Risk status of adolescent children of problem-drinking parents

These studies assessed the risk status of children of untreated alcoholics. In Study 1, a cross-sectional survey of 208 high school students identified 18% as having serious concern about their parents' drinking. In Study 2, 32 children of problem-drinking parents and 39 others who participated in self-help groups were surveyed. Children of problem-drinking parents were more at risk of depression, low self-esteem, and heavy drinking than their peers in the general high school population. Within self-help groups, however, children's symptomatology was not related to their parents' drinking status. The results support the need for preventive intervention for children of problem-drinking parents and for developing strategies for improving the participation rate of such children in the intervention programs that are available.     

Family therapist authenticity as a key factor in outcome

The authors explore various arguments for and against therapist self disclosure and relate these to theoretical school and therapist style and personality. Several case vignettes are used to highlight the appropriate and efficacious revelation of therapist's thoughts, feelings and reactions to the patients and their behavior. A review of the recent literature on this controversial topic is included. The theme is that in almost all therapies, except in psychoanalysis where it is counterindicated, the therapist's selective dynamic use of his own perceptions, experiences and values in a genuine and committed fashion contributes positively to the therapeutic outcomes.To thine ownself be true And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man. (Hamlet, Act I)     

Training child abusers in the use of positive reinforcement practices

A parent training program involving reading assignments, practice assignments, role-playing and contingent reinforcement was implemented for two parents identified as child abusers. Measures selected from the Patterson Coding System served as the dependent variables. Several constructive changes in parent-child interactions were observed, some of which were maintained for as long as five months post-training.     

Developing Effective Prevention Services for the Real World: A Prevention Service Development Model

A Prevention Service Development Model (PSDM) is presented as an approach to develop prevention programs that are both effective and that are readily adopted for implementation in community settings. The model is an integration of concepts and methods from two fields, prevention research and marketing research as applied to new service development. Questions that are posed at each stage of the PSDM are described. Studies from the development of two preventive interventions are presented to illustrate research at several of the stages of the model.     

Self-regulation as a moderator of the relation between coping and symptomatology in children of divorce

Investigated the effects of self-regulation as a moderator of the relations between coping efforts and psychological symptoms of children of divorce. The interactions of two dimensions of self-regulation (task orientation and approach-flexibility) and two dimensions of coping (active and avoidant) predicting children's postdivorce symptoms were tested using a sample of 199 divorced mothers and their children, ages 8 to 12. The approach-flexibility dimension moderated the relations of both active and avoidant coping with children's self-report of anxiety. At higher levels of approach-flexibility, active coping was negatively related to anxiety, while at lower levels of approach-flexibility, active coping was unrelated to anxiety. Avoidant coping was un-related to anxiety at higher levels of approach-flexibility, whereas at lower levels of approach-flexibility, avoidant coping was positively related to anxiety. The task orientation dimension did not interact with coping, but had direct, independent effects on children's self-report of conduct problems, depression, and parent-report of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The implications for understanding children's coping with divorce and future directions for research are discussed.Support for this research was provided by NIMH Grants P50-MH39246 to support a Preventive Intervention Research Center at Arizona State University and 5-T32-MH18387 for Post- and Pre-doctoral Training in Prevention Research at Arizona State University. The authors thank Leona Aiken, Jane Bernzweig, and Wendy Kliewer for their contributions to this project.     

Annotations of research and clinical perspectives on cluttering since 1964

In 1964, Deso Weiss published his landmark text Cluttering, after much persuasion by Charles Van Riper to put his thoughts in writing regarding this enigmatic speech and language disorder (Van Riper, personal communication, 1992). To our knowledge, Weiss's book was the only book in English devoted entirely to cluttering. Nearly 30 years later, a second text entitled Cluttering: A Clinical Perspective was published (Myers & St. Louis, 1992). The following annotations summarize nearly all that has been written on cluttering since Weiss's classic publication in 1964.