Guilt, guilt-evoking events, depression, and eating disorders

A long theoretical tradition has linked guilt with internalizing disorders. We find no evidence, however, that a greater personality proclivity for guilt is related to depression or eating disturbances as reported by 85 female undergraduates. Females also described guilt-producing incidents involving school versus eating and exercise. We examined reactions to the events including guilt feelings and perceived effectiveness in alleviating these feelings, intropunitive responses, action tendencies, and rationalizations. Both depression and eating disturbances were unrelated to guilt feelings over school, but were related to guilt feelings over eating and exercise. Ineffective alleviation of guilt feelings in both domains was correlated with depression and greater eating disturbances. Women who reacted to guilt-producing events with fewer intropunitive responses such as rumination and self-hatred, and by confiding in others, distancing, and rationalizing their actions through justifications and excuses were less likely to have eating disturbances.     

The intergenerational link to antisocial behavior: Effects of paternal contact

We investigated the relationship between paternal antisocial behavior and child conduct problems and we tested whether the degree of contact between father and child moderated the intergenerational link to antisocial behavior. Subjects were 92 children between the ages of 6 and 13 referred to an outpatient mental health clinic. There was a significant association between Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) in fathers and a diagnosis of conduct problems in their children. However, the relationship between paternal APD and conduct problems in offspring was not dependent on whether or not the father was in the home or on the degree of paternal contact with their child. The theoretical implications of these findings for explaining the intergenerational link to antisocial behavior in terms of observational learning were discussed.     

Community-based instruction for independent meal preparation by adults with profound mental retardation

Three adults with profound mental retardation and very limited reading skills were transitioned to community living after spending more than 20 years in a residential facility. Community-based instruction was used to teach them to independently prepare meals. Directed rehearsal and prompting procedures were used to teach them those meal preparation skills that they were unable to perform independently. We present assessment, training and followup data on the preparation of a dessert by the three participants. Following an assessment on the steps needed to prepare the dessert, training was introduced in a multiple baseline across subjects design. Results showed that the participants were able to independently prepare the dessert in up to 21 pre-training and training sessions. Monthly followup for six months showed that they were able to independently prepare the dessert in various community settings of their choice.     

Behavior-analytic repertoires: Where will they come from and how can they be maintained?

The field of behavior analysis faces a number of issues concerning its existence as a discipline and as a profession, including (a) identification of the knowledge and skills comprising the repertoire of competent behavior analysts, (b) the nature of the curricula that will produce the scientists and practitioners needed by the discipline, (c) identification of the generic professional and social skills required for any successful professional career, (d) academic employment opportunities for behavior analysts, and (e) the maintenance of behavior-analytic repertoires. Recommendations are offered as possible solutions to problems raised with respect to each of these issues.     

From “Forgotten and Ignored” to Standards and Certification: Gerontological Counseling Comes of Age

The specialty of gerontological counseling has a 20-year history that began with a dearth of information and has progressed to the development of preparation standards and a national certification, both based on a nationally endorsed statement of competencies for gerontological counselors. The question of whether generalization or a specialization will best serve the needs of older persons continues to be central to the development of this specialization.     

Can humans think their way to increased freedom?

In response to Auger's article, “Are Human Beings Free?” several points are made in favor of humans' having at least some degree of free choice or free will: (1) Although partly dependent on biological and social influences for their tastes, people may sometimes actually train themselves to change these tastes and desires. (2) Although logically people may never be totally responsible for their acts, unless we pragmatically hold them responsible for their antisocial behavior we vitiate all moral rules of the social groups in which theychoose to reside. (3) RET can hold people responsible for their wrongdoing and help them to act less wrongfully in the future by teaching them how to condemn theirdeeds andacts but not themselves as humans.     

Using the family life cycle with later life families

The development of a family clinic for later life families within an Old Age Psychiatry service is briefly described. An extended life cycle model has been found useful in understanding and working with such families and is also described, together with two cases which illustrate the practical application of the model.     

Psychiatric risk in children with speech and language disorders

Based on an initial community sample of 1,655 5-year-old children, this report utilized the risk statistic to estimate a child's risk for developing a psychiatric disturbance depending on his or her status as speech/language-impaired. Results showed that risk estimates varied as a function of gender and source of information (teacher, parent, psychiatric reports). Overall, speech- and language-impaired children had a higher risk for developing a psychiatric disturbance compared with normal language controls, with speech/language-impaired girls being at greater risk than boys.     

Living with diabetes

Management of diabetes can be affected by emotional distress in two ways: directly, via the effect of stress on glycemic control, and indirectly via effects on self-care routines. Rational-emotive therapy, along with a number of other cognitive, emotive, and behavioral tools, is an important intervention for patients who have diabetes-related distress. The authors describe personal and professional examples of the application of these tools to living rationally with diabetes.Richard R. Rubin, Ph.D. is a staff member of the Diabetes Center and the Pediatric Diabetes Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In addition, he has a private psychotherapy practice, substantially devoted to counseling and coping skills training for people with diabetes.Susan R. Walen, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Towson State University and Director of the Baltimore Center for Cognitive Therapy. She is the coauthor ofA Practitioner's Guide to Rational-Emotive Therapy.Albert Ellis, Ph.D. is the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy and president of the Institute for RET in New York City. He is the author of more than 50 books and 600 journal articles on psychotherapy topics.     

The dimensionality of charisma

The lack of conceptual and operational definitions has proved to be a stumbling block to empirical research on charismatic leadership. In this study, a scale is created measuring House's (1977) nine charismatic effects. Factor analysis of the scale yields three dimensions analogous to expert power, referent power, and job involvement. These three constructs are then used to predict subordinate ratings of leaders' charisma.The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Philip Koek in the collection of data and Ms. Dawn Voigt for help with data analysis.