Reentry Experiences and Professional Developments of International Marriage and Family Therapy Graduates in Taiwan

Reentry research has received much less attention than research on cultural adjustment in a foreign country, especially in the marriage and family therapy (MFT) field in the United States. Lack of research on international students’ job experiences and professional developments during reentry does not provide further information to evaluate the quality of MFT education in the United States. This study was intended to extend the reentry literature and specifically to understand personal and professional reentry experiences and cross-cultural transformation of MFT returnees in Taiwan. Thirteen participants were interviewed, and the resulting data was analyzed using constructivist grounded theory. Analyses results demonstrated macro contextual factors that situated unique personal and professional reentry phenomena for international MFT graduate in Taiwan. The returnees strived to explore their MFT identity and interpret cross-cultural differences by developing four coping strategies (e.g., not wanting to fit in, doing what you were supposed to do or could do, processing with others, and therapists’ multicultural awareness) that were associated with three conditions, such as personal networks linking to professional networks, supervision, and training in MFT. Findings suggested that reentry adaption was varied and fitting into Taiwanese society might not be the final goal for the returnees. Training implications in the MFT field were provided based on the findings.     

Visual similarity is greater for line drawings of nonliving than living things: the importance of musical instruments and body parts

It has been argued that greater intra-category structural similarity for living things, and the subsequent "visual crowding," makes them more difficult to recognize and name for neurologically damaged individuals and normal subjects (Humphreys et al., 1988). Nevertheless, the precise meaning and quantification of structural similarity remains unclear, as does the rationale for why it necessarily should be greater for living things. We derived a new measure of visual overlap from the Snodgrass and Vanderwart corpus of line drawings: the degree of pixel overlap within subcategories (Euclidean distance: ED). Contrary to existing notions of visual crowding and extant measures of contour overlap, within-category ED indicated less within-category visual overlap for living things. Furthermore, musical instruments clustered with living things (having low overlap), while body parts clustered with nonliving things (having high overlap). These counter-intuitive findings accord with patient data and thus, provide evidence for the psychological reality and utility of ED.     

Intelligence in childhood and risk of psychological distress in adulthood: The 1958 National Child Development Survey and the 1970 British Cohort Study

Lower cognitive ability is a risk factor for some forms of severe psychiatric disorder, but it is unclear whether it influences risk of psychological distress due to anxiety or the milder forms of depression. The participants in the present study were members of two British birth national birth cohorts, the 1958 National Child Development Survey (n = 6369) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (n = 6074). We examined the association between general cognitive ability (intelligence) measured at age 10 (1970 cohort) and 11 years (1958 cohort) and high levels of psychological distress at age 30 (1970 cohort) or 33 years (1958 cohort), defined as a score of 7 or more on the Malaise Inventory. In both cohorts, participants with higher intelligence in childhood had a reduced risk of psychological distress. In sex-adjusted analyses, a standard deviation (15 points) increase in IQ score was associated with a 39% reduction in psychological distress in the 1958 cohort and a 23% reduction in the 1970 cohort [odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 0.61 (0.56, 0.68) and 0.77 (0.72, 0.83), respectively]. These associations were only slightly attenuated by further adjustment for potential confounding factors in childhood, including birth weight, parental social class, material circumstances, parental death, separation or divorce, and behaviour problems, and for potential mediating factors in adulthood, educational attainment and current social class. Intelligence in childhood is a risk factor for psychological distress due to anxiety and the milder forms of depression in young adults. Understanding the mechanisms underlying this association may help inform methods of prevention.