Assessing Multicultural Counseling Competence: A Review of Instrumentation

The authors review four new instruments designed to assess multicultural counseling competence in trainees and practicing professionals. The Cross-Cultural Counseling Inventory—Revised (CCCI-R), the Multicultural Counseling Awareness Scale—Form B (MCAS:B), the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI), and the Multicultural Awareness-Knowledge-and Skills Survey (MAKSS) were each critically reviewed in terms of item development, psychometric properties, and pragmatic utility. Specific research suggestions for continued empirical validation on the instruments are posited, and strong cautions regarding their current use in training are leveled.     

Counselling foreign students: A review of strategies

This article focuses on the unique counselling needs of foreign students as reflected from a review of the literature. As more and more students from developing countries opt to further their education in the West, knowledge about counselling foreign students is of increasing interest. Distinctive aspects of foreign student clients and the typical problems faced by them are described. The issues which need to be addressed and the competencies which need to be developed in order to effectively counsel foreign students are discussed. Finally, specific strategies for counselling foreign students are suggested in the context of general guidelines for cross-cultural counselling.     

Transracial adoption: Questions on heritage for parents,children and counsellors

The placement of black children in white families in the US and UK once constituted the majority of transracial adoptions. This is reflected in much of the research to date, and the (sometimes negative) findings continue to influence policy and practice. More recently, in Asia and Latin America, need and demand have led to a relaxation of intercountry adoption laws. Transracial adoptions by Caucasian parents are increasing in number and type; questions about how to facilitate adjustment must be readdressed. These parents of transracially adopted children face the task of striking a balance between racial awareness and cultural integration. Most want to protect their adoptive child's sense of self using knowledge of biological family and county of origin but, at the same time, they must settle the child into a new, sometimes alien, community. This paper provides guidelines for counselling all transracially adoptive families who are concerned about adjustment, but particular reference is made to questions on heritage raised by Caucasian parents of Asian children.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF NONGENETIC INFLUENCES ON ROMANTIC LOVE STYLES: A Twin-Family Study

Research in several disciplines reveals large individual differences in orientations to romantic love, yet the origins of the differences have been unclear In this first behavior genetic study of romantic love, biometric model fitting reveals that in contrast to other personality and attitude domains, where genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the reliable variance and shared environment has little effect, individual differences in romantic love are due almost exclusively to environment Moreover, the common family environment plays a sizable role in determining love styles, a finding compatible with theories stressing the importance of family interactions in personality development     

Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers

The accreditation standards outlined in the article are used by the International Association of Counseling Services, Inc., as the basis for the formal accreditation of college and university counseling programs throughout the United States and Canada. They reflect the program elements and practice standards that are deemed essential in a counseling center that provides high-quality services to students.     

College Students' Perceptions of the Relationship Between Fee and Counseling

Fee as a variable that could have an impact on college students' perceptions of counseling was explored because of the authentic concerns about college counseling centers needing to charge direct fees for their services. Participants (N = 350) represented a cross-section of potential consumers of psychological services, not just individuals currently receiving services. On an overt level, fees seemed to be less influential in counseling considerations, but were taken into account on a more covert level. This study supports the psychological literature, which suggests that fee is not the most important factor in clients' decisions to seek counseling. Implications for counselors, administrators, researchers, and program planners are discussed.     

An additional measure of availability derived from theOxford English Dictionary

In order to develop an additional measure of availability for the nouns from Paivio, Yuille, and Madigan’s (1968) list, we used a CD-ROM version of theOxford English Dictionary (OED) to obtain the number of times a word was used to define other words. This variable was added to Rubin and Friendly’s (1986) set of measures for these words. In multiple regression analyses, our measure proved to be a useful predictor of free recall. These results suggest that the OED may be useful for providing additional psycholinguistic measures.     

An empirical study of the diathesis-stress theory of disease

One thousand, one hundred and twenty-one Jewish concentration camp survivors were compared with 367 Jewish controls who had not been in a concentration camp, and had not lost any family members in such a camp. Of interest was the mortality of camp and comparison groups, on the hypothesis that the stress of being in a camp would adversely affect inmates. It was found that former camp inmates were over twice as likely to die of cancer, coronary heart diesease, or other causes as the comparison subjects of similar age and sex composition, and that severity of stress was correlated with mortality in the expected direction. Diathesis, determined by means of a special interviewer-administrated questionnaire, was found to interact synergistically with stress in producing high mortality.     

Optimism and coping as determinants of psychosocial adjustment to rheumatoid arthritis

Psychosocial adjustment in 66 patients with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, with a mean duration of 12 years with the disease, were evaluated in a prospective design, with 62% of the sample followed up 16 months later. It was predicted that dispositional optimism would predict adjustment over time and that perceived support and perceived control would be related to psychosocial adjustment at the time of concurrent measurement. At Time 1, psychosocial adjustment was associated with greater optimism and perceived support and less disability. Optimism at Time 1 was the only significant predictor of changes in adjustment at Time 2 controlling for Time 1 adjustment and Time 2 disability. It was found that optimism temporally precedes increases in psychosocial adjustment. In terms of coping strategies, wishful thinking was related to poorer social adjustment, whereas problem-focused coping was marginally related to positive adjustment. Neither coping strategy predicted adjustment across time. Optimism at Time 1 did predict problem-focused coping at Time 2. Perceived social support regarding a specific circumstance at a given point in time enables one to persist in solving a task. Interventions to enhance the quality of life of individuals coping with progressive deteriorative disease must look at the influence of their behavior and attitude on those who provide care for them.