Children's night-time fears: an overview

Night-time fears are a normal developmental occurrence for most children. However, a small proportion of children may experience severe night-time fears of much greater intensity and duration, and typically meet diagnostic criteria for an anxiety or phobic disorder diagnosis. The content and developmental features of children's night-time fears are explored, highlighting the heterogeneous nature of nocturnal fears. Fears of this nature are probably due to an interaction of biological, environmental and cognitive-mediational factors, together with the involvement of family and operant learning processes. Clinical assessment procedures are briefly outlined, including the behavioural interview, the diagnostic interview, self-report inventories and home-monitoring on the part of parents. Family-based cognitive-behavioural treatment strategies are described. Although research findings are encouraging for the efficacy of these interventions, future studies need to utilize methodologies that allow for the identification of the specific mechanisms responsible for treatment, and improved diagnostic assessment of night fearful children.     

Assessing the Readability of Mental Health Internet Brochures for Children and Adolescents

We investigated the readability of seven mental health brochures on mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in children that were selected from a website developed by the Center for Mental Health Services at http://www.mentalhealth.org. The reading grade levels of the brochures ranged from 11.1 to 14.8 (mean 13.23), considerably higher than the 8th grade level recommended for educational material by the U. S. Department of Education (1986). On other readability variables, assessed using the Readability Assessment Instrument (RAIN; Singh, 1994), all brochures met criterion on most variables but failed on those for new words (audience appropriateness) and print size. This is a favorable result in comparison with other studies that have assessed readability of mental health information on the Internet using the RAIN, although less so with reading grade levels.     

Relationship of Attachment and Social Support to College Students' Adjustment Following a Relationship Breakup

Two constructs integral to adolescent development, continuing parental attachment and social support, were investigated to assess whether the constructs are differentially related to indices of adjustment following a romantic relationship breakup. Participants were 241 undergraduate students (M age = 20.62 years, 61% female, 39% male) with a relationship breakup within the last year. As hypothesized, hierarchical regression analyses showed that current attachment levels were related to the outcome variables. Indices of social support accounted for additional variance only when broadly conceptualized as perceived connection to the social environment, rather than perceived support from family and friends. Implications for counseling are discussed.     

Personality Disorder Attributes as Supplemental Goals for Change in Interpersonal Psychotherapy

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a manualized, short-term (usually 12–16 sessions) based on the assumption that psychological disorders often emerge secondary to social and interpersonal problems that require active intervention to achieve symptom remission. The time-limited nature of IPT compels therapists to establish the goal of diminishing, on a weekly basis, a small number of focused interpersonal problems with a decided emphasis on proximal rather than historic conflicts and associated patterns of behavior. This strategy discourages the adoption of diffuse therapy goals and directions that have more opportunity to emerge in long-term, unstructured treatment modalities. The role of traditional personality testing in short-term therapy, when it occurs, is to identify and quantify symptom clusters that warrant attention as dependent measures in the treatment process. The role of personality factors in the genesis or maintenance of psychological disturbance is rarely addressed. The present article explores theoretical and pragmatic objections to the use of personality testing in IPT. A method is proposed for the limited but systematic incorporation of personality testing in the IPT treatment process using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III). While unreasonable to expect personality transformation through short-term therapy, the partial attenuation of maladaptive behavioral, attitudinal, and emotional reactions to stressors could prove exceedingly helpful to short-term treatments such as IPT.     

Resiliency,Self-Regulation,and Reemployment After Job Loss

This study investigated self-regulation and resiliency in one's search for reemployment. Although trait-based approaches are central to many resiliency conceptualizations, recent research has found that self-regulation (affective, behavioral, and cognitive) contributes to predicting resiliency-related outcomes. We hypothesized that self-regulation would incrementally predict reemployment process outcomes, specifically the job search outcomes of psychological well-being, job search self-efficacy, and job search clarity. Results indicated that, over and above resiliency traits, behavioral and cognitive self-regulation incrementally predicted well-being and job search clarity, and cognitive self-regulation incrementally predicted job search self-efficacy. Implications for theory and continued research on resiliency in reemployment are discussed.     

Constructive Interaction and the Iterative Process of Understanding

When people try to understand complex physical devices (e.g., a sewing machine), they proceed in an iterative fashion. They seem to reach several points at which they claim to “understand” the device. Each point of understanding is incomplete and requires a new level of understanding. As a result, they cycle between understanding and non-understanding as they traverse different levels. The present study provides a framework to capture the iterative nature of understanding. These points are discussed and illustrated through observations of three pairs of people constructively interacting to understand how a sewing machine works. In addition to the iterative search for understanding, the conceptual point in space from which the speaker appeared to be viewing the machine was important. This conceptual point of view (C-POV) was reflected in their use of language. The C-POV appeared to be stable during points of understanding and to shift frequently at points of non-understanding.