Family hypnotherapy

Abstract

A therapeutic model to help families activate experiential and right hemispheric functioning through hypnosis is presented in detail, together with a clinical illustration. Different situations in which this model is effective are mentioned and one such set of circumstances is described.     

Book reviews

Abstract

Marriage Counseling in Groups, by M. M. Ohlsen. Champaign, IL: Research Press Co., 1979, paperback, 200 pages, $6.95.

Common Sense in Therapy, by Yoosuf A. Haveliwala, Albert E. Scheflen and Norman Ashcraft. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1979, 199 pages, $13.50.

Handbook of Suicidology: Principles, Problems and Practice, by Louis Wekstein. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1979, 303 pages, $17.50.

Making It as a Stepparent: New Roles, New Rules, by Claire Berman. New York: Doubleday, 1980, 202 pages, $8.95.

Invitation to a Dialogue: Union and Separation in Family Life, by Otto Pollak and Ellen S. Wise. New York: Spectrum, 1979, $9.95.     

Effects of contextual questions on experimentally induced dysphoria

In a replication and extension of Watkins, Teasdale, and Williams (2003), a scrambled sentences paradigm was used to test whether prompting contextual processing of negative cognitive primes would limit the activation of dysphoric mood. Participants were divided into two groups and, after a dysphoric mood induction procedure, were asked to unscramble sentences that either did or did not emphasise the contextual aspects of moods. Consistent with Watkins et al., participants’ despondency decreased significantly more in the contextual group than in the neutral group. This effect could not be accounted for by variations in the way sentences were unscrambled.     

Can the LTSI Predict Transfer Performance? Testing intent to transfer as a proximal transfer of training outcome

Law enforcement personnel (n = 235) were administered the Learning Transfer Systems Inventory (LTSI) and a transfer measure after completing leadership development training. Although most studies using the LTSI have focused on validation efforts in different linguistic settings, this study is one of the few to examine the relationship between the LTSI factors and a proximal transfer outcome score (as measured by intent to transfer). Motivation to transfer, transfer design, and transfer performance expectations had the strongest relationship with intent to transfer, and the motivation subscales (motivation to transfer, performance expectations, and outcome expectations) accounted for the largest amount of unique variance in intent to transfer.     

Christian Leadership and Religiosity Reexamined: The Evidence from College Student Leaders

This article assesses the impact of religiosity on Christian leadership orientations. The theoretical model is taken from the study of Shee, Ji, and Boyatt (2002), which presupposes that quest religiosity is inversely related to the structured, human resource, political, and symbolic leadership frames, while intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity are positively tied with them. The analysis is based on the 116 college student leaders in 12 Protestant colleges and universities. According to the data, the patterns of linkage between religious orientations and leadership frames lend partial support for the hypothesis. Intrinsic religiosity tends to foster structural and symbolic leadership, but quest religiosity promotes political leadership. The human resource leadership has turned out to be independent from religiosity, and extrinsic religiosity is found to have little to do with Christian leadership orientations.     

Dissociating object-based and space-based affordances

In what we term the orientation effect, faster spatial responses are made to the corresponding task irrelevant orientation of an object. We ask how this effect relates to object affordances, how attention may be involved, and how the effect relates to the better understood Simon effect. Two separate stimulus-response compatibility effects (an orientation effect and a Simon effect) were observed when spatial responses were made to photographs of objects whose orientation and location had been simultaneously manipulated. When attentional demands were high these separate effects were found using hand responses and foot responses, suggesting an abstract rather than specific coding of object affordances. However, when attentional demands were low only the Simon effect was observed, suggesting that, in order to obtain the orientation effect, objects must be represented at the level of an object.     

Risk and resilience: The moderating role of social coping for maternal mental health in a setting of political conflict

Violence can threaten individual wellbeing and tear at the social fabric of communities. At the same time, suffering can mobilize social coping and mutual support. Thus, the backdrop of political violence increases risk factors and stimulates resilience. The current study examined the moderating role of social coping as reflective of risk and resiliency in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted conflict. Specifically, structural equation modeling was used to investigate whether social coping protects from or exacerbates the negative impact of sectarian crime and nonsectarian crime on maternal mental health (N = 631). Nonsectarian crime predicted greater psychological distress for mothers in Belfast. Mixed support was found for the buffering and depletion moderation hypotheses; social coping functioned differently for nonsectarian crime and sectarian crime. Greater social coping buffered mothers’ psychological distress from the negative effects of nonsectarian crime, but exacerbated maternal mental health problems when facing sectarian crime. Results suggest that social coping is a complex phenomenon, particularly in settings of protracted political violence. Implications for interventions aimed at alleviating psychological distress by enhancing mothers’ social coping in contexts of intergroup conflict are discussed.     

The religion paradox: if religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out?

As we estimate here, 68% of human beings--4.6 billion people--would say that religion is important in their daily lives. Past studies have found that the religious, on average, have higher subjective well-being (SWB). Yet, people are rapidly leaving organized religion in economically developed nations where religious freedom is high. Why would people leave religion if it enhances their happiness? After controlling for circumstances in both the United States and world samples, we found that religiosity is associated with slightly higher SWB, and similarly so across four major world religions. The associations of religiosity and SWB were mediated by social support, feeling respected, and purpose or meaning in life. However, there was an interaction underlying the general trend such that the association of religion and well-being is conditional on societal circumstances. Nations and states with more difficult life conditions (e.g., widespread hunger and low life expectancy) were much more likely to be highly religious. In these nations, religiosity was associated with greater social support, respect, purpose or meaning, and all three types of SWB. In societies with more favorable circumstances, religiosity is less prevalent and religious and nonreligious individuals experience similar levels of SWB. There was also a person-culture fit effect such that religious people had higher SWB in religious nations but not in nonreligious nations. Thus, it appears that the benefits of religion for social relationships and SWB depend on the characteristics of the society.     

Longitudinal Pathways Between Political Violence and Child Adjustment: The Role of Emotional Security about the Community in Northern Ireland

Links between political violence and children’s adjustment problems are well-documented. However, the mechanisms by which political tension and sectarian violence relate to children’s well-being and development are little understood. This study longitudinally examined children’s emotional security about community violence as a possible regulatory process in relations between community discord and children’s adjustment problems. Families were selected from 18 working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Participants (695 mothers and children, M = 12.17, SD = 1.82) were interviewed in their homes over three consecutive years. Findings supported the notion that politically-motivated community violence has distinctive effects on children’s externalizing and internalizing problems through the mechanism of increasing children’s emotional insecurity about community. Implications are considered for understanding relations between political violence and child adjustment from a social ecological perspective.