“When I’d Dealt with My Issues,I Was Ready to Give Back”: Peer Leader’s Perspectives of Support Groups for Women Abused by Intimate Partners

The serious nature of the abuse of women by intimate partners has garnered worldwide concern. Victims are often assisted through support groups; however, little is known about how the groups work or how leaders perceive the group process and the women’s response to the intervention. This qualitative process evaluation presents the perspectives of 14 trained peers who led weekly Growth Circle groups to provide support to abused women. The article describes the leader’s backgrounds, perceptions of the group process, and coleadership, in addition to reflections on the value and challenges in offering the program. Implications for community agencies and group leaders are offered.     

“Yours,Thirsty for Honesty,Ferenczi”: Some Background to Sandor Ferenczi's Pursuit of Mutuality

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Back to “the Future”: Evidence of a Bifactor Solution for Scores on the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale

Despite its widespread use, disagreement remains regarding the structure of the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFCS). In particular there is disagreement regarding whether the scale assesses future orientation as a unidimensional or multidimensional (immediate and future) construct. Using 2 samples of high school students in the United Kingdom, 4 models were tested. The totality of results including item loadings, goodness-of-fit indexes, and reliability estimates all supported the bifactor model, suggesting that the 2 hypothesized factors are better understood as grouping or method factors rather than as representative of latent constructs. Accordingly this study supports the unidimensionality of the CFCS and the scoring of all 12 items to produce a global future orientation score. Researchers intending to use the CFCS, and those with existing data, are encouraged to examine a bifactor solution for the scale.     

“It's wrong to relax,you have to be on the go,go, go,all the time”: Emotional transformation in a case of emotion-focused therapy for generalised anxiety disorder

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a highly prevalent, chronic and impairing disorder. The aim of this study was to qualitatively describe the transformation in emotional processing across 16 sessions of a successful emotion-focused therapy (EFT) treatment for GAD. A theoretical framework derived from the EFT model of in-session emotional transformation proposed by Pascual-Leone and Greenberg was used as the basis for qualitative analysis. Additionally, the Classification of Affective Meaning States, the Client-Expressed Arousal Scale-III and the Client Emotional Productivity Scale-Revised were utilised by observer–raters to classify moment-by-moment shifts in client affective-meaning states, emotional arousal and emotional productivity. Results supported the emotion transformation model. The client presented in a state of poorly differentiated but highly aroused distress provoked by identifiable interpersonal and intrapersonal triggers. Emotional and behavioural avoidance provoked by fear of pain was evident. Accessing core pain and responding to attendant needs with compassion and protective anger was shown to facilitate the higher order emotional processing states of grief, relief and agency. Implications are proposed, including that addressing core emotional vulnerability may be a critical intervention in the successful treatment of GAD.     

“Feeling my Sister’s Pain”: Perceived Victim Suffering Moderates the Impact of Sexualized Music Videos on Fijian Women’s Responses to Men’s Intimate Partner Violence against Women

To better understand how sexualized music videos affect women’s responses to intimate partner violence (IPV), we examined the role of individual variability in perceived victim pain and perceived victim culpability in moderating and mediating (respectively) the priming effects of sexual music videos on women. Female Fijian college students (n?=?243) were randomly assigned to one of three viewing conditions: stereotyped sexual music videos, non-stereotyped/non-sexual music videos, or neutral videos. All participants then read a portrayal of a male-toward-female IPV episode and their perceptions of the female victim and male perpetrator were assessed. Only women who minimized the victim’s pain were adversely affected by exposure to the stereotyped sexual videos. Specifically, for women who perceived low victim pain, those in the stereotyped video condition perceived the victim as more culpable and reported greater perpetrator-directed favorable responding than those in the other two conditions. For these women who perceived low victim pain, perceptions of victim culpability mediated the impact of video type on perpetrator-favorable responding. The findings help us better understand susceptibility to the negative impact of stereotypical sexual videos and highlight areas, such as emphasizing the suffering of victims and reducing myths about victim culpability, which may be worthy of particular emphasis in interventions.

     

Revisiting Jung’s “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity”: Some Implications for Psychoanalysis and Religion

This article explores one of C. G. Jung’s generally neglected essays, his psychological interpretation of the Trinity, and links up key theoretical notions with several more mainstream psychoanalytic concepts. It further uses the notions of oneness, otherness, thirdness, and the fourth to consider the recent points of convergence between psychoanalysis and religion.     

Loss and Psychosocial Support Among Palestinian Women in the Occupied Territories: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the “From a Bereaved Woman to Another” Project

Many Palestinian women in the occupied territories face the risk of experiencing incidents of personal loss of their husbands, youngsters, and relatives through death, imprisonment, or deportation due to daily confrontation with the Israeli occupation. In many such incidents, the individualistic focus of psychological therapy renders it less appropriate as a technique to minimize the psychosocial consequences of loss at the population (macro) level. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of an alternative approach called “from a bereaved woman to another.” A convenience sample of 94 bereaved women (aged 31–50 years) from West Bank territories took part in this initiative. The results of the study confirmed a statistically significant increase in women's positive self-attitudes and interpersonal skills and a decrease in loss-related symptoms.