Counselling immigrants: School contexts and emerging strategies

In light of the important roles school counsellors fulfil, and their relatively high status and involvement in the Israeli educational system, the strategies counsellors employ when dealing with immigrant pupils in their educational institutions were investigated. The study was based on in-depth interviews with 37 counsellors working in secondary schools with relatively high numbers of recently-arrived immigrant students from the former Soviet Union. The findings highlight the great importance counsellors attribute to the school context and its organisational culture when formulating and implementing their work with immigrant pupils. Four counsellor roles for work with immigrants emerged from the interviews: as culturally-encapsulated assimilators, as self-facilitators, as specialists, and as cultural 'translators'. These strategies provide counsellors with frameworks for determining the issues to be addressed, their timing, identifying their clients, and devising maximally-effective tactics and techniques for implementation. The implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to counsellors' roles in educational institutions with multicultural populations.     

Big fish in big ponds: a multilevel analysis of test anxiety and achievement in special gifted classes

This study analyzes the effects of individual achievement and achievement level of student reference group on test anxiety in a national sample of 769 gifted Israeli students (grade levels 4-9), which was previously investigated by Zeidner and Schleyer (1999a). We hypothesized that when controlling for individual achievement, students' experiences of test anxiety should increase with the increasing ability level of their peer reference group. It was assumed that this effect was largely mediated by reference group effects on academic self-concept (big-fish-little-pond effect). Zeidner and Schleyer found that gifted students within a gifted peer reference group showed higher levels of test anxiety than gifted students within a non-gifted peer reference group. Of note, the present study focused exclusively on gifted students attending special gifted classes. The main research question was whether or not the assumed effects of individual and class achievement can be found for gifted students in special gifted classes when taking the variance of achievement level (grades) of the special gifted classes into account. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) methodology, the assumed effects were vindicated for this special group of high ability students. Thus, in line with previous results, the Worry component of test anxiety was more highly reactive to the effects of individual achievement than the Emotionality component. Also, in line with our theoretical assumptions, achievement/anxiety relations were largely mediated by the effects of academic self-concept.     

Age-related differences in immediate serial recall: Dissociating chunk formation and capacity

We assessed the contribution of two hypothesized mechanisms to impaired memory performance of older adults in an immediate serial recall task: decreased temporary information storage in a capacity-limited mechanism, such as the focus of attention, and a deficit in binding together different components into cohesive chunks. Using a method in which paired associations between words were taught at varying levels to allow an identification of multiword chunks (Cowan, Chen, & Rouder, 2004), we found that older adults recalled considerably fewer chunks and, on average, smaller chunks than did young adults. Their performance was fairly well simulated by dividing attention in younger adults, unlike what has been found for long-term associative learning. Paired-associate knowledge may be used in an implicit manner in serial recall, given that younger adults under divided attention and older adults use it well despite the relatively small chunk capacities displayed by these groups.     

How Undergraduate Engineering Students Perceive Women’s (and Men’s) Problems in Science, Math and Engineering

This paper compares perceptions of problems for women and men in the fields of science, math, and engineering among undergraduate engineering students surveyed at a mid-Atlantic American university over a period of 5 years. Gender differences in these perceptions are analyzed, as are changes in these perceptions over the course of the undergraduate years. Undergraduate exposure to female role models in these fields has little impact on these perceptions, but exposure to professional engineering experiences reduces the seriousness with which some problems are perceived, especially by women. While perceived problems do not seem to be related to engineering self-confidence, they are related to men’s satisfaction with engineering, and to women’s intentions to persist in the engineering field after graduation.     

Countertransference envy toward the religious patient

Four illustrations have been presented which demonstrate the uses and interpretations of envy in countertransference reactions to religious patients. To be sure, envy reactions to any patient are significant, whether they simply distort the therapist's perception or contribute to a deeper understanding of the patient. In the case of the religious patient, envy reactions in the therapist may serve as an additional instrumentality for under-standing the ways in which the dynamic determinants of religious behavior and metaphor become enmeshed in and also transform the pathology of the patient as well as the therapeutic process itself. Both the constructive and destructive object relational implications of envy must be borne in mind by the therapist in order to adequately explore the range of reciprocating forces between therapist and patient. Primitive mechanisms such as projective identification and psychotic transference are particularly prone to evoke envy reactions of surprising intensities, yet an empathic attitude will usually enable the therapist to differentiate the true source of his envy as he more carefully comprehends the quality of object relational and dynamic needs such envy serves.     

Coping with Missile Attack: Resources, Strategies, and Outcomes

ABSTRACT The coping process was examined in a group of Israeli subjects experiencing SCUD missile attacks during the Persian Gulf War. We were interested in examining the relationship of coping resources, optimism, perceived control, and coping strategies, to anxiety, to physical symptoms, and to cognitive functioning during a real crisis. Data were gathered via structured questionnaires in the midst of the Persian Gulf War (February 1991) on a sample of 261 adult respondents residing in northern Israel. Although people reported a mixture of palliative and active coping strategies, it was the use of palliative coping efforts that predicted greater anxiety and physical symptoms. Subjects with greater coping resources used more palliative and active coping strategies and had higher cognitive functioning. However, active coping did not predict any of the negative stress reactions (i.e., anxiety and physical symptoms). People who perceived being in control of the situation reported using less palliative coping and fewer symptoms. That active coping did not predict negative stress reactions may have been a function of the severity of the stressor, and the resultant high levels of anxiety that were engendered. Overall, these findings do point to a different coping process in a grave and ongoing disaster situation than that reported in reaction to more normal life events.     

Development of the Injury Perceptions Questionnaire (InjPQ)

Objectives: Injuries are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the population. Given the central role of perceptions in self-regulation of health conditions, it is important to investigate how they are perceived. This article describes the development of the Injury Perceptions Questionnaire (InjPQ).

Methods: A concurrent study in a diverse sample of injured individuals (n = 333). The internal structure and the reliability (Cronbach’s α) of InjPQ sub-scales were explored by factor analyses. Relationships between injury perception dimensions and equivalent illness perception scales and outcome measures (self-assessed health; physical, emotional and social functioning; depression, anxiety and somatisation; satisfaction with life) were investigated.

Results: The InjPQ was found to represent the following perception scales: injury identity composed of social and body part components, PTSD symptoms, Injury event, Injury specific emotions, Injured self-image, Positive consequences, Responsibility/guilt, Coping, Time distance, Dependency, Healthy self, External attributions and Injury risk factors. The reliability and construct validity of the scales were found adequate.

Conclusions: Injury perceptions can be reliably measured. While partly overlapping with equivalent illness perception scales, the InjPQ depicts cognitive dimensions unique to injury that add significantly to explaining variance in outcomes. The InjPQ is recommended for research and clinical use as a measure of injury perceptions.     

The concept of culture in the contexts and practices of professional counselling: A constructivist perspective

In this paper we first describe two approaches to the concept of culture as they relate to counselling: the first approach emphasizes the organizational culture of the institution where the counsellor works; the second - the multicultural approach - calls for the recognition of the variety of ethnic cultural backgrounds of those involved in the counselling situation. Then, we present recent developments in the understanding of culture within constructivist perspectives. Last, we suggest a new orientation for counselling training, that of the professional counsellor as a cultural agent, one attentive to context and practices in all their complexities.