Family therapy training: Current issues,future trends

This article extends the previous literature review of the family therapy training and supervision field (Liddle & Halpin, 1978) by organizing and discussing some of the dimensions most relevant to family therapy teachers. The five domains of focus include: (1) Personnel: who should teach and be taught family therapy? (2) Content and skills: what should be taught? (3) Methodology: how should the content and skills be taught? (4) Context: how do the setting and the training enterprise influence each other? (5) Evaluation: how should training be assessed? Finally, the article brings into focus several key aspects of family therapy training likely to have relevance for current and future trainers.     

Evidence that a factor besides progesterone, prolactin, or plasma-estradiol-binding protein inhibits estrogen-induced sexual receptivity in pregnant rats.

Daily administration of estradiol benzoate stimulated significantly less lordotic behavior in rats during the second half of pregnancy than in ovariectomized females that received subcutaneous progesterone implants, pituitary grafts that raised plasma prolactin, or both treatments combined. Following an initial facilitation of receptivity, females with progesterone implants showed only moderate reductions in lordosis quotients over 3 test days. The capacity of plasma from pregnant rats to bind estradiol was found to increase significantly during the second half of pregnancy. However, daily administration to pregnant rats of a synthetic estrogen, R 2858, which is not bound by plasma protein, was no more effective than estradiol benzoate in stimulating receptive behavior. Administration of estradiol benzoate also stimulated significantly lower levels of sexual behavior in pregnant females than in females in which pseudopregnancy had been prolonged by previous hysterectomy or induction of uterine decidualization. These findings suggest that some endocrine factor other than progesterone, prolactin, or estradiol-binding protein is primarily responsible for the potent suppression of behavioral responsiveness to estrogen which occurs in pregnant rats. It is suggested that 5 alpha-reduced androgens may cause these behavioral effects.     

Demonstration of an aftereffect occurring in the tactile-kinesthetic domain

Summary The aim of this work is the demonstration of a tactile-kinesthetic aftereffect. A sequence of stimuli was offered to adult subjects whose task was to compare two weights presented simultaneously to both hands by means of a Piéron gravimeter. In Experiment 1 the inspection stimuli consisted of two successive presentations of unequal weights for a period of 2 × 10 s. The test stimuli consisted of two equal weights rapidly following an inspection stimulus. Control stimuli consisting of two equal weights not preceded by an inspection stimulus were interspersed in the sequence. The results obtained confirm the existence of a contrast effect after presentation of an inspection stimulus. In Experiment 2 the inspection stimuli consisted of a single presentation of two unequal weights for a period of 20 s. The results confirm those of the first experiment and provide data enabling the contrast effect obtained to be interpreted as a Köhler-type aftereffect. In order to avoid confusion with the kinesthetic-figural aftereffect, we propose to call the effect demonstrated here the Gravimetric Aftereffect.     

Correctness of Kruskal's algorithms for monotone regression with ties

Kruskal has proposed two modifications of monotone regression that can be applied if there are ties in nonmetric scaling data. In this note we prove Kruskal's conjecture that his algorithms give the optimal least squares solution of these modified monotone regression problems. We also propose another (third) approach for dealing with ties.Comments by Dr. J. B. Kruskal have been most helpful.     

Effects of imposed delay of response and item complexity on auditory comprehension by aphasics

Ten aphasic and five control subjects were administered an auditory comprehension task similar to Levels I-IV of the Revised Token Test under conditions of 0, 5, 10, and 20 sec of imposed response delay. Responses were evaluated in terms of performance accuracy and response time. Aphasic subjects' response accuracy was significantly effected by an interaction between the length of delay imposed and the complexity of the stimulus. The aphasic group also demonstrated a significant main effect for item complexity. Control subjects' accuracy was not influenced by the treatment conditions. Latency measures indicated the aphasic subjects were slower to respond across all treatment conditions. Both groups' latency scores were significantly effected by item complexity. A comparison of mean latencies by condition did, however, suggest different patterns of response for the two groups. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical and clinical implications for the auditory comprehension deficits of aphasia.