Family therapy and social control with incestuous families

The family therapy and social control model describes first the relationship between unplanned change and developmental growth. With many families, the family therapist works to both provoke change and encourage growth. However, some out-of-control families present a level of danger to a family member that outside controls, such as child protective services, must be used. This model clarifies the complementary but independent roles of family therapy and social control in helping out-of-control families. Intervention with incestuous families is presented as illustrative of the model.My thanks to the staff of Child Protective Services, the Juvenile Court, Yuma Police Department, Yuma County Sheriff's Department, Adult Probation Department, and the staff and group members of Yuma County, Arizona Parents United for showing that shared concern about the well-being of children can make a real difference in working with families. My appreciation to William C. Nichols, EdD, Elora Cornille and Dale Brotherton for their helpful suggestions on a earlier version.     

Parental blaming and acquisition of guilt: A developmental task of childhood

Incidents involving the authors' twin 10-year-old daughters illustrate that guilt is well established in normal children of 10. The incidents suggest how the expectation of parental blaming triggers guilt and shame. Guilt and shame are compared. While they may coexist in the 10-year-old, guilt clearly is assuming a dominant position. Mental health professionals have emphasized the psychopathology of guilt and many forget that it is essential for normal socialization in that the guilty person feels a need to repair damage allegedly done. Guilt presumes that at least a primitive mutuality has been established in the person; and mutuality is the hallmark of human maturity. Terms are defined here with some variation from their usage by mental health experts: shame, guilt, blame, and counterblame.     

Once a princess,always a princess: A strategy for therapy with families of rape victims

Reconstitutive interventions for victims of rape involve more than discussion of cognitive and emotional responses to the traumatic events of the rape and the post-traumatic anxiety and depression. Many victims and families of victims are not able to reconstruct a supportive functional system after they have been violated by rape. This paper presents a strategic ritual which can be used with the raped family to facilitate this reorganization and restitution of their integrity.Through the use of a short metaphorical story and symbolic ritual, each individual member and the family as a whole can experience, reexperience, and redecide how they will respond to this traumatic event through open expression of their emotions and responses. Reintegration of their responses and shared life crisis enable them to respond to one another in ways not open to them previously.     

Competing on all fronts: Achievement orientation and disordered eating

Strikingly high prevalence rates of symptoms of disordered eating among college women have been documented. The question arises as to whether one aspect of the college experience, achievement orientation, is associated with disordered eating. Competing hypotheses may be generated regarding the relationship between achievement orientation and disordered eating, with arguments for either a positive or negative relationship. The Work and Family Orientation Questionnaire (WOFO) and the Disordered Eating Symptoms Scale (DESS) were administered to 668 female undergraduate college students. Multivariate analysis of the WOFO subscales revealed that women with high levels of disordered eating obtained significantly higher scores on the Competitiveness subscale than women with low DESS scores. These findings support hypotheses of a positive relationship between competitiveness and disordered eating.     

Physical fitness and enhanced psychological health

A great deal of attention has been given to the association between physical fitness and psychological health. The purpose of this view is to examine recent developments in the burgeoning exercise and psychological health literature and to explore avenues for future research. The current review focuses on research that has examined enhancement of psychological health and well-being among nonclinical populations since 1980. Four areas of psychological functioning are reviewed: (1) psychological well-being and mood, (2) personality and self-concept, (3) physiological stress responsivity and (4) cognition. Exercise appears to improve mood and psychological well-being as well as enhancing self-concept and self-esteem. Exercise appears to do little for personality functioning. Furthermore, mixed empirical support exists to suggest that exercise influences stress responsivity and cognitive functioning. However better research designs and procedures are still needed. Theories regarding the connection between exercise and psychological functioning as well as suggestions for future research are offered.     

Family therapy and a “good” society: Fit or misfit?

Contextual therapy is compared with a good society based on socialist principles of equality, planning and sociality. The two models are analyzed across dimensions of justice, connectedness, change, and basic human resource for similarities and differences.     

Leadership Perceptions in Relation to a Presidential Vote1

In the 1988 American presidential election, leadership perceptions and perceived platforms were used to predict votes for one of the two final candidates (Governor Michael Dukakis and Vice President George Bush). Both leadership perceptions and perceived platforms were found to be related to voting. However, political involvement moderated the relationship between the perceived platforms and the votes, while leadership perceptions were found to be a consistent predictor of voting across levels of political involvement. Leadership perceptions, perceived platforms, and the interaction between involvement and perceived platforms predicted voting above and beyond the voters’ political affiliations. Consistent with a categorization model of leadership perceptions, the prototypicality of perceived leader traits was found to be strongly related to a tendency to vote for a candidate who was perceived to possess those traits. In comparing general favorability of characteristics versus prototypicality with respect to an effective political leadership category, general favorability played a larger role in uninvolved voters’ decisions than in involved voters’ decisions. Differences in mean leadership prototype ratings were also explored as a function of political affiliation and political involvement. The implications of these findings for campaign strategies and for leadership in organizational contexts are discussed.     

Evaluation and Comparison of Three Instruments Designed to Measure Organizational Power and Influence Tactics

The purpose of the present study is to assess the internal consistency and construct validity of three instruments measuring the use of influence tactics. Instruments by Frost and Stahelski (1988) and Hinkin and Schriesheim (1989) had been developed to be psychometrically sound measures of the French and Raven (1959) bases of power. Kipnis and Schmidt (1982a) developed a new typology to measure organizational influence, the Profile of Organizational Influence Strategies (POIS). Four hundred seventy-nine undergraduate students completed these instruments to describe the influence tactics used by their supervisor. Results indicated that the Hinkin and Schriesheim instrument has greater internal consistency and a more precisely defined factor structure than the Frost and Stahelski instrument. The corresponding scales of the two instruments measuring the French and Raven power bases are not highly correlated, suggesting that the two instruments are not equivalent. Furthermore, the pattern of correlations between scales of the three instruments suggests that neither the French and Raven not the POIS typology fully represents the structure of influence tactics.