Further Support for Multidimensionality Within the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

Although the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale is one of the most widely used measures of global self esteem, the underlying measurement structure of the items is still debated. In this study the dimensionality of a six item version of the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale included in the National Population Health Survey of Canada was examined using nested confirmatory factor analyses. The results indicate that the six items measure two correlated dimensions of global self esteem. The first dimension appears to represent a measure of self competence, and the second is interpreted as a measure of self liking. Subsequent tests of predictive power and discriminant validity supported the two dimension interpretation. The two dimensions had substantially different relationships with theoretically related measures of anxiety, negative affect and happiness. In addition to these different correlations, latent variable regressions indicated that the self-competency factor consistently suppressed irrelevant variance in the self liking factor when predicting anxiety, negative affect and happiness.     

Familienfunktionalität und Therapieerfolg

Background

Even though it is a treatment standard of child psychotherapy to involve the parents, hardly any research has been carried out about the impact of family functioning on treatment outcome. Aims of the present study were to investigate the change in and the prognostic power of family functioning on treatment outcome of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy in children and adolescents.

Patients and methods

The sample consisted of 54 children and adolescents undergoing outpatient short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy. To assess family functioning, their parents were asked to complete the Family Assessment Measure (FAM).

Results

Patients from families with high levels of functioning in task accomplishment, communication and affective expression were more often treated successfully. Improvement in levels of functioning in role performance, emotionality and control were only found in the group of successfully treated patients.

Conclusion

Family functioning is a decisive factor in the differential indication of psychotherapeutic treatment in children and adolescents.     

Trouble in Eden

In response to the Wild-Anderson Report, Little Children are Sacred (June 2007) that outlined a pattern of widespread sexual abuse of small children and chronic alcoholism among aboriginals in the Australians' N.T. (Northern Territory), the federal government launched a major Intervention there sending in teams of doctors and health workers to examine all aboriginal children for abuse and special police and army units to stabilise the situation in remote communities. Moving beyond the recommendations contained in the Report the Howard government announced it would use compulsory acquisition powers and appoint administrators over aboriginal townships and centres (about 73 of them) for five years. These officials would be charged with building up local infrastructures and could assign individuals to work for their welfare payments at jobs assigned to them. More disturbing to aboriginal leaders and communities was a government plan to allow individual aboriginals to lease small plots of land on traditional community owned reserves for the purpose, it was said, of owning their home and/or to start a small business. Furthermore, traditional owners would be allowed to enter into long term leases (for 99 years) on their lands in order to attract outside investment and capitol. There was considerable fear among aboriginals that these unilateral moves by the government would undermine the basis of aboriginal culture and lead inevitably to the loss by aboriginal people of real control over their traditional land.     

Mary between Bible and Qur'an: Soundings into the Transmission and Reception History of the Protoevangelium of James on the Basis of Selected Literary Sources in Coptic and Copto-Arabic and of Art-Historical Evidence Pertaining to Egypt

Taking up the question of the permeability of boundaries between early Eastern Christian and Islamic communities and their literatures, this article studies the Coptic and Copto-Arabic trajectory of the transmission and reception history of the Protoevangelium of James, a text which offers remarkable parallels to presentations of Mary and Jesus in the Qur'an. Being a second-century Christian apocryphal work, the Protoevangelium tells of Mary's infancy and youth and ends shortly after the birth of Christ. The article proceeds from Émile de Strycker's claim of the Protoevangelium's Egyptian provenance through an examination of Egyptian Christian traditions concerning it, covering Coptic and Copto-Arabic literature up to and including the History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria. Ongoing research on Christian women in Copto-Arabic sources points to traces of the usage of the Protoevangelium of James in the early stages of redaction of the History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria. Coptic and Copto-Arabic art also provides a number of pictorial representations of passages in the Protoevangelium. Finally, the transmission history of the Coptic and Arabic versions of the Protoevangelium rounds out the picture of the reception history of this text in Christian Egypt into later medieval times. The article contributes towards a systematic study of the spread of the Protoevangelium of James tradition in the late antique and Byzantine Christian East and also towards a better understanding of the oral, written, and visual milieu in which the Qur'an and early Islamic exegetical traditions encountered apocryphal motifs derived from the Protoevangelium of James.     

Evaluating wraparound services for seriously emotionally disturbed youth: pilot study outcomes in Georgia

Since the early 1990s, intervention strategies designed to preserve the family system while serving children diagnosed with severe emotional disturbances (SED) have been on the rise. Many of these strategies sought to provide families with comprehensive approaches that link various agencies and services, thus providing a complete system of care. The term wraparound services was coined to describe these approaches. However, evaluation studies of the outcomes of these programs remains limited. In order to assess the impact of wraparound services, outcome evaluation programs need to be implemented and their feasibility assessed. This paper focuses on the feasibility and implementation of a computer-based field assessment system and the ability to provide empirically based feedback to the programs. In addition, an assessment of 15 participating children and families, comparing selected aspects of clinical functioning at intake and 6-month follow-up, is presented and discussed.     

Can Internalism Be Saved?

Abstract: Richard Feldman argues that a good deal more of Chisholm's approach can be saved than I allow in “Roderick Chisholm and the Shaping of American Epistemology.” More than this, Feldman argues that there are other, and still more defensible, forms of internalism. I argue here that the problems I presented for Chisholm's view are not so easily sidestepped either within Chisholm's system or by other forms of internalism.     

'The repression and the return of bad objects': W. R. D. Fairbairn and the historical roots of theory

One of the seminal, if solitary, figures of the British Object Relations School was the Scotsman W. R. D. Fairbairn. In this paper the author relates some of the distinctive features of Fairbairn's thinking to traumatic aspects of his country's history, especially the harsh, repressive traditions of Scottish Presbyterianism, which were magnified in confusing ways by his sexually puritanical parents. The two World Wars are shown to have played an important role in liberating Fairbairn from these constraints, influencing both his choice of career and, notably, the evolution of his ideas.     

Benchmarking Treatment Effectiveness of Community‐Delivered Trauma‐Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

It is critical for urban youth with post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) living in poverty to have access to evidence‐based interventions for their traumatic stress. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of these interventions when provided in urban, community settings. The objectives of the current study are to (a) evaluate the effectiveness of trauma‐focused cognitive behavioral therapy delivered from 2013 to 2016 in 15 behavioral health agencies on youth (N = 114) PTSD as well as  general mental health symptoms and  functioning, and (b) benchmark these clinical outcomes against other published efficacy and effectiveness trials. Effectiveness data are from the Philadelphia County Community Behavioral Health System, a system that has invested significantly in the training and ongoing support of clinicians providing high‐quality trauma services to youth since 2012. From baseline to last assessment, youth PTSD symptom severity (d = 0.34), PTSD functional impairment (d = 0.38), and overall mental health problem severity (d = 0.29) improved. The effect sizes of  improvements were smaller than effect sizes observed in efficacy and effectiveness studies. This study is the first benchmarking study of TF‐CBT and provides preliminary findings with regard to the effectiveness, and transportability, of TF‐CBT to urban community settings that serve youth in poverty.     

Acquiescing to the Script: A Panel Study of College Students’ Sexual Media Habits,Endorsement of Heteronormative Scripts,and Their Hesitance Toward Resisting Unwanted Hookups

Sex Roles - The present study set out to better understand how sexual entertainment media may be related to college students’ heteronormative beliefs about sexuality and how these beliefs may...