Writing therapy in brief workplace counselling: Collaborative writing as inquiry

The purpose of this collaborative research was to reflect on one client's experience of using writing therapy during brief workplace counselling. The client/co‐researcher used expressive and creative writing between counselling sessions, the benefits of which are reported. A brief review of the literature on writing therapy is provided. The focus of the study is on investigating the process of writing therapy from the client's point of view. The epistemological assumptions and research methods are influenced by narrative inquiry. Feminist values inform both the therapeutic practice and research.     

The experiences of therapists using a new client‐centred psychometric instrument,PSYCHLOPS (Psychological Outcome Profiles)

PSYCHLOPS (‘Psychological Outcome Profiles’) is a newly developed client‐generated psychometric instrument which can be used as an outcome measure. Uniquely, it asks clients to state their own problems, in their own words. As part of its validation, we used it alongside an existing measure, CORE‐OM (‘Clinical Outcomes Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure’). Based on a qualitative methodology, we report here on the first‐hand experiences of four therapists using both instruments. The key themes that emerged from therapists’ responses were feasibility, validity and usefulness. Both questionnaires were perceived as complementing each other, the qualitative information from PSYCHLOPS balancing the quantitative information from CORE‐OM and that both could contribute to the therapist‐client interaction. The key features of PSYCHLOPS are likely to prove attractive to therapists and should increase acceptance and uptake of outcome measures.     

"Listen and I tell you something": Storytelling and social action in the healing of the oppressed

The process of healing from life under a military dictatorship is slow and arduous. Reviving one's sense of self when the peace has been shattered; articulating vision and purpose in a culture and a community polarized and divided, requires both a connection to the spiritual and an outlet for direct action. In both cases it is necessary to reclaim ones' voice and to find others who will listen with the commitment to receive and understand. In this article, the words of citizens of Argentina and Chile are presented to illustrate the experience of those who lived in violence and how they are managing to heal.     

Women and Counseling: A Vision for the Future

The authors who worked to prepare this special issue on women and counseling (N. L. Kees, L. A. Carlson, R. Parmley, P. Dahlen, K. Evans, A. F. Marbley, et al., 2005) offer a vision for a just, equitable, and sustainable future for all. Recommendations for individual and systemic change needed to realize this future vision are offered. Implications for the American Counseling Association and members of the counseling profession are highlighted.     

A Multivariate Analysis of the Revised Conners' Teacher Rating Scale with Low-Income, Urban Preschool Children

The present investigation addressed the utility of the revised Conners' Teachers Rating Scale (CTRS-28) with low-income urban preschool children. CTRS-28 ratings for a large sample of preschool children from an urban Head Start program were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. Analyses yielded a 3-factor structure: Conduct problems, Hyperactivity, and Passivity. Further analyses cross-validated this structure for males and females and supported its integrity. Multimethod, multisource validity analyses substantiated the CTRS-28 dimensions. The Play Disruption factor of the parent and teacher Penn Interactive Peer Play Scales (PIPPS) provided convergent validity for the Conduct and Hyperactivity factors of the CTRS-28, whereas the Play Interaction factor revealed divergent validity. The Play Disconnection factor of the PIPPS validated the CTRS-28 Passivity factor. The Q-Sort Emotional Regulation scale provided divergent validity for the Conduct and Hyperactivity factors and likewise the Q-Sort Autonomy scale provided divergent validity for the Passivity factor. Age and sex differences were assessed across the 3 factors of the derived preschool structure. A main effect was found for sex and age indicating that boys displayed higher levels of Hyperactivity and Passivity problems than girls did. Similarly, 4-year-old children demonstrated higher levels of Passivity problems than did 5-year-old children.     

Multiracial recruitment in the field of family therapy: an innovative training program for people of color

This article describes the creation of a training program designed to increase the number of family therapists of color in the family therapy field. In 1992, a partnership between New York City schools of social work, community agencies, and the Ackerman Institute for the Family created the Diversity and Social Work Training Program. Elements critical to the program's success were recruitment strategies, mentorships, partnerships with outside organizations, provision of a long-term institutional commitment, biracial collaborations, and institutional change. This article describes the design, structure, and process of this program's evolution and its impact 12 years later.     

Benefit System Effects on Employees’ Benefit Knowledge,Use, and Organizational Commitment

We identified four attributes of benefit systems thought to influence employee attitudes and behavior: employee participation, system quality, communication quality, and benefit importance. Survey data from 974 employees of a Fortune 500 energy industry firm supported a partially mediated model in which these benefit system features exerted both indirect and direct effects on benefit knowledge and use, as well as on affective and continuance commitment. However, the findings differed across benefit system features and across types of benefits. Specifically, improving organizational communications about benefits appears more useful than increasing employee participation or improving benefit system service quality.     

How prosimian primates represent tools: experiments with two lemur species (Eulemur fulvus and Lemur catta)

The authors examined how 2 lemur species (Eulemur fulvus and Lemur catta) reason about tools. Experiment 1 allowed subjects to use 1 of 2 canes to retrieve an inaccessible food reward. Lemurs learned to solve this problem as quickly as other primates. Experiment 2 then presented subjects with novel tools differing from the originals along one featural dimension. Subjects attended more to tools' sizes than to their colors and made no distinction between tools' shapes and textures. Experiments 3 and 4 presented problems in which some of the tools' orientations had to be modified relative to the food. Subjects performed well on these problems, sometimes modifying the position of the tool. These results are discussed in light of the performance of other primates on this task.     

Apolipoprotein e gene variability and cognitive functions at age 79: a follow-up of the Scottish mental survey of 1932

Apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype is a possible influence on nonpathological cognitive aging. The authors studied 462 community-dwelling, 79-year-old people born in 1921, whose childhood IQ had been assessed in the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 (Scottish Council for Research in Education, 1933). Adjusting for sex, childhood IQ, and self-reported illnesses, the authors found that those with an APOE e4 allele had significantly lower Wechsler Logical Memory (D. Wechsler, 1987) scores than those without an e4 allele. Those people with APOE s2/e3 genotypes had significantly higher Wechsler Logical Memory scores than e3/s3, who were significantly higher than e3/e4. Neither nonverbal reasoning nor verbal fluency were affected. In this sample, APOE genotype contributed to verbal memory in old age.     

State and Trait Correlates of Job Performance: A Tale of Two Perspectives

The relative importance of dispositional and situational influences on organizational behaviors has been widely debated within the organizational sciences. In the current research, we report the results of two field studies that, taken together, provide an opportunity to examine the relative contributions of psychological well-being, positive mood, and negative mood as predictors of job performance. In Study 1, bivariate correlational analyses demonstrated that psychological well-being and negative mood, but not positive mood, were related to job performance measured over the past year. Hierarchical regression analysis found that psychological well-being was positively related to job performance, even when controlling for positive and negative mood. These findings were replicated and extended in the second study. In particular, bivariate correlational analyses demonstrated that psychological well-being and negative mood were predictive of job performance at the present time. However, unlike Study 1, hierarchical regression analyses found that both psychological well-being and negative mood were predictive of performance, even after controlling for each other and positive mood.