Family system functioning: behavior in the laboratory and the family treatment setting

The Family System Functioning (FSF) scale is a new instrument for measuring dimensions of the intrafamilial environment thought to be important in recovery from major psychiatric illness. Modest statistical correlations were obtained when FSF ratings of laboratory-based family interactions were compared with researcher-guided therapist ratings of FSF based upon the family's behavior in family therapy sessions during the subsequent month. The data from these two settings provide support for the validity of some of the scales. Because of the modest size of the correlations, however, behavior in the laboratory setting may not always be an accurate indicator of how the family will behave in the early weeks of family therapy.     

Individual differences in vocal activity rhythm: Fourier analysis of cyclicity in amount of talk

Speakers in informal conversations tend to alternate regularly between lower and higher amounts of talking; the periods of these low/high activity cycles are on the order of 3, 6, and 15 minutes. Statistically significant periodicities occurred in 55% of the conversations studied. The periodograms that describe the partition of variance among periodic components whow consistent individual differences in the cyclic patterning of vocal activity. Discriminant analysis used the amount of variance accounted for by each of the 12 lowest-frequency periodic components as discriminating variables to see whether speakers could be identified on the basis of the cyclic patterns in vocal activity. Speakers were discriminated and classified at levels well above chance. This suggests that there are consistent individual differences among speakers in the length of cycles in amount of talk.We gratefully acknowledge support from the Central University Research Fund and from the office of the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire.     

An indigenous community mental health service on the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Indian reservation: Seventeen years later

The status of a fully indigenous mental health program serviced and controlled by the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Indian tribe is reviewed from the perspective of its 17-year history. The program functions in large measure in a crisis intervention model, with suicidal or acutely disturbed cases being most frequent. However, a whole range of disorders and ages are seen. Traditional Medicine Men and Women are often used as consultants, as are some professionals. In recent years child sex abuse and abuse of drugs among youth are prominent problems. The program experienced problems of obtaining services off reservations for patients in need, and in establishing credibility of the Indian Mental Health workers with the outside service providers.     

A reanalysis of the influence of a "friendly visitor" program

A paper in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP), by Reinke, Holmes, and myself, reported the results of a study of the influence of a friendly visitor program on the cognitive functioning and morale of elderly individuals. The program was reported to have had a significant multivariate effect on a combination of cognitive and morale measures and significant univariate effects on memory, self-perceived health, and activity director's ratings. Being intrigued by the memory finding, I conducted a follow-up study to further investigate the effect of a visitation program on cognitive functioning. In this second study the dependent measures included all of the cognitive variables included in the original study as well as some additional memory variables. The visitation program in the follow-up study had no effect on any of these measures. As a result of my failure to obtain a significant memory effect such as that reported in Reinke et al. (1981), I reanalyzed the data from the original study. In my reanalysis, the only significant effect was a borderline univariate effect for self-perceived health; the multivariate effect did not approach significance. On the basis of my inability to produce the results reported in Reinke et al. when I reanalyzed the original data, I must conclude that the friendly visitor program did not have the effects attributed to it in the original report.