Community Counselling: Values and Practices

This article focuses on community counselling, specifically in African contexts. A community psychology approach is used as a framework for this discussion. This approach, linked to a critical perspective, highlights the importance of going beyond individualist assessments and interventions towards comprehensive approaches that locate the person in context, and that listen carefully to and engage openly with all voices in a way that highlights dynamics that oppress ourselves and others, for the purposes of building a supportive and health promoting environment for all. Perspectives and values relevant to this approach, and their implications for psychological practice, are discussed. In particular, the implications for psychological assessment and intervention are explored in some detail.     

The Role of Schools in Building the Resilience of Youth Faced with Adversity

This study explored factors related to risk, resilience and health amongst South African teenagers. Grade nine students (N = 472; males = 210, females = 262, age range = 12 to 18 years) at seven schools in the Western Cape participated in the study. The California Healthy Kids Survey, which includes risk and resilience modules, was utilized. Focus group interviews were also conducted with the students to determine their needs and support at school. Questionnaires relating to the health promoting schools framework were administered to teachers. Quantitative and qualitative research methodologies were employed. The results indicated that the students were engaged in a variety of risk behaviors that threatened their well-being and that their external and internal assets were limited. A multi-faceted approach to reducing risk and enhancing resilience, involving family, peer, school and community support within a health promoting schools framework, is advocated.     

Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique Promotes Learning and Corrects Inaccurate first Responses

The Psychological Record - Multiple-choice testing procedures that do not provide corrective feedback facilitate neither learning nor retention. In Studies 1 and 2, the performance of participants...     

Impaired re-weighting of sensory feedback for maintenance of postural control in children with developmental coordination disorder

To further the understanding of postural control impairments seen in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and the effect of these impairments on motor performance in these children, 30 children with and without DCD (mean age=9 years, 7 months +/- 1 year, 10 months) were administered the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC), Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence and the Sensory Organization Test. Analyses of covariance revealed that children with DCD had greater difficulty maintaining postural control when visual and somatosensory feedback were compromised in sensory conflict environments (p=.031). Group differences in postural control were independent of age. Additionally, no correlation was seen between motor performance on the M-ABC and postural control measures for the Sensory Organization Test. Our results demonstrate that impaired ability to utilize vestibular feedback while re-weighting somatosensory and visual feedback for orientation may be responsible, in part, for the postural control impairments observed in some children with DCD.     

Dynamics of a stressful encounter: cognitive appraisal, coping, and encounter outcomes

Despite the importance that is attributed to coping as a factor in psychological and somatic health outcomes, little is known about actual coping processes, the variables that influence them, and their relation to the outcomes of the stressful encounters people experience in their day-to-day lives. This study uses an intraindividual analysis of the interrelations among primary appraisal (what was at stake in the encounter), secondary appraisal (coping options), eight forms of problem- and emotion-focused coping, and encounter outcomes in a sample of community-residing adults. Coping was strongly related to cognitive appraisal; the forms of coping that were used varied depending on what was at stake and the options for coping. Coping was also differentially related to satisfactory and unsatisfactory encounter outcomes. The findings clarify the functional relations among appraisal and coping variables and the outcomes of stressful encounters.     

The Structure of Personal Commitments

ABSTRACT This article examines the structure of personal commitments across several dimensions ot commitment experience and across multiple samples In Sample 1, one hundred ninety-seven subjects rated 41 commitment items along the dimensions of importance, expectancy to achieve, effort, and distress, in Sample 2, two hundred five subjects rated the same items along the dimensions of importance, current commitment, and visibility Principal components analyses produced six component solutions within each of the rating dimensions Using a multitrait-multimethod format, comparisons of the component solutions suggested that the six components ( a ) represented independent groupings within each solution and ( b ) remained consistent across the different dimensions of commitment experience The six components of commitment were identified as Affiliation, Power/Achievement, Personal Growth, Altruism, Stress Avoidance, and Sensation-Seeking