African American Women's Substance Use Recovery Experiences: A Phenomenological Inquiry

We examined the lived substance use recovery experiences of eight African American women. Specifically, in this study, we examined how participants were able to achieve sustained recovery without the aid of substance use treatment. Using transcendental phenomenological analysis, we found that participants used four components of recovery capital: family, spirituality, religion, and the Black Church. This study has important relevance to working with African American women in substance use recovery.     

Women’s Perspectives Related to Occupational Performance Following Participation in Substance Use Recovery Programs

Very little research has examined how substance abuse programs affect occupational performance. The progression of addiction and its etiology for women are still under-reported. This study aimed to explore perceived effects of substance use and participation in peer-based programs on women’s occupational performance. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were completed with seven women. Four themes were identified: (1) substance use did not markedly inhibit participation in daily life; (2) recovery was supported by replacing substance related occupations with non-substance related occupations; (3) perceived value of shared perspectives and experiences with others; and (4) the embracing of new perspectives as part of recovery.     

为了更好地工作：工作恢复的内涵及实现机制

工作恢复是保障员工持续有效应对工作要求,支撑员工“更好地工作”的资源补充机制,也是近年来职业健康心理学研究中的一个热点主题。本文在澄清工作恢复概念的界定和梳理工作恢复影响因素的基础上,着重围绕工作恢复的实现机制进行了分析和探讨。最后,围绕工作恢复相关研究的现状及未来方向进行了总结和展望。     

为了更好地工作：工作恢复的内涵及实现机制

工作恢复是保障员工持续有效应对工作要求,支撑员工“更好地工作”的资源补充机制,也是近年来职业健康心理学研究中的一个热点主题。本文在澄清工作恢复概念的界定和梳理工作恢复影响因素的基础上,着重围绕工作恢复的实现机制进行了分析和探讨。最后,围绕工作恢复相关研究的现状及未来方向进行了总结和展望。     

Boredom in Recovery for Adult Substance Users With HIV/AIDS Attending an Urban Day Treatment Program

This qualitative dissertation study used grounded theory methods to explore the experience of boredom in recovery from substance use disorder with eight adults who also have HIV/AIDS. Boredom is the pervasive perception of nothingness that gives time to reflect. Boredom was revealed to be more than a seemingly harmless phenomenon that persists decades into recovery, even when meaningful occupation outside of substance use is achieved. Boredom becomes less harmful with the achievement of meaningful occupation, but it is still tenacious and deleterious. Boredom can be useful to an adult with HIV/AIDS, however. Implications for the profession's core value of meaningfulness are discussed.     

Dynamic Social Networks in Recovery Homes

Acute treatment aftercare in the form of sober living environments—i.e., recovery houses—provide an inexpensive and effective medium-term treatment alternative for many with substance use disorders. Limited evidence suggests that house-situated social relationships and associated social support are critical determinants of how successful these residential experiences are for their members, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying these relationships. This study explored the feasibility of using dynamic social network modeling to understand house-situated longitudinal associations among individual Alcoholics Anonymous related recovery behaviors, length of residence, dyadic interpersonal trust, and dyadic confidant relationship formation processes. Trust and confidant relationships were measured 3 months apart in U.S. urban-area recovery houses, all of which were part of a network of substance use recovery homes. A stochastic actor-based model was successfully estimated from this data set. Results suggest that confidant relationships are predicted by trust, while trust is affected by recovery behaviors and length of residence. Conceptualizing recovery houses as a set of independent, evolving social networks that can be modeled jointly appears to be a promising direction for research.     

Challenge and threat emotions as antecedents of recovery experiences: findings from a diary study with blue-collar workers

The aim of this study was (1) to investigate whether threat (e.g., anxiety, fear) and challenge (e.g., confidence, excitement) emotions that employees experience before work while thinking about the upcoming workday predict their recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control) after work and (2) to explore the moderating role of job control on the effect of threat and challenge emotions on recovery experiences. For two to four weeks, 57 blue-collar workers at an airport’s hub station completed a diary. Multilevel analyses (N = 1104) reveal that threat emotions in the morning decrease psychological detachment and relaxation after work. Job control buffers this negative effect. Furthermore, challenge emotions in the morning boost mastery after work. Next, when employees have low job control, challenge emotions also boost the recovery experience control. Practical implications and the need for future studies to examine more fine-grained mechanisms for better understanding how threat and challenge emotions experienced before starting work affect recovery experiences after work are discussed.     

Grief and Recovery: The Prevalence of Grief and Loss in Substance Abuse Treatment

Grief from various losses can underlie the process of recovery from substance abuse disorders. This study identified losses that clients encountered prior to abusing substances, losses that occurred as a result of addiction, and losses that occurred upon entering treatment.     

“Is it me or should my friends take the credit?” The role of social networks and social identity in recovery from addiction

This study explored the role of social network and social identity factors in recovery from addiction. The sample consisted of 537 individuals who completed a survey about their experiences of recovery. Results indicated that the transition from addiction to recovery was characterized by an increase in social connectedness and changes in social network composition coupled with the emergence of a “recovery” identity. These factors accounted for 14% of the variance in quality of life when controlling for known predictors, accounting for a greater proportion of variance than substance use variables. Results suggest that recovery from addiction can be understood as a socially mediated transition characterized by social network and social identity change, which drive broader improvements in quality of life.     

Work Engagement: Investigating the Role of Transformational Leadership,Job Resources,and Recovery

While the relationship between job resources and engagement has been well established, a greater understanding of the upstream factors that shape job resources is required to develop strategies to promote work engagement. The current study addresses this need by exploring transformational leadership as an upstream job resource, and the moderating role of recovery experiences. It was hypothesized that job resources would mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and engagement. Recovery experiences were expected to moderate the relationship between resources and engagement. A sample of 277 employees from a variety of organizations and industries was obtained. Analysis showed direct relationships between: transformational leadership and engagement, and transformational leadership and job resources. Mediation analysis using bootstrapping found a significant indirect path between transformational leadership and engagement via job resources. Recovery experiences did not significantly moderate the relationship between job resources and engagement. To date, the majority of published literature on recovery has focused on job demands; hence the nonsignificant result offers insight of a potentially more complex relationship for recovery with resources and engagement. Overall, the current study extends the JD-R model and provides evidence for broadening the model to include upstream organizational variables such as transformational leadership.     

Unassisted recovery from stuttering: self-perceptions of current speech behavior, attitudes, and feelings

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of recovery from stuttering based on the experiences of adults who recovered without treatment. Using a semi-structured, open-ended interview format, 15 speakers verified as persons who recovered without treatment were asked to describe their status as everyday speakers. Seven speakers reported that they no longer stuttered and eight reported that they still stuttered on occasion. Interview material was coded and analyzed by the investigators and checked by independent judges. Results suggested that complete recovery was possible for speakers who reported that they no longer stuttered; whereas, those who still stuttered occasionally appeared to no longer be handicapped by stuttering, but required some vigilance to maintain their relatively fluent speech.

Educational objectives: After completing this activity, the learner will be able to: (1) describe the relevance of self-report data for evaluating the nature of recovery from stuttering without treatment; (2) describe the differences in self-perception concerning the nature of recovery for those who no longer have any tendency to stutter compared to those who still have an occasional tendency to stutter; and (3) suggest the possible implications for understanding the nature of recovery from persistent stuttering based on investigations of late recovery without treatment.     

Predicting substance use behavior among South African adolescents: The role of leisure experiences across time

Using seven waves of data, collected twice a year from the 8th through the 11th grades in a low-resource community in Cape Town, South Africa, we aimed to describe the developmental trends in three specific leisure experiences (leisure boredom, new leisure interests, and healthy leisure) and substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana) behaviors and to investigate the ways in which changes in leisure experiences predict changes in substance use behaviors over time. Results indicated that adolescents' substance use increased significantly across adolescence, but that leisure experiences remained fairly stable over time. We also found that adolescent leisure experiences predicted baseline substance use and that changes in leisure experiences predicted changes in substance use behaviors over time, with leisure boredom emerging as the most consistent and strongest predictor of alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use. Implications for interventions that target time use and leisure experiences are discussed.     

Experiences of supervising postgraduate community psychology students at Wits university,South Africa

In this article, the authors discuss problems and challenges of supervising postgraduate community psychology students at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. As part of their community work, students developed community projects in schools in Alexandra Township, aimed at dealing with social ills such as HIV/AIDS, gangs, violence, substance abuse and teenage pregnancy. Students found community work to be extremely exhausting, stressful and demanding. Therefore, community psychology supervision became an important space in helping students to reflect on the experiences, anxieties and frustrations. This article discusses key themes that have emerged in community supervision, including gender, race and class issues. In conclusion, recommendations are provided on how to improve community psychology supervision based our experiences. Supervisors need to be proactive in helping students to reflect on their experiences and actively engage with some of the theoretical and practical issues that emerge in community work. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Childhood Psychological Trauma and First‐Year College Students' Substance Dependence

First‐year college students (N= 143) completed the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory‐3 and a questionnaire about childhood traumatic experiences. As the number of traumatic experiences increases, so does the likelihood of substance use in college.     

An Idiographic Examination of Day-to-Day Patterns of Substance Use Craving,Negative Affect,and Tobacco Use Among Young Adults in Recovery

Psychological constructs, such as negative affect and substance use cravings that closely predict relapse, show substantial intraindividual day-to-day variability. This intraindividual variability of relevant psychological states combined with the “one day at a time” nature of sustained abstinence warrant a day-to-day investigation of substance use recovery. This study examines day-to-day associations among substance use cravings, negative affect, and tobacco use among 30 college students in 12-step recovery from drug and alcohol addictions. To account for individual variability in day-to-day process, it applies an idiographic approach. The sample of 20 males and 10 females (mean age = 21) was drawn from members of a collegiate recovery community at a large university. Data were collected with end-of-day data collections taking place over an average of 26.7 days. First-order vector autoregression models were fit to each individual predicting daily levels of substance use cravings, negative affect, and tobacco use from the same 3 variables 1 day prior. Individual model results demonstrated substantial interindividual differences in intraindividual recovery process. Based on estimates from individual models, cluster analyses were used to group individuals into 2 homogeneous subgroups. Group comparisons demonstrate distinct patterns in the day-to-day associations among substance use cravings, negative affect, and tobacco use, suggesting the importance of idiographic approaches to recovery management and that the potential value of focusing on negative affect or tobacco use as prevention targets depends on idiosyncratic processes.     

加班一定会带来疲倦吗？加班时长对工作恢复水平的影响机制研究

基于资源保存理论,采用日记研究法探讨了加班对工作恢复的影响以及闲暇时间控制和掌握体验在其中的作用。结果表明：（1）加班时长显著负向影响工作恢复水平;（2）加班时长通过闲暇时间控制影响工作恢复水平;（3）掌握体验不仅调节了加班时长和闲暇时间控制之间的关系,还进一步调节了加班时长通过闲暇时间控制影响工作恢复水平的间接关系,在高水平的掌握体验下,加班时长通过闲暇时间控制影响工作恢复水平的间接效应不再显著。这意味着加班未必一定抑制工作恢复,获得积极体验从而促进资源的生成可能才是恢复的关键,这为企业和个人提供了有效进行工作恢复的指导。     

Ritual and Recovery: Traditions in Disaster Ritualizing

The aim of this article is partly to analyze and discuss the ritual traditions in the Norwegian context, called disaster services, which consists in ritualizing as a response to accidents and disasters. Furthermore, we find it relevant to understand these traditions in relation to two aspects of recovery: personal and social recovery. From a practical theological perspective, the new traditions are interesting for the understanding of how the churches work in situations where people have stressful experiences, and for developing an understanding of contemporary religion.     

Music as a Therapeutic Medium for Occupational Engagement: Implications for Occupational Therapy

Music is a meaningful occupation; a summary of current literature and the authors’ experiences regarding health and wellness benefits and potential for music as a therapeutic medium in occupational therapy practice is presented. An interview and a summary of the authors’ experiences illustrate the role for music and its benefits for occupational therapy. These benefits are described through three themes which emerged: (a) music as a means of increasing group cohesion toward common goals, (b) music as a means of increasing socialization, and (c) music as a meaningful occupation can empower individuals to enhance and embrace wellness and recovery.