Counselors in South Korea: A Qualitative Study of Senior Professionals

The author describes a qualitative analysis of interviews with 12 senior counselors in South Korea. The participants were certified by the Korean Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy as professional counselors (sang‐dam sim‐li chun‐mun‐ga) and are among the first generation of counselors in South Korea. Eight semistructured questions were asked about the work of these counselors. Qualitative analysis identified practice, relationships, and emotional well‐being as 3 domains of professional experience, each consisting of 2 categories. The results provide (a) a view of counseling practices as experienced by senior members of the profession and (b) a starting point for further research on mental health workers in South Korea.     

The Relationship Between Caregiver Capacity and Intensive Community Treatment for Children with a Mental Health Crisis

We studied 9,220 children referred to a comprehensive mental health crisis stabilization program to examine the impact of caregiver capacity on crisis worker decisions to refer children for intensive community-based treatment as opposed to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. Due to the different role of caregivers in the child welfare system, analyses were stratified by state custody status. Among both groups, there was a significant inverse association between child mental health need and referral to intensive community-based treatment. For children not in state custody with low mental health need, there was no difference in the likelihood of referral to intensive community-based treatment across levels of caregiver capacity. However, for children not in state custody with medium and high mental health needs, those whose caregivers were deficient or severely deficient were significantly more likely to be referred for intensive community-based treatment than were those who had capable caregivers. Multivariate analyses demonstrated similar results after controlling for potential confounding variables and confirmed that caregiver capacity contributes significantly to the logistic model’s classification accuracy. Results suggest further investigation of the impact of caregiver capacity on mental health crisis worker referral decisions is needed.     

Jealousy: interventions in couples therapy

Jealousy is a ubiquitous phenomenon that often needs to be addressed in couples therapy. Eleven treatment interventions, with case examples, are discussed, ranging from traditional, direct, straightforward approaches to indirect, paradoxical solutions. Criteria are offered for determining which interventions to use.     

Conducting community‐based participatory research in an urban Malaysian community: Lessons learned and challenges in establishing partnerships

This paper presents the process of how partnerships are established between an urban residential community and an academic institution in Malaysia by employing community‐based participatory research, which involves researchers, community members, and organizational representatives as coresearchers. The research process encompasses colearning, power sharing, and coconstructing of knowledge, with the community members driving the research direction. The research paradigm is grounded on conducting research with the community. This paper highlights the experience and lessons learned while applying the principles of community‐based participatory research that promotes social participation of older persons living in a residential community. Two pertinent challenges surface in the research process. The first challenge involves the complexity noted in the gap between the emancipation of community‐based participatory research and the hierarchical social structure of the society. The second challenge is the prevalence of unspoken yet subtle domination that undermines the local cultural values affecting the process of coconstructing knowledge with the community. Recommendations for addressing these challenges include future partnerships with other Malaysian communities as well as cross‐border research partnerships.     

Reach tracking reveals dissociable processes underlying inhibitory control in 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds and adults

Researchers have proposed that two processes featuring distinct types of inhibition support inhibitory control: a response threshold adjustment process involving the global inhibition of motor output and a conflict resolution process involving competitive inhibition among co‐active response alternatives. To target the development of these processes, we measured the reaching behavior of 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds (Experiment 1) and adults (Experiment 2) as they performed an Eriksen flanker task. This method provided two key measures: initiation time (the time elapsed between stimulus onset and movement onset) and reach curvature (the degree to which a movement deviates from a direct path to the selected target). We suggest that initiation time reflects the response threshold adjustment process by indexing the degree of motoric stopping experienced before a movement is started, while reach curvature reflects the conflict resolution process by indexing the degree of co‐activation between response alternatives over the course of a movement. Our results support this claim, revealing different patterns effects in initiation time and curvature, and divergent developmental trajectories between childhood and adulthood. These findings provide behavioral evidence for the dissociation between global and competitive inhibition, and offer new insight into the development of inhibitory control.     

Role of fresh start mindset framing in reducing stigma and promoting mental health help-seeking behavior

One challenge in promoting mental health help-seeking behaviors is the masculine norm ingrained in the U.S. Using experimental data, this article examines how fresh start mindset (FSM) framing can be effective in helping reduce the stigma associated with mental health help-seeking behaviors and increase the promotion of positive attitudes and word-of-mouth of the mental health messages among men (vs. women). This study uniquely reveals that FSM framing in mental health ad campaigns might help men switch from the mindset that mental health help-seeking behaviors equate to showing weakness to one of help-seeking behaviors as a fresh start. Further, this study demonstrates that males with high issue involvement levels and females with low issue involvement levels respond to FSM framing more favorably. Thus, issue involvement levels form the critical boundary conditions. The authors also reveal that attitudes toward the ads operate as an underlying mechanism in FSM framing effects on responses.     

Neuropsychological findings of extrapontine myelinolysis without central pontine myelinolysis

Central pontine myelinolysis (CPM) and extrapontine myelinolysis (EPM) are well recognized syndromes related to the rapid correction of hyponatremia, which are reported to show brain stem signs and various movement disorders. Cognitive dysfunction and neuropsychological findings, however, have seldom been reported. Cognitive manifestations in osmotic myelinolysis may have been underestimated due to the prominent brain stem symptoms and movement disorders. We report a case of EPM without CPM and describe the neuropsychological findings of EPM. The absence of CPM in this case made it possible to test neuropsychological function in the acute stage. Neuropsychological testing showed severe impairment of attention, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial function, and frontal/executive function. Language and language-related functions were normal except naming.     

Who is and who is not willing to use online employer‐provided retirement investment advice

This study used classification tree analysis to examine who is and who is not willing to use online employer‐provided retirement investment advice. Using data from the Retirement Confidence Survey (Employee Benefit Research Institute, 2004), the study focused on who was more likely to use online retirement investment advice when it was available from their employer. Results indicated that those who were younger, those who participated in a defined contribution retirement plan, and those who made joint (with someone else in their household) personal finance decisions were more likely to use online professional retirement investment advice.     

Children's Attitudes towards Peers with Disabilities: Associations with Personal and Parental Factors

The purpose of this study was to investigate the following: (i) associations among children's prior contact with people with disabilities and the three dimensions of children's attitudes towards people with disabilities: children's understanding of and their feelings about people with disabilities and their behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions; (ii) the relation between children's behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions and the demands of activity contexts and the types of disabilities; and (iii) the association between parents' attitudes and children's attitudes. Participants included 94 typically developing four‐ and five‐year‐old preschoolers. Children's understanding of disabilities and their prior contact with people with disabilities were found to be positively related to their feelings about people with disabilities; children's understanding of disabilities was a significant moderator of the relation between their behavioural intentions and activity contexts or types of disabilities. The hypothesized association between parents' attitudes and children's attitudes was not significant. Preschoolers may benefit from having more regular contact with people with disabilities to develop positive feelings towards their peers with disabilities, which is also related to their understanding of disabilities. Children's behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions need to be understood in relation to their understanding of disabilities, the demand of activity contexts, and types of disabilities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.