Relocation and Well-Being in United Methodist Clergy and Their Spouses: What Pastoral Counselors Need to Know

The well-being of relocated, male Florida Annual Conference United Methodist clergy and clergy spouses (N = 124) was compared with that of nonrelocated male United Methodist clergy and clergy spouses (N = 153). Results revealed no significant differences in well-being between relocators and nonrelocators. Clergy spouses exhibited significantly lower well-being than did clergy. Perceptions of relocation, stress level, and coping resources were significant predictors of clergy well-being. However, only stress level and coping resources predicted spouse well-being. Qualitative analysis of participants' responses revealed that pastoral counselors should address issues such as grief, powerlessness, loneliness, and clergy family reluctance to seek counseling services.     

Detecting Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Role of Counselors

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a physical illness, the cause of which is unknown. Known also as chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome and myalgic encepalomyelitis, the illness has a probable incidence of 2 to 3 per 1,000 among adults and adolescents and is seen also in children. Only a small minority of cases are diagnosed, and only 25% of those suffering from CFS suspect this as the diagnosis. For this reason, counselors often see persons with unsuspected cases and may play an important role in detecting and referring these clients appropriately. Case histories are used to illustrate how suspected cases of CFS can be distinguished from depression and other mental health conditions in counseling practice.     

Narcissistic Illusions in Self-Evaluations of Intelligence and Attractiveness

In this study we compared the ability of narcissism and self-esteem to predict positive illusions in self-evaluations of intelligence and physical attractiveness in a sample of 146 college students. Narcissism predicted both types of illusion for males and females; self-esteem predicted intelligence self-illusion for males. Both males and females overestimated their own intelligence, with males, but not females, also overestimating their attractiveness. Positive illusions for intelligence and attractiveness were correlated. Males showed greater positive illusions than females, with this effect at least partly attributable to observed gender differences in narcissism.     

Fewer reasons for staying alive when you are thinking of killing yourself: The brief reasons for living inventory

The Linehan Reasons for Living Inventory is a 48-item scale on which respondents rate how important each item would be for living if suicide were contemplated. The inventory possesses good psychometric properties and can distinguish suicidal from nonsuicidal people among shoppers, psychiatric inpatients, college students, and adolescents. As its length limits its utility in many institutional and screening settings, the purpose of this study was (1) to develop a brief form of the Reasons for Living Inventory appropriate for clinical use and (2) to examine the predictive validity of this brief measure, named the Brief Reasons for Living Inventory (BRFL), to distinguish suicidal from nonsuicidal prison inmates. Results indicate that the brief form was as good as either the Beck Depression Inventory or the Beck Hopelessness Scale at predicting suicidality in this population. Further study is needed to validate the BRFL with different institutionalized and other populations as well as to assess its ability to discriminate suicide ideators from those engaging in overt suicidal behavior.Support for this project was provided in part by the New York State Office of Mental Health Bureau of Forensic Services and the New York State Department of Correctional Services.     

Transfer of compound and component solution modes

The present experiment compares the shift performance of four groups on the following types of shift problems: a component problem following a previous component problem with a different relevant dimension, a component problem following a compound problem, a compound problem following a previous compound problem with a different relevant dimension, and a compound problem following a component problem. Facilitation of shift performance was found following prior solution of a problem of the same type either compound or component, while interference resulted from prior solution of the other type of problem. The shift effects are interpreted in terms of Levine’s (1974, 1975) transfer hypothesis and an extension of the attention theory of Zeaman and House (1963, 1974).     

Visual search in multicharacter arrays with and without gaps

Subjects searched through briefly presented arrays of letters in a controlled order, indicating quickly which of two possible targets had occurred. Some arrays contained gaps—three missing letters. Reaction time (RT) and accuracy were both improved by a gap after the target; improvement was less when the gap preceded the target. To account for these results, a new model is proposed, one which calls for overlapping processing of successive array items. This is not a “hybrid” model, but a third alternative between the two extremes of serial (zero overlap) and parallel (complete overlap). Quantified, the overlapping model generates U-shaped serial-position curves and produces RT predictions in good accord with our data from arrays with and without gaps. The predicted functions for RT vs. array size are concave upward; however, for arrays of five or less they are virtually linear and not very different in slope for positive and negative trials. Although this model is primarily designed for RT, with some additional assumptions it can be extended to accuracy results.     

Why do children confuse mirror-image obliques?

Thirty-five children aged from 4.17 to 6.58 years were given a delayed-matching task in which they had to choose on each trial which of two lines was the same as a previously displayed standard line. Their choices were no better than random when the lines differed in degree of slope but not in left-right orientation and were only marginally more accurate when the lines were left-right mirror images. Performance improved significantly when the lines differed both in degree of slope from the vertical and in left-right orientation and improved still further if at least one of the lines was horizontal or vertical. The results suggest that young children have extreme difficulty encoding in memory either the degree of slope or the left-right orientation of an oblique line.     

An organizational typology for self-help groups

Conclusion Several continuing obstacles have hindered the compilation of a research-based body of literature on self-help groups. Among them are the diversity of the groups and the need for appropriate research methodology. The validated typology described above was designed to address some of these problems. It provides a means of recognizing the diversity of the groups and sorting them into broad types without stating that one is better or more productive than another. It supplies a framework for examining the organizational features of a group in order to facilitate comparison with other groups. It recognizes the potential effects of time, change, and leadership on the small local units of self-help organizations. It has implications for making research more compatible with self-help groups. The use of this typology might eliminate some of the ambiguity and conflicts currently found in the literature and thereby help people — professionals and self-helpers — to more clearly understand the nature and functioning of self-help groups.