A Behavioral Treatment of Child Abuse:

The following case presents the behavioral analysis and treatment of abuse in an 18-year-old unmarried mother. Both her children were being abused. Treatment involved teaching child management techniques, thought-stopping, programming activities incompatible with abuse, and increasing the mother's sources of reinforcement. A foster home was also arranged for use in emergencies and types of behavior and levels of attainment expected from children at various ages were outlined. Combined instances of abuse decreased from 10 in the week prior to intervention to 0 by week nine and remained at this level for the rest of the 21 week treatment period. A follow-up 18 months later indicated no further occurence of abuse.     

A Child Trauma Treatment Pilot Study

We examined outcomes of a promising 21-session trauma treatment model for children aged 3 to 17 and their caregivers. All children in treatment had experienced at least one traumatic event. The treatment intervention was rooted in theories of trauma and attachment and combines parent training with cognitive behavioral therapy to form a comprehensive trauma treatment program. We report on 27 families who completed the program. Results reflect significant reductions in conduct disorder, problems in social relations, and caregiver depression at an average of a one-year post-treatment follow-up. Results from our preliminary study offer support for further evaluation of the model.     

Identity Shift III: Effects of Publicness of Feedback and Relational Closeness in Computer-Mediated Communication

Identity shift occurs when an individual's self-perception changes as a result of feedback to her or his self-presentation. This research, the third in a series, further explores the influences of identity shift, specifically exploring the effects of the publicness of feedback to an individual and the relational closeness between the individual and feedback provider on the individual's subsequent self-perceptions of her or his extraversion. An experimental study (N = 56) utilized a 2 (extroverted/introverted) × 2 (private/public feedback) × 2 (feedback from a relationally close/nonclose partner) design. Results of between-groups analysis revealed both main intensification effects of public and relationally close feedback and an interaction effect between the conditions. Findings are discussed with respect to identity shift, the hyperpersonal model, and online self-presentation.     

Relational Aggression in Mothers and Children: Links with Psychological Control and Child Adjustment

This study assesses associations between mothers’ use of relational aggression with their peers and psychological control with their children, and child adjustment in a sample of fifty U.S. mothers of elementary and middle school children. Mothers completed surveys assessing their relational aggression and psychological control. Teachers completed surveys assessing children’s externalizing behavior, internalizing symptoms, and relational aggression. Results suggest that mothers who are relationally aggressive with their peers are more likely to be psychologically controlling with their children. Results also showed that relational aggression predicted adjustment problems in youth. Relational aggression was associated with externalizing problems among boys and girls, and with internalizing problems among boys. Few gender differences in mean levels of maternal or child behaviors emerged.     

Relational Job Characteristics and Work Engagement: Mediation by Prosocial Motivation

This study tested the relation between perceived social impact, social worth, and work engagement in the military, and mediating effects of prosocial motivation. We tested hypotheses using structural equation modeling analysis in a field study with 322 officers and sergeants and 1,045 soldiers of the Portuguese Army. Results confirmed that perceived social impact and social worth were associated with work engagement. Furthermore, regardless of the rank category, perceived social impact was associated with higher prosocial motivation, which in turn was associated with higher work engagement. In the soldiers subsample, results further indicated that soldiers’ perceived social worth was associated with higher prosocial motivation, which in turn was related to higher work engagement. The direct effects of perceived social impact and social worth on work engagement, and the mediating role of prosocial motivation supported the hypothesis that perceptions of social impact and social worth may strengthen the motives to “do good” (prosocial motivation), leading to an upward spiral that cultivates work engagement among members of the military.     

Harry Potter and the Relational Child: Engaging Millennials in a New Generation of Counseling

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two (Rowling, Thorne, & Tiffany, 2016) is the latest installment in a franchise that has defined the millenial generation. The screenplay captures the essence of human behavior as it is molded by individual effort, human interactions, and cultural wellbeing. The authors present a way to conceptualize the millennial generation and their families through the lens of Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT). The authors begin with an overview of RCT, followed by a conceptualization of the screenplay using RCT as a theoretical lens. A conceptualization of how this story can be used to process themes of family, friendship, isolation, parenting, and adolescents with millennials and their families is provided. Furthermore, the researchers explore how this story can be used as supplemental material in the classroom to help the next generation of counselors conceptualize and process these themes with clients.     

Relational Science: A Synthesis

A synthesis of the two primary theory structures in Robert Rosen’s relational complexity, (1) relational entailment mapping based on category theory as described by Rosen and Louie, and (2) relational holism based on modeling relations, as described by Kineman, provides an integral foundation for relational complexity theory as a natural science and analytical method. Previous incompatibilities between these theory structures are resolved by re-interpreting Aristotle’s four causes, identifying final and formal causes as relations with context. Category theory is applied to introduce contextual entailment algebra needed to complete the synthesis. The modeling relation is represented as a recursive four-cause hierarchy, which is a unit of both whole and part analysis (a ‘holon’) that relates realized and contextual domains of nature as complementary inverse entailments between structure and function. Context is a non-localized domain of distributed potentials (models) for existence, as contrasted with the realized domain of localized interactive and measurable events. Synthesis is achieved by giving modeling relations an algebraic form in category theory and by expanding relational analysis to include contextual entailments. The revised form of analysis is applied and demonstrated to examine Rosen’s M-R diagram, showing that structure–function relations imply adaptive interaction with the environment, and that contextual relations imply three forms of the M-R entailment corresponding with the generally known three forms of life; Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota, which can be represented by their holon diagrams. The result of this synthesis is a consistent foundation for relational science that should have important implications in many disciplines.     

Relational Psychoanalysis: A Review

Relational psychoanalysis, a relatively new and evolving school of psychoanalytic thought, is considered by its founders to represent a “paradigm shift” in psychoanalysis. The relational approach, initiated by the publication of Jay Greenberg and Stephen Mitchell's book, Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory in 1983, has developed into a movement with its own substantially separate literature. This paper reviews both the history and theoretical origins of the relational movement, as well as important theoretical premises and viewpoints now associated with the relational school.     

Personal Dispositions and Shift‐Work Tolerance: A Longitudinal Study of Municipality Shift Workers

The aim of this study was to investigate how dispositional resistance to change and neuroticism could predict shift‐work tolerance (SWT) over a period of 6 months. Electronic questionnaires were completed by 74 shift workers employed in a municipality in Norway in January 2013 (1st wave of data collection) and in June 2013 (2nd wave of data collection). The findings suggest that individual differences, especially neuroticism, can predict SWT over a period of 6 months.     

Emotion Regulation in Workgroups: The Roles of Demographic Diversity and Relational Work Context

Drawing on the social identity perspective, we investigate the cross‐level relationship between demographic diversity in workgroups and emotion regulation. We propose that age, racial, and gender diversity in workgroups relate positively to emotion regulation because of demography‐related in‐group/out‐group dynamics. We also examine the moderating role of the relational work context, specifically task interdependence and social interaction, on the relationship between demographic diversity and emotion regulation. Results from a sample of 2,072 employees in 274 workgroups indicate that working in a group with greater age diversity is positively related to an employee's emotion regulation. Results suggest the operation of the age diversity effect can be attributed primarily to younger employees when they are in workgroups with older coworkers. Results reveal asymmetric effects for racial diversity such that racial out‐group members engage in higher levels of emotion regulation than racial in‐group members when racial diversity is low, whereas racial in‐group members engage in higher levels of emotion regulation than racial out‐group members when racial diversity is high. Race effects also suggest a moderating effect of social interaction; specifically, social interaction weakens the relationship between racial diversity and emotion regulation. Gender effects are not significant.     

Child Abuse: Group Treatment for Parents

Group counseling, structured to maximize peer support and to reduce social isolation, provides a context in which parents can make changes in cognition and behavior.     

Relational Diagnosis: A Retrospective Synopsis

This article highlights and summarizes efforts that have been made primarily during the past 20 years to bring the significance of relational diagnosis to the attention of the entire mental health community, and either (1) to have dysfunctional relational interactive patterns classified and codified and accepted for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or (2) if this is not feasible, to have a nosology of relational diagnoses, which have been clearly defined with accompanying risks specified for mental illnesses that might develop, and criteria sets delineated and adequately field tested to warrant and lead to publication of a separate but equal Diagnostic Manual of Relational Disorders and Dysfunctional Interactional Patterns.     

Vitalizing Enactment: A Relational Exploration

Drawing from her extensive work with deeply disturbed children Alvarez (2012) theorized a form of intervention termed “vitalization” in which the analyst actively reaches out to contact and “reclaim” her most inaccessible patients, engaging them in the world of emotions and relationships. In this paper I consider Alvarez’s ideas through the lens of Relational thought, reconceptualizing vitalization as a unique form of enactment that can draw the analytic dyad from deadened impasse into enlivened contact. In vitalizing enactment embryonic affects, hopes, and longings find expression and are potentiated for patient and analyst alike. This is a view of enactment as a progressive and creative lived experience, rather than an unconscious collision to be survived and symbolized. I contextualize vitalizing enactment in relation to Alvarez’s original formulations as well as relevant contemporary theories and present a clinical vignette to illustrate this paper’s themes.     

Child Personality Moderates Associations Between Parenting and Relational and Physical Aggression

Although negative parenting strategies are a risk factor for relational and physical aggression, research has not previously investigated whether child personality traits moderate the association between negative parenting and relational and physical aggression. This was the aim of this study. Participants were mothers of 368 children (172 males, M_age = 11.61, SD = 0.82). Mothers reported on their parenting practices, child personality traits, and child aggression. Results indicated that 2 child personality traits (extraversion and openness) moderated the relationship between inconsistent discipline and relational aggression. Additionally, agreeableness moderated the relationship between poor monitoring and supervision and physical aggression. Specifically, children low on these personality traits showed the highest levels of aggression in the context of negative parenting. These results highlight the importance of examining child personality as a moderator of parental influences on psychopathology development, and emphasize important distinctions between parenting strategies and physical versus relational aggression outcomes.     

Relational Financial Therapy: An Innovative and Collaborative Treatment Approach

An intervention model for couples reporting both relationship and financial stress was developed and evaluated. The model utilized co-therapy teams of marriage and family therapists and financial planners who employed a five-session treatment approach in working with 12 couples. Findings demonstrated numerous benefits of this collaborative model. A recommendation was made that academic programs and professionals in MFT and Financial Planning develop similar interdisciplinary collaborative efforts.     

Harsh Conditions/Loving Work: Relational Psychoanalysis Expands Its Reach: Commentary on Panel

In these three essays Lazar, Swartz, and Doñas deconstruct a clinical moment that was, in their view, braided with the sociopolitical, as well as with the relational and the intrapsychic. In these bruisingly original discussions, the authors demonstrate how they held the tension between the intimate and the global, and how relational psychoanalysis remains an arduous practice but is also a gift.     

Treatment Effects for Common Outcomes of Child Sexual Abuse: A Current Meta-Analysis

The present meta-analysis examined the effects of psychosocial treatments at reducing deleterious outcomes of sexual abuse. The meta-analysis included a total of 35 published and unpublished studies written in English, focusing on youth under the age of 18, and evaluating the effectiveness of treatments for the most common negative outcomes of sexual abuse: PTSD symptoms, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems. Results revealed medium effect sizes for PTSD symptoms, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems following treatment for sexual abuse. This study also examined the potential moderating effects of treatment (e.g., modality, duration, inclusion of caregiver) and participant (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity) characteristics. Results indicated that longer interventions were associated with greater treatment gains while group and individual treatments were equally effective. These findings shed new light on treatment effectiveness and provide useful information regarding the conditions under which treatment may be most effective. Future directions for research in this area are discussed.