A Case of Functional Urinary Retention: The Use of Family Play Therapy

This case presents a technique for doing family therapy in families with young children. In family play therapy, the entire family plays together, allowing full participation of even the youngest children in the therapeutic process. Standard family therapy interventions in the latter part of each session make use of family interaction patterns and unconscious processes revealed during the earlier play. In the case presented here, the technique was successfully applied to a family with a 3-year-old son who had functional urinary retention. This case also provided an opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration between the separate Child and Family Services at a major teaching hospital.     

Patterns of Family Conflict and Their Relation to College Student Adjustment

The current study explored whether college students' reported participation in one of four theoretically distinct family alignments was differentially related to their scores on a multidimensional measure of college adjustment. Students were classified into one of four family alignment groups (noncoalition, mother-coalition, father-coalition, and triangulation) on the basis of their comparative levels of conflictual independence from each parent. Results suggest that students' academic and personal adjustment are differentially affected by the nature of the parent-student conflictual alignment. Results also support the consideration of a family perspective when evaluating the student's adaptation to the college environment.     

Parts and Pretense*

This paper begins with a puzzle about certain temporal expressions: phrases like ‘Jones as he was ten years ago’ and ‘the Jones of ten years ago’. There are reasons to take these as substantival, to be interpreted as terms for temporal parts. But it seems that the same reifying strategy would also force us to countenance a host of less attractive posits, among them fictional counterparts of real things (to correspond to such phrases as ‘Garrison as he was in the movie JFK') and much more. I argue that there is a better way: we need only the idea of pretense or make‐believe to make sense of claims embedding such phrases, leaving us with no reason, so far, to accept an ontology of temporal parts.     

MATCHING INDIVIDUALS TO OCCUPATIONS USING ABILITIES AND THE O*NET: ISSUES AND AN APPLICATION IN CAREER GUIDANCE

The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is a modern computerized occupational database with the potential to be an important resource for numerous work-related applications. However, developing any O*NET-based application requires working through conceptual, methodological, and practical issues. This article discusses a set of major issues in the context of using the O*NET for person-occupation matching purposes, providing examples of how these issues were addressed in a systematic ability-based matching application developed for career guidance. Specifically, we (a) describe the O*NET and its potential for career guidance, (b) explain person-occupation fit and its positive consequences for individuals and organizations, (c) compare person-occupation fit with person-job fit, (d) discuss matching individuals to occupations empirically using abilities, (e) highlight issues faced in using the O*NJST in this process and give examples of how these issues were addressed in our matching application, and (f) evaluate the functioning of this example matching method.     

A Paradoxical Approach to Vocational Indecision

This article describes a case study in which a paradoxical intervention was employed in treating a vocationally indecisive college student and his overly involved parent.     

Seven years of the Journal: a review

This article reviews the contents of volumes 41 to 47 (1962 through 1969) of the Personnel and Guidance Journal, focusing on its composition, its authors, and several aspects of its articles such as methodology, setting, and contents. Relative emphases and trends are also identified and discussed.     

Chinese Cultural Collectivism and Work-Related Stress: Implications for Employment Counselors

The influence and damage of work-related stress on employees from different cultures may well be the same, but the form of stressors may not be so. Stress is influenced by cultural and social variables such as values, attitudes, and perceptions. The collectivism-individualism construct was suggested to measure cultural variables and attempt to explain the differences of some social behaviors between Eastern and Western people. Eastern cultures like the Chinese and the Japanese are collectivistic, whereas Western cultures such as the American and Canadian are individualistic. As members of an Asian collectivistic society, Hong Kong Chinese workers tend to interpret and handle work-related stress differently from Westerners, despite the fact that they have been exposed to western business practices. Like Asian Americans, they are often caught between their collectivistic tradition and an increasingly competetive individualistic market place. Employment counselors should take cultural issues into consideration as they provide consultation or counseling services to people who are searching for satisfying work environments.     

TELL ME SOME MORE: EXPLORING HOW VERBAL ABILITY AND ITEM VERIFIABILITY INFLUENCE RESPONSES TO BIODATA QUESTIONS IN A HIGH‐STAKES SELECTION CONTEXT

Although self‐rated or self‐scored selection measures are commonly used in selection contexts, they are potentially susceptible to applicant response distortion or faking. The response elaboration technique (RET), which requires job applicants to provide supporting information to justify their responses, has been identified as a potential way to minimize applicant response distortion. In a large‐scale, high‐stakes selection context (N= 16,304), we investigate the extent to which RET affects responding on a biodata test as well as the underlying reasons for any potential effect. We find that asking job applicants to elaborate their responses leads to overall lower scores on a biodata test. Item verifiability affects the extent to which RET decreases faking, which we suggest is due to increased accountability. In addition, verbal ability was more strongly related to biodata item scores when items require elaboration, although the effect of verbal ability was small. The implications of these findings for reducing faking in personnel selection are delineated.