Parent-Adolescent Conflict and Stress When Parents Are Living with Aids

Parental perceptions of conflict and stress with their adolescent children are described, and their associations with demographic factors, physical health, and lifestyle are examined. Adolescent-parent conflicts, parenting stress, and parents' health, substance use, and sexual lifestyle were assessed among 151 parents living with AIDS. Parents living with AIDS reported a mean of 3.3 (SD = 1.3) areas of conflict with their adolescents and 1.5 (SD = 1.7) stressful parenting events over the previous 3 months. The parents were very ill, with many physical symptoms and diseases. Simultaneously, substance use was common (17% used daily), but not injection drug use (3.3%). Half had a sexual partner (63% protected their partners by using condoms consistently). Regression analysis revealed that parent-adolescent conflict was significantly associated with high parental drug use; stressful parenting events were significantly related to the lifestyle (high drug use and frequent sex acts) of Latino and African American parents, but not of white parents. Results of the analysis indicate that, in contrast to parents with other illnesses, parent-adolescent conflict and stressful parenting events were not influenced by parents' health status, but were significantly influenced by substance use and sexual lifestyles.     

Law Enforcement Officers: The Consequences of Exposure to Violence

Law enforcement officers are exposed to victims of violence, are themselves victims of violence, and, at times, use violence against offenders. The authors discuss methods that officers have developed for handling violent situations and explore some of the effects this exposure to violence has on both their mental and physical health. Suggestions are developed for counselors working with law enforcement personnel and others who need to cope with the direct and indirect effects of violence.     

Support for Intimacy Skills Groups from Research in Social Psychology

Work done by social psychologists on self-disclosure is relevant for intimacy skills groups. This research is reviewed and a structured group on intimacy training that integrates the research findings is discussed.     

An Assessment of the Perceived Relevance of the CACREP Standards

This study examined the extent to which the 1988 Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) Standards were judged by counselor educators as relevant to the preparation of counselors. A majority of the 102 institutional representatives, regardless of whether they represented CACREP-accredited or nonaccredited programs that offered a master's degree only or a master's degree and doctorate and had few or many faculty members, judged the CACREP Standards to be crucial or important to accreditation. Respondents' judgments of the relevance of the CACREP Standards, however, differed significantly (p<.05) by numerical size of program faculty and by whether the program was CACREP-accredited or non-CACREP-accredited.     

Personal characteristics,relationship quality,and social support perceptions and behavior in young adult romantic relationships

This study investigated three questions: (1) Do both personal characteristics and perceived qualities of romantic relationships contribute to partners’perceptions of support? (2) Do these variables predict supportive behavior in partner interactions that can be observed by others? (3) How do situational characteristics affect the predictors of observed supportive behavior? Eighty-six university undergraduates and their romantic partners completed a questionnaire packet and participated in a structured videotaped interaction that included a stress-inducing intervention. Participants’perceived support from the relationship was predicted by participants’own personal characteristics and view of the relationship, as well as by partners’personal characteristics. Observed supportive behavior in a somewhat familiar task was related to personal characteristics of both partners and their views of the relationship. Supportive behavior after an experimenter-administered stressor was predicted only by the couple's personal characteristics. Results demonstrate how study of social support in close relationships can advance understanding of relations between support perception and support receipt.     

The Effects of the Fresh Start Program on Native American Parolees' Job Placement

Fresh Start, a career development project in Rapid City, South Dakota focusing on Native American parolees with multiple barriers to employment, was effective in placing 75% of its 1994 group in Jobs. Clients reported that feeling valued and important was the most important aspect of the experience.     

Family-of-Origin Experiences and Conflict Resolution Behaviors of Young Adult Dating Couples

This study was conducted to explore the relationship among retrospective reports of family-of-origin functioning, reported perceptions of a laboratory-based conflict resolution discussion, and outsiders' ratings of communication behaviors between young adult dating couples, with a special focus on predicted gender differences. Sixty-three couples aged 18 to 24 participated in this study. A Revealed Differences task was used to elicit discussion about an issue identified as discordant for the couple on a Relationship Issue Questionnaire. Family-of-origin variables were related to both men's and women's perceptions of the conflict, as well as outsiders' ratings of their conflict resolution behaviors. However, the conflict resolution behaviors and perceptions of men and women were associated with distinctly different aspects of functioning in their families of origin. Further, women's families-of-origin factors were more prominent for the couples' communication behaviors because they indicated a greater number of significant correlations between the women's families of origin and: 1) perceptions of the conflict resolution discussion by both the men and women, and 2) the observed conflict resolution behaviors of both men and women. These findings are discussed in the context of both the relevant research and important social-political influences.