The Role of the Family in Promoting Responsible Substance Use in Adolescence

The aim of this study was to examine the role of family dimensions in tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis use among adolescents. Furthermore, we investigated how demographic variables (adolescents’ gender and age) influence substance use and moderate the relationship between family dimensions and substance use. The sample consisted of 14,825 adolescents aged 13–14, 15–16, and 17–18 who participated in the 2006 edition of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Spain. The HBSC-2006 questionnaire included demographic variables (gender and age), substance use variables (tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis use), and family dimensions (parental affection, parental promotion of autonomy, family activities, adolescent disclosure, parental solicitation, and parental knowledge). The results indicated that adolescent disclosure, family activities, and parental knowledge had a significant effect on substance use. Specifically, maternal variables were shown to be slightly more relevant than paternal variables. Additionally, substance use was higher in older adolescents than in younger adolescents, and boys smoked less than girls. The discussion focused on how family dimensions promoted responsible substance use in adolescence.     

The self in the couple relationship: part 1

This paper discusses the importance of the ‘good-enough’ development of the core self in the couple relationship. It argues that difficulties in the development of the self lie behind a significant number of troubled couple relationships. Part 1 focuses on individual psychotherapy and how changes to the core self are often attended by shifts in the marital relationship. It traces how this occurs through clinical material and analyses what kinds of changes to the self are needed for the couple relationship to function well. Psychodynamic theory is used to understand the core changes over time and how these are related to significant second-order change in the couple relationship. The construct of the ‘transitional space’ is used to theorize the couple relationship. Implications for the practice of individual psychotherapy are discussed. In Part 2, the significance of change in the experience of the self of one or both partners for a successful outcome of couples therapy is discussed, along with the place of work with individual partner(s) in the course of conjoint couples therapy.     

Story Sequence Analysis of Family TATs

One hundred twenty-six three-member families were asked to produce conjointly three TAT stories based on nine cards, which were scored by the Arnold system of Story Sequence Analysis. There were 50 families with normal children, 44 with emotionally maladjusted, 16 with schizophrenic, and 16 with delinquent children. Analysis of the results revealed that the Arnold score successfully differentiated normal from abnormal families, but that the three abnormal groups did not differ from each other. The last set of TAT cards given was the most effective.     

Differential item functioning in an international 360-degree assessment: Evidence of gender stereotype,environmental complexity,and organizational contingency

This research used logistic regression to model item responses from a popular 360-degree-for-development survey used in a leadership development programme given to middle and upper level European managers in Brussels. The survey contained 106 items on 16 scales. The model used gender of ratee and rater group to identify items that exhibited differential item functioning (DIF). The rater groups were self, boss, peer, and direct report. The sample consisted of 356 survey families where a survey family consisted of a matched set of four surveys: one self, one boss, one peer, and one direct report. The sample contained 88% male and 12% female raters. The sample contained 1424 total surveys. The procedure for flagging items exhibiting differential functioning used effect size computed from Wald chi-square statistics rather than statistical significance, resulting in fewer flagged items. One item exhibited rating anomalies due to the gender of the ratee; 55 items exhibited DIF attributable to rater group. The apparent effect of the DIF was small with each item. An examination of the maximum likelihood parameter estimates suggested the rater group DIF was the result of either hierarchical complexity or organizational contingency. The DIF due to gender conformed to prior expectations of gender-related stereotypical interpretations. This research further suggested that DIF due to environmental complexity or organizational contingency could be a naturally occurring phenomenon in some 360-degree assessment, and that the interpretation of some 360-degree feedback could need to include the potential for such DIF to exist.     

The place of psychotherapy and counselling in a healthy European social order: A commentary on Tantam and Van Deurzen

This commentary on Tantam and van Deurzen's vision for psychotherapy in Europe (this issue, pp. 228-235) interrogates their seeming modernity-driven, rights-obsessed convictions. Specifically, their uncritical advocacy of control-fixated political intrusions into the cultural-spiritual sphere is challenged; and critical reflections are offered on institutional professionalization; the authors' profession-centred, grandiose discourse; and therapy's alleged scientificity. Some dangers associated with individualised therapy's becoming a fetishized, institutionally sanctioned ‘regime of truth’ are voiced — one practicable antidote to which is the deliberate cultivation of an ongoingly deconstructive, ‘New Paradigm’ approach to therapy which, not least, mistrusts therapy's tendency towards delusory, self-interested exaggeration of its own cultural indispensability.     

A review of: “Breach of trust: Sexual exploitation by health care professionals and clergy”

John C. Gonsiorek (ed.) (1995) Breach of Trust: Sexual Exploitation by Health Care Professionals and Clergy, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, $21.95     

Pilot study of the effects of a workplace smoking ban on indices of smoking,cigarette craving,stress and other health behaviours

Abstract

Worksite smoking bans provide an ideal opportunity to examine the effects of enforced smoking restrictions on not only smoking behaviour, but also other health behaviours. This pilot study examines the short term effects of a such a ban on self-reported smoking behaviour, carbon monoxide and plasma cotinine levels and a number of other appetitive behaviours. The total number of cigarettes smoked on a working day and the number smoked just during working hours both declined following the introduction of a ban. Although the carbon monoxide levels of smokers during working hours demonstrated a similar trend to self-reported smoking, smokers' cotinine levels tended to increase, following an initial decrease following the ban. These data are suggestive of a compensatory process and a change in smoking topography, probably outside working hours. Measures of stress and craving also appeared to be affected by the introduction of smoking restrictions.     

Plantinga’s Skepticism

For over 20 years, Alvin Plantinga has been advocating his Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism, or EAAN. We will argue that this argument functions as an atypical form of global skepticism, and Plantinga’s development of it has repercussions for other types of skepticism. First, we will go over the similarities and differences; for example, the standard ways of avoiding other forms of skepticism, namely by adopting some form of naturalized or externalist epistemology, do not work with the EAAN. Plantinga himself is a naturalized epistemologist, and his skepticism comes from within this perspective. Next, we will look at how Plantinga moved from presenting his skepticism diachronically, as a loop, to presenting it synchronically, as an infinite regress. Finally, we can extend this move from Plantinga’s skepticism to other forms of global skepticism, in so far as these will involve the rejection of our cognitive faculties’ reliability, and formulate them synchronically as well. Global skepticism is often accused of instability, since it leads us to skepticism about all of our beliefs, including belief in the skeptical scenario itself. Yet formulating it as an infinite regress rather than a loop allows the skeptical charge to go forward.