Family hypnotherapy: Erickson or systems?

This paper argues that Ericksonian hypnotherapy is epistemologically at variance with the systems theory underlying most forms of family therapy. This incompatibility is not often realized, because of other shared assumptions such as focusing on positives, and the utilization of presenting behaviour. The paper highlights the epistemological differences between Systems and Ericksonian thinking and presents the concept of attribution of meaning as a possible way out of the difficulties which arise when these two opposing modes of thought are mixed in therapy.     

Family crisis intervention: fish or fowl?

This paper considers the status of family intervention as an area of interest defined by its literature (70 publications) and includes a brief history, assessment of present status, and recommendations for future development of family crisis intervention as a distinct field with concepts and goals that can be clearly defined, taught, researched, and repeated in treatment. Recommendations are made for the development of an explicit paradigm for intervention with a clear, common language of terms and concepts for family involvement. Suggested directions for developing the paradigm and language are explored.     

Can Housing and Service Interventions Reduce Family Separations for Families Who Experience Homelessness?

Family break‐up is common in families experiencing homelessness. This paper examines the extent of separations of children from parents and of partners from each other and whether housing and service interventions reduced separations and their precursors among 1,857 families across 12 sites who participated in the Family Options Study. Families in shelters were randomized to offers of one of three interventions: permanent housing subsidies that reduce expenditures for rent to 30% of families’ income, temporary rapid re‐housing subsidies with some services directed at housing and employment, and transitional housing in supervised facilities with extensive psychosocial services. Each group was compared to usual care families who were eligible for that intervention but received no special offer. Twenty months later, permanent housing subsidies almost halved rates of child separation and more than halved rates of foster care placements; the other interventions did not affect separations significantly. Predictors of separation were primarily homelessness and drug abuse (all comparisons), and alcohol dependence (one comparison). Although housing subsidies reduced homelessness, alcohol dependence, intimate partner violence, and economic stressors, the last three variables had no association with child separations in the subsidy comparison; thus subsidies had indirect effects via reductions in homelessness. No intervention reduced partner separations.     

Homelessness: What is a psychologist to do?

Contrasts person-centered and structural explanations for homelessness. Methodological problems in studies of homeless people tend to exaggerate the role of individual deficits as causes of homelessness. A review of data on the distribution of poverty and of inadequate and unaffordable housing, with special emphasis on families, suggests the importance of structural causes. Data from 700 families requesting shelter and 524 families randomly drawn from the public assistance case load in New York City provide more support for a structural than for an individual deficit model. Individual demographic factors are also important. Implications are drawn for research and action by psychologists.     

Trait Anxiety and Fear Responses to Safety Cues: Stimulus Generalization or Sensitization?

Abnormal fear responding to threat cues may contribute to the aetiology and maintenance of persistent fears and pathological anxiety. Chronic anxiety may also involve abnormal fear responding to ??safety?? cues, which do not signal danger. Yet investigations of fear responding to acquired safety cues are scarce and the basis of such responding remains unclear. Moreover, previous studies do not distinguish between stimulus generalization (an associative mechanism based on perceptual similarity between threat and safety cues) and sensitization (a non-associative mechanism whereby fear responses to any novel, intense, or fear-related stimulus are temporarily elevated). This study investigated responses to acquired safety cues in volunteers with varying trait anxiety, using a novel fear conditioning paradigm designed to distinguish between effects of trait anxiety on generalization and sensitization. The paradigm used three conditioned stimuli: a threat cue (CS+) and two safety cues (CS?), one perceptually similar to the CS+ and one perceptually dissimilar. Conditioned fear to these cues was indexed by fear potentiation of the startle blink reflex, skin conductance responses, and self-report. To examine how trait anxiety moderated responses to safety cues, participants were divided into high and low trait anxiety subgroups. Startle, skin conductance, and self-reported fear measures indicated that generalization of fear occurred for the safety cue which resembled the threat cue, but not for the perceptually dissimilar safety cue, consistent with the stimulus generalization hypothesis. There was some evidence that stimulus generalization was exaggerated in anxious individuals. The current study sheds light on the mechanism by which fear responses to safety cues arise in healthy individuals, and offers some insight into the influence of this mechanism in chronic anxiety.     

Are You Ready to Have Fun? The Spanish State Form of the State–Trait–Cheerfulness Inventory

Although cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood as traits have been widely studied as the basis of sense of humor, data are scarce regarding the same dimensions as states. In this study, we adapted the state form of the State–Trait–Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI–S) into Spanish. At the same time, we empirically tested new predictions. We assessed 5 independent samples accounting for 1,029 participants (647 women) with ages ranging from 18 to 78 years. We confirmed the 3-dimensional structure as well as a strong measurement invariance between men and women. The internal consistency of the scale was satisfactory, the expected intercorrelations emerged, and the convergence between states and traits was corroborated. We also confirmed that the STCI–S's items were sensitive to affective changes in the environment. A longitudinal stability study of the state–trait dimensions using latent state–trait (LST) models revealed that all three trait measures capture mostly stable interindividual differences, with occasion-specific effects mainly in the state dimensions. Finally, we found that the STCI–S dimensions were related to state well-being. The results suggest that the STCI–S is a valid option for measuring the state basis of sense of humor in the Spanish population.     

Family therapy and a “good” society: Fit or misfit?

Contextual therapy is compared with a good society based on socialist principles of equality, planning and sociality. The two models are analyzed across dimensions of justice, connectedness, change, and basic human resource for similarities and differences.     

Youth Homelessness and Vulnerability: How Does Couch Surfing Fit?

Youth homelessness is a problem characterized by high levels of vulnerability. The extent to which couch surfing — moving from one temporary housing arrangement to another — is part of youth homelessness is not well understood. Chapin Hall's Voices of Youth Count, a national research initiative, involves a multicomponent approach to studying youth homelessness. This study reports emerging findings regarding couch surfing and homelessness primarily from a national survey of 13,113 adults with youth ages 13–25 in their households or who are themselves ages 18–25. Findings suggest that couch surfing is relatively common, particularly among the older age group. Among households with 13‐ to 17‐year‐olds and 18‐ to 25‐year‐olds, 4.0% and 20.5%, respectively, reported that any of them had couch surfed in the last 12 months. There are notable social, economic, and educational differences, on average, between youth reporting homelessness and those reporting only couch surfing. However, most youth who report experiencing homelessness also report couch surfing, and these youth who experience both circumstances present high levels of socioeconomic vulnerability. Couch surfing encompasses a range of experiences, some of which likely include need for services. Interviews currently in the field, and expanded analysis of data, will contribute more nuanced policy insights.     

Family or friends: who plays a greater supportive role for Latino college students?

This study compared the relative contribution of perceived family and friend support to psychological well-being and distress and examined whether family or friend support moderated the effects of stress on psychological adjustment in 338 Latino (228 Mexican American, 110 Central American) college students from a predominantly Latino university. Two multiple regressions, controlling for gender, socioeconomic level, acculturation level, and stresses (generic college, acculturative, and minority status), showed that friend support made a slightly greater contribution to well-being than family support, and friend support and not family support protected against psychological distress. Neither family nor friend support moderated the effects of stress on psychological adjustment. Further examination of these variables that assess common-specific stresses within a culture-specific theoretical framework is recommended.     

Personality Trait Differences Between Young and Middle‐Aged Adults: Measurement Artifacts or Actual Trends?

A growing body of research demonstrates that older individuals tend to score differently on personality measures than younger adults. However, recent research using item response theory (IRT) has questioned these findings, suggesting that apparent age differences in personality traits merely reflect artifacts of the response process rather than true differences in the latent constructs. Conversely, other studies have found the opposite—age differences appear to be true differences rather than response artifacts. Given these contradictory findings, the goal of the present study was to examine the measurement equivalence of personality ratings drawn from large groups of young and middle‐aged adults (a) to examine whether age differences in personality traits could be completely explained by measurement nonequivalence and (b) to illustrate the comparability of IRT and confirmatory factor analysis approaches to testing equivalence in this context. Self‐ratings of personality traits were analyzed in two groups of Internet respondents aged 20 and 50 (n = 15,726 in each age group). Measurement nonequivalence across these groups was negligible. The effect sizes of the mean differences due to nonequivalence ranged from –.16 to .15. Results indicate that personality trait differences across age groups reflect actual differences rather than merely response artifacts.     

Family Therapy — A Science or an Art?

Family therapy can be viewed as science and as art. Following leads provided by Gregory Bateson, this paper reflects on problems and promises inherent in both views.     

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire: Multiple factors or method effects?

The latent structure of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) was evaluated with confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) in 1200 outpatients with DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders. Of particular interest was the comparative fit and interpretability of a two-factor solution (cf. Behaviour Research and Therapy 40 (2002) 313) vs. a one-factor model that specified method effects arising from five reverse-worded items. Consistent with prediction, the superiority of the one-factor model was demonstrated in split-sample CFA replications (ns=600). Multiple-group CFAs indicated that the measurement properties of the PSWQ were invariant in male and female patients. In addition to their direct relevance to the psychometrics of the PSWQ, the results are discussed in regard to methodological considerations for using factor analytic methods in the evaluation of psychological tests.     

Passion or Perjury: Center or Circumference?

Are all transcendental claims a lost cause because they can have no objective empirical truth? Or does the transcendent still move among us as immanent, and, if so, how so? The question of ultimacy and the validity of the symbolic is considered through the views of Paul Ricoeur and Carl Jung.     

The Role of the Family Therapist in Divorce: Benevolent Healer or Agent of Social Change?

Essay Review of:
The Dynamics of Divorce: A Life Cycle Perspective , F. W. Kaslow and L. L. Schwartz, New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1987.
Divorced Families: A Multidisciplinary Developmental View , C. R. Ahrons and R. H. Rodgers, New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.
The Difficult Divorce: Therapy for Children and Families , M. B. Isaacs, B. Montalvo, and D. Abelson, New York: Basic Books, 1986.