The enhancement of psychological wellness: Challenges and opportunities

Developed the concept of psychological wellness and made the case that proportionally more resources should be directed to the pursuit of this goal. Five pathways to wellness are considered, implicating aspects of individual development and the impact of contexts, settings, and policies. The five pathways are: forming wholesome early attachments; acquiring age- and ability-appropriate competencies; engineering settings that promote adaptive outcomes; fostering empowerment; and acquiring skills needed to cope effectively with life stressors. Although these noncompeting pathways have differential salience at different ages and for different groups and life conditions, each is an essential element in any comprehensive social plan to advance wellness. Examples of effective programs are cited in all five areas, including recent comprehensive, long-term programs embodying multiple pathways to wellness. Some ideas in this paper were first presented in a talk at the W. T. Grant Foundation-sponsored conference on “Risk, Resiliency and Development,” Kiawah Island, S. Carolina, May 30, 1992. The author gratefully acknowledges support from the Grant Foundation in writing this article.     

On the Semantics and Operations of Primary Prevention and Wellness Enhancement (Or Will the Real Primary Prevention Please Stand Up?)

Compared two recent, major reviews of primary prevention program evaluation research (i.e., Durlak and Wells' meta-analysis of 177 such studies and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Report's summary of research studies of preventive intervention programs) with respect to specific studies included and input sources used. Whereas the IOM Report defined the goal of primary prevention as reducing the occurrence of new cases of mental disorder, Durlak and Wells' broader definition included both that goal and the promotion of psychological wellness. Overlap in journal sources used by the two reviews was modest and overlap in the actual primary prevention program evaluation studies included was minimal (7%). These findings bespeak somewhat different views of primary prevention and suggest a need for the complementary development of both the above approaches as alternatives, individually and collectively, to mental health's past established restorative ways.     

Promoting child and family wellness: priorities for psychological and social interventions

In order to foster the well‐being of children and families we propose a shift in the priorities of psychological and social interventions. Following a brief discussion of the concept of wellness, we present a framework for interventions to promote child and family wellness. Psychological and social intervention strategies to promote child and family wellness are then reviewed and interpreted in terms of the framework. Recommendations for changing priorities for programmes and policies are based on the framework and a review of the effectiveness of existing interventions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seymour Sarason Remembered: “Plus ça change…”, “Psychology Misdirected”, and “Community Psychology and the Anarchist Insight”

The intellectual legacy of Seymour Sarason continues to serve as a critical resource for the field of community psychology. The present paper draws on one of Sarason’s favorite aphorisms and two of his seminal writings to suggest the relevance of ideas articulated 35–40 years ago for the current time. Each in their own way highlights the importance of unearthing and interrogating core assumptions underlying our research and our efforts to make a positive difference. The aphorism reminds us that the rhetoric of change is far easier to articulate than to enact and all too often ignores or disguises issues of power among actors. The “misdirection” of Psychology reflected his assertion that the asocial, acultural, and ahistorical nature of American Psychology reflected American culture more generally and ill prepared it to understand and engage in social change, particularly with respect to educational reform. The “anarchist insight” articulated his belief in interrogating the implications of the increasingly interdependent relationship of science and the state for the autonomy of scientists and scientific inquiry. The evidence‐based practice movement is offered as an example of the current day relevance of the aphorism and core insights of these two papers. The paper concludes with a plea to rekindle the discussion and continued examination of Sarason’s paradigmatic insights for the intellectual and social development of the field.     

Primary prevention of psychological difficulties in vulnerable mothers: pilot programme evaluation

This pilot study evaluated a primary prevention programme delivered to mothers who were considered to be vulnerable to the development of psychological difficulties (N = 11). Beneficial effects were noted in terms of mood and coping, as well as a reduction in the mothers' attendance at their general practitioners surgery. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anxiety and affiliation in children

Hypotheses about the relationship between anxiety and affiliation derived from the psychoanalytic, drive, and social comparison models were tested by exposing high anxious (HA) and low anxious (LA)Ss to stress and subsequently to conditions meant to fulfill either nurturance or information needs. Unstressed and non-need fulfilled control groups were included. (N=224 grade school children.) Stress significantly increased the strength of adult affiliating in HA Ss; nurturance reduced it. Peer affiliating was not influenced by stress or information, nor did the conditions affect the affiliation of LASs. Results supported the hypothesis that dependency motives mediate the anxiety-affiliation relationship.This study is based on a doctoral dissertation completed at Yale University. The author thanks Prof. Seymour Sarason, who directed the thesis, and the children, teachers, and school psychologists of Milford, Conn. whose cooperation made this study possible.     

心理预防概念的更新及其对实践的指导意义

继Caplan的“公共卫生预防模型”之后,Gordon提出另一个综合性预防模型;美国国家科学院医学研究所绘制了“心理健康干预光谱”; 美国国家研究所和国家科学院医学院则进一步将“心理健康促进”正式纳入心理预防概念。“心理健康促进”是针对消极被动的传统预防而提出的积极主动的预防。心理预防概念的发展与更新,特别是将“心理健康促进”纳入心理预防体系,要求树立预防的全局观念,提高预防的针对性,将消极心理预防与积极心理健康促进结合起来。     

The Making of the Reliably Religious Boy

In Men, Religion, and Melancholia: James, Otto, Jung, and Erikson (D. Capps, 1997) and Men and Their Religion: Honor, Hope, and Humor (D. Capps, 2002), I argued that men are no less religious than women, but their religiousness is different from that of women because it has its psychological origins in the emotional separation between a boy and his mother around the ages of three to five. Employing Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia” (S. Freud, 1917/1963) essay, I suggested that their religiousness is rooted in an ontological state of melancholy (which is different from the psychological state of depression). In Men and Their Religion I identified the religions of honor and of hope as the primary forms of male melancholic religion, and suggested that humor is a third form that may come to one’s assistance when one experiences the limitations of the other two religions. In this article, I focus on my own early adolescent years (age 11–14) and explain how one boy became reliably religious, that is, how he embraced or internalized the religions of honor and of hope. In the companion article, I will explain how these two religions were relativized—and thereby preserved—by the religion of humor.     

American psychology,and the needs for transcendence and community

In this its centennial year the American Psychological Association has reason to take satisfaction from its past accomplishments. However, as psychologists we know that our view of our history has some self-serving aspects. There have been some errors of commission and omission. In this paper one of those errors of omission is discussed: the significance of religion, especially of the fundamentalist variety, for understanding the modern psyche. This omission is viewed from a historical perspective in which the relationship between the needs for transcendence and community underwent a fracturing that has had troublesome consequences both for religious and nonreligious people. The nature of those needs are illustrated in the ideas and writings of two people separated by 2500 years: Socrates and B. F. Skinner. This paper was delivered by Professor Sarason as an invited address to the American Psychological Association in celebration of it centennial in Washington DC, August 1992. The editor is particularly pleased that Dr. Sarason chose to publish his address in this journal.     

Contributions of Seymour Sarason to the field of mental retardation

The contributions of Seymour Sarason to the field of mental retardation are presented against the background of the pivotal changes in society's perception of the retardate that occurred following World War II. Sarason's key contributions to that change in terms of broadening the scientific approach to the issues in the field and advocating reform in the treatment and education of the retarded are briefly sketched.     

Peer-Nominated Deviant Talk Within Residential Treatment: Individual and Group Influences on Treatment Response

This research examined deviant talk during summer residential treatment using peer nominations and extensive field observations. Participants were 239 youth (M _age = 12.62, SD = 2.60; 67% male), nested in 26 treatment groups. Deviant talk was present in this setting, showed individual differences, and increased over time, especially for younger boys. As expected, its relationship to treatment response was moderated by peer behavior. Initial levels of individual deviant talk were related to clinical improvement, but primarily when peer deviant talk was low. Initial levels of peer deviant talk were related to higher than expected end of treatment aggression, especially for youth who were high in deviant talk. Deviant talk effects were observed for staff impressions of change and observations of aggression and adjustment. Initial antisocial behavior affected whether individual or peer levels of deviant talk more heavily influenced treatment response. Implications for clinical assessment and treatment monitoring are discussed.     

Defining the Nature of Spirituality in the Context of Maslow's and Rogers's Theories

This article discusses the presence and power of the spiritual content in the counseling process and in the attainment of optimum wellness. Spirituality and spiritual wellness are defined and the intrinsic nature of spirituality is discussed in the context of Rogers's and Maslow's self-actualization theories as well as the importance of optimum psychological wellness.     

Mathematical determinacy and the transferability of aboutness

Competent speakers of natural languages can borrow reference from one another. You can arrange for your utterances of ‘Kirksville’ to refer to the same thing as my utterances of ‘Kirksville’. We can then talk about the same thing when we discuss Kirksville. In cases like this, you borrow “aboutness” from me by borrowing reference. Now suppose I wish to initiate a line of reasoning applicable to any prime number. I might signal my intention by saying, “Let p be any prime.” In this context, I will be using the term ‘p’ to reason about the primes. Although ‘p’ helps me secure the aboutness of my discourse, it may seem wrong to say that ‘p’ refers to anything. Be that as it may, this paper explores what mathematical discourse would be like if mathematicians were able to borrow freely from one another not just the reference of terms that clearly refer, but, more generally, the sort of aboutness present in a line of reasoning leading up to a universal generalization. The paper also gives reasons for believing that aboutness of this sort really is freely transferable. A key implication will be that the concept “set of natural numbers” suffers from no mathematically significant indeterminacy that can be coherently discussed.     

Psychological Control Associated with Youth Adjustment and Risky Behavior in African American Single Mother Families

A distinction between parental behavioral control and psychological control has been elucidated in the literature, yet far less is known about the role of psychological control in youth adjustment broadly or risky behavior in particular. We examined the interrelationship of maternal psychological control, youth psychosocial adjustment, and youth risk behaviors among African American single mother-youth (11–16-year old) dyads (n = 194), families in which youth are more vulnerable to adjustment problems and risky behavior than Caucasian youth or youth from intact homes. Higher levels of maternal psychological control were associated with increased youth psychosocial adjustment problems as well as increased youth risk behavior, after statistically controlling for one domain of behavioral control, parental knowledge about a child’s whereabouts and activities. Furthermore, youth externalizing problems mediated the relation between psychological control and risk behavior. The findings suggest that parenting programs targeting risk behavior among African American youth may benefit from including psychological control among the parenting dimensions that are targeted.     

Market Openness, Transition Economies and Subjective Wellbeing

This study attempts to examine the impact on subjective wellbeing (SWB) of economic openness as a social institution. The empirical testing of the liberal argument for the importance of market openness in human wellness is based on a cross-national design. Average scores of ‘feeling of happiness’ in 65 countries and ‘life satisfaction’ in 76 countries measured during the 1990s that are drawn from the World Database of Happiness overseen by Veenhoven (2006) are modeled as dependent variables. Regression analysis generates favorable results for the liberal argument in that length of being an open economy (versus closed economy) boosts the level of happiness, while transition to openness augments life satisfaction. Although the post communist countries registered less happiness in the early phase of transition towards the market economy, in general, our model specification indicates that an open market in itself was not responsible for this region’s unpleasant psychology.     

The Only Way Out Is Through: The Peril of Spiritual Bypass

Given the increased attention to spirituality in the counseling literature, with a primary emphasis on helping clients find their spiritual path, it is important for counselors to be aware of one potential pitfall of the spiritual path, namely spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass occurs when clients seek to use their spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences to avoid genuine contact with their psychological “unfinished business.” The purpose of this article is to define spiritual bypass, discuss the necessity of healing at the cognitive, emotional, and physical levels, as well as at the spiritual level for holistic wellness, and provide examples of clients in spiritual bypass.     

Speaking of persons,human and divine

Christians commonly speak of and to God as ‘a person’. The propriety of such talk depends on how the concept of a person is being used and understood, and that concept is much contested in contemporary analytic philosophy. In this article, I note the presuppositions of one current debate about what it is to be a human person, and then propose an alternative approach to persons—both human and divine—that draws upon the Thomistic philosophical and theological tradition. In this tradition, ‘person’ is neither an essence-determining kind term, nor a merely nominal or functional kind term, but is applicable analogously to entities of various ‘kinds’ (e.g. humans, angels and God). The origins of this account in Aquinas’ theology of the Trinity will be examined, and I will conclude by noting a recent development of Thomas’ thought in relation to what it is to be a human person.     

Wellness,Prevention, Development: The Cornerstone of the Profession

The American Counseling Association's (ACA), formerly the American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD), unique contribution to a wellness philosophy lies in the profession's concern for development over the life span. In this article, ACA's commitment to and proactive stance toward wellness are described, the relationship between wellness, developmental approaches, and prevention is addressed, and the debate surrounding prevention as a non-third-party-reimbursable mental health service is discussed.     

Non-work Domain Control as an Additional Dimension of Psychological Empowerment of Women Teachers

This paper extends Work/Family Border Theory in the context of psychological empowerment. It describes the development, validation and application of an additional dimension of empowerment, termed as “non-work domain control”. This dimension incorporates an employee’s ability to take decisions at household and immediate community level, not related to formal workplace. The study has three parts involving women primary school teachers of India. It included development of a measure and examining the pattern of variation in non-work domain control (n=401) among primary school teachers. The results showed that age, educational qualification, salary, and class-size affect some scale items. The result of structural equation modeling confirmed that non-work domain control is an additional dimension of psychological empowerment.