Culture change: A training program for recent immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union

The article describes a training program in structural/integrative family therapy for immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union at the Training Center of the Shiluv Institute for Family and Couple Therapy in Jerusalem. The program was instituted to meet the pressing needs of a mass immigration of half a million people that came to Israel between 1990 and 1992. This is a retrospective look at the journey of the initial group of psychiatrists and psychologists who changed country, culture, language, and professional orientation in just two years. The authors state their conclusions as to the most expedient way to organize therapy for families from the former Soviet Union — a population in need of help but lacking an awareness of therapy and suspicious of the outsider.     

The impact of parental divorce on the attainment of the developmental tasks of young adulthood

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of parental divorce on young adult development. One hundred twenty-five participants provided demographic information and completed the PAFS-Q (college version) and the conflict subscale of the Family Environment Scale. Results indicate that parental divorce and family conflict significantly affect developmental task attainment. The interactions between sex and age and family structure (i.e., single-parent or stepfamily) were also significant predictors of post-divorce task attainment. Implications of these results for therapists as well as recommendations for future research are provided.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual conference of the American Psychological Association, Los Angles, California, August 1994.     

Retention and treatment failure in Classwide Peer Tutoring: Implications for further research

Knowledge of basic arithmetic facts aids in the acquisition and speed of performance of arithmetic operations. A peer mediated instructional procedure, Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT), has been shown to increase the rates and accuracy of students responses to academic tasks and to improve student performance on a variety of academic tasks. The present investigation evaluated the retention of 100 subtraction items by primary grade-age children with mild disabilities using CWPT for 10 weeks. Short- and long-term retention of items, and rate of correct responding were assessed. Results indicated that the students' average pretest score was 58.0% correct, and their average weekly posttest score was 87.12 correct, a 27% improvement in accuracy. Short- and longer-term retention measured on posttests was 88.7 % and 85.0% correct, respectively. Improvement in students rate of accurate responding to subtraction items practiced during CWPT was obtained. Student failure to learn particular items was not attributable to fewer opportunities to practice these items, less accurate practice, or item difficulty. Students reported positive evaluation of CWPT and perceived positive social and self esteem outcomes. Directions for future research focusing on retention and analysis of treatment failure are suggested.     

Recent developments in family behavioral marital therapy

This paper reviews recent developments in the area of behavioral marital therapy (BMT). New information is summarized regarding the long-term efficacy of BMT and the identification of predictors of positive response to treatment and to relapse. Finally, new applications of BMT techniques are reviewed (e.g., spouse-involved therapies as the sole treatment for presenting problems in which marital distress is not the primary focus such as anxiety and affective disorders).     

General behavior inventory identification of unipolar and bipolar affective conditions in a nonclinical university population

Validated the General Behavior Inventory (GBI), revised to identify unipolar as well as bipolar affective conditions, in a nonclinical sample (n = 201) against naive, interview-derived diagnoses. For bipolar and unipolar conditions, respectively, the GBI had high positive (.94, .87) and negative (.99, .93) predictive power with the effect of prevalence considered, adequate sensitivity (.78, .76), high specificity (.99, .99), and adequate selection ratios for sampling of affective and nonaffective subjects from nonclinical populations for research purposes. The utility of the GBI in several different research contexts is discussed.     

Contents and peculiarities of the activity of psychologists in psychiatry and neurology under the conditions of a university hospital of neurological psychistry]

The qualification of clinical psychologists and their theoretically possible and practically realized employments are discussed from the practical psychologist's viewpoint and with reference to the historical development of clinical psychology.     

Documentary Bioethics: Visual Narratives for Generations X and Y

Narrative bioethics is primarily understood to involve storytelling through the use of literature. This article suggests that other forms of media are necessary to convey stories of an ethical nature to an audience broader than one being trained as medical professionals. "Documentary bioethics" is a manner to present and interpret stories of an ethical nature using forms of popular electronic media in a reality-based documentary style to society at large, specifically Generations X and Y.