MFT Program Policies on Referral of LGBT Clients

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine program policies that govern whether or not student therapists can refer lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer clients, based on the therapist’s religious beliefs. We conducted a qualitative survey with program directors of Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education—accredited marriage and family therapy programs to ask what policies monitor client referrals that are solely based on the therapist’s beliefs toward sexual orientation and gender identity. Implications revolve around finding congruency between the program’s philosophy, policy, expectations for students, and ethics. We provide recommendations for addressing these issues early on in the recruitment process.     

A model for teaching research ethics

A model is described for implementing a program in research ethics education in the face of federal and institutional mandates and current resource, disciplinary, and infrastructure limitations. Also discussed are the historical background, content and evaluation process of the workshop at the heart of the program, which reaches a diverse group of over 250 students per year—from first-year graduate students in basic research labs to clinical fellows. The workshop addresses central issues in both everyday laboratory ethics and in larger societal questions. Goals include improving overall awareness of ethics guidelines and philosophy and enhancing skills in identifying and then analyzing the ethical components of situations. Pedagogies used and their effectiveness and that of the overall workshop and extended program are addressed. Programs like these have initiated a shift in the culture of basic research, which is a critical need given the current atmosphere.     

Using Information from an Early Intervention Program to Enhance Literacy Goals on the Individualized Education Program (IEP)

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that an Individualized Education Program (IEP) be developed for each child that receives special education services. To develop the most effective IEP, information is gathered from everyone who has worked with the child. In many schools the child receives early intervention services prior to referral to special education. One early intervention program that is utilized for first grade children falling behind in reading and writing is Reading Recovery®. The detailed information gathered as part of this program provides invaluable information that may facilitate development of appropriate literacy goals. This article discusses the information that is collected in the Reading Recovery program and provides an example of how this information can be utilized to support the development of IEP literacy goals.     

CEU: Stimulating Manpower Personnel Training in Higher Education

Manpower personnel training programs in higher education settings have suffered a variety of ills. This article describes a promising way to cure many of them—the Continuing Education Unit (CEU). Salient features of CEU are described, implementation guidelines are suggested, and further references are provided for those desiring more complete information about the CEU training program. The article makes a plea to those in higher education and in manpower agency settings to close the gap between available university training resources and the expressed training needs of manpower personnel.     

A Relationship Skills Training Program for College Students

An eight-session Relationship Skills Training program was developed for college students who have difficulty in meeting others and establishing close personal relationships. The major components of each session (i.e., introduction, cognitive restructuring, skills training, and homework) are described and results of the initial offering of the program are presented.     

The Mindful Way Through the Semester: Evaluating the Impact of Integrating an Acceptance-Based Behavioral Program Into a First-Year Experience Course for Undergraduates

Preventing and reducing depression in first-year college students are crucial areas in need of attention and resources. Programs that are cost-effective and time-efficient, that have replicable benefits across samples, are sorely needed. This study aims to examine whether a previously studied acceptance-based behavioral (ABBT) program, the Mindful Way Through the Semester (MWTS), is effective in comparison to a control condition at decreasing levels of depression and enhancing acceptance and academic values when integrated into a first-year undergraduate experience course. The current study also sought to examine the association between change in acceptance, mindfulness practice, and values practice on outcomes. Two hundred thirteen students were assigned to either the MWTS workshop condition or the control condition (in which the first-year experience curriculum as usual was received). Results revealed that the workshop condition produced larger decreases in depression over the course of the semester relative to the control condition, but only for participants endorsing higher levels of depression at baseline. Further, for participants in the workshop condition, changes in depression were negatively associated with changes in acceptance (i.e., larger increases in acceptance associated with larger decreases in depression), an association that was not statistically significant in the control group. Lastly, for participants in the workshop condition who endorsed higher levels of depression at baseline, mindfulness and values practice was associated with greater reductions in depression. Implications of these findings for future interventions are discussed.     

Description of a Teenage Pregnancy Program

The authors describe a teenage pregnancy program with three major components—medical care, education, and counseling. The services, particularly the counseling program, are discussed.     

Participatory Cues and Program Familiarity Predict Young Children's Learning From Educational Television

The capacity model is designed to predict young children's learning from educational television. It posits that select program features and individual child characteristics can support this learning either by increasing total working memory allocated to the program or altering the allocation of working memory. In this study, the influence of one such program feature (participatory cues) and one such child characteristic (program familiarity) on educational content comprehension was investigated. A total of 187 American preschool-aged children (M = 4.35 years) were randomly assigned to view one of two versions of Dora the Explorer—one version contained participatory cues (i.e., cues that encourage children to respond to queries during the program) while in the other these cues were omitted. All children completed a program familiarity assessment prior to viewing and completed an educational content assessment post-viewing. There was no significant main effect for participatory cues, although, as expected, program familiarity was positively associated with educational content comprehension. In line with expectations, program familiarity was found to moderate the relationship between participatory cues and educational comprehension—the combination of high program familiarity and the presence of participatory cues led to the greatest educational content comprehension. Implications are discussed.     

The Impact of the Accreditation Movement on One Counselor Education Program: Idaho State University

This article covers a 30-year-long relationship between the accreditation standards and the development of the counselor education program at Idaho State University. Specifically, accreditation's impact on the faculty members as they pursued doctoral study, the years following the approval of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) Standards, and the current impact of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accreditation on the program are addressed.     

Communicating Distressful Information: A Video Training Program in a Special Education Setting

The authors developed and evaluated a videotape training program on teaching process and problem-solving skills specifically related to issues associated with the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. Results indicated that exposure to the training program reduced anxiety specific to the targeted issues. Feedback about the program was positive. Development and evaluation issues are discussed.     

Maintenance of Gains in Relationship and Individual Functioning Following the Online OurRelationship Program

In the United States, more than 40% of marriages end in divorce and more than one third of intact marriages are distressed. Unfortunately, only a minority of couples seek couple therapy to improve their relationships. Online interventions, with their increased reach and reduced costs, offer the potential to improve relationships nationwide. The online OurRelationship program has been shown in previous nationwide studies to improve relationship and individual functioning. The present study examined whether initial gains in the OurRelationship program were maintained in the following year and whether the extent of maintenance varied across important demographic and individual factors. In this study, 151 distressed heterosexual couples (302 individuals) who were randomized to the OurRelationship program were assessed 3 and 12 months following the intervention. Initial gains in relationship satisfaction, relationship confidence, and negative relationship quality were maintained through 12 months; positive relationship quality significantly improved over follow-up. Furthermore, couples maintained their initial gains in depressive symptoms, perceived health, work functioning, and quality of life; anxious symptoms continued to significantly decrease over follow-up. Finally, there was no evidence that historically underserved groups—racial/ethnic minorities, lower income couples, or rural couples—experienced greater deterioration. In fact, Hispanic couples reported continued improvement in relationship confidence and negative relationship quality in the 12 months following the program. The ability of the OurRelationship program—an 8-hour, primarily self-help program—to create long-lasting improvements in distressed relationships indicates it may have the potential to improve the lives of distressed couples on a broad scale.     

A Defense of a Particularist Research Program

What makes some acts morally right and others morally wrong? Traditionally, philosophers have thought that in order to answer this question we must find and formulate exceptionless moral principles—principles that capture all and only morally right actions. Utilitarianism and Kantianism are paradigmatic examples of such attempts. In recent years, however, there has been a growing interest in a novel approach—Particularism—although its precise content is still a matter of controversy. In this paper I develop and motivate a new formulation of particularism as a research program and I show that my formulation is not vulnerable to the most common objections to particularism. Moreover, I argue that the particularist research program shows enough promise to warrant further exploration.     

Multidimensional signal detection analyses (MSDA) for testing separability and independence: A Pascal program

A Pascal (Turbo 6.0) program for testing perceptual separability, decisional separability, and perceptual independence—three types of independence defined in the context of general recognition theory (GRT)—is presented. GRT is essentially a multidimensional extension of signal detectability theory (Green & Swets, 1966) and has been employed in complete-identification experimental paradigms to examine whether information processing of stimulus dimensions is perceptually and/or decisionally separable and/or perceptually independent. The definitions of these different forms of “independence” are provided, the experimental design is described, and the program, MSDA, is described and demonstrated.     

Job Link: An Employment Counseling Program for Immigrants

A group employment counseling program for counseling immigrants is described. Evaluation results from the project are also presented.     

A Psychosynthesis Twelve Step Program for Transforming Consciousness: Creative Explorations of Inner Space

The author examines methods that are designed to expand and transform consciousness and argues that aspects of transpersonal psychology form the basis for the investigation of rituals, spiritual disciplines, and techniques that provoke shifts in awareness and energy. A psychosynthesis model for understanding these experiences is outlined, and an inner source of guidance—the Higher Self—is examined. A twelve step program for facilitating the expansion and transformation of consciousness—Creative Explorations of Inner Space—is also presented.     

Force and Timing Components of the Motor Program

Three experiments were undertaken to assess the effects of variations of force and time on both simple and choice reaction time. The first two experiments demonstrated that although latency did not vary as a function of force, timing variations, such as requiring that a response be maintained, led to consistent changes in reaction time. These results led to the development of a model of motor programming in which force and timing are dissociated as separate components. However, the data also indicated that the force component may be further analyzed into two subcomponents—force activation and force deactivation. The model predicts that the latter subcomponent may be programmed on-line provided that sufficient time elapses between the implementation of the two subcomponents. A different pair of movements was used in Experiment 3 to further demonstrate that force activation and deactivation may be preprogrammed into a single component. These results support the aspect of the proposed model that makes a distinction between operations required for program construction from those necessary for program implementation.     

The PACE Employment Program: An Inmate-Employer Mutual Development Strategy

The PACE Employment Program, funded by the Office of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, brings together potential employers and employees in a jail setting. The program is administered by the PACE Institute, a private educational organization housed within the Cook County Jail (Chicago). The program seeks to strengthen the nontechnical employment skills of inmate-students, while also sensitizing prospective employers to the value and employment potential of these students. This is done by having both groups participate in a variety of exercises related to the development and strengthening of personal and interpersonal skills.     

Mental health consultation to law enforcement: Secret Service development of a Mental Health Liaison Program

The Mental Health Liaison Program developed and used by the Secret Service is presented as a model for comprehensive, multidimensional interactions between law enforcement and mental health systems, with particular focus on assessing and preventing violent behavior. The structure of the program pairs consultants—psychologists and psychiatrists—with Secret Service field offices to provide (a) consultation regarding risk assessment and case management of individuals who threaten or display inappropriate interest in the President or other protectees; (b) training for agents on risk assessment, mental illness, and mental health care issues; and (c) liaison activities between the Secret Service and the mental health community. Practical benefits to the Secret Service are discussed to encourage more systematic use of broad based psychological and psychiatric consultation to law enforcement, with a goal of enhanced intersystem communication and collaboration. The need for program evaluation and outcome research is discussed in the context of applying the model to improve other mental health and law enforcement systems interactions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a Family-based Program to Reduce Risk and Promote Resilience Among Families Affected by Maternal Depression: Theoretical Basis and Program Description

Depression is a family matter. It not only diminishes the quality-of-life of the depressed person, but also strains the resources of the family unit and increases the children's risk of developing significant problems that start early and persist into adulthood. Although treatment of a parent's depression is critical, many families also need professional intervention to reduce children's risk. This article reviews the evidence on needs of these families and shows that the theoretical and clinical evidence exists to support the design of interventions for families affected by maternal depression. A preventive intervention developed from this foundation is described, the Keeping Families Strong (KFS) program, that is designed to promote resilience and reduce the risk for psychological disorders in children of parents with depression. The pilot study on the KFS program, conducted in adult mental health outpatient settings, is described. Families participate in 10 meetings 90 min each, with a group for parents and for children (10 years and older) conducted concurrently. The program structure and content are described, the challenges of implementing a family preventive intervention in actual clinical settings are discussed, and a case example is provided, as well as preliminary outcome data on ten families. In sum, we provide a strong rationale for the potential of preventive interventions for families affected by maternal depression.     

Getting Started: Helping a New Profession Develop an Ethics Program

Both of us have been involved with helping professions, especially new scientific or technological professions, develop ethics programs—for undergraduates, graduates, and practitioners. By “ethics program”, we mean any strategy for teaching ethics, including developing materials. Our purpose here is to generalize from that experience to identify the chief elements needed to get an ethics program started in a new profession. We are focusing on new professions for two reasons. First, all the older professions, both in the US and in most other countries, now have ethics programs of some sort. They do not need our advice to get started. Second, new professions face special problems just because they are new—everything from deciding who belongs to the profession to formalizing ethical standards so that they can be taught. Our purpose in this paper is to generalize from our experience and to identify some of the fundamentals for getting an ethics program started in a new profession. We present our recommendations in the form of response to 6 questions anyone designing an ethics program for a new profession should ask. We realize that our brief discussion does not provide a complete treatment of the subject. Our purpose has been to point in the right direction those considering an ethics program for new profession.