The Importance of Spirituality in Couple and Family Therapy: A Comparative Study of Therapists’ and Educators’ Beliefs

The purpose of this study was to explore the differences between the beliefs of couple and family therapists (CFTs) and CFT educators in accredited training programs regarding the importance of spirituality in their personal and professional lives. The results suggest a significant difference between the two populations, with clinicians reporting a higher level of agreement regarding the overall role of spirituality in their personal and professional identities compared to CFT faculty members. However, both therapists and educators reported similar levels of agreement in regard to the need for education related to integrating spirituality and its role in clinical practice. Implications for CFT training programs are discussed.     

Relational Theory and Intergenerational Connectedness: A Qualitative Study

Relational theory encourages women to be connected in relationships. The authors used qualitative methodology to explore the interactions of a nonfamilial intergenerational group of 7 female adolescents (13–15 years) and 5 older women (62–80 years) in a structured retreat. Findings indicated that the participants experienced increased connectivity and feminine identity.     

The problem of school bullies: what the research tells us

This article includes an overview of the history of research on school bullying, its nature and prevalence, characteristics of bullies and victims, and teachers' knowledge of and attitudes toward bullying. Also, two model interventions designed to reduce this harmful behavior are examined.     

Attachment,culture, and the caregiving system: The cultural patterning of everyday experiences among Anglo and Puerto Rican mother–infant pairs

This investigation focuses on cultural differences in the relationship between maternal sensitivity, emotional expression, and control strategies during the first year of life and infant attachment outcomes at 12 months. Participants were middle‐class Puerto Rican and Anglo mother–infant pairs (N = 60). Ratings of physical control, emotional expression, and maternal sensitivity during mother–infant interactions in five everyday home settings, videotaped when the infants were 4, 8, and 12 months old, were examined in combination with 12‐month Strange Situation classifications. Results suggest that physical control shows a different pattern of relatedness to maternal sensitivity, emotional expression, and attachment outcomes among the Puerto Rican compared to the Anglo mothers in this study. These findings have implications for practitioners and researchers interested in normative parenting among diverse cultural groups. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Deliberation, Foreknowledge, and Morality as a Guide to Action

In Section 1, I rehearse some arguments for the claim that morality should be ``action-guiding', and try to state the conditions under which a moral theory is in fact action-guiding. I conclude that only agents who are cognitively and conatively ``ideal' are in general able to use a moral theory as a guide to action. In Sections 2 and 3, I discuss whether moral ``actualism' implies that morality cannot be action-guiding even for ideal agents. If actualism is true, an ideal agent will know about her own future actions. Since such foreknowledge is often thought to be incompatible with deliberation, and since action-guidance presupposes the possibility of deliberation, there is an apparent difficulty in combining actualism with the requirement of action-guidance. In opposition to an argument by Jan Österberg, I try to show that actualism and action-guidance are in fact compatible.     

Behavioral Characteristics of DSM-IV ADHD Subtypes in a School-Based Population

From an ethnically diverse sample of 2,744 school children, 221 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) [123 (4.5%) predominantly inattentive (IA), 47 (1.7%) predominantly hyperactive/impulsive (HI), and 51 (1.9%) combined type (C)] were identified using teacher ratings on a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) (DSM-IV) symptom checklist. Subjects were compared to 221 controls on teacher ratings of behavioral, academic, and social functioning. The results revealed relatively independent areas of impairment for each diagnostic group. The IA children were impaired in all areas, but were rated as displaying more appropriate behavior and fewer externalizing problems than HI or C children. The HI group displayed externalizing and social problems, but was rated as no different than controls in learning or internalizing problems. The C group demonstrated severe and pervasive difficulties across domains. These findings support the validity of the DSM-IV ADHD subtypes; all ADHD groups demonstrated impairment relative to controls, but show different patterns of behavioral characteristics.     

Formal systems of dialogue rules

Section 1 contains a survey of options in constructing a formal system of dialogue rules. The distinction between material and formal systems is discussed (section 1.1). It is stressed that the material systems are, in several senses, formal as well. In section 1.2 variants as to language form (choices of logical constants and logical rules) are pointed out. Section 1.3 is concerned with options as to initial positions and the permissibility of attacks on elementary statements. The problem of ending a dialogue, and of infinite dialogues, is treated in section 1.4. Other options, e.g., as to the number of attacks allowed with respect to each statement, are listed in section 1.5. Section 1.6 explains the concept of a chain of arguments.From section 2 onward four types of dialectic systems are picked out for closer study: D, E, Di and Ei. After a preliminary section on dialogue sequents and winning strategies, the equivalence of derivability in intuitionistic logic and the existence of a winning strategy (for the Proponent) on the strength of Ei is shown by simple inductive proofs.Section 3 contains a — relatively quick — proof of the equivalence of the four systems. It follows that each of them yields intuitionistic logic.     

A factor structure of child home observation data

Both normal and antisocial children were extensively observed in their natural home environments. A factor analysis of the baseline data was conducted that differed from the typical factor study in two respects. Equal numbers of deviant and nondeviant behaviors were included in the analysis, and the unit of analysis was the rate-per-minute occurrence of actual child behavior. The factor structure was interpretable, and scaling of the dimensions-I, Verbal Emotionality, II, Physical Dependency, HI, Social Involvement, IV, Hostile: Controlling, and V, Hostile: Impulsive-separated groups of normal, socially aggressive, hyperactive-aggressive, and stealing children. Reported differences between aggressive and stealing children on rates of total aversive behavior were found to be due to differences in the verbal behaviors loading on the first factor.The data reported in this paper were collected with support from a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Section on Crime and Delinquency, Grant No. MH 15985 to Oregon Social Learning Center. The authors wish to thank Gerald R. Patterson for granting access to the data files and for very patient continuing support and advice.     

Studies of Jungian typology: III. Personality and marriage

Jung's theory of psychological types provided the conceptual framework for a study of personality characteristics implicated in marital relationships. Partners in 20 couples completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and a series of open-ended questions describing their marital relationships. As predicted, (a) type similarity was more characteristic than type dissimilarity, particularly on sensation-intuition and thinking-feeling preferences, (b) sensation-intuition preferences were reflected in perceptions of qualities valued in self and spouse, (c) thinking-feeling preferences were significantly related to reported satisfaction in marriage, and (d) intuitives were more open to changes in the relationship than were sensing types. Marital problems were highly diverse, and were not related in any clear way to type patterns in individuals or dyads.