A community-reinforcement approach to alcoholism

Several theoretical approaches to alcoholism exist. An opérant reinforcement approach was used in the present study to develop a new procedure that rearranged community reinforcers such as the job, family and social relations of the alcoholic such that drinking produced a time-out from a high density of reinforcement. The results showed that the alcoholics who received this Community-Reinforcement counseling drank less, worked more, spent more time with their families and out of institutions than did a matched control group of alcoholics who did not receive these procedures. This new approach appears to be an effective method of reducing alcoholism. An analysis in reinforcement terms is presented of the etiology, epidemiology, and treatment of alcoholism.     

Breaking the cycle of violence: an examination of factors relevant to treatment follow-through

To examine differences between a group of battered mothers who followed through with treatment recommended for their children and those who did not, 10 women from each of two comparable women's shelters who followed through with recommended therapy for their children were compared with 10 women from each shelter who did not follow through, in regard to age, years of education, job history, economic status, and prior exposure to therapy. Analysis indicated that women who followed through had significantly more years of education than those women who did not follow-through. Furthermore, women who followed-through were significantly more likely to have had prior experience in counseling or therapy as were their mates. Implications, including education of mothers about the emotional needs of their children by peers, staff, or liaison workers from mental health agencies as a positive means of curtailing transmission of violent patterns from parents to children, are discussed.     

Differential outcomes of skill training,group counseling,and individual cognitive therapy for persons with acquired visual impairment

As part of the Living Skills Training Program, group counseling and individual cognitive therapy were implemented to decrease psychological distress for adults with acquired visual impairment. This quasi‐experimental design study compared the outcomes of a 6‐month skill training program combined with a group counseling program (n = 37), with (n = 9) or without (n = 10) individual cognitive therapy, and with a control group (n = 42). The outcome measures were the Profile of Mood States and the Nottingham Adjustment Scale Japanese Version. The results showed that participants with low psychological distress decreased anxiety and increased acceptance of disability, even when they did not participate in group counseling. However, among the participants with high distress, they did not show any improvement without group counseling or individual therapy. The participants with high distress who engaged in group counseling showed an improving trend in attitudes toward others. Moreover, the participants who chose to engage in individual therapy in addition to group counseling showed decreased tension‐anxiety, depression, and fatigue, and significantly improved acceptance of disability. These results suggest that group counseling, combined with individual cognitive therapy, can be an effective part of rehabilitation treatment for clients who have high psychological distress.     

Measured Increases in Male Emotional Expressiveness Following a Structured Group Intervention

This study investigated whether men age 30 to 50 are able to increase their level of affective expressiveness, as measured by both self-report and behavioral tests. Twenty-eight subjects, drawn from a pool of 42 volunteers who met the criteria for participation, were randomly selected and placed into experimental or control groups. Experimental group subjects participated in a multimodal group intervention based on Social Learning Theory principles and targeted at changing cognitive, affecfive, and behavioral components of expressiveness. Results of the analyses revealed significant group differences in expressiveness across measures. That is, men can learn to express their feelings given the proper conditions. The experimental group showed greater consistency between their self-reported and actual behavioral expressiveness than did the control group. The contrast between subjects' behavorial expressiveness and perceived frequency of expressiveness are considered. Implications for counseling are discussed.     

Effectiveness of individual counseling by professional and peer helpers for family caregivers of the elderly

This study of the effectiveness of individual counseling for daughters and daughters-in-law (N = 87) who were the primary caregivers for frail elderly parents revealed that participants who received professional counseling demonstrated significantly better outcomes than a no-treatment control group in regard to subjective well-being, level of psychiatric symptomatology, and perceived change in aspects of the caregiver-care-receiver relationship. Participants who received peer counseling demonstrated similar gains but did not improve significantly more than did control subjects in subjective well-being. Both forms of counseling had no significant effect on caregivers' formal and informal social support networks.     

Model Reinforcement in Group Counseling with Elementary School Children

This study investigated the effectiveness of model reinforcement and reinforcement group counseling with elementary school children using sociometric status as a criterion. Eighteen low sociometric students experienced group counseling with sociometric stars included as models (six groups); 18 others experienced group counseling with all low sociometric students (three groups); and a control group met for an activity period. An analysis of co-variance was computed to measure the difference of change in social acceptance among the three treatments. The findings indicated that low sociometric students in the model reinforcement groups made significantly more gain in social acceptance than either those receiving counseling without models or the control group. A two-month follow-up showed the sociometric gains were retained.     

Handling the Stress of Looking for a Job in Law School: The Relationship between Intrinsic Motivation,Internal Attributions,Relations with Others,and Happiness

A study was conducted to examine how law students cope with the stress of looking for a job. We argue that effective coping is exhibited by the capacity to keep stress in one domain of life from spreading to and contaminating other, unrelated areas of life. Certain situations may be undeniably stressful; however, individuals who can maintain positive feelings about their life as a whole despite this stress may cope well. We hypothesized that three social psychological variables might be associated with this phenomenon: motivation (intrinsic versus extrinsic), attributions (internal versus external), and relations with others. The results indicated that students with intrinsic motives for being a lawyer were happier with their lives in general than were students with extrinsic motives. Likewise, students who attributed the ability to find a job to internal attributes were happier than were those who did not. Relations with others did not relate to happiness. Implications of these findings for career counseling are presented.     

Evaluating the efficacy of short-term counseling on adolescents in a school setting.

This study evaluated the efficacy of short-term school-based counseling with forty-two high school adolescents (twenty-seven males, fifteen females) by measuring pre- and posttest scores on a self-report, self-esteem measure. While there was a significant decline in self-esteem ratings after counseling in the areas of social acceptance, job competence, and close friendship, counseled students showed a significant improvement in the consistency between their adequacy ratings and their judgments about what competencies they valued. Specific gender differences emerged, as females appeared to have benefited more from the counseling experience than did males.     

Caretaker Psychological Factors Predicting Premature Termination of Children's Counseling

This study examines the psychological factors associated with caretakers' premature termination of counseling for their children. Data were collected on the 85 primary caretakers of 85 children in Texas who applied for counseling at community mental health centers or who received private practitioner care. The general hypothesis of the study was that scores on general hostility, intrapunitive hostility, extrapunitive hostility, paranoid ideation, depression, and anxiety would discriminate caretakers who prematurely terminated their children's counseling from both those caretakers whose children, in the judgment of the counselors, met therapeutic goals and those caretakers whose children did not meet therapeutic goals but who attended at least 10 counseling sessions. The effect size results suggest that counselors should primarily consider caretaker intrapunitive hostility when anticipating potential premature termination of counseling for children.     

Differences Between Adolescents Who Seek Counseling and Those Who Do Not

It was hypothesized that students who seek counseling for occupational and educational planning would differ from those who do not seek counseling in terms of socioeconomic background, certain personality variables, vocational development, and relations with parents. A battery of tests and a questionnaire were given to 245 male students from McDowell County, West Virginia. Of this group, 93 had received counseling (designated as group C) and 152 had not received counseling (designated as group NC). Group C showed a higher socioeconomic background, more n Achievement, and more certainty in vocational planning. The two groups did not differ significantly in occupational aspiration, perception of occupational prestige, self-esteem, fear of failure, relations with parents, and certainty in educational planning.     

Improvements in the community-reinforcement approach to alcoholism

This study evaluated a modified Community-Reinforcement program for treating alcoholics. The previously tested Community-Reinforcement program included special job. family, social and recreational procedures and was shown to reduce alcoholism. To increase the effectiveness of the program further, the present study incorporated a Buddy system, a daily report procedure, group counseling, and a special social motivation program to ensure the self-administration of Disulfiram (Antabuse). The alcoholics who received the improved Community-Reinforcement program drank less. worked more, spent more time at home and less time institutionalized than did their matched controls who received the standard hospital treatment including Antabuse in the usual manner. These results were stable over a 2-year period. The program appeared even more effective and less time-consuming than the previous program. The present results replicate the effectiveness of the Community-Reinforcement program for reducing alcoholism and indicate the usefulness of the additions to the program.     

A Follow-up Study of Counseling Effectiveness in Placement Outcomes—Data for Fiscal Years 1973 and 1976

A comparison was made of data from fiscal years 1973 and 1976 to determine if the findings of a study made in 1973 were true also in 1976. Basic findings of the 1973 study were “Your chances of being placed on a job by the Employment Service in Utah are greater if you receive assistance from counseling”; “The chances are even greater when you have more than one counseling interview”; “Personalizing the services seems to be the key to being placed on a job.” Other findings of the 1973 study regarding applicant characteristics often considered barriers to placement were not treated in the present study because of difficulties in obtaining the information from fiscal 1976 records. Results of the current study of 1976 data indicate: Although the advantage in favor of counseled applicants being placed was somewhat less in fiscal year 1976 than in fiscal 1973, counseled applicants' percentage-of-placement rate was still higher than that for all applicants in general, and increased numbers of counseling interviews did seem to have a positive effect on the placement rates of counseled applicants but at a slower rate than was found for fiscal 1973. In the current study an additional factor—renewals—was investigated to determine if higher placement rates accompanied higher numbers of renewals. The findings were positive but deemed inconclusive. Since renewals indicate repeated use of the service, they can be considered to be another measure of the effect of satisfactory service, like placement, rather than a cause of increased placement rates. This additional investigation did determine, however, that at all levels of renewal (except no renewal) the placement rate of counseled applicants was significantly higher than the placement rate of applicants who did not receive counseling.     

Selecting Job-Content Versus Job-Context Information: A Field Study of the Roles of Need for Closure and Prior Preferences

A field study was conducted in a job-interview setting among female secretarial job applicants with previously expressed preferences for receiving information either about job content or about job context. The results showed that (a) under high as opposed to low need for closure, job applicants requested more job information, whether for job content or job context; (b) across experimental conditions, subjects preferred job-context information; (c) high need for closure selectively reduced the job-context information requested by applicants who had expressed a preference for job-content characteristics as compared with subjects who had expressed a preference for job-context characteristics, but it did not reduce the need for job-content information of applicants with a job-context preference; and (d) under high need for closure, job applicants who had previously expressed a preference for job-content characteristics did, in fact, perceive job-content information as more important than job-context information, and subjects who had expressed a preference for job-context type of characteristics perceived job-context characteristics as more important.     

What Predicts the Use of Genetic Counseling Services After the Birth of a Child with Down Syndrome?

In the state of Victoria, Australia, a government funded genetic counseling service exists to meet the needs of families. An audit showed that many families do not use this service after the birth of a child with a genetic problem. To investigate this we surveyed families of children born with Down syndrome over 2 years in Victoria. Questionnaires were completed by 74 mothers, of whom only 18 had received genetic counseling between the birth and the time of the study (mean 3.5 years). Of those not receiving genetic counseling, 71% said they were not offered or had not heard of it. Mothers who had genetic counseling were younger than those who had not, and were more likely to have attended University. Those who had genetic counseling indicated less satisfaction with care at the diagnosis and were more likely to perceive their child as unwell at birth than those who were aware of genetic counseling but did not have it. Of those who did not have genetic counseling, over half were unclear about what it is, although 74% agreed with the statement genetic counseling is most useful when planning to have another child. Of those who had heard of genetic counseling, 73% said they were not sure how it could help. Many families with children with Down syndrome are not aware of the existence or functions of genetic counseling. With greater awareness, some may still choose not to have genetic counseling, but others enunciated needs that could be met by this service if it were offered to them.     

Rational-emotive therapy and the reduction of interpersonal anxiety in junior high school students

This study evaluated the effectiveness of rational-emotive therapy and rational-emotive imagery. Fifty-nine junior high school students who volunteered to participate in treatment for interpersonal anxiety were randomly assigned to rational-emotive therapy without imagery (RET), rational-emotive therapy with imagery (REI), relationship-oriented counseling (ROC), and waiting-list control (WLC) groups. Groups met for seven 50-minute treatment sessions during a three-week period. Assessments were conducted at pretreatment, posttreatment, and three-week follow-up. Both self-report and sociometric measures were used to evaluate treatment outcome. At postassessment, both the RET and REI groups were rated on sociometric measures as significantly less interpersonally anxious than the WLC group. Mean scores favored the RET and REI groups, but no significant differences between these groups and the ROC group were obtained. The self-report measure did not significantly differentiate between groups, but the REI group demonstrated significant pre- to follow-up changes. Both the RET and REI groups yielded greater reductions in irrational thinking than did the ROC and WLC groups. In addition, the pattern of the results supported the use of rational-emotive imagery as a component of rational-emotive therapy. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Social factors and mental health symptoms among women who have experienced involuntary job loss

The growing proportion of women in the labor force and the current economic crisis has made women a target population for job loss. In that situation, they are likely to experience recurrent layoffs, which force them to cope with multiple job loss and with unemployment. The present study aimed to examine sociodemographic factors that help women succeed in coping with single or multiple experiences of job loss, and that even enhance their self-efficacy in returning to work. The population of participants consisted of 134 Israeli women aged 30-45 who had been laid off. The findings indicate that the women who had experienced multiple job loss expressed a stronger desire to return to work than did those who had been laid off only once. Married women showed a greater tendency to become accustomed to stress after being laid off than did never-married women. However, even though multiple job loss might be a forced solution to home-work conflict, never-married women were found to be at risk for distress responses after being laid off. There is a need to develop responses for women who are at risk for multiple job loss, and to enhance employers' awareness of the situation faced by women who are laid off.     

Group Counseling Intervention for Solving Problems on the Job

This article reports the effects of a group counseling intervention on the social problem solving by and employment preparation of Grade 9 and Grade 10 students. Mathematics teachers implemented the intervention on problem solving on the job within a unit on mathematics problem solving. The intervention used a cognitive approach to counseling, specifically cognitive strategy instruction with teacher modeling and students' thinking aloud to a partner. Both pretest and posttest scores and analyses of interviews with 4 students showed the success of the intervention. An interview with the peer coach of the teachers highlighted teacher experiences in implementing successful group counseling.     

Applying a cognitive behavioral model of health anxiety in a cancer genetics service.

A cognitive-behavioral model of health anxiety was used to investigate reactions to genetic counseling for cancer. Participants (N = 218) were asked to complete a questionnaire beforehand and 6 months later. There was an overall decrease in levels of cancer-related anxiety, although 24% of participants showed increased cancer-related anxiety at follow-up. People who had a general tendency to worry about their health reported more cancer-related anxiety than those who did not at both time points. This health-anxious group also showed a postcounseling anxiety reduction, whereas the others showed no significant change. Participants with breast or ovarian cancer in their family were more anxious than participants with colon cancer in their family. Preexisting beliefs were significant predictors of anxiety, consistent with a cognitive-behavioral approach.     

Preventing postparchment depression: a model of career counseling for college seniors

College graduates and employers alike have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of job competencies of new graduates. Both groups suggest that institutions of higher education must do a better job of preparing their students to meet workplace challenges. The author describes the problem and presents a model that is delivered via distance education at one university. One of the major goals of the program presented is to ease the transition of college graduates to the workforce. The practical suggestions are appropriate for practitioners who work with this population, and they can be adapted for individual or group counseling.     

The Polyvalent Counselor

Employment counselors must serve many different kinds of clients and provide a wide variety of services. They must be capable of providing individual and group counseling services as well as environmental intervention. The counseling process is somewhat different for the employment counselor who must also consider the available job market, motivational forces, aptitudes, skills, and interests. This article discusses the framework in which the polyvalent employment counselor works. This article was the basis of a workshop for the Employment Security Commission at their state meting in Burlington, North Carolina, in June 1977.