Theory and Practice: Designing and implementing coaching/mentoring competencies: a case study

The article gives an inside story of and specific toolkit for introducing competencies for coaching. The instance described involved about 30 UK practitioners within a large provider. Benefits and drawbacks of having competencies for coaching are addressed and illustrated. Benefits include the value of explicitness, the potential for better matching, and also using the introduction of competencies as a process for lessening structural divisions between internally competing teams and coteries of coaches. Particular attention is paid to the significance of the process of introduction mirroring in its style the type of culture being introduced. In this instance the process was participative, involving a process of gaining assent and a mirroring competency system involving self-assessment, which linked in to CPD. Collusion as a possible outcome is acknowledged while being placed in a broader, as yet unaddressed context. The competency system specifics are fully laid out. Emphasis is given to the framework as a system of practical meaning (praxis) and the epistemological implications of this. The non-sectarian, integrationist path chosen is described, as is the consequent theoretical price paid: syncretism not synthesis. Finally, factors relating to gaining assent from non-coaching stakeholders from within the coaching provider are identified.     

Changes in Interviewers' Use of Supportive Techniques during the Revised Protocol Training

Summary: Although many children are reluctant to disclose abuse due to embarrassment, fear, and the anticipation of negative consequences, researchers have only recently begun to examine whether forensic interviewers can be trained to manage children's reluctance. In this study, the supportiveness of 53 experienced interviewers was assessed in their interviews with 321 3‐ to 14‐year‐old alleged victims, each conducted during the course of training to use the Revised Protocol (RP). The use of support increased, especially between levels evident at baseline and in the last two interviews assessed. Over time, instances of inadequate support and insensitivity to children's reluctance became less common. Younger children received proportionally more support, including inadequate support, than older children. The RP training did not affect the extensive use of free recall‐based questions. Findings highlight the benefits of continued supervision and training.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young children's emerging ability to make false statements

This study examined the origins of children's ability to make consciously false statements, a necessary component of lying. Children 2 to 5 years of age were rewarded for claiming that they saw a picture of a bird when viewing pictures of fish. They were asked outcome questions ("Do you win/lose?"), recognition questions ("Do you have a bird/fish?"), and recall questions ("What do you have?"), which were hypothesized to vary in difficulty depending on the need for consciousness of falsity (less for outcome questions) and self-generation of an appropriate response (more for recall questions). The youngest children (2? to 3? years old) were above chance on outcome questions, but it was not until age 3? that children performed above chance on recognition questions or were capable of maintaining false claims across question types. Findings have implications for understanding the emergence of deception in young children.     

The Productivity of Wh‐ Prompts when Children Testify

Wh‐ prompts (what, how, why, who, when, and where) vary widely in their specificity and accuracy, but differences among them have largely been ignored in research examining the productivity of different question types in child testimony. We examined 120 six‐ to 12‐year‐olds' criminal court testimony in child sexual abuse cases to compare the productivity of various wh‐ prompts. We distinguished among wh‐ prompts, most notably the following: what/how‐happen prompts focusing generally on events, what/how‐dynamic prompts focusing on actions or unfolding processes/events, what/how‐causality prompts focusing on causes and reasons, and what/how‐static prompts focusing on non‐action contextual information regarding location, objects, and time. Consistent with predictions, what/how‐happen prompts were the most productive, and both what/how‐dynamic prompts and wh‐ prompts about causality were more productive than other wh‐ prompts. Prosecutors asked proportionally more what/how‐dynamic prompts and fewer what/how‐static prompts than defense attorneys. Future research and interviewer training may benefit from finer discrimination among wh‐ prompts. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health locus of control in late life: a study of genetic and environmental influences in twins aged 80 years and older.

The factor structure of health locus of control (Form A; K. A. Wallston, B. S. Wallston, & R. DeVellis, 1978) was examined in 420 octogenarians (M age = 83.2 years), and the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to health-control beliefs in 141 octogenarian twin pairs (71 identical, 70 same-sex fraternal) were estimated. Factor analyses reproduced previously proposed factors (Internal, Chance, and Powerful Others). Associations between health-control beliefs and life satisfaction, depression, and other health-related measures (e.g., self-rated health, outpatient contacts, and hospitalization), were modest. Quantitative genetic analyses revealed significant shared environmental influence on the Chance subscale, and significant familiality (attributable to a combination of genetic and shared environmental influences) on the Powerful Others subscale; there was no evidence of familiality on the Internal subscale.     

Meaning and the family life cycle

In this article, the authors integrate Viktor Frankl's concept of the “Will to Meaning” with a family-life-cycle model. This integration offers an overview of the opportunities for spiritual growth and the development of a sense of purpose for both the family and its individual members. Clinical illustrations highlight applications of the approach in actual practice.     

Re-Collection in Existential Psychotherapy with Couples and Families Dealing with Death

Re-collection is a treatment dynamic in existential family therapy in which the client family is helped to remember and honor meanings that family members have previously actualized and deposited in the past. This shrinks the family meaning vacuum and those symptoms and problems that grow and flourish in a family meaning vacuum. In this article, an existential orientation to re-collection with families who are dealing with the death of a loved one is presented, described, and illustrated with case material.     

Concurrent Validity of the Schwartz Outcome Scale With a Chemically Dependent Population

Clients (N = 151) completed the Schwartz Outcome Scale (SOS‐10; M. A. Blais et al., 1999) and the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory‐3 (F. G. Miller & L. E. Lazowski, 1999). The results show a negative relationship between substance use symptoms and SOS‐10 scores and a positive relationship between defensiveness and SOS‐10 scores.     

Reliability and validity of portable blood pressure/pulse units during a competitive challenge

The aim of the present study was to determine the reliability and validity of recordings from three portable blood pressure/pulse units compared with simultaneous recordings from a polygraph used as the standard for these comparisons. The units tested included the Sears Digital Z153, Industrial Biomedical Sensor (IBS) Digital SD-700, and the Sphygmostat B-350/PU-102 (analog scale). Thirty healthy subjects were exposed to Pac-Man video game and mental arithmetic stressors. Each stressor was preceded by relaxation and followed by recovery periods. During each period, systolic/diastolic blood pressure and pulse were taken from one of the three portable units and the polygraph. The three units were reliable in recording systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate across baseline, stressor, and recovery periods. The blood pressure/pulse readings from the digital units by Sears and IBS corresponded more closely to simultaneous polygraph recordings than did the analog scale device by Sphygmostat. These results suggest that the digital blood pressure/pulse units employed in this investigation are reliable and valid measurement devices suitable for field research with clinical populations.