Working briefly with reluctant clients: child protective services as an example

Therapists and counsellors often are faced with reluctant clients and constraining circumstances. Such difficulties are especially prevalent and severe in casework in child protective services - the parents of abused or neglected children are all involuntary clients, case loads are large, and time is limited.
Drawing on experience in applying and modifying prior work at the Brief Therapy Center of MRI to work in child protective services of a Northern California county, this article suggests general principles for effective intervention in such difficult circumstances and illustrates these with specific case examples.
Since consideration of extreme conditions is often helpful in dealing with parallel but less extreme ones, the authors' aim and hope is that readers will find this article helpful not solely in child protective work but also in the much wider territory where similar obstacles to effective counselling also occur.     

Spatial legend compatibility within versus between graphs in multiple graph comprehension

Previous research has shown that spatial compatibility between the data region and the legend of a graph is beneficial for comprehension. However, in multiple graphs, data–legend compatibility can come at the cost of spatial between-graph legend incompatibility. Here we aimed at determining which type of compatibility is most important for performance: global (legend–legend) compatibility between graphs, or local (data–legend) compatibility within graphs. Additionally, a baseline condition (incompatible) was included. Participants chose one out of several line graphs from a multiple panel as the answer to a data-related question. Compatibility type and the number of graphs per panel were varied. Whereas Experiment 1 involved simple graphs with only two lines/legend entries within each graph, Experiment 2 explored more complex graphs. The results indicated that compatibility speeds up comprehension, at least when a certain threshold of graph complexity is exceeded. Furthermore, we found evidence for an advantage of local over global data–legend compatibility under specific conditions. Taken together, the results further support the idea that compatibility principles strongly determine the ease of integration processes in graph comprehension and should thus be considered in multiple-panel design.     

Genetic Counseling for Early-onset Familial Alzheimer Disease in Large Aboriginal Kindred from a Remote Community in British Columbia: Unique Challenges and Possible Solutions

A novel, pathogenic presenilin 1 (PS1) mutation has recently been identified in a large Aboriginal kindred living in dispersed communities throughout British Columbia, Canada. Disseminating genetic information and ensuring that appropriate genetic counseling services are provided to all concerned relatives have posed several unique challenges. These challenges include knowledge exchange and continuity of care in a geographically remote and culturally distinct community. To our knowledge, this is the first time a specific genetic counseling approach has been needed for early-onset familial Alzheimer disease (EOFAD) in a North American Aboriginal community.     

Oculomotor interference during manual response preparation: evidence from the response-cueing paradigm

Preparation provided by visual location cues is known to speed up behavior. However, the role of concurrent saccades in response to visual cues remains unclear. In this study, participants performed a spatial precueing task by pressing one of four response keys with one of four fingers (two of each hand) while eye movements were monitored. Prior to the stimulus, we presented a neutral cue (baseline), a hand cue (corresponding to left vs. right positions), or a finger cue (corresponding to inner vs. outer positions). Participants either remained fixated on a central fixation point or moved their eyes freely. The results demonstrated that saccades during the cueing interval altered the pattern of cueing effects. Finger cueing trials in which saccades were spatially incompatible (vs. compatible) with the subsequently required manual response exhibited slower manual RTs. We propose that interference between saccades and manual responses affects manual motor preparation.     

Personality changes with ageing

This paper is concerned with the integration of research on ageing with Eysenck's personality theory and in particular the personality dimension of introversion-extraversion. It is argued that older people behave like extraverts on a number of laboratory tests but like introverts in their behaviour patterns. A solution is offered for these paradoxical tendencies.     

The Virtues in their Place: Virtue Ethics in Medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - We are currently in the midst of a revival of interest in thevirtues. A number of contemporary moral philosophers havedefended a virtue-based approach to...