAVAN SG Cowen: New Recruits We are who we recruit. — SG Cowen professional Chip Rae, director of recruiting at SG Cowen, looked out the conference room window at the falling flakes and wondered how fast the snow was accumulating. Most of the firm’s bankers had come in from Connecticut or Westchester to participate in the Super Saturday recruiting event, and he knew they were anxious to get home before the weather deteriorated and made travel dangerous. The interviews had finished at noon, and the candidates from various graduate schools had left for their flights right away.Now, the bankers were eating lunch, discussing interview results and making decisions. They were sitting in â€Å"Giants Stadium,† the bank’s largest conference room, and Rae had set the tables up in a U-shape so that he could stand in the front and still communicate with all 30 bankers. He posted placards with all the cand idate names on the bulletin board and moved them around as they came up for discussion. The hiring meeting had moved rapidly through a number of candidates. The decision makers had agreed on candidates who were firm â€Å"yeses† and some other clear â€Å"nos. † Now was the tricky part: there were four candidates still left.Each person had some strong support among their interviewers but had also raised some questions. To reach the ideal class size after factoring in expected yield, Rae wanted to give out only two more offers. Investment Banking Industry in 2001 Consolidation in the investment banking industry was widespread, as major firms bought small banks, bought retail brokers, and considered partnering with commercial banks. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and equities remained the highest-margin businesses but also very volatile, as deal volume and initial public offering (IPO) issuances could dry up very quickly in a downturn.In a down market, fixed incomeâ€⠄¢s more stable revenue stream was especially welcome. Integrated banking groups such as Citigroup or JP Morgan Chase were sometimes able to win investment banking business away from the traditional bulge-bracket firms because of their ability to offer loans and other commercial banking capabilities. Some strategists believed the lending business was the ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor Thomas DeLong and Research Associate Vineeta Vijayaraghavan prepared this case.HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright  © 2002 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www. hbsp. harvard. edu.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits wave of the future, while others targeted the custody business. The custody business, which involved holding and processing the buying and selling of securities for investors, was a low-risk fee-based business that was considered mundane but offered regular opportunities for interaction and service to potential clients.Several investment banks reported declining profits, and some laid off staff to cut costs. The biggest expense on Wall Street was compensation costs, averaging 50% of revenue. 1 In the prosperous years on Wall Street in the late 1990s, some firms had salary and bonus costs upwards of 60%, since firms signed multiyear contracts promising fixed bonus payouts to keep tale nt and also signed separate profit-sharing agreements with individual business groups to prevent them from spinning out on their own.Investment banks were also under increased scrutiny from regulators and the public, who were concerned about conflict of interest. Many new equity issues, especially in technology, had been supported by research analysts, particularly at the firms that had executed the IPOs. This loyalty to the banking clients came at the expense of the investors who followed analyst recommendations and bought stock in companies that often continued to decline. Firms were now developing better guidelines for keeping research teams independent from bankers and their clients.Investment banks fought for talent with firms in venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, consulting, and, for the last few years, tech companies. Banks were reassured to see students return to the fold, as they exhibited much more interest in established brand-name companies for secure jobs. Ho wever, the interest level had gone from one extreme to the other. Where banks had once feared they were only seeing second-tier candidates, now they had recruiting yields much higher than expected and struggled with how to handle all the new recruits as business slowed down.SG Cowen SG Cowen was born when Societe Generale purchased Cowen and Company in July 1998. Societe Generale was an international bank based in France, founded in 1864, nationalized in 1945, and privatized in 1987. By 2000, it was one of the world’s largest banks, with assets of over $430 billion as of December 2000. Like many European banks, it wanted a foothold in investment banking in the United States. Many of these banks had tried to create a beachhead in the U. S. but had not succeeded.Societe Generale had flirted with buying one of the CHARM banks for the past five years and decided Cowen was the best match culturally. 2 By 2000, Societe Generale’s $600 million purchase of Cowen had started to pay off: SG Cowen went from an operating loss of $75 million in 1999 to an operating profit of $34 million the following year. Cowen began business as a bond brokerage house in 1918 and grew into a firm known for top-tier research and strong equity sales and trading capabilities. It was now also focused on building up its investment banking and M&A advisory services.The new entity SG Cowen, numbering 1,500 professionals, planned to remain a boutique-sized firm but had access to the parent firm’s balance sheet. SG Cowen’s investment bankers focused on emerging growth companies in two volatile but highly profitable areas, health care and technology. This focused approach to banking depended on deep knowledge collected through its equity research team, highly regarded for its coverage of both 1 The Economist, August 4, 2001. 2 CHARM banks was the Wall Street nickname for this set of boutique banks: Cowen, Hambrecht & Quist, Alex Brown,Robertson Stephens, and Montgomery S ecurities. 2 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 health care and technology. Kim Fennebresque, president and CEO of SG Cowen, often described research as the â€Å"edge of a wedge† that created inroads with new clients. The firm had strong roots in Boston but had now opened several other offices, as far apart as San Francisco, Dallas, and London. This raised concerns about making sure employees in smaller offices were not isolated and also that they had full knowledge of and access to the resources of the global firm.As the firm grew, there were concerns that groups should make sure there were frequent interactions and that people should know about one another’s deals and proposals and make sure they coordinated their client activity. Fennebresque believed that SG Cowen should continue to grow geographically but stay industry focused: â€Å"We will, under all circumstances, remain an emerging growth investment bank. Our geographical reach will extend to Europe, Asia, and o ther parts of the world, but we will not stray from that focused sectoral agenda.We have in our midst, and will continue to attract, the highest-quality professionals who believe in that business model. † The Hiring Process Like most firms on Wall Street, SG Cowen made hiring decisions in the early winter and spring of each year to fill a new class of associates who would begin that summer. Some associates had previously been employed by SG Cowen as analysts and were promoted to first-year associate at the end of their third year with the firm without going to business school. Other associates started out as interns in the summer between their first and second year of business school and subsequently were offered full-time employment at the end of their internship commencing the following summer. The hiring process for new outside associate hires began in the fall, when SG Cowen would make company presentations at its â€Å"core business schools,† where it participated in the on-campus recruiting programs. These schools were NYU, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Emory, USC, Washington University, Notre Dame, and Berkeley.SG Cowen would also accept resumes from students at noncore schools, where it was not participating in the on-campus program. Often SG Cowen professionals would conduct â€Å"informational interviews† with students in the office in advance of official first-round interviews. These interviews, which were not part of the formal process, were a chance for SG Cowen to gauge how serious and enthusiastic the candidates were and a chance for candidates to learn more about the firm and the industry before the interview in which they would be actually evaluated.Rae assigned team captains to every school at which SG Cowen recruited on campus so that students had a constant and familiar point of contact. Ideally, these team captains were banking professionals and not human resource professionals, and as often as possible, Rae would try to match up alumni with their own school. Gregg Schoenberg was team captain at the Johnson School of Business at Cornell, the school that currently provided SG Cowen’s highest recruiting yield. Schoenberg had joined the firm in August 1998 and now worked in the Equity Capital Markets Group.He became actively involved in recruiting at Cornell upon joining for two reasons. First was that he believed SG Cowen would benefit from the high quality of candidates at Cornell. Second was that he wanted to make it easier for Cornell grads to obtain investment banking positions on Wall Street. Schoenberg averred: In the bull market years, the Goldman’s of the world would back up the recruiting truck to places like Harvard and invite slews of students to climb aboard.It was tougher for us because 3 Analysts were recruited from Babson, Colby, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ya le. 3 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits we didn’t have the alumni base in New York. We came down here on our own nickel and really pounded the pavement. But you can turn a negative into a positive. Because Cornell students who do want to do banking have to show more initiative and be more focused, generally this makes them great hires.When Schoenberg had been hired, Cornell was not a core school, and Schoenberg described SG Cowen at the time as â€Å"so-so receptive† to people from noncore schools, mostly because the lack of an on-campus round made for disproportionate hassles to pin bankers down to do interviews and set up individual interview times in the middle of a regular workday. Coming from a nontraditional background in politics, Schoenberg felt SG Cowen’s interest in him really gained momentum once they knew he had been called back for second rounds at Lazard Freres.When Schoenberg recruited for SG Cowen, he said he always told candidates, â€Å"It doesnà ¢â‚¬â„¢t matter what you did before, what matters is that you have demonstrated a pattern of success. † But he also said candidates had to be realistic about their â€Å"fit,† as he himself was. â€Å"I couldn’t outmodel a former Morgan Stanley analyst,† he said. He moved to Equity Capital Markets from M&A within his first few months because â€Å"it played to my interests in the markets and my personality. † People need to be fast learners, he said, because â€Å"Wall Street doesn’t have the patience to allow someone to develop slowly. Rae’s Strategy Schoenberg’s advocacy for making Cornell a core school converged perfectly with Rae’s new strategy for choosing core business schools. â€Å"We used to go to the top 10,† Rae said, â€Å"but at some of the top schools we were getting people in the middle of the class. † Paying more attention to the next 15 schools in the top 25 was Rae’s new strategy. R ae, who graduated from Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, had originally been a banker himself at JP Morgan before moving into recruiting positions there and at Merrill, Smith Barney, and then SG Cowen.His previous employers were giants on the top 10 campuses, with huge recruiting budgets, recognized brand names, and, most importantly, much larger hiring needs, which meant that they received immediate student interest. At schools such as Emory and USC, SG Cowen could be a relatively bigger player and attract more attention from the best students. There was resistance initially from senior management, as this was viewed as going downstream. But Rae said, â€Å"Senior managers eventually saw the wisdom. We were hiring at the top of the class, and these students also tended to be more loyal.We were not missing much by not going to the top schools. † At each of the core schools, Rae scheduled a company presentation in advance of the interview dates. At the presentation, R ae guided the team captains to make sure they answered four questions quickly: who are we, what do we do, what distinguishes us from competitors, and what are the next steps. SG Cowen promoted the advantages of a boutique firm, arguing that there was less bureaucracy than at larger banks, that people could move much faster in their careers than at other banks, where they would be hired and promoted lockstep as part of a large class.Team captains talked about the advantages of small deal teams, which allowed for more exposure to clients, more responsibilities, and more entrepreneurship. Rae encouraged team captains to make a very short formal presentation and then allow a substantial amount of time to informally talk and answer questions. At schools like NYU, SG Cowen would be represented by an MD, who made the presentation, and then perhaps 20 alumni who could then have fairly substantial interaction with the expected 100 students who would show up.Some team captains like Schoenberg would tell students they could call him or come and see him (at their own expense) for informational interviews. This would help self-select students who really wanted to be prepared for first-round interviews by knowing more about the firm and also establishing a 4 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 relationship with him. However, he admitted there was a fine line between helping students who were self-starters and giving them unfair advantage in the process. Some team captains put in a lot of time and effort, while some put in less.SG Cowen did not directly compensate or reward bankers for being involved in recruiting activities, but recruiting was included on the performance reviews leading to year-end bonuses. On-Campus Round At every core school, SG Cowen had two or three schedules comprising at least one open one, whereby students signed up based on interest, and the rest closed, whereby SG Cowen selected among previously submitted resumes. Rae said, â€Å"In the past, I’ ve found as many good people on the open as the closed list. † In the first rounds, interviewers tried to focus on which of these candidates could make it through Super Saturday.Schoenberg said, â€Å"When I go up to interview, I’m tough on candidates because I don’t want to embarrass myself later on by endorsing weak candidates. † Interviewers knew they would be held liable for the quality of candidates they brought back for Super Saturday, and their own reputation was diminished if they wasted the time of senior bankers at the firm interviewing candidates at Super Saturday who were clearly not appropriate. At the same time, Schoenberg said, â€Å"When I see people who are prepared and have the eagerness, I fight very hard for them. †While some bankers were especially tough, others were especially easy and wanted to be generous in their assessments of all the candidates. Rae said, â€Å"This is where you see the beauty of writing comments down. â €  At the end of a day of first-round interviews, the two or three people who had been interviewing would discuss whom they had seen. Rae tried to make detailed notes on resumes or on the evaluation sheets he had created, and he encouraged the bankers to do the same so they could recollect specific details about each candidate (see Exhibit 1 for a sample of Rae’s notes from past interviews).Most often there were two schedules, which would amount to 24 candidates. They would then try to narrow the list to six candidates and quickly have a second round, even that same night, on campus in order to cut half and invite the other half to Super Saturday. Rae said the firm usually wanted associates or senior associates to conduct first-round interviews: â€Å"We’re not aggressive about sending our most senior people out; we want to downstream the identification of talent and upstream the responsibility of closing on offers to senior people. Rae felt that often the senior-m ost people were removed from day-to-day concerns and tended not to be as demanding about the basic skills an associate needed, whereas those just a few years ahead of a firstyear associate would be much more rigorous about assessing skills. He made sure senior bankers would be at Super Saturday, however, to judge whether potential associates also had the makings of a good long-term banker. In Rae’s view, long-term success did not come from building models, it came from loving the work, loving to teach and sell, and loving the hunt.The successful bankers had to feel the excitement of serving clients and the excitement of competing at the highest level. In this first round, he also instructed interviewers to test for culture fit. This could be as simple as asking someone whose work and education experience was entirely in the Midwest, â€Å"Are you comfortable living and working in New York? † Rae said, â€Å"Sometimes they might be a diamond in the rough and they can m ake the transition, but cultural fit is important. † Other bankers at SG Cowen agreed. One banker, Ryan Daws, pointed out, â€Å"It’s mportant having Chip in the process because there are only so many personality types in the world, and he’s seen a lot more than we have. † Daws said, â€Å"HR at every bank has to earn credibility with bankers, but when you have someone like Chip who used to be a banker, it makes it easier. † He also said, â€Å"Certain types 5 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits fail to succeed once they get here, which colors the interviewing process. † For Daws, alarm signals went off when people did not dress appropriately, or when they asked questions like, â€Å"Are the hours really as bad as they say? He acknowledged there was some ego involved on the interviewing side. â€Å"No one’s ever as good as I thought I was,† he joked. Super Saturday Super Saturday in fact began on Friday afternoon, when candidates ar rived from their various schools and convened with many of the interviewers for dinner and cocktails in the wine cellar of an elegant midtown restaurant. Fennebresque spoke at dinner, and, because he was a great speaker and because it was rare to get the attention of a CEO during recruiting, candidates were usually visibly impressed.On Saturday morning, interviews began at nine, and each interviewer and each candidate had five half-hour sessions with short breaks. Rae tried to keep these interviews moving and spent a lot of time gently tapping and then firmly knocking on bankers’ doors when they lost track of time. Super Saturday was exhausting for the interviewers as well as the interviewees, and Rae wanted to make sure the bankers saved some energy for the collective decision making. Thirty candidates had attended, which meant Rae had commandeered 30 bankers to come to Super Saturday.Rae said, â€Å"They’re giving up a Saturday, and they want to get out of here as f ast as they can. But they get to make the decisions, and that brings them in here every year. † Rae estimated from previous years that he should make 20 offers if his target was 15 acceptances. There were already eight hires from the summer associate program, and seven third-year analysts were being promoted, so this would achieve his objective of a full associate class of 30. Successful candidates received offers to join investment banking.Those who accepted returned for an orientation in April to meet with the banking groups that interested them most. By the time the training program started, each new associate was assigned to a group. The hiring meeting started as the bankers ate their lunch. The bankers usually felt very confident that they could whip through the list of candidates quickly, as they often assumed that others would have shared their view on the interviews they conducted. Bankers were always surprised at these meetings to find out how strong the disagreement could be.One managing director might be turned off by a candidate for â€Å"being too salesy, I thought he was trying to snow me,† and that same candidate could have appealed to another director for having â€Å"great attitude, eager to contribute. † Rae had to figure out how to let everyone weigh in and then build consensus around a decision. Building a Culture through Hiring Rae said, â€Å"I try to get people to act and behave like a firm. † He wanted to make sure bankers were not overly partial to candidates from their own alma maters and also that bankers did not hire people who would only succeed in their own group.At the same time he wanted to make sure that bankers did not relax standards and hire a candidate whom they thought of as â€Å"good enough for the firm† but â€Å"not good enough for my group. † Sometimes he would try to push a banker to a conclusion by saying, â€Å"If you could only take one new associate to the CEO’s of fice with you, which one would it be? † Or at the other extreme, â€Å"If I can’t place her, she’s going to be yours, how do you feel about that? † 6 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 One HR manager at SG Cowen commented:People on Wall Street are too hard on people who took some time to figure out what they want to do. But look at Kim Fennebresque, our CEO. He started out as a lawyer, and he’s been incredibly successful in banking. But when people are hiring, they don’t think of that. Personally, I think anyone who tells you in an interview that they wanted to be an investment banker since age 12 has led an incredibly dull life. Fennebresque said, â€Å"We want to make sure people who are attracted to a place like this understand what this is. We want to ferret out people who love technology, who love emerging growth. Making the firm more visible to both potential clients and potential employees was one reason Fennebresque agreed to frequent ap pearances on CNBC and business segments on other news shows. â€Å"So many people come to Wall Street for the wrong reasons,† he said. â€Å"They’re dazzled by dough and dazzled by stature. People should figure out what they like to do, it matters even more than what they’re good at. I was perfectly good at law, but I sat in that law library at night and I thought the librarian was the Marquis de Sade torturing me.If you don’t like what you’re doing, even if you’re good at it, eventually you and God are going to figure it out. † Fennebresque spoke fondly of having started out in banking at First Boston in the 1980s during the firm’s heyday and in close view of the rise of Joe Perella and Bruce Wasserstein. Fennebresque said, â€Å"I used to believe culture was an overrated Harvard buzzword,† but First Boston made him realize how much culture mattered. â€Å"We were young punks trying to elbow in on the big boys, and it worked,† he said proudly. He was trying to bring some of that dynamism to SG Cowen.Because the investment bankers had all been hired from different firms to build SG Cowen’s banking platform, Fennebresque often used the metaphor of Ellis Island to exhort his bankers to come together and create a unified new culture. He also wanted to make sure they felt they had the support they needed to get their work done, and Fennebresque tried to give bankers as much autonomy and decisionmaking power as possible. Fennebresque’s involvement in recruiting events and his visibility with new and young employees stemmed from this desire to provide support. â€Å"The most important clients are inside, not outside. I really believe that,† he said.Hiring Criteria Rae tried to formalize the criteria by using grid sheets for the bankers to fill out and having them vote and make a case on behalf of their candidate. There were definitely bankers who resisted any kind of â€Å"sc ience† in this process. Bill Buchanan, HBS ‘86, was head of Equity Capital Markets and had also come to SG Cowen from First Boston, like Fennebresque. â€Å"The type of person who does well here doesn’t want to be told what to do. He or she is far less regimented. This is not the Navy. We want the self-starter. † Buchanan said he did put a lot of stock in resumes: â€Å"It makes a big difference if they have been an entrepreneur. Most important, though, he hired for fit. He was even known to change the structure for fit, in that he had created jobs for people he thought SG Cowen should hire. As Buchanan put it, â€Å"We can stretch for personality, and we can stretch for sparkle. † Especially in ECM, Buchanan said, â€Å"The human element, especially our creativity and energy, is why a company chooses us as financial advisor in the first place, especially on commoditized products. We’re very hands on and high touch. We’re not the volu me leader, but we are a service leader. † 7 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits Candidates for HiringThe bankers assembled had assigned almost all the magnetic placards representing the applicants into decision groups. They had two spots remaining and four people in the â€Å"maybe† category from whom to choose. 4 Natalya Godlewska Natalya Godlewska was an MBA student at Cornell and had earned an undergraduate degree in finance at an eastern European university. As an undergraduate, she had been the student with the highest grade point average (GPA) in the finance department, and she went on to serve as a graduate teaching assistant in the finance program at Cornell’s business school.She was originally from Poland and had moved to the U. S. at the age of 22. She spoke fluent Russian, Polish, and German and some French. Prior to business school, she had worked for four years for CommScan, a company that developed M&A modeling software used by many major Wall Street fir ms. She had gone to the SG Cowen presentation at Cornell, called the bankers she had met to have informational interviews, and then had been one of the top candidates from Cornell sent on to Super Saturday.At Super Saturday, her interviews had mostly gone well, although there was some hesitation from two interviewers. Everyone was uniformly impressed with her finance background, her analytical knowledge, and her understanding of the financial markets. When one of the bankers had telephoned her references, her previous supervisor had responded positively about Godlewska’s skills and also commented, â€Å"This is the person I would want to bring to a tough negotiation. † She seemed very determined, ambitious, and ready to work hard.But one associate and one managing director each expressed strong reservations for different reasons. The associate felt that Godlewska might not be a good culture fit with the other associates and that she had seemed stiff and uncomfortable d uring small talk at the opening of the interview and also at dinner the night before. The managing director felt that some bankers might lose patience with Godlewska’s less-thanperfect English and that this would affect her ability to work smoothly with her managers. Other people on her interview schedule spoke up in her defense.Associates should be made to deal with people with different backgrounds, and it was all too easy to use â€Å"culture† as an excuse. One banker said he thought Godlewska would be a hit with clients because she was a go-getter and radiated positive energy and a â€Å"can-do attitude. † He said that though it might be an issue with impatient bankers on her team, her language skill would definitely not be an issue with clients because â€Å"most of our clients think Wall Street types speak too fast anyway. † Martin Street Martin Street was a second-year Wharton MBA who had previously served four years in the military.He had no busin ess experience, but he had substantial leadership experience, most notably having led a rescue operation in war-torn Bosnia. He was president of his section at Wharton and also of the Running Club, having completed two marathons and one triathlon in the past year. All of his interviewers agreed that he came across as a dynamic personality and that he was confident and articulate. SG Cowen came to Wharton toward the middle of the recruiting period, so as one banker said, â€Å"People either really want SG Cowen, or they didn’t get offers from other firms. Street had told them he was taking several finance courses, but SG Cowen was not allowed to ask him about his grades because that was forbidden under Wharton recruiting rules. Cowen had difficulty scheduling Street for Super Saturday because he was always involved in recruiting events at other firms. He had said that he liked smaller firms and liked SG Cowen’s areas of specialization, but they still were 4 Note: These candidates are composites of many candidates and are not meant to describe any actual candidate. 8 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 nsure what the likelihood was that Street would accept the offer if it was extended. They were also wary of whether he would play firms against one another in terms of wanting additional time to interview and consider offers, which might prevent SG Cowen from being able to fill that slot with another top-choice candidate. One professional in recruiting said, â€Å"If a person doesn’t sign and accept the offer letter right away, we’ve made a mistake. † Ken Goldstein Ken Goldstein was a second-year MBA at Berkeley who had previously worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers for five years.He had quickly risen to be a manager at PWC, managing multiple audit teams simultaneously, drawing up budgets and pricing for projects, making presentations to win business, and resolving technical accounting issues for clients. When SG Cowen called his refere nce at PWC, he confirmed, â€Å"Ken’s performance appraisals put him in the top 5% of the firm. † Everyone who had interviewed Goldstein liked him and thought he would represent SG Cowen well. In fact, when Rae looked over the written comments on all the evaluation forms, they were uniformly positive.Why hadn’t Goldstein been an immediate â€Å"yes,† why was he one of the â€Å"maybes† that warranted this discussion? One banker said, â€Å"I can tell you what everyone’s afraid to say. Ken is married and has two sons, a newborn and a two-year-old. Whatever he did at PWC, we can’t tell at this stage of his life whether he really will be willing to work 24/7 like the rest of the associates. † One of the senior associates said, â€Å"It’s hard on the other first years if we make allowances for Ken to pick up his kids at daycare or not work on a weekend when his wife’s away.None of the first years expect to have a lif e, so what happens when they see Ken having a life? † Some interviewers said Goldstein had openly talked about his intention to be able to balance a family with being a banker. One of his interviewers said, â€Å"I commend him for trying, but I break promises to my kids all the time, to take them to the first day of school, to get home for a game. † Another banker said, â€Å"It’s weird to say this, because we always say we’re looking for maturity, but I almost think Ken’s too mature. If he were on my team, I wonder if he would do what I tell him to do, or if he’ll dislike taking orders.He’s used to having a lot of responsibility and being in charge. † Andy Sanchez Andy Sanchez was a second-year MBA at the University of Southern California and had completed his undergraduate degree in economics at UCLA. Sanchez had found early success as an entrepreneur, having started his own business during his first year of college, a Kaplans tyle tutoring business to prepare students in Los Angeles for high school achievement tests and the SATs in both English and Spanish. After college, he ran the business full time for three years and then continued to run it while he enrolled in business school.Last year, his business had served 4,000 students at an average price of $500 per course, resulting in $2 million in revenue and clearing $400,000 in profits divided between himself and an equity provider. Sanchez’s interviewers all found him enthusiastic and personable. He had talked to a lot of people at SG Cowen and had stopped into the New York office to have informational interviews or talk to other associates on several occasions when he was in the city for other meetings. He always sent follow-up e-mails and notes to everyone he spoke to, was friendly to the other candidates at Super Saturday, and was great at making people relax.He was well informed about the firm, telephoned other alumni from USC to talk to the m about their banking experiences, and seemed as though he had been reading up on investment banking, speaking very cogently about recent landmark deals in some of his interviews. When asked whether he was sure he wanted to leave his business, he said he was ready for new challenges and that his younger brother was going to run it in his absence. The biggest concern interviewers had with Sanchez was from his resume, which listed a 2. 8 for his undergraduate GPA.When asked about his business school GPA, Sanchez had said it was a 3. 1. At a time when most schools including USC had a fair amount of grade inflation, SG Cowen bankers were 9 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits concerned that he had had so many â€Å"Cs† on his record over the years. â€Å"We’re not looking for rocket scientists, but a 2. 8 really sticks out,† one banker said. Sanchez had pointed out to one of his interviewers that his SATs and GMATs were quite high and that his low grades only reflected th e amount of work he was putting into running his business.Rae looked over the other resumes of the Super Saturday candidates, and Sanchez had a very competitive SAT score and one of the highest GMAT scores. Sanchez had told one of his interviewers, â€Å"There was a lot of demand for our services, so we got excited and grew the business pretty fast, and I also needed to make enough money to put myself through school and then put my two brothers through school. Unfortunately, that left me little time for studying. † Decision Time The bankers were having a hard time deciding among the four candidates, and they were running out of energy. The snow was coming down faster, and most f the food was gone, the bankers now going back to the buffet for a second sandwich or some lukewarm pasta. They had made good progress, but choosing these last two candidates was not turning out to be an easy task. Rae remembered Fennebresque’s admonition to make the hiring process â€Å"our mo st important priority. † One banker spoke up, â€Å"Chip, let’s keep this meeting moving. The roads look bad, and it’s my anniversary tonight. If I don’t get home soon, I’m in deep trouble. † 10 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 1 402-028 Sample Pages from Rae’s Evaluation Book (Prior Candidates) Candidate: Bill Berry Bill BerryLarry Larry Fromkin,Vice President, Health Care Linda Conway, Managing Director, Technology Daniel Jones, Associate Technology Lynn Smith Carl Havens, Vice President, Technology Gloria Watson, Associate, Barr Devlin K. C. *K. C. 11 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 1 (continued) Candidate: Damon Sam Sam Damon Vijaya Vijaya Parbhu, Managing Director, M&A Aaron Solomon, Associate, Technology Sam Chung/Lewis Anderson, Associates, Technology M&A Lynn Smith Tom Tedlow, Director, Technology Danny Lewis, Director, Technology 12 SG Cowen: New Recruits 402-028 Exhibit 1 (continued) Candidate: William XuWilliam Xu Ken K en Arendt, Associate, Technology Samantha Adams/Lewis Anderson, Associates, Technology M&A Charlotte Williams, Managing Director, Equity Private Placements Lynn Smith Michael Brennan, Associate, Barr Devlin Cal Pava, Managing Director, Technology with maturity 13 402-028 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 1 (continued) CSara Wicher Wicher andidate: Sara Mitch Mitch Madison, Director, Technology Sam Downing, Managing Director, Equity Private Placem ents Daniela Galvin, Associate, Technology Lynn Smith Bill Friedan, Associate, Technology Darrell Rawlins, Managing Director, TechnologySource: Company. 14 SG Cowen: New Recruits Exhibit 2 402-028 Associate Evaluation Form SG Cowen Investment Banking Division Associate Evaluation Form CANDIDATE: SCHOOL: EVALUATOR: DATE: GROUP INTEREST: OUTSTANDING GOOD FAIR UNSATISFACTORY COMMITMENT TO FIRM JUDGMENT/MATURITY INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Impact/Presence Communication Skills LEADERSHIP Initiative Motivation TECHNICAL SKILLS Creativity Modeling Accountin g/Finance Prioritizing WORK ETHIC Team Player Flexibility/Versatility Motivation OVERALL RATING COMMENTS: RECOMMENDATION(CIRCLE ONE): HIRE DON’T HIRE Source: Company. 15

A Knowledge Management Framework for call centre in a Telecom Company Literature review

A Knowledge Management Framework for call centre in a Telecom Company - Literature review Example It can aid the employees within an organisation, and that includes the top level managerial staffs to the ground-level employees, and even the employees working in the field outside. Thus, one of the key goals of knowledge management is to ensure that the employees have the information they need; at the times, whey they need it, to give effective performance. This is applicable to employees in organizations in various industry sectors, where knowledge or the collected data may play a key role. Call centres are becoming a key industry sector of their own, operating independently or in association with organizations from other major industry sectors like Telecom. With the development of advanced communication technologies, Telecom companies are proliferating and are impacting the people’s lives in various ‘spheres’. Organizations in the Telecom sector are optimally using call centres as an extension of their functioning, and importantly to manage the knowledge and p rovide customers apt services. Call centres, or their contemporary successors contact centres, are the preferred and prevalent way for many companies to communicate with their customers. However, perhaps the greatest challenge of running a call centre is to ensure that the customers are provided with the right information in a timely fashion. This is where the KM comes into the picture, and aids the companies to do that exactly. Although, KM has a number of practical tools and strategies to meet this challenge but to leverage the potential of these tools organisations must understand how to implement KM especially in their call centre department. In telecom companies, knowledge in any form is indeed valuable and so managing these ‘knowledge entities’ or information are important for the success and even the survival of the organizations. Call centres could do it aptly, if a framework of best practices is formulated. These best practices could aid in the management of kn owledge or information about the company’s products as well as the about the customers. So, the aim of this report to develop a KM system or framework of best practices to support the call centre in a Telecom Company in order to improve its customer service performance and the company’s competitiveness. In that direction, this report will do a literature review on the topic of KM in a general manner, and focusing on its applications in the Telecom sector as well as in call centres. Then the report will discuss the proposal for KM in call centre, by coming up with an optimal framework of best practices. Literature review KM- A background As Tiwana (2000, p.7) states â€Å"Knowledge management enables the creation, communication, and application of knowledge of all kinds to achieve business goals.† Seiner (2000) further expands on this aspect of KM by stating, â€Å"Knowledge Management envisions getting the Right Information within the Right Context to the Right Person at the Right Time for the Right Business Purpose†. Thus, when viewed from an overall perspective, KM is a discipline that aids in the process of knowledge creation or accumulation and thereby helps the employees to access that knowledge, when there is a need. This access of knowledge can positively impact on the employees’ performance, thereby improving the service provided to the customer,

Contract Law and the Law of Negligence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Contract Law and the Law of Negligence - Essay Example As such, every individual is under a duty of care towards others to employ reasonable care, in order to circumvent causing injury to them or their possessions (Judicial Education Center, 2013). Alec has a duty towards Kelly, just like that towards any other person on the walkway. In some instances, the act or omission of the defendant could cause damage to the claimant. However, the claimant may not have any action, because the affected interest may not be provided with the protection of the law. This situation is termed as harm without legal wrong or damnum sine injuria (Cooke, 2011, p. 5). Alec’s rash driving resulting in damage to Kelly’s shop attracts the provisions of the law of negligence. A defendant could be made liable for committing a tort, if the act had been intentional. This usually takes place in crime. Liability is also attached to the defendant, if the act was negligent, although unintentional. This is because the defendant had failed to fulfil his duty of care towards the petitioner (Judicial Education Center, 2013). In our case, Alec has failed to perform his duty towards Kelly, although it was unintentional. In Page v Smith, Lord Hope described primary victims as individuals who had undergone psychiatric injury. Such injury should have been the outcome of the fear or distress resulting from the accident that had taken place due to the negligence of the defendant or its immediate aftermath (Turton, 2008, p. 1014). Kelly suffered mental distress, the next day after the incident. She cannot take recourse under the category of primary victim for psychiatric injury. Whether there was a breach of duty From the legal perspective, negligence is the breach of a duty to ensure care, while committing an act. It is also the failure to act in the manner that a prudent or reasonable individual would have acted under circumstances that were similar. Such action or failure must be the proximate cause for the injury caused, if the plaintiff is t o recover damages from the defendant. Some of the defences to a negligence action are, the assumption of risk or injury by the plaintiff, or the injury was due to the plaintiff’s negligence (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2011).A contractual relationship can generate an obligation to act with care. An instance of this is the duty of care assumed by a carrier to protect passengers and goods from injury or damage. In addition, the law presupposes that every person, in the ordinary course of conduct, is under a duty of care to abstain from injuring others. This duty, in every non – contractual situation, requires every individual to act as a reasonable person. If an injury occurs, despite such care being exercised, or due to circumstances that are beyond human control, then no compensation can be claimed. The doctrine of strict liability renders entities engaged in certain services and trades liable, even if the conduct is not negligent (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedi a, 2011). While deciding whether a breach of duty had taken place, the courts would evaluate the conduct of the defendant, with reference to what a reasonable person would have done under similar circumstances (Tingle, 2002, p. 1129) In Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks Co, it was opined that negligence was failure to do a thing, which a reasonable man would have done, in accordance with the considerations that normally regulate human conduct (Tingle, 2002, p. 1129). In our case, Alec, due to coming late, attempted to quickly cross

Should Sharia law have more or less power Research Paper

Should Sharia law have more or less power - Research Paper Example On the other hand, Muslims are of the opinion that Sharia law nurtures humanity, allows individuals attain their potential as well as helps individuals release themselves from the strains of life. This paper will assess of Sharia law should be given more or less power. As seen in the research conducted by Mahmoud (2013), Sharia law should have as minimal power as possible since a great percentage of religious laws do not provide a chance for humanistic values that gives all humans a chance to enjoy equality just like other individuals. Evidently, Sharia law is a good testament of discriminatory practices since it does not give all individuals to enjy equal rights. This explains why even international actors are opposed to the law especially bearing in mind that the law incorporates high levels of discrimination on different persons especially based on their gender. A good example is that of the Sharia law discriminating against the homosexuals (Mahmoud, 2013). With this in question, it is manifest that granting Sharia law more power means that the civil and the safety rights of a group of individuals in the society will be threatened to a great extent. Additionally, any person with contrary beliefs would be indicated to demean the government opera ting under the Sharia law since the law does not appreciate the divergent views of different people in the society. For the case of Britain, it is clear that the society is fighting for a secular Britain due to the constraints that the Sharia law has on its followers (Mahmoud, 2013). With the law having state power in many regions around the globe, it is evident that law will continually seize the achievements of the civil society if the law is given more power. The developments achieved over the years have high chances of being overrun by the Sharia law. A notable example is the rights of

Leadership Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Leadership Journal - Essay Example and reducing the weaknesses would help the company in gaining advantage of the external opportunities and in countering external threats effectively and thereby improves the position of the company in the perceptual map (Morrill, 2010, p.162-163). Strategic business leadership in global organizations earns success through cultivation of both self and organizational knowledge that in turn enhances productivity. Global organizations take into account people belonging to different cultural and national diversities. These organizations through enhancing their knowledge resources need to understand the ethos of the different cultural groups and thereby to enhance communication to generate productivity (Harris, 2005, p.43). Managing a diverse cultural base of workers in the organization focuses on linking the needs and understandings of the employees to the policies, rules and regulations of the company. This policy helps in safeguarding the interests of the workers which in turn enhances the productivity of the concern (UCSF, n.d.). Organizational leaders often tend to manage the different cultural groups without reflecting sensitivity to the level of perception changes in the different individuals belonging to varied cultures. This fact tends to excite conflict. Some organizational leaders tend to respect the different cultural understandings and thus tend to modify and revise the rules and procedures in that respect (Morschett, Klein and Zentes, 2010, p.143). An individual to cope up as a global leader must reflect different types of skills like maintaining integrated relationships with people belonging to different cultures, having a stronger business acumen pertaining to offshore business and strategic endeavors, and possessing signified potential of organizing a strategic workforce. Further the business leader must reflect a potential vision and a cognitive understanding of the change movement (Mendenhall, 2008, p.54). The organizational leaders must make the

The Seven General Duties of Directors as set out in Part 10 Chapter 2 Essay

The Seven General Duties of Directors as set out in Part 10 Chapter 2 of the Companies Act 2006 - Essay Example A director or any equivalent title is responsible for overseeing company’s affairs management. The statute does not have any comprehensive definition of a director except that the term ‘director’ entails any person in the position of the director (IAS Regulation 2006). This paper seeks to critically examine the seven General Duties of Directors as set out in Part 10 Chapter 2 of the Companies Act 2006. To begin with, the elements of company governance are discussed in the following paragraph to help us understand the scope of directorship in the companies after which the general duties of the directors will follow. Some companies also have the position of non executive director. These are directors who are not concerned with the day to day management of company operation and is expected to give own independent view and opinion on the issues of the board. Companies are controlled and directed by a corporate governance system. It is the role of the board of directors to oversee the governance of the company. It is the board that sets the strategies and aims of the company as well as grants the leadership to get them to operation and action . The board of directors supervises the mechanisms of company management and gives a report to the shareholders. Generally, the action of the board of directors is subjected to regulations, law and shareholders in the general meetings. The ideal qualities that the directors are required to possess include; determination, integrity, originality, creativity, commitment, balance, ethical and strategic awareness, independence, responsibility and accountability. In some particular companies, team spirit and loyalty are highly valued than creativity and originality. An effective performance of the board varies with the difference in personalities and how people interact and not the case of having in the company outstanding individuals. That is the reason why new board members are usually selected to complement the qualities of the already existing members of the board. The most preferred candidate may even be that particular person who balances the team in the best way, and not the one who is technically able than the rest of the candidates. It is not obvious or a must that the director be good at everything, but he or she do not have to command respect from the rest of the board members. The directors should be team players and have the ability to demonstrate communication, decision making, strategic awareness and interpersonal skills. The development of regulation and law that relates to the directors of the company in the United Kingdom is b ased on the combination of a series of voluntary codes and laws of the company. These laws define the roles and responsibilities of the companies, company secretaries and directors of the companies. The Company Act 2006 was actually a consolidation of different pieces of other legislation of the company, which in that particular applied to the companies that were incorporated under that Act. It is vial to note that partnerships, sole traders and limited partnerships were not initially covered in the Companies Act 2005. The Companies Act 2006 however revised this and replaced the company legislations that were existing and the exceptions of the provisions that were related to the interest of communities over companies and the company

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 141

Assignment Example For instance, the country should develop road and railway networks in the country within the next ten years. Qatari leaders should also ensure that communication networks are developed with the latest advancements in technology. Qatar also aims at providing employment to the youths through government initiated projects. The next ten years would see an influx in the number of youths in well-paying jobs. Qatar is also a beautiful country with a pleasant climate. This makes it a destination point to several tourists from all over the world. If this continues, then the country will have a stable tourism industry in the next ten years. Qatar depends solely on oil as a source of its revenue. In as much as the oil reserves cannot be depleted any time soon; Qatar should stop its overdependence on oil imports. It should look for another avenue to invest. For instance, Qatar should pump in resources in the tourism sector to increase the revenues obtained from it. Qatar is also affected by food instability. This is because of the desert that occupies the large part of the region. The country would face lots of problems in the next ten years should better ways of practicing irrigation are not implemented. In conclusion, Qatar should make sure its political stability is maintained in the next ten years. This is because that is the only way it will keep up with the development projects it has initiated. Additionally, Qatari leaders should take caution and not let the wave of unrest affecting some of the Middle East countries crop into

Discuss how psychology can help us understand people's behaviour Essay

Discuss how psychology can help us understand people's behaviour - Essay Example Psychology is the â€Å"science of behavior and processes† (Nevid, 2009, p. 4). Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian (2011) inserted systematic into the previous definition, which seemed appropriate. However, it is the definition provided by Bernstein (2011) best fits the goals of this paper - psychology is â€Å"the science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes and to apply that understanding in the service of human welfare† (p. 3). Psychology facilitates understanding of human behavior by addressing its four main goals – to describe, explain, predict and control behavior. One way by which psychology helps in understanding human behavior is by describing it. Psychologists address questions pertaining to human behavior by description of observable behaviors. The term describing in psychology refers to naming or classifying, and involves the preparation of a comprehensive record of behavior based on observation (Coon and Mitterer, 2009). As explained in Plotn ik and Kouyoumdjian (2011), describing behaviors and mental processes of autistic children about their difficulties in learning language helps psychologists understand their behavior. A case in point would be Donna. As a child, Donna recounts that she does not understand what people were saying, simply sounds with no particular meaning. These senseless sounds bothered Donna and she reacts by endlessly tapping or twirling in fingers since these movements hold her attention and allows her to escape from a non-sensible environment (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2011). Psychologists were able to solve the tapping and twirling puzzle by observing Donna and describing the circumstances which would trigger tapping or twirling. It should, however, be made clear at this point that describing observed behaviors benefits both normal humans or those who are mentally challenged like the autistic Donna in Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian (2011). Psychology paved the way for the development Sternberg’s T riarchic Theory. In this theory, Sternberg proposed a framework for teaching and assessment for any grade level or subject by which teaching and evaluation may be designed to highlight the three abilities analytical, analytic, practical, as well as memory. The framework consists of a description or listing of activities which were proven to facilitate analytic, creative and practical learning and sharpen the memory of the students (Snowman, McCown, & Biehler, 2009). Thus, as already discussed, psychology can help in the understanding of human behavior by observing and describing learning behavior to facilitate learning among normal students and to understand learning difficulties among individuals with learning disabilities. Coon and Mitterer (2009), however, argued that describing alone would not help explain behavioral phenomenon. Hence, psychologists also attempt to explain various phenomena in order to understand human behavior. Finding explanations for various behavioral phenom ena assists in discovering the causes of human behavior (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2011). Psychology helps explain why students miss classes, why they obtain low achievement scores, why divorce is on the rise, why STD claims many victims despite the known perils of contracting it. From a mere description of observed behavior, psychology goes beyond listing by explaining the causes of behavior. Psychological breakthroughs in autism helped explain it is not really caused by cold and rejecting parents

There is no set topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 9

There is no set topic - Essay Example In particular, a representation of nature and America is perceived in the ‘self’ under his possession and by rhetorical naming, he enumerates acquaintances of humans and dispositions at the aim of making recognition to their worth by way of contributing to be part of his formation. Seemingly he puts this in a resonance that as he takes part of what others are, equivalently, his existence shares to them a part of himself. No matter how large and distinct the external world is and the other human beings outside of the individual self, Whitman persuades the readers to find the essence in collectiveness as bearing impact upon the singleness of a person. Just like a ‘self’ with a soul of its own, the collective co-existences surrounding form a network to the self so if seen as a whole, the collection is seen as one with a singular soul that discerns every part of itself as every part is the self making up the breathing union. As he tries to raise a political stand on describing a ‘democratic self’, Whitman admits at having undergone a struggle of remaining part of a whole while invoking the freedom to acquire an identity which by nature stands different or unique compared with the rest. In an attempt to draw upon a comprehension that would appeal to the greatest number, he humbly exemplifies his inability to answer a child’s basic query of what a grass is. On admitting that his level of knowledge is nowhere above that of the innocent’s Walt alludes how complex it is to figure a self in democracy yet in harmony with the other selves that altogether fit in the union that exudes out connectedness. Emotionally stating ‘Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of

Representation of families in animated sitcoms Essay Example for Free

Representation of families in animated sitcoms Essay Introduction: For my research investigative, I will be comparing the representation between two popular American sitcoms Family Guy and the Simpsons. Both are animated situation comedies, using a conventional nuclear family to portray the typical American family and their lifestyle. Using media textbooks extracted from theorists such as Roland Barthes and Vladamir Propp, I will investigate how they both use the same narrative structure to create their sitcom. I will also use the internet to develop the ideas of the sitcoms and use this to define the narrative patterns between the two sitcoms. The Simpsons: The Simpsons was first created by Matt Groening and was broadcasted on the 19th December 1987. This became the first animated comedy sitcom, catering to the whole family. The characters confirm the idea of a nuclear family living a typical American lifestyle; however the family coherently faces a dilemma which is always solved at the end of the episode. The episodes are normally self-contained narratives involving equilibrium, disequilibrium and a resolution. For example, the protagonist Homer Simpson will begin the day getting ready for work and faces a dilemma at work, in most cases the whole family will attempt to solve together, rather than Homer attempting to figure out on his own. The idea of the families involvement to solve the problem reflects the opening sequence where the family sits down together to watch television. The idea of togetherness with the family effects how the audience will perceive stereotypical families on T. V. The setting also reflects how the audience sees the ideological family. Springfield is a fictional state based in America consisting of a close knit community and many other characters appear on the episodes. The family appear to look like a conventional family; however they have their individual personalities. Homer: A Safety inspector at a power plant, he expresses a careless personality and dominates a crude, ill-mannered, and lazy characteristic, always providing for his family and heavily devotes his life to them. Marge: a typical American housewife and mother, her strong moral values and patient manner are put down by her troubled children and her gawk husband. Bart: A troubled 10 year old often bullying Lisa his sister and lack of respect for the authorities and the community, Bart is one of the most prominent characters. Lisa: an 8 year old strong-headed activist who due to her intelligence sees herself as a misfit with the Simpsons family. Her personality does reflect Marge, however her liberal belief differ from Marges democratic beliefs. To sum up their family, the baby Maggie only communicates through her pacifier and the pets Santas little helper and Snowball IV reinstates their family friendly ideology and safe atmosphere. Most of the episodes are based in Springfield, the home of the family, and the opening sequence shows the camera zooming into the state of Springfield, depicting a birds eye view of the local school, the donut shop (which is significant on Homers characteristics), the town hall and the supermarket all are significant towards their regularity and familiar location. The bold yellow headline and blue sky signify the opening sequence of the sitcom. The soft yellow, blue and white colours reinforce the idea that the sitcom is family friendly also considering the baby-type font used. This can be known as a memorable hallmark. Their gag names and catchphrases have developed neologism; creating their own catchphrases which often audiences can acknowledge them from have made them common. Even though they are animated characters which can develop, the producers have chosen not to and have stayed the same, although the new technology which has developed over the past decade can transform them. They have recently updated the opening sequence, revealing more characters that appear more often in the episodes. This idea keeps the audience interested in character development and the change of characters over time. One idea that hasnt changed since the beginning of the Simpsons is the theme song which is recognised as the Simpsons theme tune all over the world. The orchestral soundtrack is lively and upbeat, which proves the entertainment aspect of the sitcom. The Simpsons had been provided to humour families during prime time, capturing audiences with its exciting linear narrative and realism in each episode. However The Simpsons had been criticized frequently for their lack of quality in the episodes and Bart Simpsons rebellious nature having an effect on boys and acting as a role model towards the younger male audience. Family Guy Family guy consists of the Griffins, a dysfunctional family set in a fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island America. This is also a situational comedy; however the content contains satirical adult humour, amusing American culture. Its mostly recognised for its cutthroat gags on disability, sexual behaviour and cutaway scenes. The Griffin family is constantly compared to the Simpsons, consisting of similar family values and characteristics. Peter Griffin: male protagonist; an overweight safety inspector at a toy factory, recognised in America as a stereotypical blue collar worker. He is often known for his inappropriate nature, reminding the audience of an immature child. Lois Griffin: Mother and wife of the Griffin family, a typical housewife, grew up in a wealthy family, and married Peter Griffin. She teaches piano for an extra income. However she spends most of her time caring for her family. Chris Griffin: The teenage son of Peter and Lois, he appears to have taken Peters genes and deals with typical adolescent inconveniences; girls, acne and school. Meg Griffin: A self-conscious teenage girl who struggles to be accepted in not only school but also at home. She is regularly at the hind end of Peters jokes. Stewie Griffin: A one year old toddler who frequently is misguided about his sexuality. His evil nature is often taken out on his mother, who he repeatedly masters a plan to kill. His sophisticated speech and maturity juxtaposes typical toddlers description. Brian Griffin is the speaking pet dog, following an anamorphic behaviour. He has a refined speech and often corrects Peters immature behaviour. Despite the fact that Brian is a dog, he enjoys human activities and dates women regularly. Brian appears regularly in episodes, and on occasion appears in special episodes with Stewie, travelling in an epic adventure as Dog and toddler. During the episodes the storyline is always cut off on a tangent, and a new storyline is created. This may be seen as difficult for audiences to follow the plot; however it is always based on two centered narratives. The storyline also follows equilibrium, disequilibrium and a resolution, however on one episode where Stewie kills Lois the plot continued onto another episode, finally resolving the problem. Most of the episodes are set within Quahog, and some specials reside in Stewie and Brian going to a different country such as England and Germany. The opening sequence depicts the conventional family setting; Lois and Peter are placed on the piano, happily playing in unison. The other family members appear after, joining together symbolises the family values enforced in the typical idea of a conventional family. Family guy appears to share the same family values as the Simpsons, however the content and the audience is clearly different. The simpsons share family values and humour the typical American culture, however their humour is directed towards adults and children, using satirical wittiness and frequently punning on American products such as Mad TV or the actual TV production company that shows the Simpsons, Fox. Whereas family guy is shown during the late night schedule and the content uses extreme vulgar adult content, profanity, violence and nudity. In a sense, family guys title does mislead the audience into thinking that the program will be based on the same values the Simpsons produces. This is where they differ in style and content. Following my research, I have decided to challenge the conventional representation of families in sitcoms. I will create a DVD poster of a brand new situational comedy based on a family which appear to be a dysfunctional family which struggle to follow the conventional structure of a beginning scene, a dilemma then a resolution. They share the conventional ideology that families are appeared to be shown. I will use Adobe Photoshop to create my poster and Macromedia Flash to create the characters. Stereotypically, the male protagonist is portrayed as reliant on the other family members to bail him out. However in my production, I will portray the male protagonist as independent and smart and place the male characteristics on another character, for e. g. the son.

Euphemism: Social Linguistic And Psychological Aspects

Euphemism: Social Linguistic And Psychological Aspects According the New Oxford Dictionary of English (Oxford University Press 2001) euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. In the Wikipedia encyclopedia (February 2007), a euphemism is an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word phrase it replaces, or in the case of doublespeak to make it less troublesome for the speaker. When a phrase is used as a euphemism, it often becomes a metaphor whose literal meaning is dropped. Euphemism may be used to hide unpleasant or disturbing ideas, even when the literal term is not necessarily offensive. This type of euphemism is used in public relations and politics, where it is sometimes disparagingly called doublespeak. Sometimes, utilizing euphemisms is equated to politeness. There are superstitious euphemisms, based (consciously or subconsciously) on the idea that words have the power to bring bad fortune (for example, not saying the word cancer) and religious euphemisms, based on the idea that some words are sacred, or that some words are spiritually impelling. In Euphemism and Dysphemism: language used as a shield and weapon (1991), Allan and Burridge claimed that euphemism is characterized by avoidance language and evasive expression, speaker uses words as a protective shield against the anger or disapproval of natural or supernatural beings. It is an expression that seeks to avoid being offensive. But because our background relies on linguistics euphemism is not merely a response to taboo: it also functions where the speaker avoids using a distasteful expression and/ or an infelicitous style of addressing or naming. 2-Etymology: The word euphemism comes from the Greek word euphemos, meaning auspicious/good/fortunate speech/kind which in turn is derived from the Greek root-words eu (ÃŽÂ µÃƒ Ã¢â‚¬ ¦), good /well + pheme (à Ã¢â‚¬  ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ®ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¼ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ·) speech/speaking. The eupheme was originally a word or phrase used in place of a religious word or phrase that should not be spoken aloud; etymologically, the eupheme is the opposite of the blaspheme (evil-speaking). The primary example of taboo words requiring the use of an euphemism are the unspeakable names for a deity, such as Persephone, Hecate, Hemesis or Yahweh. By speaking only words favorable to the gods or spirits, the speaker attempted to procure good fortune by remaining in good favor with them. Historical linguistics has revealed traces of taboo deformations in many languages. Several are known to have occurred in Indo-European languages, including the original Proto-Indo-European words for bear (*rtkos), wolf (*wlkwos), and deer (originally, hart). In different Indo-European languages, each of these words has a difficult etymology because of taboo deformations a euphemism was substituted for the original, which no means honey eater. One example in English is donkey replacing the old Indo-European-derived word ass. In some languages of the Pacific, using the name of a deceased chief is a taboo. Amongst Australian Aboriginal people, it was forbidden to even use the name or the image of the deceased, so that today the Australian Broadcasting Commission publishes an apology to indigenous people for using names or images of people who have recently died. Since people are often named after everyday things, this leads to the swift development of euphemisms. These languages have a very high rate of vocabulary change. (Dyen, Isidore, A.T. James J.W.L. Cole. 1967. Language divergence and estimated word retention rate) The Euphemism Treadmill Euphemisms often evolve over time into taboo words themselves, through a process dubbed the euphemism treadmill by Steven Pinker. (cf. Greshams Law in economics, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1566). This is the well-known linguistic process known as pejoration. Words originally intended as euphemisms may lose their euphemistic value, acquiring the negative connotation of their referents. In some cases, they may be used mockingly and become dysphemistic. For example, the term concentration camps, to describe camps used to house civilian prisoners, was used by the British during the Second Boer War, primarily because it sounded bland and inoffensive. However, after the Third Reich used the expression to describe its death camps, the term gained negative connotation. Since then, new terms have been invented for them, such as internment camps, resettlement camps, etc. Also, in some versions of English, toilet room, itself a euphemism, was replaced with bathroom and water closet, which were replaced respectively with restroom and W.C. Connotations easily change over time. Idiot, imbecile, and moron were once neutral terms for a person of toddler, preschool, and primary school mental ages, respectively. As with Greshams law (1566), negative connotations tend to crowd out neutral ones, so the word mentally retarded was pressed into service to replace them. As a result, new terms like mentally challenged or special have replaced retarded. A similar progression occurred with Lame à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ crippled à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ handicapped à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ disabled à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ differently-abled. Although in that case the meaning has also broadened (and hence has been narrowed with adjectives, which themselves have been euphemised); a dyslexic or colorblind person would not be termed crippled. In the early 1960s, Bill Veek, who was missing part of a leg, argued against the then-favored euphemism handicapped, saying he preferred rippled because it was merely descriptive and did not carry connotations of limiting ones capability the way handicapped (and all of its subsequent euphemisms) seemed to do. It can apply to naming of racial or ethnic groups as well, when proposed euphemisms become successively corrupted. George Carlin (Propaganda Critic: Word games à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ º Euphemisms, September 2002) gave a famous monologue of how he thought euphemisms can undermine appropriate attitudes towards serious issues such as the evolving terms describing the medical problem of the cumulative mental trauma of soldiers in high stress situations: Shell shock (World War I) à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ battle fatigue (World War II) à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Operational exhaustion (Korean War) à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Vietnam War). He contended that, as the name of the condition became more complicated and seemingly arcane, sufferers of this condition have been taken less seriously as people with a serious illness, and were given poorer treatment as a result. In the same routine, he echoed Bill Veeks opinion that crippled was a perfectly valid term (and noted that early English translations of the Bible seemed to have no qualms about saying that Jesus healed the cripples). 3- Classification of euphemisms. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, February2007) Many euphemisms fall into one or more of these categories: à ¢- ª Terms of foreign and/or technical origin (derrià ¨re, copulation, perspire, urinate, security breach, mierda de toro, prophylactic, feces occur ) à ¢- ª Abbreviations (SOB for son of a bitch, BS for bullshit, TS for tough shit, SOL for shit out of luck, BFD for big fucking deal) à ¢- ª Abbreviations using a phonetic alphabet (Charlie Foxtort for Cluster fuck, Whisky Tango Foxtort Oscar for What the fuck, over?, Bravo Sierra for bullshit) à ¢- ª Plays on abbreviations (barbecue sauce for bull shit, sugar honey ice tea for shit, Maryland farmer for motherfucker, catch (or see) you next Tuesday for cunt) à ¢- ª Use in most clinical settings (PITA PT for pain in the ass patient) à ¢- ª Indirections (behind, unmentionables, privates, live together, go to the bathroom, sleep together) à ¢- ª Mispronunciation (goldarnit, dadgummit, freaking) à ¢- ªLitotes (not exactly thin for fat, not completely truthful for lied, not unlike cheating for cheating) à ¢- ª Changing nouns to modifiers (makes her look slutty for is a slut, right-wing element for right-wing, of jewish persuasion for jew). There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for blind. However, visual impairment can be a broader term, including, for example, people who have partial sight in one eye, a group that would be excluded by the word blind. There are three antonyms of euphemism: dysphemism, cacophemism, and power word. The first can be either offensive or merely humorously deprecating with the second one generally used more often in the sense of something deliberately offensive. The last is used mainly in arguments to make a point seem more correct. 4-The evolution of euphemisms. Euphemisms may be formed in a number of ways. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, February 2007) Periphrasis or circumlocution is one of the most common-to speak around a given word, implying it without saying it. Over time, circumlocutions become recognized as established euphemisms for particular words or ideas. To alter the pronunciation or spelling of a taboo word (such as a swear word) to form a euphemism is known as taboo deformation. There are an astonishing number of taboo deformations in English, of which many refer to the infamous four-letter words. In American English, words which are unacceptable on television, such as fuck, may be represented by deformations such as freak even in childrens cartoons. Some examples of Cockney rhyming slang may serve the same purpose-to call a person a berk sounds less offensive than to call him a cunt, though berk is short for Berkeley Hunt which rhymes with cunt. Bureaucracies such as the military and large corporations frequently spawn euphemisms of a more deliberate (and to some, more sinister) nature. Organizations coin doublespeak expressions to describe objectionable actions in terms that seem neutral or inoffensive. For example, a term used in the past for contamination by radioactive isotopes is Sunshine Units. Military organizations frequently do kill people, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by mistake; in doublespeak, the first may be called neutralizing the target and the second collateral damage. Violent destruction of non-state enemies may be referred to as pacification. Two common terms when a soldier is accidentally killed (buys the farm) by their own side are friendly fire or blue on blue (BOBbing) (Buy the farm has its own interesting history). Execution is an established euphemism referring to the act of putting a person to death, with or without judicial process. It originally referred to the execution, i.e. the carrying out, 3f a death warrant, which is an authorization to a sheriff, prison warden, or other official to put a named person to death. In legal usage, execution can still refer to the carrying out of other types of orders; for example, in U.S. legal usage, a writ of execution is a direction to enforce a civil money judgment by seizing property. Likewise, lethal injection itself may 3e considered a euphemism for putting the convict to death by poisoning. Industrial unpleasantness such as pollution may be toned down to outgassing or runoff- descriptions of physical processes rather than their damaging consequences. Some of this may simply be the application of precise technical terminology in the place of popular usage, but beyond precision, the advantage of technical terminology may be its lack of emotional undertones, the disadvantage being the lack of real-life context. 5-Euphemisms for the profane. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, February 2007) Profane words and expressions in the English language are generally taken from three areas: religion, excretion, and sex. While profanities themselves have been around for centuries, their limited use in public and by the media has only slowly become socially acceptable, and there are still many expressions which cannot be used in polite conversation. The common marker of acceptability would appear to be use on prime-time television or in the presence of children. The word damn (and most other religious profanity in the English language) has lost its shock value, and as a consequence, euphemisms for it (e.g. dang, darn-it) have taken on a very stodgy feeling. Excretory profanity such as piss and shit may be acceptable in adult conversation (provided that they are used in a literal sense rather than a figurative sense), while euphemisms like Number One and Number Two are preferred for use with children. Most sexual terms and expressions, even technical ones, either remain unacceptable for general use or have undergone radical rehabilitation (penis and vagina, for instance). a- Religious euphemisms Euphemisms for God and Jesus are used by Christians to avoid taking the name of God in a vain oath, which would violate one of the Ten Commandments. When praying, Jews will typically use the word Adonai (my master). However, when in a colloquial setting, this is deemed inappropriate, and so typically one replaces the word Adonai with the word HaShem, which literally means, The Name. It is notable that Adonai is itself a word that refers to the Jewish Gods name, but is not the name itself. Traditionally, Jews have seen the name of God as ineffable and thus one that must not be spoken. Even in English, some religious Jews will write God as G-d, in imitation of most Hebrew writing which does not include vowels. Because of this, the name of God in ancient Hebrew writings is transliterated as JHVH, YHVH, or YHWH, the four letters collectively known as the tetragrammaton. The vowels of Gods spoken name are therefore unknown, though such pronunciations as Yahweh and Jehovah are common guess es. Euphemisms for hell, damnation, and the devil, on the other hand, are often used to avoid invoking the power of the adversary. b- Excretory euphemisms While urinate and defecate are not euphemisms, they are used almost exclusively in a clinical sense. The basic Anglo-Saxon words for these functions, piss and shit, are considered vulgarities, despite the use of piss in the King James Bible (in Isaiah 36:12 and elsewhere). The word manure, referring to animal feces used as fertilizer for plants, literally means worked with the hands, alluding to the mixing of manure with earth. Several zoos market the byproduct of elephants and other large herbivores as Zoo Doo or Zoopoop, and there is a brand of chicken manure available in garden stores under the name Cock-a-Doodle Doo. Similarly, the string of letters BS, or the word bull, often replaces the word bullshit in polite society. There are any numbers of lengthier periphrases for excretion used to excuse oneself from company, such as to powder ones nose or to see a man about a horse (or dog). Slang expressions which are neither particularly euphemistic nor dysphemistic, such as take a leak, form a separate category. c- Sexual euphemisms The Latin term pudendum and the Greek term ÃŽÂ ±ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¹ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ´ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¿ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¯ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¿ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ½ (aidoion) for the genitals literally mean shameful thing. Groin and crotch refer to a larger region of the body, but are euphemistic when used to refer to the genitals. Euphemisms are more common in reference to sexual practices or orientations, particularly non-heterosexual ones, as shown in this quote from the UK version of Queer as Folk, which includes both euphemisms and dysphemisms regarding male homosexuality: Because Im queer, Im gay, Im homosexual, Im a poof, Im a poofter, Im a ponce, Im a bum boy, batty boy, backside artist, bugger, Im bent, I am that arse bandit, I lift those shirts, Im a faggot-arsed, fudgepackin, shitstabbin uphill gardener. I dine at the downstairs restaurant, I dance at the other end of the ballroom, Im Moses and the parting of the red cheeks. I fuck and am fucked, I suck and am sucked, I rim them and wank them, and every single man has had the fucking time of his life, and Im not a pervert. Virtually all other sexual terms are still considered profane and unacceptable for use even in a euphemistic sense. d- Euphemisms referring to profanity itself In the French and Spanish language, words that mean swear word are used as exclamations in lieu of an actual swear word. The Spanish word maldicià ³n, literally meaning curse word, is occasionally used as an interjection of lament or anger, to replace any of several Spanish profanities that would otherwise be used in that same context. In French (especially Canadian French), the word sacre, meaning religious profanity, is sometimes used as a substitute for an actual religious profanity (most commonly sacrament). 6-Euphemisms for death. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, February 2007; Dead and Buried: Death Euphemisms, March 2007) The English language contains numerous euphemisms related to dying, death, burial, and the people and places which deal with death. The practice of using euphemisms for death is likely to have originated with the magical belief that to speak the word death was to invite death; where to draw Deaths attention is the ultimate bad fortune-a common theory holds that death is a taboo subject in most English-speaking cultures for precisely this reason. It may be said that one is not dying, but fading quickly because the end is near. People who have died are referred to as having passed away or passed or departed. Deceased is a euphemism for dead, and sometimes the deceased is said to have gone to a better place, but this is used primarily among the religious with a concept of Heaven. There are many euphemisms for the dead body, some polite and some profane, as well as dysphemisms such as worm food, or dead meat. The corpse was once referred to as the shroud (or house or tenement) of clay, a nd modern funerary workers use terms such as the loved one (title of a novel about Hollywood undertakers by Evelyn Waugh) or the dearly departed. (They themselves have given up the euphemism funeral director for grief therapist, and hold arrangement conferences with relatives.) Among themselves, mortuary technicians often refer to the corpse as the client. A recently dead person may be referred to as the late John Doe. The terms cemetery for graveyard and undertaking for burial are so well-established that most people do not even recognize them as euphemisms. Contemporary euphemisms and dysphemisms for death tend to be quite colorful, and someone who has died is said to have passed away, passed on, checked out, bit the big one, kicked the bucket, bitten the dust, bought the farm, cashed in their chips, croaked, given up the ghost (originally a more respectful term, cf. the death of Jesus as translated in the King James Version of the Bible Mark 15:37), gone south, shuffled off this mortal coil (from William Shakespeares Hamlet), or assumed room temperature. When buried, they may be said to be pushing up daisies or sleeping the big sleep or taking a dirt nap or six feet under. There are hundreds of such expressions in use. (Old Burma-Shave jingle: If daisies are your favorite flower, keep pushin up those miles per hour!). Euthanasia also attracts euphemisms. One may put one out of ones misery, put one to sleep, or have one put down, the latter two phrases being used primarily with non-humans. There are a few euphemisms for killing which are neither respectful nor playful, but rather clinical and detached. Some examples of this type are terminate, wet work, to take care of one or to take them for a ride, to do them in, to off, frag, smoke, whack or waste someone. To cut loose (from U.S. Sgt. Masseys account of activities during the American occupation of Iraq) or open up on someone, means to shoot at with every available weapon. To terminate with [extreme] prejudice originally meant to end ones employment without possibility of rehire (as opposed to lay off, where the person can expect rehire if business picks up), but now the term usually means kill. Often (though not always) an adjective is added for emphasis. In the movie Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard is told to terminate Colonel Kurtzs commission with extreme prejudice. The Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Pythons Flying Circus contains an extensive list of euphemisms for death, referring to the deceased parrot that the character played by John Cleese purchases (the sketch has led to another euphemism for death: pining for the fjords, although in the sketch it was used by the shop owner to mean the parrot was not dead, but was merely quiet and contemplative). A similar passage occurs near the beginning of The Twelve Chairs, where Bezenchuk, the undertaker, astonishes Vorobyaninov with his classification of people by the euphemisms used to speak of their deaths. Also a scene in the film Patch Adams features Patch (Robin Williams) dressed in an angel costume, reading out various synonyms and euphemisms for the phrase to die to a man dying of cancer. This evolves into a contest between the two men to see who can come up with more, and better, euphemisms, ending when Patch comes up with and if we bury you ass up, well have a place to park my bike. 7- Euphemism in politics (Doublespeak) What, distinguishes doublespeak from other euphemisms is its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions. Doublespeak is in turn distinguished from jargon in that doublespeak attempts to confuse and conceal the truth, while jargon often provides greater precision to those that understand it (while potentially confusing those who do not). An example of the distinction is the use by the military of the word casualties instead of deaths-what may appear to be an attempt to hide the fact that people have been killed is actually a precise way of saying personnel who have been rendered incapable of fighting whether by being killed, being badly wounded, being captured in battle, being psychologically damaged, being incapacitated by disease, being rendered ineffective by having essential equipment destroyed, or having been disabled in any other way. Casualties is used instead of deaths, not for propagandists or reasons of squeamishness, but because most casualties ar e not dead, yet nevertheless useless for waging war. This type of euphemism may be found often in policy debate, such as the use of affordable to mean subsidized or the use of homeland for United States. (Lutz, 1987. Doublespeak: From Revenue Enhancement to Terminal Living. How government, business, advertisers, and others use language to deceive you. New York). Common examples WORD EUPHEMISM janitor custodian custodian building engineer crippled disabled disabled physically challenged retarded Mentally challenged retarded special, exceptional used second-hand Second-hand pre-owned victim survivor Died, dead passed away, passed Old person senior citizen, senior problem challenge problem issue product solution Illegal drugs illegal substances addiction substance abuse beggar panhandler panhandler the homeless (http://www.nyu.edu/classes/copyXediting/euphemisms.html)

The Rogerian approach to therapy has severe limitations

The Rogerian approach to therapy has severe limitations Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was a major force for psychology in the twentieth century. His theory on client centred therapy is still used today in mainstream counselling though now it is more widely known as person centred. To whether client centred therapy is supportive rather than reconstructive, Rogers work focused on phenomenology and his three core conditions to a working relationship; Unconditional Positive Regard, Empathy and Congruence. I will explore which aspects are supportive and which are reconstructive and whether there are any limitations to this approach. Rogers believed that everyone has the ability to change for the better and they hold all the answers within them even if they do not know it yet. His theory was based around three core conditions that the therapist should abide by in order to help the client feel at ease, feel confident in themselves and develop their own answers. These core conditions are Empathy, Congruence and Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR). This essay will look at Rogers theory on client-centred therapy; Phenomenology and the three core conditions. The essay will also evaluate whether there are any limitations to Rogerian theory due to it being supportive rather than reconstructive. In 1928, Carl Rogers went off to Rochester, NY where he took his first job at the Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children where he worked essentially as a child clinical psychologist until 1938. In 1936 Rogers became interested in the Rankian approach to therapy after attending a series of Otto Ranks lectures. Rogers always stated that Rankian influenced the shape that person centered counseling took, especially its emphasis on the positive characteristics of the individual, the quality of the therapeutic relationship, and a focus on responding to feelings. I became infected with Rankian ideas. (Kramer cited in www.ottorank.com) When Rogers was at Rochester he worked with a mother whose son was displaying behavioural problems. Dryden (2007) wrote that Rogers saw the root of the problem as the mothers rejection of her son as a baby. Rogers could not get the mother to see this and was about to give up when she asked for adult counselling for herself. This shift in focus served as a catalyst for her to speak about all her problems she was experiencing. Rogers found this case a turning point in what therapy should be about; the client (Rogers 1939). It began to occur to me that unless I had a need to demonstrate my own cleverness and learning, I would be better to rely upon the client for the direction of movement in the process. (Dryden 2007:145) Around the time of Rogers, theorists such as Strange (1950) saw counselling as a relationship, which encourages growth in both and therapist and the client. Smith (1955) defined counselling as therapist led in that they would assist the client in interpreting their problems and thoughts (cited in Chadra Gupta 1989:187) In 1951 Rogers published Client-Centred Therapy which established him highly in the psychotherapeutic community. Rogers claimed that behavioural therapists were preventing their clients from self-actualizing and discovering their own solutions. Carl Rogers (1951) developed his client-orientated approach to meet the demand of personal freedom (Chadra Gupta 1989:187) in that it seats the client at the centre of the process with the therapist just walking alongside. Rogers work was based on the belief that the client know what is best for themselves rather than followers of psychoanalysis and behavioural theories which sees the therapist interpreting the problem and what is solution is. Rogers try to make clients feel unique, he wanted to understand how the client felt and reflected their statements back to them. Rogers (1951) saw the purpose of counselling being a more broadly based structure of self, an inclusion of a greater projection of experience as a part of self and a more comfortable and realistic adjustment to life. (Chadra Gupta 1989:11) Rogers tended to distance himself from already established theories as he felt that it attempted to fit the client into a mould rather than seeing the client as they are. He found then that he could devote his energy instead to relating deeply to his clients and discovering with them what worked. (Thorne 2003:24) Rogers had an understanding that a person was not just made up of ID and Ego (Freudian theory) but was also a product of his or her environment, family and values. He saw a persons behaviour as subjective to himself or herself. To Rogers, the equality between the client and therapist was integral to a healthy and positive therapeutic relationship. Rogers felt that if the therapist were to be seen as the expert it would throw the relationship off balance, as it is the client who is the one with all the answers, not the therapist. The issue of power is central to his understanding of the therapeutic relationship. (Thorne 2003:25) The subjective experience of the client is key to Rogers client centred approach and if the therapist is the one with the power then the client may feel no validity in their own thoughts and self understanding. Hence, the therapeutic relationship breaks down and the client will never achieve success in finding his or her own answers (i.e. Conditional Regard of what the therapist wants). Rogers therapy is supportive in that the therapist accompanies the client on their journey whilst displaying UPR, congruence and empathy but it is also reconstructive as it enables the client to make the right changes for themselves without any judgement of the therapist. The therapist should be a facilitator not an authorative expert. In my opinion, Rogers seeing the clients as client and not patients is what sets aside this form of working from the doctor-patient medical model. Rogers way of working encouraged therapy o be a process about the individual and their needs, not a diagnostic tool which is generic to every patients symptoms. The process is the key factor. (Dryden 2007:186) Phenomenology holds the belief that all humans behave in response and accordance of their own subjective understanding and awareness of where we are in the world. The therapists function is to aid the client in the exploration and discovery of his or her own inner resources. (Thorne 2003:25) Central to Rogers phenomenological theory is optimism and that a human has a basic optimistic view and if supported in finding an understanding in their subjective world, then the client would start to engage in behaviours and thoughts that were positive. This concept became known as The Actualising Tendency. Carl Rogers believed that there was one motivational force that determined the development of the human being. He called this the Actualising Tendency. (Mearns Thorne 2008:12) In Rogers understanding and anthropological research he found that humans, in nature, have an innate desire to move towards progress, positiviness and their potential. Like a flower sown in rough soil surrounded by darkness and poisons, it will strive towards even a glimmer of light in order to survive and grow. Rogers saw peoples behaviour as no different. Rogers continued this analogy by explaining that the rougher and poorer soil (i.e. the environment someone is in), the more water and nourishment theyll need. The harder a persons situation and circumstances, the more support they will need to find and grow towards their Actualising Tendency. Depending on the person, this process can be slow and sometimes even stop depending on their self-perception or other parts of them, which can be, more resistant to change or self-realisation. The Human Organism itself manifests this tendency and has infinite inner resources. For Rogers the tendency to actualise the self is essentially a subsystem of the Actualising tendency. (Thorne 2003:27) This supportive element of Rogers worth explored questions such as How does it feel and What it be like toà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦known as Spotlighting. Although Rogers is directing the conversion, the client is still recognising their own behaviours and coming to their own conclusions about any changes that need to be implemented; self-actualizing. This is reconstructive an example of this would be weight loss: Within the framework of the Self Actualizing Tendency Rogers believed that humans have enormous resources for successful living and to achieve a happy and fulfilled life. Rogers believed that your body knows what it wants and needs and when it is full; you just need to listen to it. The body and mind are connected together with Phenomenology. To the client food may represent more than food, it may represent comfort, acceptance and stress relief and the natural relationship is changed. This can also happen when people starve themselves or diet unhealthily to be an acceptable size by size 0 society norms. When people are pregnant they tend to listen less to society and more to their body and less to society and previous conditioned values i.e. I might be getting bigger but my baby needs me to eat more. Rogers supported in clients in feeling open enough to talk about their relationship with food and would help them peel back the onion layers i.e. you overeat due to stress, lets address the feelings of stress first. The client then can rebalance their emotional need without eating to feel normal. Through Empathy, UPR and Congruence, the client begins the process of self-actualizing without any limitations imposed from the therapist. This is when the therapist reflects what they key issues that need to be addressed. Although this seems to conflict with Rogers belief that the client finds their own answers, once the key issues are spotlighted, the client then decides what they want to focus on, even if the therapist sees the answers lying elsewhere. Fully Functioning (Rogers 1963) people are as Rogers described are psychologically healthy persons who have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by others whose acceptance and approval have enabled them for at least some of the time to be in touch with their deepest feelings and experiences. (Mearns Thorne 2008:15) Fully Functioning clients have trust in the organismic valuing process and feel confident. Others who are not fully functioning are those who have faced or continue to face negativity, conditional positive regard and judgement. The key to Rogers client centred approach was the concept of self worth. Rogers identified that when we are born we have a tendency towards actualisation. This gets cloudy the older we get, once we inherit parental values, different environments and conditions of worth, reward and our need for positive regard increases. We require at some level and in some way, however minimal, to feel good about ourselves and if this need is not met it is difficult to function in the world. (Thorne 2003: Rogers theory of self was based on the principle that if we are raised in a supportive and positive environment where we receive positive reinforcement for who are and want to do, then we trust in own abilities and our thoughts and feelings in order to make the correct decisions in line with our perception of the world. If however, we are raised in an environment filled with conditions of worth such as If you do x then you will be good or Mummy will love you if, then our need for positive regard in dependant on other people. We will grow up only recognising achievements depending on values and responses of others rather than feeling fulfilled in whom we are and the life we lead; we are only dependent on ourselves. Psychological disturbances will be perpetuated if an individual continues to be dependent to a high degree on the judgement of others for a sense of self worth. (Mearns Thorne 2008:153) Rogers believed that this dissonance between our innate need for approval and our inner self-wisdom is the root cause of much inner disturbance and lack of self-confidence to make positive decisions on our own, for ourselves. Rogers saw this as a lack of self-trust in the organismic valuing process. If people are not raised in a supportive environment where they are listened to and valued then the supportive environment of Rogerian therapy might be their first experience of feeling valued. Rogers believed in a mixture of his therapy being supportive as well as reconstructive and the process should emphasise the thinking with the individual, not for the individual. People cannot only be affected by their inter-personal relationships but also by their social and cultural norms. An example of this affecting a persons Actualizing Tendency is when the media and society portrays a size 0 image as what is the new definition of beautiful. For those that arent that particular size it could make them feel devalued by society and could impact on their esteem and confidence levels. This is turn could affect and superseded their Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) they received from their parents saying they are ok the way they are and leave the person feeling lost and insecure. Rogers highlighted the importance of giving UPR in sessions, empathising with clients and building a good rapport and level of trust. Through this client-focused medium, the client can start working on the issues they feel are negative to them; comparing themselves and valuing themselves against the size 0 images in magazines. The therapist aims to create an environment in which the client can be supported to achieve personal growth by reconnecting with their Organismic Valuing Process (how I feel), Self-Actualizing Tendency (what do I need) and their Internal Locus of Control (I am worthy). These supportive key elements to Rogers theory highlight the persons need for unconditional positive regard, empathy and congruence. The therapist provides a relationship of trust, warmth and UPR that encourages clients to talk about themselves and their feeling. (Heap Aravind 2002:186) Empathy by Collins dictionary definition is the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another persons feelings. (www.freedictionary.com) Empathy is the therapists ability to understand the clients subjective perceptual world and how they see themselves and the world around them. It is a process. In person centred therapy the counsellor tries to enter the clients frame of reference and walk alongside him in his world. (Mearns Thorne 2008:69) It is important that the therapist remains reliable and strong and not get sucked down into the clients world so much that they lose sight of their role in this process. A good analogy of where that boundary is and why is The Well. If a client is stuck at the bottom of a well there is little point the therapist getting down into the well with them to find out how they are as then they would both be stuck. Instead, the therapist could sit on the edge of the well, talking to the client and empathising that this situation must be hard, lonely etc without being down there and equally stuck. Rogers believed that an empathetic approach required the therapist to be secure within themselves before entering into a clients world: the As If factor. This is to state that the therapist should enter to clients world as if they were there, not get lost in it. When this is achieved, there can be movement in the clients self-concept and worth, as the therapist is able to express empathetic responses, which show the client they are being understood. Although each person experiences the world differently, a therapists understanding and appreciation of a persons problems and hardship can be supportive to the client. Rogers believed that empathy could be shown in therapy through good body language, summarising and reflection. Empathy is a continuing process whereby the counsellor lays aside her own way of experiencing and perceiving reality, preferring to sense and respond to the experiencing and perceptions of her client. (Mearns Thorne 2008:67) Communication is key to this core condition. When a client feels accepted, valued and understood it aids feelings of alienation, loneliness and desperation. Rogers referred back to these core conditions as integral to person centred counselling therapy. Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) as non-judgemental acceptance of a client and is key to the client feeling safe enough to work through their negative feelings. Rogers believed in peoples honesty when not faced with judgment and rejection; the client should be accepted as they are not as they want to be or how the therapist feels they should be. Rogers advocated that the client should be totally accepted with no exceptions. If the therapist accepts you, that is one step closer to self-acceptance. If the therapist can show UPR regardless of what the client says i.e. I hate my mother and want to kill her and empathise with how they feel, they will be in a relaxed trustworthy environment to open up to what might be underlying these feelings. Rogers believed these core conditions can help the client come to terms with their emotions and in turn, their self-regard will improve. Although this could be seen as facilitating a change I see it as more reconstructive as it can go far deeper than the presenting need and the therapist might never be aware of where the change is actually happening i.e. being able to talk about hating their mother might spark revelations that can now be accepted i.e. Its not my fault. In practical terms it can be hard for some therapists to let go of the power or lead the client to elicit change. This will lead the client down their own path of self-change and correction of negative behaviours and false statements which is far more powerful. Rogers saw that most people accessing therapy had little UPR in their life and saw this is a root of their problems. Unconditional positive regard is the label given to the fundamental attitude of the person centred counsellor towards her clientà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and is not deflected in that valuing by any particular client behaviours. (Mearns Thorne 2008:95) Rogers believed that this consistent unconditional regard aids the clients process of feeling valued and break down barriers the client might be putting up in order to feel accepted. Unconditional Positive Regard is important as it directly conflicts with the self-defeating cycle. This cycle (Mearns Thorne 2008:99) promotes a clients condition of worth, which they might have carried around all their life. With the therapist counteracting this, it can aid the client in finding a break through in their negative patterns. These core conditions to Rogerian client-centred therapy are both supportive; the UPR, but also reconstructive as the client is the one finding their own answers, without condition or judgment from the therapist. Yet this can only be achieved with empathy and congruence otherwise it may seem false. Congruence is characterised by the therapist being transparent to the client, not superior to them. It is genuine, authentic and real. The therapist conveys this genuine realness and allows the client to see them as a human being not a doctor hiding behind certificates and metaphorical white coats. Congruence can be displayed verbally; thats terrible, I dont understand, please say that again, and non-verbal communication such as facial expressions and body language which reflects, not mimics, the clients. This process of the three core conditions supports the client in feeling relaxed and confident to look at their problems honestly and without judgement though it is reconstructive as the client is the one in the drivers seat; making the changes for themselves. From the reading I have done for this essay I feel that the one main limitation to Rogerian theory regarding its supportive nature would be that Rogers non-directive approach to therapy is not consistent as reconstructive as with techniques such as summarising and selective reinforcement, answers and reactions can be shaped. I have found another limitation is Rogers belief in the potential of the fully functioning person, which is not achievable in reality. Although the idea is something to aim for! Does supportive mean it cant be reconstructive? Only the client knows what they need and once they connect with that, only they will know how they feel. The therapist can support them in their journey but it is actually made by the client. Rogation therapy is based on both a supportive and reconstructive stance as the client benefits from the empathy, Unconditional Positive Regard and congruence the therapist gives them but ultimately it is the client who recognises where changes could be beneficial and implicates them. One of the most rewarding moments in a counselling process comes when a client discovers or re-discovers the dependability of his organismic valuing process however temporary or partial this may be. (Mearns Thorne 2008:14) I feel in conclusion that Rogerian therapy can be both supportive and reconstructive and that is the mix of the two, which takes away any major limitations. WORD COUNT: 3449