Self-concept and anxiety of adolescent and adult fathers

This study examines the relationship between the age of unmarried fathers and their self-concept and anxiety level. A total of 24 unmarried fathers (12 adolescents and 12 adults) comprised the sample. No significant differences were found between adolescent and adult fathers on self-concept or anxiety level. Findings are discussed with regard to the current status of research on adolescent fathers.     

The Hispanic Treatment Program: Principles of effective psychotherapy

The Hispanic Treatment Program was an inpatient psychotherapy Unit at the Colorado State Hospital that operated from October 1979 to February 1982. Staffed exclusively with personnel of Hispanic heritage, the Program emphasized the use of linguistic and cultural elements, as well as the customs and beliefs characteristic of Hispanic culture. A specialized inpatient treatment unit for Hispanic patients with psychotic (especially, schizophrenia) disturbances, the Program offered a unique opportunity to these patients by providing a variety of psychotherapies conducted in a culturally-sensitive manner. Spanish and English were used in a manner conducive to enhancing the treatment process, with flexibility in use of language.This project was supported by Grant No. ROlMH29016-01A2, awarded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Center for Minority Group Mental Health.The authors acknowledge Gregorio Kort, M.D. and Wayne Smyer, M.A. and other staff for their contributions to the development and success of the Hispanic Treatment Program.Original version of paper was selected for the First Senior Award given by the Psychological Services Center's (NYSCP) Minority Mental Health Award Competition.     

Facilitating autonomy in passive-dependent persons: An integrative model

Passive and dependent qualities are commonly found in psychiatric patients suffering from a variety of disorders. While such tendencies are often secondary to an Axis I clinical syndrome, they are occasionally more persistent and refractory. The present article attempts to provide therapeutic guidelines useful when working with clients displaying stable personality traits of passivity and dependency. An attempt is made to adapt and combine several therapeutic techniques to be applicable to passive-dependent clients. More specifically, problem-solving approaches and self-control strategies can be used to facilitate autonomy if precautions are taken to reduce the dogmatic and didactic styles commonly employed with these techniques. The Socratic method of interviewing is posited as a useful means of developing problem-solving skills without creating unnecessary dependence on the therapist. Self-control strategies can help reduce the reliance on others as the primary source of satisfaction for dependent clients. In this way, passive-dependent clients may become more self- reliant and autonomous in their daily functioning.The author would like to thank Patti Watson, Katie Brooks, and Estyn Williams for comments made on an earlier draft of this article.     

A Visual Means of Organizing Career Information

The author describes a visual means of organizing career information. With this approach clients consider a number of external and internal factors and their relative importance.     

Coping with Unemployment: What Helps and What Hinders

In this article the authors report on a study of the experience of unemployment. The emphasis is on those factors that unemployed people found helpful and those that hindered them.     

Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process

This article explores the possibility that romantic love is an attachment process--a biosocial process by which affectional bonds are formed between adult lovers, just as affectional bonds are formed earlier in life between human infants and their parents. Key components of attachment theory, developed by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others to explain the development of affectional bonds in infancy, were translated into terms appropriate to adult romantic love. The translation centered on the three major styles of attachment in infancy--secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent--and on the notion that continuity of relationship style is due in part to mental models (Bowlby's "inner working models") of self and social life. These models, and hence a person's attachment style, are seen as determined in part by childhood relationships with parents. Two questionnaire studies indicated that relative prevalence of the three attachment styles is roughly the same in adulthood as in infancy, the three kinds of adults differ predictably in the way they experience romantic love, and attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents. Implications for theories of romantic love are discussed, as are measurement problems and other issues related to future tests of the attachment perspective.     

Cognitive operations associated with individual differences in affect intensity

There are wide individual differences in the characteristic intensity of affective response to the same emotion-evoking event. The processes whereby individuals come to experience strong or mild emotional responses when exposed to the same affect-provoking stimuli are still unclear. In these studies, we propose that individual differences in affect intensity are associated with certain cognitive operations used during exposure to emotion-relevant stimuli. Specifically, cognitive operations that involve personalizing, generalizing, and selective abstraction were hypothesized to discriminate subjects high and low in affect intensity. Two studies replicated support for the hypothesis that subjects high on the affect-intensity dimension engage in more personalizing/empathic and more generalizing/elaborative cognitive operations than do subjects low on the affect-intensity dimension. The same cognitive operations discriminated groups high and low in affect intensity in response to both positive and negative emotional stimuli. Also, the cognitions that discriminated subjects high and low in affect intensity occurred only in response to affective stimuli; neutral stimuli did not evoke divergent cognitive operations for these two groups. Finally, a high degree of consistency was found in the use of emotion-relevant cognitive operations across positive and negative affective stimuli.     

Task-dependent compensatory responses to perturbations applied during rhythmic movements in humans

Modulation of the responses to perturbation applied during different phases of three rhythmic movements in humans-running, cycling, and hopping-was studied. The perturbation was an electrical stimulus. The results showed gating and modulation of the responses in both ipsi- and contralateral limb muscles. The responses during running and cycling were only excitatory in nature, while during hopping an inhibitory response was observed. These responses were not correlated with the normal activity during the movement. The latency of the response in general was not altered for different stimulation phases. The alterations in the step cycle demonstrated overt behavioral changes due to the responses. There were differences between the responses observed during these movements and walking. In running, the major adaptation to perturbations appears to be in the contralateral side as seen in the changes in the step cycle. During cycling (except for one phase) and hopping, the same set of muscles was activated in response to perturbation. This represents a simplifying strategy in response organization. The dependency of the response on the task characteristics, postural stability requirement, and external constraints imposed on the subject is discussed. These studies provide insights into task-dependent strategies adopted by the nervous system to meet unexpected perturbation during rhythmic movements in humans.