Embodied Institutions and Epistemic Exclusions: Affect in the Academy

This paper explores the intersection between affect, emotion, social imaginaries, and institutions through the lens of epistemic power in the academy. It argues that attending to this intersection is critical for a fuller understanding of how affective and emotional dynamics can assist to entrench, but also disrupt, asymmetries of epistemic privilege that cut across lines of race, sex, and other markers of social difference. As part of this discussion the paper reflects on the possibility of intervening in dominant social imaginaries that become sedimented in the routine operations of the modern university, and which produce affective ecologies that sustain epistemic exclusions within academic institutions.

     

The Significance of Strategic Community Engagement in Recruiting African American Youth & Families for Clinical Research

We present baseline data and describe the utility of a community engaged, culturally relevant approach to recruiting African American youth and families for phase I of The AAKOMA Project. The AAKOMA Project is a two phase treatment development study to improve mental health service use among depressed African American youth. We completed capacity building activities using a community engaged framework and Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods. Replicating the (Alvarez et al. in West J Nurs Res 28:541–560, 2006) model of systematic community outreach enhanced our ability to effectively recruit partners and evaluate outreach efforts as demonstrated by our Recruitment Success Factor (RSF—i.e. ‘an adjusted ratio of eligible participant yield to contacts made’). Using the chi-square goodness-of-fit statistic; we compared the RSFs of the various modes of participant study entry to determine which was most effective. Our target enrollment was 56 persons. We recruited 130 and enrolled 57. Our baseline data is drawn from a gender balanced and socioeconomically diverse sample who participated in youth focus groups and individual interviews and adult focus groups. We identified 3 study participant referral modes (self-referral, provider referral and participant-to-participant referral) with multiple sources per mode and an overall RSF of 0.41. Study findings support the effectiveness of assiduous and systematic community interaction, reflective review of recruitment efforts and the importance of disseminating information on strategic recruitment processes for engaging diverse populations in clinical research.     

A Multi‐Family Group Intervention for Adolescent Depression: The BEST MOOD Program

Depression is the most common mental disorder for young people, and it is associated with educational underachievement, self‐harm, and suicidality. Current psychological therapies for adolescent depression are usually focused only on individual‐level change and often neglect family or contextual influences. The efficacy of interventions may be enhanced with a broader therapeutic focus on family factors such as communication, conflict, support, and cohesion. This article describes a structured multi‐family group approach to the treatment of adolescent depression: Behaviour Exchange Systems Therapy for adolescent depression (BEST MOOD). BEST MOOD is a manualized intervention that is designed to address both individual and family factors in the treatment of adolescent depression. BEST MOOD adopts a family systems approach that also incorporates psychoeducation and elements of attachment theories. The program consists of eight multifamily group therapy sessions delivered over 2 hours per week, where parents attend the first four sessions and young people and siblings join from week 5. The program design is specifically aimed to engage youth who are initially resistant to treatment and to optimize youth and family mental health outcomes. This article presents an overview of the theoretical model, session content, and evaluations to date, and provides a case study to illustrate the approach.     

Life Skills: Adolescents' Perceptions of Importance and Competence

A previous classification of life skills was used to suggest issues relating to areas of adolescents' concerns involving relationships, leisure, jobs, education, preparation for the future, work, budgeting, health, social responsibility, and personal skills such as planning and decision-making. A questionnaire relating these concerns to young people's perceptions of the facets of importance, and their own knowledge, competence, sense of improvement, problems, and striving, was administered to a sample of 1,084 adolescents in senior schools and colleges of technical and further education. The results suggested a strong general factor for each facet, with some differentiation into groups of skills. The mean ratings suggested that the skills investigated were considered to be very important by young people, who in general also seemed optimistic about their competence. However, a small proportion expressed serious problems. Responses to the various facets were further examined in terms of group differences — by age, gender, educational context, ethnicity, economic status, and educational expectations. Many small but significant group differences were isolated. Finally, implications are drawn from this related research for schools and colleges in general and for guidance and counselling in particular.     

Behaviour patterns within a general hospital psychiatric unit: an observational study.

Employing a reliable and objective ‘behavioural mapping’ procedure, information was obtained by three independent observers, on what, where and when staff and patients engaged in various categories of behaviour, within a general hospital psychiatric unit. Observations were undertaken during two separate 6-day periods, using a seven category behaviour rating scale. Staff and patient behaviour profiles were found to be stable across the two rating periods, despite an almost complete change in the patient population from the first to the second set of observations. Results also indicated that staff spend a majority of their time engaged in interaction with their peers, or engaged in solitary task activity, with little of their time being spent in interaction with patients. Patients spent approximately half of their time in solitary behaviour, and when they were observed to be interacting it was found to be primarily with their peers. A significant negative correlation was obtained between those areas of the unit most frequently occupied by staff and patients, suggesting a territorial separation of the two groups. Analysis, of interaction rates by time, further indicated that the vast majority of interaction was observed to occur during the period 9.00a.m. to 5.00p.m. Monday to Friday. Some implications of the observed findings are discussed and it is concluded that the data suggest that the therapeutic potential of the observed unit is under-utilized.     

Behavioural analysis of ward rounds within a general hospital psychiatric unit.

A naturalistic observational procedure was used to examine the content of staff verbal interaction during the ward rounds of two inpatient teams in a general hospital psychiatric unit. Observers reliably rated staff discussion of 10 neurotic and 10 psychotic inpatients, using a nine category behavioural scale. The major focus of this scale was the extent to which three broad orientations, viz the medical, psychotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic models, were utilized by the staff. It was found that an eclectic approach was used by staff in their discussion of patients' aetiology, treatment and prognosis. However, the medical model was primarily utilized to formulate patient care, with the sociotherapeutic approach being employed for approximately one-third of the time. The psychotherapeutic orientation was only used 2.9% of the total time that patients were discussed. This pattern of use of the three orientations was consistent across the psychotic and neurotic patient groups. The behavioural data were found to be at variance with the degree to which staff believed the models should be applied. Analysis of the amount of time during which each professional group spoke in the ward rounds, and the rate at which they were found to make denned ‘authority statements’, indicated that a hierarchical model of management operated in the unit. These findings are related to the concept of shared power and responsibility within the therapeutic team.     

AN EMPIRICAL METHOD FOR DETERMINING AN APPROPRIATE INTERVAL LENGTH FOR RECORDING BEHAVIOR

The study sought to examine the effects of varying interval length on the representation of data obtained using modified frequency time sampling. A 7-category scale was used to observe reliably the behavior of eight psychiatric inpatients. Using electronic real time recording equipment, it was possible to computer analyze the obtained data at varying interval lengths, the shortest interval being 1.0 seconds. It was found that increasing the interval length had little effect on the percentage of total duration recorded within each behavioral category, suggesting that this is a relatively stable measure of behavior. Percentage total events for each category was less stable with increasing interval lengths. The number of recorded events within each category tended to decrease, while their average durations tended to increase, as a function of increasing the interval length. The data suggest that the current practice of determining interval length in an arbitrary fashion, or on the basis of convention, should be abandoned. Rather, such a decision should be empirically determined for each particular observation scale and subject group. One method by which this might be achieved is presented.     

Attributions of guilt and punishment as functions of physical attractiveness and smiling

The authors found an interaction between sex of participant and sex of defendant in the leniency bias toward a smiling defendant. Differences occurred for male participants when levying punishment for a smiling male defendant vs. a smiling female defendant and for a smiling male defendant vs. a nonsmiling male defendant, whereas differences did not occur for female participants. The authors found moderating effects of physical attractiveness and smiling between guilt and punishment. The only significant positive relationship between guilt and punishment occurred for the defendant whom participants rated low in physical attractiveness and who was not smiling. When guilty, the smiling and unattractive defendant received less punishment than did the smiling and attractive defendant. The authors discussed complex relationships between physical attractiveness, smiling, guilt, and punishment.     

Factors Influencing Condom Use Among African American Women: Implications for Risk Reduction Interventions

Examined factors associated with condom use in a community-based sample of 423 sexually active African American women. Measures were selected to reflect the components in prevailing models of health behavior. Condom users were higher on AIDS health priority, prevention attitudes, stage of change, behavioral intentions, reported more frequent and comfortable sexual communication with partners, perceived greater partner and peer approval for condom use, and reported that peers also used condoms. Women in exclusive relationships evidenced earlier stage of change, lower intentions to use condoms, fewer peers who engaged in preventive behaviors, perceived themselves to have lower risk, and had lower rates of condom use, higher education, and family income. Women in fluid relationships were at particularly high risk, with lower rates of condom use relative to women not in a relationship and greater sexual risk for HIV. Implications for HIV-risk reduction interventions with African American women are discussed.