Satisfaction with life scale: analysis of factorial invariance for adolescents and elderly persons

The purpose of this work is to analyze the factorial invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale across samples of adolescents and elderly persons. Data from 266 subjects were analyzed. Half were Spanish junior high-school students (65 girls and 68 boys) and the other half were Spanish elderly people (68 women and 65 men). Single-group analyses showed an acceptable one-factor model for both adolescent and elderly groups. Sequential multigroup analyses to test the equivalence of factor structures for adolescent and elderly groups showed that factor loadings and variances are not invariant. The scale is sensitive to age in these groups.     

The experiences of counselling for persons with ME

A number of studies have evaluated counselling interventions for people with myalgic encephalitis, but few report client perceptions in any detail. This study seeks to explore client perceptions using a qualitative methodology. A sample of 25 individuals with myalgic encephalitis were interviewed about their experiences in counselling. The interviews were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis using grounded theory principles. The analysis showed that people with myalgic encephalitis endure significant changes to their lives, often involving great loss and trauma. After seeking help through counselling, participants had experienced a wide variety of approaches and there were positive and negative perceptions of each. Other perceptions related to therapist characteristics and the way in which interventions were carried out. Recommendations for practitioners are given.     

Eidetic imagery in elderly persons

A survey of 59 healthy rural elderly persons did not indicate any showed eidetic ability.     

Support groups for persons experiencing divorce in later life

Middle-aged and older couples are divorcing at increasing rates, and statistics indicate this trend will continue. Separating or divorcing people over 50 are similar to but different from younger separating or divorcing people. This article describes one model for addressing the mental health needs of this older population. A group format was used with 66 people who were divorced after 19 or more years of marriage. Recruitment of participants, organization, group process, outcome, problems, and successes of this model are offered as a method for mental health professionals to consider.     

Television news and elderly persons.

Previous studies concerning elderly people have examined either use of all media by older adults or their depiction in television entertainment programs. What has been overlooked has been television news and its effects on elderly people. Careful research is needed to gauge this.     

The Wisdom Group: a psychotherapeutic model for elderly persons.

This article describes the "Wisdom Group," a therapy devised for the psychotherapeutic treatment of elderly persons. Preliminary work was done with five men of advanced age who were psychiatric in-patients with diagnoses of organicity and depression. The approach was effective in eliciting interaction during the meetings with each other and the group leader. The potential use of this intervention with a greater variety of elderly persons is discussed.     

Progressive and imaginal relaxation training for elderly persons with subjective anxiety.

Elders exposed to either progressive or imaginal relaxation procedures reported significant relaxation effects and showed improvement on measures of personal functioning. The results of the Physical Assessment Scale of the Relaxation Inventory indicated that relaxation responses were acquired within and across sessions. Large, consistent changes in relaxation occurred in all 4 sessions. The Symptom Checklist-90-R, which measures self-reported personal adjustment, showed significant positive changes following relaxation training and at 1-month follow-up. Elders who imagined muscle tension release profited as much as those engaged in actual muscle tension-release activities. This finding is of importance for older adults who may experience physical limitations that contraindicate muscle-tension-release procedures.     

Narcissism and recollections of early life experiences

Recent studies have found associations between narcissistic personality features and retrospective accounts of early experiences. The current study sought to extend these previous findings by examining whether adaptive and maladaptive features of narcissism were associated with recollections of early life experiences in a non-clinical sample of undergraduate students (N = 334). Results revealed that the Entitlement/Exploitativeness feature of narcissism was associated with low security, high parental discipline, and high threats of separation. Narcissistic Grandiosity was positively associated with peer affectional support and parental discipline, whereas Narcissistic Vulnerability was not uniquely associated with memories of early life experiences. The results provide partial support for models of narcissism in which parents are recalled as failing to provide a secure base while inducing threats of separation and discipline.     

Care versus treatment at the end of life for profoundly disabled persons

Individuals who are profoundly mentally handicapped do not have the capacity to make their own decisions and also do not have a past record of decisions, from when they had capacity, to guide us in making decisions for them. They represent a difficult group, ethically, for surrogate decision making. Here I propose some guidelines, distinguishing between these patients and patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). As the life span of patients becomes shorter, or their level of consciousness becomes permanently impaired, the presumption for comfort care should become an imperative, and the standard of evidence to justify any invasive intervention should become higher. For members of this population, who have no more ability to refuse treatment than to consent to it, protection of the vulnerable must mean allowing a peaceful death as well as a comfortable life. Reasonable legal safeguards are also proposed to allow improved end-of-life decisions to be made for this population.     

Self-perceived information needs and concerns of elderly persons.

The research was intended to identify the dimensions underlying self-perceived information needs and concerns of an elderly population. The spontaneously mentioned needs and concerns expressed in 271 letters from a sample of the population were extracted and a multidimensional scaling procedure was used to represent the 58 most frequently mentioned items in configurations of varying dimensionality. To interpret the multidimensional spaces, another sample of 176 elderly subjects was asked to rate the 58 concerns on eight properties. These ratings were then regressed onto the multidimensional configurations. The results indicate that the most frequently mentioned information needs and concerns of elderly persons can be parsimoniously understood in terms of three underlying dimensions: (1) Improving the Quality of Life vs Securing the Necessities of Life, (2) Health-related vs Not Health-related, and (3) Individual vs Societal Responsibility.     

Measurement of adolescents' life events: The junior high life experiences survey

The first of these two studies examined the relationship between adolescents' scores on a social desirability questionnaire and scores of negative, positive, and total life events. Only number of positive events was significantly related to social desirability. The second study compared various scoring strategies with respect to their intercorrelation and their ability to predict adolescents' maladjustment (depression, anxiety, and number of missed school days). The results demonstrated that (a) total number of events and readjustment-weighted life change scores were equally predictive of the maladjustment criteria; (b) negative events, but not positive events, however scored, were significantly related to the maladjustment criteria; (c) indices based on psychologist-judges' ratings of event desirability were not more predictive of the maladjustment criteria than were indices based on the adolescents' self-reports; and (d) uncontrollable negative events and controllable negative events were equally predictive of the maladjustment criteria.     

Effects of environment on psychological well-being of elderly persons

This study reports an investigation of the psychological well-being of 90 elderly persons living in independent, retirement, and nursing homes. In previous studies elderly persons have not been matched on high levels of social and physical functioning across these living environments. Analyses indicated significantly that elderly persons living in their own homes or retirement homes reported greater well-being than their matched cohorts in nursing homes.     

Meaningful pastoral intimacy

Closeness, warmth, perhaps touching, and some understanding are characteristic of interpersonal relationships. However, there are dangers of intrusion and insensitivity when persons invite pastors to become intimate. Superficial and false intimacy may substitute for closeness. Pastoral care should transcend the primitive holy man role, which is cold because the holy is desexualized. Intimacy is a closeness between persons in areas we tend to guard as personal.He is the author ofThe Power to Bless andRaise the Dead.