An Analyst’s Experience Working In A Skilled Nursing Facility: A Case Study

With the closing of long-term psychiatric facilities, no alternative social institution has arisen to treat those persons whose chronic mental illness makes self-care impossible. This paper explores the typical paths to placement in a skilled nursing facility or nursing home and the author’s experience in working with this population using the principles and techniques of interpersonal psychoanalysis. She presents several case examples and explicates both the analyst’s and the patient’s transference. The author discusses the difficulties inherent in creating an analytic space in such a setting and working outside of the usual psychoanalytic frame.     

Prospective predictors of body dissatisfaction in adolescent girls and boys: a five-year longitudinal study

This study investigated prospective risk factors for increases in body dissatisfaction in adolescent girls and boys in the Eating Among Teens Project. At the time of first assessment (Time 1), participants were a cohort of early adolescent girls (N=440) and boys (N=366) and a cohort of middle adolescent girls (N=946) and boys (N=764). Participants were followed up 5 years later (Time 2). Potential prospective risk factors examined included body mass index, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, parent dieting environment, peer environment, and psychological factors. Predictors of Time 2 body dissatisfaction were Time 1 body dissatisfaction, body mass index, socioeconomic status, being African American, friend dieting and teasing, self-esteem, and depression. However, the profile of predictors differed across the samples.     

A prospective study of factors that lead to body dissatisfaction during pregnancy

This study examined changes in body image and predictors of body dissatisfaction during pregnancy. It was expected that higher levels of depression, social comparison tendencies, teasing, societal pressure to be thin and public self-consciousness would predict body dissatisfaction prospectively. Healthy pregnant women (n = 128) completed questionnaires on three occasions during their pregnancies reporting on a total of four time points: 3 months prior to pregnancy (retrospectively reported), in the early to mid-second trimester, the late-second/early-third trimester, and the latter part of the third trimester. For the most part women reported adapting to the changes that occurred in their body; however, women were most likely to experience higher levels of body dissatisfaction in early to mid-second trimester. Findings related to predictors of body dissatisfaction revealed that both social and psychological factors contributed to body image changes in pregnancy. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Mentoring and participation: An application of the Vroom-Yetton model

Participative decision making is considered an important tool to develop subordinates. To explore how managers use PDM in mentoring relationships, we modified the Vroom-Yetton (1973) scenarios to include a protege/non-protege variable. One hundred and five managers completed the survey, and 68 of these completed a follow-up questionnaire concerning their own mentoring history. Contrary to our hypotheses, managers were neither more participative nor better decision makers with protege versus non-protege scenarios. Some differences in participation with certain situational attributes were found between protege and non-protege conditions suggesting that managers use PDM in different circumstances when dealing with proteges versus non-proteges. Mentoring history interacted with the protege variable in the scenarios. Unlike managers without mentors, managers who had been mentored showed significant differences when dealing with proteges versus non-proteges: they were both better decision makers (p=.001) and more participative with proteges (p=.004) than were managers who had not had mentors. Managers with mentors were alsoless participative in non-protege conditions (p<.05). Implications for mentoring as a developmental tool are discussed.We would like to express our appreciation to the anonymous reviewers who provided excellent guidance.     

A cognitive learning perspective on women becoming expert managers

Despite recent gains, women still face the glass ceiling—an invisible barrier that blocks their entry into top executive positions. Explanations for women's lack of success range from blaming men for discrimination to blaming women themselves. Rather than blaming the people in organizations, it is useful to analyze the task facing women managers. I argue that understanding the inherent difficulties in women's work can provide a new perspective on why women have difficulty in achieving top positions. Recent work in cognitive psychology is helping us learn more about the processes involved in reaching high levels of performance. Using these theories and concepts to analyze the task facing women managers, we can begin to develop new ways to help women develop higher levels of managerial skill.     

Self-esteem and responses to success and failure: Subsequent performance and intrinsic motivation

A model is proposed in which the goal of people with high self-esteem is to cultivate personal strengths in order to excel, whereas the goal of people with low self-esteem is to remedy personal deficiencies in order to become adequate In two experiments, subjects received initial outcome feedback of either success, humiliating failure (internal attribution), or failure that allowed face-saving (external attribution) Experiment 1 then measured subjects intrinsic motivation to pursue the task during free-choice time Subjects with high self-esteem had the highest intrinsic motivation after success Subjects with low self-esteem had the highest intrinsic motivation after the humiliating failure Experiment 2 required a second performance on a similar task Performance results were consistent with the intrinsic motivation results of Experiment 1, with one exception High self-esteem subjects were sensitive to the different failure treatments, performing well after humiliation but poorly after face-saving Subjects with low self-esteem performed the same in both failure conditions The relation of the present model and results to previous work is discussed