On Attacking and Being Attacked in Group Psychotherapy

Verbal attacks are unavoidable within long-term psychotherapy groups. This article examines the inherent therapeutic value of potentially destructive exchanges. Group leader attempts to objectively define and regulate “attacks” are critiqued. A case example illustrates how leader interventions using induced feelings can enhance the therapeutic process and subsequent relational repair. Leader difficulties in identifying with the relational positions involved (attacker, victim, bystander) are explored, and a framework is offered for illuminating unconscious, dissociated, or unformulated emotional communications. It is argued that leader resistances may inadvertently promote and maintain group members’ damaging tendency to direct aggression toward rather than away from the self. Instead of being avoided or controlled, verbal attacking can be considered meaningful developmental progress and leveraged clinically to promote emotional maturation within the group.     

In Defense of Sensitivity

The sensitivity condition on knowledge says that one knows that P only if one would not believe that P if P were false. Difficulties for this condition are now well documented. Keith DeRose has recently suggested a revised sensitivity condition that is designed to avoid some of these difficulties. We argue, however, that there are decisive objections to DeRose’s revised condition. Yet rather than simply abandoning his proposed condition, we uncover a rationale for its adoption, a rationale which suggests a further revision that avoids our objections as well as others. The payoff is considerable: along the way to our revision, we learn lessons about the epistemic significance of certain explanatory relations, about how we ought to envisage epistemic closure principles, and about the epistemic significance of methods of belief formation.     

African American adolescent mothers and grandmothers: A multigenerational approach to parenting

This study is an adaptation and extension of Apfel and Seitz’s (Family Relations, 40(4), 421–429, 1991) models of adolescent parenting and adolescent-grandmother relationships to a sample of 148 African American, first-time adolescent mothers and their 6-month-old infants. The Parental Supplemental model, in which adolescent mothers and grandmothers shared caregiving, described 63% of Apfel and Seitz’s (1991) sample and 66% of the current sample. Shared caregiving was not associated with conflict in the adolescent mother–grandmother relationship. Adolescent mothers who had caregiving responsibilities and a supportive adolescent-grandmother relationship also reported competence in their parenting role. Findings provide support for Apfel and Seitz’s Parental Apprentice model, in which young mothers gain competence through direct caregiving experience in the context of a supportive relationship.     

Compulsive buying disorder: a review of the evidence

Compulsive buying disorder is characterized by excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges, or behaviors regarding shopping and spending that lead to subjective distress or impaired functioning. Compulsive buying disorder is estimated to have a lifetime prevalence of 5.8% in the United States general adult population. In clinical settings, most individuals with compulsive buying disorder are women (approximately 80%). This gender difference may be artifactual. Compulsive buying disorder is typically chronic or intermittent, with an age of onset in the late teens or early 20s. Comorbid mood and anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, eating disorders, and other disorders of impulse control are common, as are Axis II disorders. The disorder occurs worldwide, mainly in developed countries with market-based economies, and it tends to run in families with mood disorders and substance abuse. There is no standard treatment for compulsive buying disorder, but group cognitive-behavioral models seem promising, and psychopharmacologic treatments are being actively studied. Other treatment options include simplicity circles, 12-step programs, financial counseling, bibliotherapy, marital therapy, and financial counseling. Directions for future research are discussed.     

The effect of pathological gambling on families, marriages, and children

Pathological gambling (PG) is widely reported to have negative consequences on marriages, families, and children. Empirical evidence is only now accumulating but when put together with anecdotal information, the extent of these problems is clear. PG contributes to chaos and dysfunction within the family unit, disrupts marriages, leading to high rates of separation and divorce, and is associated with child abuse and neglect. Divorce rates are high, not surprising in light of reports that these marriages are often abusive. Research shows that the families of pathological gamblers are filled with members who gamble excessively, suffer from depressive or anxiety disorders, and misuse alcohol, drugs, or both. Families of persons with PG are also large, a variable independently related to family dysfunction. The authors review the evidence on the impact of PG on families, marriages, and offspring, and make recommendations for future research targeting these problems.     

Life Satisfaction and Symptoms of Mental Disorder Among Older African American Public Housing Residents

This study examines life satisfaction and symptoms of mental disorder in a sample of 831 older African American residents of urban public housing developments. Symptoms of mental disorder included measures of emotional distress, alcohol-related problems, and cognitive impairment. Subjects reporting less life satisfaction had significantly greater emotional distress. Neither lifetime alcohol-related problems nor cognitive impairment were significantly related to life satisfaction. Stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that emotional distress subscales accounted for most of the explained variance in life satisfaction. Social dysfunction was the strongest predictor of life satisfaction, accounting for 17% of the variance. Having a confidant, instrumental social support, religious support, or being female also contributed to the explained variance in life satisfaction.     

An evaluation of story grammars

We evaluate the “story grammar” approach to story understanding from three perspectives. We first examine the formal properties of the grammars and find only one to be formally adequate. We next evaluate the grammars empirically by asking whether they generate all simple stories and whether they generate only stories. We find many stories that they do not generate and one major class of nonstory that they do generate. We also evaluate the grammars' potential as comprehension models and find that they would add nothing to semantic models that focus on the story content. Hence we advocate a story content oriented approach to studying story understanding instead of the structural story grammar approach.