THE MEASUREMENT OF WORK: HIERACHICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE MULTIMETHOD JOB DESIGN QUESTIONNAIRE

To study the changing nature of work, researchers need measures of work that are valid and comprehensive. One potentially useful measure of work is the Multimethod Job Design Questionnaire (MJDQ; Campion, 1988), which was developed to assess 4 general approaches to work design (i.e., motivational, mechanistic, biological, perceptual-motor). Although the MJDQ holds promise as a general measure of work, little information is available regarding its psychometric properties. This study examines the MJDQ, using alternative hierarchical factor structures to represent work at varying levels of abstraction. Little support was found for the 4-factor structure corresponding to the work design approaches underling the MJDQ or for various hierarchical factor structures that simultaneously depicted general and specific aspects of work. However, a 10-factor first-order model received good support and may provide a useful basis for scoring and interpreting the MJDQ in future research.     

A Support Group for Women with Relationship Dependency

The author describes a support group for women with relationship dependency focusing on friendship, decision making, and feelings. Issues include loneliness, coping with loss, anger, and self-esteem. Guidelines for counselors are provided.     

Follow-Up of Doctoral Graduates in Counseling

The national population of persons who graduated from doctoral programs in counselor preparation during 1984–1985 was surveyed to discern their demographic, work history, current job status, productivity, and future employment plans. The 270 responses revealed a high level of preparation-related employment, with work being performed in very diverse settings. Today's graduates are older than those who graduated 15 years ago and are relatively experienced in counseling and human development services. Private practice has emerged as a significant employment setting and is projected to increase even more. Productivity in terms of contributions to the profession is substantial. Conclusions and implications are drawn for practitioners and counselor preparation institutions.     

The counselor and civil liberties

Although educators tend to talk positively about freedom, civil liberties are often denied to students as a matter of course. Since the counseling profession is committed to the concepts of individual development and human dignity, counselors have no choice but to stand firmly in favor of civil liberties and against repression. Their role should include working toward democratization of the environment, acting as civil liberties advocates for individual students whose rights are in jeopardy, and providing support for counselees who choose to dissent against conventionally accepted policies of school or society.     

The Sandwich Generation: Dealing with Aging Parents

This article discusses a workshop designed to provide middle-aged adults with information and opportunities to process their attitudes, emotions, and the realities of exchanging roles with aging parents.     

Challenges and Promises of Training Women as Family Systems Therapists

The structural/strategic family therapy model has drawn increasing numbers of women practitioners attracted not only by its effectiveness but by the opportunity to function in an active, orchestrative, flexible role. Traditional sex-role training, family and supervisor expectations, and patriarchal institutional structures pose particular challenges to the female family therapist and trainee. This paper explores several critical problem areas for women learning to function in this role, including the expression of authority, countertransference, sexual politics of supervision, and boundary issues. Particular content areas of focus for didactic training and common sex-role difficulties in the supervision process are delineated. The discussion underscores the need for assessment and intervention skills not only in small family systems but in larger institutional structures as well in order to enhance the professional development and effectiveness of women in the family therapy field at all levels.     

Racism as a Disease: Etiology and Treatment Implications

The authors discuss racism from a disease perspective. An underlying schema of irrelevance is posited as a cognitive structure that is acquired in childhood to cope with the inconsistent data of racial oppression in an ideologically egalitarian society. As this schema comes into conflict with the increasing diversity of American life, the individual frequently manifests disease symptoms that are treatable with a variety of techniques. The utility of group treatment designed for Caucasians in the early stages of treatment is specifically addressed. Los autores discuten el racismo desde la perspectiva de la enfermedad. Proponen una esquema fundamental de irrelevancia como una estructura cognitiva que se adquire en la niñez para enfrentarse con los datos inconsistentes de opresión racial en una sociedad ideologicamente igualitaria. Según este esquema se va poniendo en conflicto con la diversidad creciente de la vida americana, el individuo frecuentamente manifiesta síntomas de enfermedad que se pueden tratar con diversas técnicas. Se discute la utilidad del tratamiento de grupos diseñado para caucásicos en las primeras etapas del tratamiento.     

Adult attachment and emotional control

The connection between attachment style and affect regulation, proposed by attachment theorists, was explored in the context of long-term dating relationships. Seventy-two couples completed questionnaire measures of attachment (using a four-group forced-choice item, together with scales tapping Comfort with closeness, and Anxiety over relationships) and emotional control (in which subjects rated own and partner's control of anger, sadness, and anxiety, and the extent to which partners wanted them to control these emotions). Couples in which both partners endorsed insecure attachment styles (using the forced-choice measure) reported greater emotional control than did couples with two secure partners. Data from the attachment scales also supported the link between insecure attachment and emotional control: Comfort with closeness was negatively related both to one's own emotional control and to perceptions that partners wanted subjects to control their sadness; Anxiety over relationships was associated with perceptions that partners controlled sadness and wanted subjects to control their anger and sadness. The link between insecure attachment and the control of negative emotion remained significant when the frequency of experiencing such emotion was controlled. The association between attachment dimensions and other responses to negative emotions was also explored, and was consistent with attachment theory.