Race,social relationships,and mental health

Researchers often assume that the extent, quality, and effectiveness of personal relationships explain why African Americans have relatively good mental health despite experiencing high levels of stress. This study tests this assumption using data from the 1990–1992 National Comorbidity Survey. Few racial differences emerge in patterns of social relationships, and the nature and quality of social relationships do not explain African Americans’ resiliency on mental health. Several aspects of social relationships benefit African Americans’ mental health more than Whites’, but these moderating effects are insubstantial. Hence, the data do not support the assumption. If social relationships help explain the lack of racial differences in mental health, their nature and effects must be more adequately conceptualized.     

INTEGRATING ERRORS INTO THE TRAINING PROCESS: THE FUNCTION OF ERROR MANAGEMENT INSTRUCTIONS AND THE ROLE OF GOAL ORIENTATION

Error management training explicitly allows participants to make errors. We examined the effects of error management instructions ("rules of thumb" designed to reduce the negative emotional effects of errors), goal orientation (learning goal, prove goal, and avoidance goal orientations) and attribute x treatment interactions on performance. A randomized experiment with 87 participants consisting of 3 training procedures for learning to work with a computer program was conducted: (a) error training with error management instructions, (b) error training without error management instructions; and (c) a group that was prevented from making errors. Results showed that short-and medium-term performance (near and far transfer) was superior for participants of the error training that included error management instructions, compared with the two other training conditions. Thus, error management instructions were crucial for the high performance effects of error training. Prove and avoidance goal orientation interacted with training conditions.     

Spirituality and Multimodal Therapy: A Practical Approach to Incorporating Spirituality in Counseling

The purpose of this article is to describe how the dimension of spirituality can be added to an existing counseling theory, multimodal therapy (MMT; A. A. Lazarus, 1984), to provide counselors with a practical approach to incorporating clients' religious and spiritual beliefs in the counseling process. An explanation of MMT is given, as well as its supporting research. The context of spirituality in counseling is discussed, and the process by which it can be integrated into the MMT model is explained. Two case studies are described to demonstrate how spiritual issues can be assessed and used to strengthen the counseling process. Finally, implications for counseling are discussed.     

Beatrice A. Wright: Broad Lens,Sharp Focus

Beatrice A. Wright, a prominent rehabilitation psychologist, was interviewed about various aspects of her personal life, scholarly contributions, professional development, and the field of rehabilitation psychology and counseling in general.     

Is Expressed Emotion an Index of a Transactional Process? I. Parents' Affective Style

The degree to which expressed emotion (EE) attitudes in key relatives reflect ongoing transactional processes in families is a topic of controversy. The associations between EE attitudes, as measured during an acute hospitalization (using the Camberwell Family Interview) and during the aftercare period (using 5-minute speech samples), and interactional behavior in parents of recent-onset schizophrenics (this article) and in patients themselves (second article), were investigated. In the first study, EE attitudes manifested by parents during the aftercare period were stronger correlates of their interactional behaviors during the aftercare period than were EE attitudes measured during the inpatient period, despite the frequent correspondence between the two EE measures. The pattern of attitudes shown between the inpatient and outpatient periods also predicted transactional styles in parents during the outpatient period, findings not accounted for by clinical attributes of patients. When high-EE attitudes persist during the aftercare period and are reflected in transactional behaviors, the risk for subsequent patient relapse may be enhanced.