Codependency: Addictive love,adjustive relating,or both?

The concept of codependency constitutes a controversial but, in our view, eminently researchable area of clinical concern. Following a perspective on the evolution of the concept, we summarize the currently dominant view that codependency is a personality syndrome closely akin to addictive love. We then present an alternative point of view that focuses on the characteristics of codependent relating rather than the characteristics of the codependent person, arguing that codependency may be either endogynous or exogynous. Recent efforts to develop valid measures of codependency as a personality predisposition and as a set of relationship characteristics are discussed, followed by the conclusion that the two assessment approaches are complementary rather than contradictory.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mike Dewald, Karin Parker, and Pam Quinn of the United Recovery Center, Grand Forks, ND, in some of the data collection.     

Effectiveness of short-term seminars in four different cultures

The authors examine the knowledge, attitudes, and suppositions concerning family therapy among specialists from four professionally and politically quite different cultures. The results of the survey, which was carried out among participants in workshops and specialists' training courses, have shown that: attitudes toward and the place of psychotherapy in a given culture serve as a relevant point of reference for finding out about attitudes toward family therapy; the value of the family as a sociological unit has a formative effect on views regarding family therapy; and professional and political isolation may be a hindrance to the formation of a healthy family therapy approach, but the basic attitude toward psychotherapy is not significantly influenced by ideological factors.     

Marital group metaphors: Significance in the life stages of group development

Metaphorical content is abundant in the therapeutic process and has been noted and utilized in a variety of ways and settings by clinicians in the field. This paper focuses on metaphorical content in a marital therapy group and relates group metaphors to the life stages of group development. The co-authors illustrate the use of metaphors to assess the developmental stage of the group and to assist the therapist(s) in leading the group toward further growth and development. Figures are utilized to display the occurrence of metaphors by group stage, and a case example of a frequently stated group metaphor is offered to illustrate this process.     

Addictions and the family: An introduction

The editors of this special issue would like to express their appreciation to William C. Nichols, editor ofContemporary Family Therapy, for his support and encouragement in putting together this issue. We would also like to acknowledge and thank H. Allan Dye, Joan Jurich, Kevin R. Kelly, Richard M. Loughead, Nancy Shook, and Paul H. Wright for their patience, assistance, and editorial reviews.     

Pulling it all together: Meeting varying training requirements on national,state, and university levels for marriage and family therapy education

Marriage and family therapy programs face many challenge in trying to meet different sets of criteria including national, state, and university requirements. State regulation of the marriage and family therapy profession is a much sought after commodity. Currently 22 states have some type of MFT licensure or certification. MFT regulation criteria established by states to restrict title and function can differ in varying degrees from criteria established by the AAMFT's Commission on Accreditation. At the university level, MFT programs continue to be housed in a variety of schools including social work, education, psychology and home economics, as universities attempt to define a proper place for family therapy training. Confusion exists about whether MFT is a separate discipline or a specialization of another profession. The task of pulling it all together is addressed using one program's experience as an example.     

Inpatient versus outpatient treatment of substance abuse: Recent developments in the controversy

There has been considerable controversy the past decade on which is more effective, inpatient or outpatient treatment of substance abuse. During this same decade substance abuse treatment grew into a $40 billion industry with for-profit hospital programs accounting for as much as one-half the total figure. Recently, controlled studies have replaced the previous research literature which was largely composed of uncontrolled studies. A research consensus is developing that states inpatient rehabilitation has no advantages over outpatient treatment and that even hospitalization for detoxification is unnecessary for 90% of patients. Implications for public policy are that we are over-spending in the treatment of substance abuse by misallocating resources to the most intrusive intervention.Nicholas A. Cummings, PhD, is founder and chairman of the board of directors of American Biodyne and president of the Biodyne Institute, president of the National Academies of Practice, former president of the American Psychological Association, and founder of the four campuses of the California School of Professional Psychology.     

Performance on inhibitory tasks does not relate to handedness in several small groups of Callitrichids

Animal Cognition - Brain lateralization, a trait ubiquitous in vertebrates and invertebrates, refers to structural differences between the left and right sides of the brain or to the left and right...     

The ‘White Male Effect’ in perceptions of risk of dying from COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic people had to gauge their personal health risks in order to decide which protective behaviors to adopt. We explored whether mortality risk perceptions varied by demographic background. Using data from a nationally representative U.S. survey, we analyzed bi-weekly mortality estimates of 8339 individuals from 1 April 2020 to 21 July 2021. Consistent with a White Male Effect, White men estimated the risk of death to be lower than White women, non-White men, and non-White women. Furthermore, when linking those estimates to the actual risk of dying from COVID-19, as reflected in official fatality rates recorded by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), White men were indeed less likely to die from the coronavirus than would be expected based on their proportion of the populations. In contrast, deaths in non-White men and non-White women were higher than would be expected. Thus, subjective risk perceptions tracked objective mortality risks. Because White men tend to disproportionally hold positions with high decision-making power, although biased risk estimates may be less likely to have negative consequences for themselves, they may be especially detrimental to those for whom such decisions are made.     

Navigating uncertainty in human social decision-making: Consequences and coping strategies

Uncertainty is a fundamental aspect of human social life. Based on fruitful findings, the current review aims to establish a schema that outlines the relationship between uncertainty and human social decision-making: the influences of uncertainty on social decision-making (mainly prosocial behaviors) and the strategies commonly employed to reduce social uncertainty. Human prosocial behaviors are modulated by both social and nonsocial uncertainty. Specifically, uncertainty decreases prosocial behaviors by providing moral wiggling room or promoting loss aversion but also helps maintain relationships by mitigating negative interactions. Moreover, impression formation, impression updating, and compliance with social norms are crucial strategies for coping with social uncertainty, but they are subject to various biases. Finally, we highlight some important issues that need to be addressed in future studies. In summary, the current review deepens our understanding of the role of uncertainty in social behaviors.     

Food word processing in Chinese reading: A study of restrained eaters

Food-related attentional bias refers that individuals typically prioritize rewarding food-related cues (e.g. food words and food images) compared with non-food stimuli; however, the findings are inconsistent for restrained eaters. Traditional paradigms used to test food-related attentional bias, such as visual probe tasks and visual search tasks, may not directly and accurately enough to reflect individuals' food-word processing at different cognitive stages. In this study, we introduced the boundary paradigm to investigate food-word attentional bias for both restrained and unrestrained eaters. Eye movements were recorded when they performed a naturalistic sentence-reading task. The results of later-stage analyses showed that food words were fixated on for less time than non-food words, which indicated a superiority of foveal food-word processing for both restrained and unrestrained eaters. The results of early-stage analyses showed that restrained eaters spent more time on pre-target regions in the food-word valid preview conditions, which indicated a parafoveal food-word processing superiority for restrained eaters (i.e. the parafoveal-on-foveal effect). The superiority of foveal food-word processing provides new insights into explaining food-related attentional bias in general groups. Additionally, the enhanced food-word attentional bias in parafoveal processing for restrained eaters illustrates the importance of individual characteristics in studying word recognition.