African American clergy: what are their perceptions of pastoral care and pastoral counseling?

This qualitative study explores African American clergy’s perspectives on pastoral care and pastoral counseling. Interviews were conducted with 18 African American clergy of diverse ages, locales, and educational levels who were recruited from a southern state. Two major themes emerged from the data: (a) Shepherding the Flock and (b) Distinguishable Concepts with Different Meaning and Functions. Implications for social work practice and research are addressed.     

From academic communities to managed organisations: The implications for academic careers in UK and German universities

This paper examines the implications for academic careers of the apparent global trend towards marketisation and managerialism in higher education with reference to the UK and Germany. It discusses how university employers might exercise greater control over their employees, privileging research and international publication, and fragmenting the traditional unity of the academic role. The effect is to challenge the values of academic communities, subject individuals to greater uncertainty, competition and insecurity, and influence the shape and direction of academic careers. The paper notes how today’s academic careers could be understood in terms of Kanter’s three forms of career as well as the boundaryless and protean career. However, it argues that these approaches do not address the key issue in both the UK and German cases: the changed locus and exercise of power within the employment relationship. It concludes that, to understand how careers are changing, this power relationship and the context of career in general have to be taken into account.     

Open Field Motor Patterns and Object Marking, but Not Object Sniffing, Are Altered by Ibotenate Lesions of the Hippocampus

Objectmarking and object sniffing were assessed in an open field during six 5-min trials in unoperated Long-Evans rats and rats with ibotenate lesions of the hippocampus and/or neocortex. Object marking was higher in hippocampally lesioned rats than in unoperated rats. Object marking did not differ between neocortically lesioned rats and unoperated rats. Object sniffing durations and visits did not differ between unoperated and hippocampally lesioned rats nor between unoperated and neocortically lesioned rats. A new object elicited longer sniffing by both unoperated and hippocampally lesioned rats. Neocortically lesioned rats did not show this effect. There were no effects of the new object on marking. Computerized tracing of open field paths revealed a smaller perimeter track for hippocampally lesioned rats than for unoperated rats. This difference reflected distinct ambulatory patterns. Hippocampally lesioned rats made stereotyped hind-limb pivots at each corner, while normal rats used forelimb pivots or reared and reoriented adjacent to the wall. Rearing was lower in hippocampally lesioned rats, and higher in neocortically lesioned rats, than in unoperated rats. These data indicate that investigative object behavior (sniffing) is resistant to the effects of hippocampal damage, while object-elicited marking and motoric output may be profoundly altered. The data on sniffing suggest either that (1) the noticeability of the objects used elicited investigative behaviors in hippocampally damaged rats comparable to those of novelty-induced exploration in normal rats or (2) object exploration is not used to create a spatial map, and, hence, not disturbed by hippocampal loss. Object marking may require spatial locale information to be exercised normally, or may index the mediation of an olfactory-modulated behavioral pattern through the hippocampal system.     

How different spatial-frequency components contribute to visual information acquisition

We test 3 theories of global and local scene information acquisition, defining global and local in terms of spatial frequencies. By independence theories, high- and low-spatial-frequency information are acquired over the same time course and combine additively. By global-precedence theories, global information acquisition precedes local information acquisition, but they combine additively. By interactive theories, global information also affects local-information acquisition rate. We report 2 digit-recall experiments. In the 1st, we confirmed independence theories. In the 2nd, we disconfirmed both independence theories and interactive theories, leaving global-precedence theories as the remaining alternative. We show that a specific global-precedence theory quantitatively accounted for Experiments 1-2 data as well as for past data. We discuss how their spatial-frequency definition of spatial scale comports with definitions used by others, and we consider the suggestion by P. G. Schyns and colleagues (e.g., D. J. Morrison & Schyns, 2001) that the visual system may act flexibly rather than rigidly in its use of spatial scales.     

Change in emotional processing during a dialectical behavior therapy-based skills group for major depressive disorder

Across studies, paying attention to and analyzing one's emotions has been found to be both positively and negatively correlated with depression symptoms. One way of reconciling these seemingly contradictory findings is the possibility that attending to emotions in a skillful manner may help to reduce depression whereas attending to emotions with limited skill may be counterproductive. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a clinical intervention designed to foster adaptive awareness, expression, regulation, tolerance, and acceptance of emotions. Results of the present report come from a pilot study of a 16-week DBT-based skills training group for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (MDD) as an adjunctive treatment to pharmacotherapy. Patients were randomized to treatment or a waitlist control group. A significant interaction revealed that increases in emotional processing were associated with decreases in depression symptoms in the DBT-based skills group; however, increases in emotional processing in the waitlist condition were associated with increases in depression. Results offer preliminary support for the idea that participating in DBT-based skills training may help individuals with treatment-resistant MDD to develop skills that facilitate processing emotions in a way that helps to reduce rather than exacerbate depression symptoms.     

Tuning in to Kids: an effectiveness trial of a parenting program targeting emotion socialization of preschoolers

This article reports on an effectiveness trial of the Tuning in to Kids (TIK) parenting program. TIK aims to improve emotion socialization practices in parents of preschool children; it is a universal prevention program that teaches parents the skills of emotion coaching and also targets parents' own emotion awareness and regulation. The present study followed a 2 × 2 (Treatment Condition × Time) design. One hundred twenty-eight parents of children ages 4.0-5.11 years were recruited from preschools and randomized into intervention and waitlist conditions. Parents in the intervention condition (n = 62) attended a six-session group parenting program delivered by community practitioners who followed intervention fidelity protocols. Parents and preschool teachers completed questionnaires twice during the preschool year: at preintervention and at follow-up (approximately 7 months later). Parents reported on their emotion socialization beliefs and practices, other parenting practices, and on child behavior. Teachers reported on child behavior (Social Competence and Anger-Aggression). Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling. At follow-up, compared to the control group, intervention parents were significantly less emotionally dismissive in their beliefs, less dismissive and more coaching in their practices in response to children's negative emotions, and more positively involved. Although there were improvements in both conditions over time for parent-reported child behavior and teacher-reported social competence, compared to the waitlist group, intervention parents reported a significantly greater reduction in number of behavior problems. This trial demonstrates the potential for community agencies and practitioners in real-world settings to deliver a new parenting program that targets emotional communication in parent-child relationships.