‘Someone to talk to who'll listen’: addressing the psychosocial needs of children and families

The paper presents the Lewisham Community Child and Family Service (LCCFS), a community‐based intervention providing psychosocial help for children, young people, parents and families. The service is focused on early intervention, prevention and promotion in the improvement of local health. It works under a service framework based on inter‐agency collaboration, and a counselling model based on community and interpersonal partnerships, grounded in personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955). The policy demands and local need for accessible and acceptable mental health are discussed, and quantitative and qualitative findings of the needs assessment preceding the establishment of the LCCFS are presented, supporting the need for community mental health provision. The feasibility for the LCCFS to reconcile and meet the policy demands and the needs of parents with respect to child psychosocial help and services are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘The threat of the Other’: Using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate racial and cultural dynamics in the counselling process

This paper examines the use of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods in the study of racial and cultural dynamics in the counselling process. The approach is illustrated by the author's own research which combined quantitative survey instruments with a blend of qualitative methods. Emphasis is given to complex racial and cultural phenomena arising from the qualitative methods of data collection and data analysis, particularly the pervasive experience of ‘threat of the Other’. These phenomena were seen to permeate the counselling interactions both explicitly and implicitly. The emerging racial dynamics are discussed with reference to theoretical concepts which stress the interrelationship between intrapsychic development and sociopolitical issues. The effectiveness of employing pluralistic methods in this field of enquiry is also evaluated.     

Jealousy in Sport: Exploring Jealousy's Relationship to Cohesion

The present study continued the development and revision of the Sport Jealousy Scale (SJS) and investigated the relationships among jealousy, cohesion, and satisfaction with athletes. The original SJS (now SJS-II) was revised and given to 236 Division I athletes along with the Group Cohesion Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985 Carron, A. V., Widmeyer, W. N. and Brawley, L. R. 1985. The development of an instrument to assess cohesion in sport teams: The Group Environment Questionnaire. Journal of Sport Psychology, 7: 244–266. [CSA][Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the Revised Self-Report Jealousy Scale (SRJS-II; Bringle, Roach, Andler, & Evenbeck, 1977 Bringle, R. B., Roach, S., Andler, C. and Evenbeck, S. Presented at the annual meetings of the Midwestern Psychological Association. Chicago, IL. Correlates of jealousy,  [Google Scholar]), and the Satisfaction Questionnaire (Widmeyer & Williams, 1991 Widmeyer, W. N. and Williams, J. M. 1991. Predicting cohesion in coacting sport. Small Group Research, 22(4): 548–570. [CSA][Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Jealousy was negatively correlated with both cohesion (r = ?.23, p < .01) and satisfaction (r = ?.22, p < .01). Following Baron and Kenny's (1986) Baron, R. M. and Kenny, D. A. 1986. The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51: 1173–1182. [PUBMED][INFOTRIEVE][CSA][Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] three-step model for testing mediation, satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between jealousy and cohesion. The results confirm the existence of jealousy in sport, provide psychometric evidence for a measure of sport jealousy, validate expected relationships among jealousy, cohesion, and satisfaction, and provide initial information on gender and sport differences in jealousy and cohesion. These findings will help researchers continue to examine jealousy and its correlates in sport teams, and may help coaches and professionals working with teams maintain positive team dynamics.     

Lay Definitions of Violence among Swedish Children,Teenagers, and Adults

Definitions of violence vary and are almost always operationalized by the researcher. Perceptions of violence often determine levels of tolerance of violence. Little research has focused on lay definitions. A total of 309 Swedes (78 children, 85 teenagers, 99 younger adults, and 47 adults (30+); 48% male) were interviewed using a specially developed interview protocol. Content analysis was used to assign definitional categories. A folk taxonomy emerged. Immediate physical violence accounted for 73% of all assigned categories. Hit was the word that occurred most frequently. If global physical violence was included, physical violence accounted for 89% of 780 assigned categories. Immediate non-physical violence accounted for 9% and vicarious violence (including media violence) accounted for 2%. Distributions of categories by respondents' gender, age, and participant role in incidents of violence showed the underlying definitions of violence to be extremely stable. The conclusion is that ordinary Swedes share a robust lay definition of violence as a behavior that is immediate, done in close quarters, and physical.     

Cyborgs in the Everyday: Masculinity and Biosensing Prostate Cancer

Abstract

An in vivo biosensor is a technology in development that will assess the biological activity of cancers to individualise external beam radiotherapy. Inserting such technology into the human body creates cybernetic organisms; a cyborg that is a human–machine hybrid. There is a gap in knowledge relating to patient willingness to allow automated technology to be embedded and to become cyborg. There is little agreement around what makes a cyborg and less understanding of the variation in the cyborgisation process. Understanding the viewpoint of possible beneficiaries addresses such gaps. There are currently three versions of ‘cyborg’ in the literature (i) a critical feminist STS concept to destabilise power inherent in dualisms, (ii) an extreme version of the human/machine in science-fiction that emphasises the ‘man’ in human and (iii) a prediction of internal physiological adaptation required for future space exploration. Interview study findings with 12 men in remission from prostate cancer show a fourth version can be used to describe current and future sub-groups of the population; ‘everyday cyborgs'. For the everyday cyborg the masculine cyborg status found in the fictionalised human–machine related to issues of control of the cancer. This was preferred to the felt stigmatisation of being a ‘leaker and bleeder’. The willingness to become cyborg was matched with a having to get used to the everyday cyborg's technological adaptations and risks. It is crucial to explore the everyday cyborg's sometimes ambivalent viewpoint. The everyday cyborg thus adds the dimension of participant voice currently missing in existing cyborg literatures and imaginations.     

A qualitative meta-synthesis on the experience of psychotherapy for deaf and hard-of-hearing people

A review was conducted to examine the experiences that affect the therapeutic relationship when a person who is deaf or hard-of-hearing meets with a therapist. Electronic databases were searched using keywords and 10 qualitative articles were retrieved that met the inclusion criteria. A qualitative meta-synthesis was conducted on the articles, including appraisal, comparison, and synthesis of findings. The results of the synthesis highlighted seven areas where the therapeutic relationship is challenged, including issues which occur before and during psychotherapy. The findings of the review are discussed in the context of the articles’ limitations. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of clinical practice, future research, and current models in psychology which are based on hearing participants.