Issues involved in the treatment of an adolescent group.

At first we had a lot of information about what to expect from an adolescent group. But we quickly found an enormous gap between our information and the actual experience and gut feelings. It is important to anticipate many overwhelming feelings! It is also crucial for therapists to be open and honest with themselves and each other about their counter-transferences. Second, we discovered that it is not hopeless! However, it is essential to provide structure via firm, consistent limits and goals. Adolescents need to feel protected by therapists who can manage the group's turbulence. Third, creative techniques frequently provide ways of dealing with feelings. Four, a treatment group cannot survive with too many acters-out; one or two may add spice and give permission to others to recognize and express feelings. Also, despite the often chaotic atmosphere, serious treatment takes place. It has been helpful to have Mrs. Friedman as our supervisor. At critical points, when we were overwhelmed, she helped with her objectivity and support, offering a clearer vision of actual treatment issues when feelings were high. At times when we felt depleted, Mrs. Friedman's support replenished us and we were able to return to the group with enthusiasm. In conclusion, it has been fun working as co-therapists. We have found that the sharing and mutual confrontation contributed significantly to our professional growth.     

Humble Beginnings: Current Trends,State Perspectives,and Hallmarks of Humility

After decades of neglect, research in humility is finally turning a corner. Within the past few years, investigators have articulated two promising strategies to overcome methodological concerns – namely, using personality judgments and designing humility “stress tests” to elicit humility‐relevant behavior. We also highlight an alternative perspective of humility that has not yet gained much attention: the investigation of humility as a state, which helps to understand what humility actually is, how it functions, and its variability within individuals over time. To improve the observation of humility‐relevant behavior, we propose five intrapersonal and interpersonal hallmarks of humility that have strong theoretical support, can distinguish between humility's conceptual foils of narcissism and low self‐esteem, and provide broad theoretical ties between ongoing research endeavors: A secure, accepting identity, freedom from distortion, openness to new information, other‐focus, and egalitarian beliefs. Finally, to increase methodological rigor, we recommend using a combination of self‐reports and other‐reports and employing multiple raters with demonstrated inter‐rater reliability in validation studies.     

Perspectives of stuttering treatment: Children,adolescents, and parents

PurposeResearchers investigated whether children who stutter (CWS), adolescents who stutter (ADWS), and their parents preferred treatment focused on changing speech or communicating regardless of stuttering.MethodsTwenty-four parents and their CWS (n = 11, ages 8;0–12;11) or ADWS (n = 13, ages 13;0–17;11) answered questions about their preferences for stuttering treatment via an internet-based survey; an additional 11 surveys were filled in only by parents without responses by their child/adolescent. The researchers compared responses of the parents and their children, as well as between the two age groups and years in treatment (less than five years versus five or more years).ResultsViews tended to be mixed without any clear trends based on age. Just over half of the CWS, ADWS, and parents of CWS indicated a general tendency for therapy satisfaction; however, less years of treatment were associated with more satisfaction. When presented with a specific scenario, a higher proportion of parents expressed focus on their child saying what they want to say, regardless of stuttering. Otherwise, preferences were mixed on therapy goals of speaking freely vs. speaking more fluently.ConclusionsPreferences for treatment goals do not predictably vary based on age or years in treatment; given the small sample size, these findings should be considered with caution. Given the variability in responses, it is evident that stuttering treatment for school-age children and adolescents should be individualized. These results also emphasize the importance of communication, education, and applying a person-centered approach when providing stuttering intervention to children, adolescents, and their parents.     

Reductions in criminality subsequent to group, individual, and family therapy in adolescent residential and day treatment settings.

The complete population of adolescents in a residential and day-treatment program over a 4-year period, 532 youths, served in two studies. Along with residential and day-treatment settings, predictive variables of interest were the number of hours spent in group, individual, and family therapy. A total of 227 adolescents qualified for Study 1 which found a reduction of rates of criminal charges from pre- to posttreatment. Study 1 also found that hours in group therapy explained the most variance in the reduction in rates of criminal charges, followed closely by hours in individual therapy. Hours in family therapy was not a significant predictor. A total of 430 adolescents qualified for Study 2, which found that residential treatment was associated with greater reductions in adult correctional commitments than day treatment. Implications stress the need for further research examining the relationships between therapeutic components of residential treatment and behavioral outcomes.     

The Counseling Profession in Russia: Historical Roots,Current Trends,and Future Perspectives

Psychology was established in Russia before the Communist era. The social work profession was created in 1991 for a society in turmoil after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2011, the counseling profession officially emerged as a branch of social work called social psychological help. Professional counseling associations are in the formative stage. Concern about mental health issues, particularly substance abuse, suggests that the counseling profession could continue to grow in Russia.     

Utilitarian relevance and face management in the interpretation of ambiguous question/request statements

Often, requests are made in an indirect manner and phrased in such a way that they can also be construed as questions. For example, the sentence “Is there any coffee left?” can be construed either as a question about coffee or as a request for coffee. This article offers a combined test of some key predictions of two approaches to the disambiguation of question/request statements: (1) the face management approach, which gives a prominent role to variables such as status and potential loss of face; and (2) the utilitarian relevance approach, which gives a prominent role to the goals pursued by the speaker at the time he or she issues the statement. Ambiguous question/request statements provide a natural test bed for the latter approach in particular. A board game paradigm is developed to allow for a clean, orthogonal manipulation of all variables. The results wholly support the utilitarian relevance approach and offer new perspectives on the face management approach.     

Parental divorce and adolescent delinquency: ruling out the impact of common genes

Although the well-documented association between parental divorce and adolescent delinquency is generally assumed to be environmental (i.e., causal) in origin, genetic mediation is also possible. Namely, the behavior problems often found in children of divorce could derive from similar pathology in the parents, pathology that is both heritable and increases the risk that the parent will experience divorce. To test these alternative hypotheses, the authors made use of a novel design that incorporated timing of divorce in a sample of 610 adoptive and biological families. They reasoned that if genes common to parent and child mediate this association, nonadopted youth should manifest increased delinquency in the presence of parental divorce even if the divorce preceded their birth (i.e., was from a prior parental relationship). However, should the association be environmental in origin, the authors reasoned that adolescents should manifest increased delinquency only in response to divorce exposure, and this association should not vary by adoption status. Results firmly supported the latter, suggesting that it is the experience of parental divorce, and not common genes, that drives the association between divorce and adolescent delinquency.     

Current theoretical perspectives on adolescent pregnancy and childbearing in the United States

"The purpose of this article is to synthesize and place in perspective contemporary theories and explanations of the high rates of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing in the United States. The study examined the strengths and weaknesses of the more prominent explanations of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing in light of current research.... This article casts doubt on the hypothesis that the lack of reproductive information is in and of itself an important determinant of adolescent pregnancy in the United States. Many other factors are discussed that intervene to negate the effect of reproductive knowledge alone as a deterrent to adolescent pregnancy and childbearing. Suggestions for an integrative research agenda, as well as educational and health strategies focusing on adolescent pregnancy and childbearing are proposed."     

Stereotype threat and group differences in test performance: a question of measurement invariance

Studies into the effects of stereotype threat (ST) on test performance have shed new light on race and sex differences in achievement and intelligence test scores. In this article, the authors relate ST theory to the psychometric concept of measurement invariance and show that ST effects may be viewed as a source of measurement bias. As such, ST effects are detectable by means of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis. This enables research into the generalizability of ST effects to real-life or high-stakes testing. The modeling approach is described in detail and applied to 3 experiments in which the amount of ST for minorities and women was manipulated. Results indicate that ST results in measurement bias of intelligence and mathematics tests.     

Inpatient adolescent and latency-age children's perspectives on the curative factors in group psychotherapy

Thirty-three adolescent and 11 child psychiatric inpatients were administered a downward revision of Yalom's (1970) 60-item Q-sort, which sets forth 12 putative curative factors of group, to assess patient perceptions of which factors in group therapy are most curative. The impact that age, patient level of functioning, and time in treatment had on which factors were most valued was assessed. Patient perceptions of the value of group compared to other treatment modalities were also assessed. Both child and adolescent subjects highly valued the factors of Hope, Cohesiveness, and Universality. Patients' level of functioning had limited effects on adolescents' perceptions, but did effect children's perceptions of what was most valued in group. The modest effect of time in treatment was attributed to the short duration of inpatient treatment. Implications for inpatient adolescent and child group therapy and future research are explored.Appreciation is extended to Mary Kelly, Elly Cobb, and Anna Csaky-Chase for their conceptual and editorial assistance.     

Comorbid social anxiety disorder in clients with depressive disorders: predicting changes in depressive symptoms, therapeutic relationships, and focus of attention in group treatment

The current study examined whether depressed outpatients with comorbid SAD respond differently to a cognitive-behavioral group intervention and if so, how and why. Using growth curve modeling, we found evidence that depressed clients with comorbid SAD had rapid improvement in depressive symptoms over the course of treatment and generally did not differ from those without comorbidity in developing close therapeutic relationships and modifying the direction of attentional focus away from the self. Non-linear effects demonstrated that rates of change in depressive symptoms, relationship variables, and focus of attention, were most rapid early in treatment. In contrast to hypotheses, trajectories of change in therapeutic relationships and attentional focus did not mediate the effect of SAD on treatment improvement in depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that comorbid SAD does not have a detrimental effect on the course of depression treatment and group-based treatments can be as beneficial for depressed individuals with comorbid SAD. It may be that group-based treatments for depression provide explicit opportunity for emotional processing in social situations (i.e., exposure) and hence mimic efficacious therapies for SAD.     

The use of group history as a therapeutic tool in the treatment of the severely mentally disabled

This paper deals with the integration of individual, group, milieu,behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy. Group history is a record of the episodes or events in a therapeutic group culture. The group history is used as a confrontational screen in the treatment of individuals with fragile ego structures because it maintains focus on the here-and-now, preventing disclosure of painful material from the personal history of each group member. This technique increases the participants' awareness of their own interactions, their repetitive patterns of behavior as well as their assets and vulnerabilities. Therapeutic change is obtained through the medium of constructive feedback provided by both the members and therapists.     

The Catcher in the Rye and the ill member of the group: Holden Caulfield and adolescent development

This paper is an attempt to explore J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951/1958) in relation to Winnicott’s theories of adolescent development, also with regard to psychodynamic theories of symbolism, mourning, defence mechanisms and containment. I consider the significance of the novel’s protagonist and narrator Holden Caulfield. What is the reason for the enduring popularity of his voice and its influence on the tone of subsequent adolescent literature? To answer this question, I examine the role this iconic, troubled character may play in the development of the adolescent reader.     

Deception in research: distinctions and solutions from the perspective of utilitarianism

The use of deception in psychological research continues to be a controversial topic. Using Rawls's explication of utilitarianism, I attempt to demonstrate how professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, can provide more specific standards that determine the permissibility of deception in research. Specifically, I argue that researchers should examine the costs and benefits of creating and applying specific rules governing deception. To that end, I offer 3 recommendations. First, that researchers who use deception provide detailed accounts of the procedures they used to minimize the harm created by deception in their research reports. Second, that the American Psychological Association offer a definition of deception that describes techniques commonly used in research. Finally, I recommend that the informed consent procedure be revised to indicate that the researcher may use deception as part of the study.     

Notes on the history of adolescent inpatient and residential treatment

This study surveys some of the major theoretical contributions to the evolvement of concepts about adolescence. Historical perspectives regarding the development of inpatient and residential institutions are outlined, followed by brief discussions of follow-up studies evaluating both forms of treatment. Finally, a general overview of outcome research is provided, focusing on the underlying, changing attitudes toward the adolescent phase of development.