Does Gender Matter? Relationship of Gender,Spousal Support,Spirituality, and Dispositional Forgiveness to Pastoral Restoration

We examined the relationship of gender, forgiveness, and spirituality to restoration attitudes expressed toward pastors who committed a transgression. In Study 1, participants’ restoration responses favored the opposite gender. In Study 2, men and women responded differently depending on the offense. Dispositional forgiveness was significantly associated with pastoral restoration following offenses of infidelity, anger, child abuse, and substance abuse. Measures of spirituality were primarily associated with forgiveness but explained little of the variance in restoration attitudes.     

Enrollment in an Established System of Care: A Replication and Extension of Clinical Profiles at Service Intake

We replicated Rosenblatt et al.'s (1998) cluster analysis of intake profiles of youth enrolled in a system of care program. The characteristics of a unique sample of 275 children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) who participated in the Santa Barbara County Multiagency Integrated System of Care (MISC) program were examined. A two-step clustering procedure (hierarchical and K-means) was used to evaluate subtypes of youth who were opened to MISC after it had become a stable youth-service program. The results of the Rosenblatt et al. (1998) study were replicated with four identical clusters emerging: Troubled, Troubled and Troubling, Troubling, and At-Risk. Two additional clusters were differentiated: Moderate Troubled, and Moderate Troubled and Troubling. Comparisons across these six clusters show distinct profiles of youth with E/BD. Implications of these findings for developing appropriate service plans and for evaluating systems of care outcomes are discussed.     

Early social attention impairments in autism: social orienting, joint attention, and attention to distress

This study investigated social attention impairments in autism (social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress) and their relations to language ability. Three- to four-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 72), 3- to 4-year-old developmentally delayed children (n = 34), and 12- to 46-month-old typically developing children (n = 39), matched on mental age, were compared on measures of social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress. Children with autism performed significantly worse than the comparison groups in all of these domains. Combined impairments in joint attention and social orienting were found to best distinguish young children with ASD from those without ASD. Structural equation modeling indicated that joint attention was the best predictor of concurrent language ability. Social orienting and attention to distress were indirectly related to language through their relations with joint attention. These results help to clarify the nature of social attention impairments in autism, offer clues to developmental mechanisms, and suggest targets for early intervention.     

Emotional correlates of the different dimensions of schizotypal personality disorder

Two studies explored which different dimensions of schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) were associated with negative affect, attention to emotions, clarity of emotions, and emotional intensity/instability. Study 1 included 247 college students, and questionnaires were used to measure SPD. Study 2 included 225 community residents, oversampling for individuals with elevated levels of SPD, and semistructured diagnostic interviews were used to measure SPD. In both studies (a) higher levels of negative affect were associated with higher levels of both cognitive-perceptual and interpersonal symptoms, (b) cognitive-perceptual disturbances were associated with greater attention to emotion, whereas interpersonal disturbances were associated with less attention to emotion, and (c) lower levels of emotional clarity were associated with higher levels of suspiciousness.     

Suicidal and deliberate self-harm ideation among patients with physical illness: the role of coping styles

The relationship between coping styles and suicidal ideation (SI) or deliberate self-harm (DSH) ideation among patients with physical illness was examined. Four hundred fifteen adult male medical inpatients completed the Coping Styles Questionnaire. Patients with and without SI, and with and without DSH, were compared on coping styles. Sixteen percent of patients (n = 67) had SI and 18.3% (n = 76) had DSH. SI was associated with higher scores on emotional coping and lower scores on rational and detachment coping styles, compared with those without SI. DSH, compared with those without DSH, was associated with significantly higher scores on avoidance coping strategies. These data suggest coping styles among medical patients with and without SI or DSH may differ. The mechanism of this link is not entirely clear, but it may be that coping styles reflect one possible pathway of the association between poor physical health and SI and DSH. Replication of these results in a longitudinal study is needed. If replicated, incorporation of these data into the development of intervention strategies focused on improving coping strategies may be worthwhile.     

An Open Heart,an Open Mind: An Interview With Dr. Cheri Smith

Dr. Cheri Smith has been a distinguished and contributing member of the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling (ASERVIC) for over 20 years. Dr. Smith's commitment as well as advocacy for ASERVIC and the counseling profession is remarkable. The purpose of this article is to highlight Dr. Smith's contributions to ASERVIC through an interview that focuses on her inspirations and influences; involvement in various leadership roles; and views on ASERVIC's past, present, and future.     

An Information Packaging Approach to Presuppositions and Conventional Implicatures

Within the relevant semantics and pragmatics literature the terms “presupposition” and “conventional implicature” are used in a variety of different, but frequently overlapping, ways. The overlaps are perhaps not surprising, given that the two categories of conveyed meaning share the property of remaining constant in the scope of other operators—the property (Tonhauser et al. in Language 89:66–109, 2013) usefully characterize as projectivity. One of my purposes in this paper will be to try to clarify these different usages. In addition to that we will explore two additional properties which are shared by some of these projective contents—strong contextual felicity (Tonhauser et al. in Language 89:66–109, 2013), and neutralizability (Abbott in Drawing the boundaries of meaning: Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn. John Benjamins, Philadelphia, 2006). The idea is to try to explain all three properties by taking into account information packaging.     

Depression and literacy are important factors for missed appointments

Multiple variables are related to missed clinic appointments. However, the prevalence of missed appointments is still high suggesting other factors may play a role. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between missed appointments and multiple variables simultaneously across a health care system, including patient demographics, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive functioning and literacy status. Chart reviews were conducted on 147 consecutive patients who were seen by a primary care psychologist over a six month period and completed measures to determine levels of depression, anxiety, sleep, cognitive functioning and health literacy. Demographic information and rates of missed appointments were also collected from charts. The average rate of missed appointments was 15.38%. In univariate analyses, factors related to higher rates of missed appointments included younger age (p = .03), lower income (p = .05), probable depression (p = .05), sleep difficulty (p = .05) and limited reading ability (p = .003). There were trends for a higher rate of missed appointments for patients identifying as black (p = .06), government insurance (p = .06) and limited math ability (p = .06). In a multivariate model, probable depression (p = .02) and limited reading ability (p = .003) were the only independent predictors. Depression and literacy status may be the most important factors associated with missed appointments. Implications are discussed including regular screening for depression and literacy status as well as interventions that can be utilized to help improve the rate of missed appointments.