Mother-blaming in family therapy: An empirical investigation

Abstract

This study tested two hypotheses derived from the feminist critique of family therapy in a sample of AAMFT members. The stimulus was a brief vignette of an initial therapy session with a family presenting a teen-aged child as the identified patient. It was hypothesized that family therapists would rate the mothers in the vignette as more dysfunctional than fathers. It was also hypothesized that mothers would be asked to bear more of the burden of change in treatment plans written by subjects. Neither hypothesis was supported. However, respondents did rate the concerned parent, regardless of sex, as more dysfunctional. Since this is a role often occupied by women, this finding may indicate some gender bias.     

Emotion,core affect,and psychological construction

As an alternative to using the concepts of emotion, fear, anger, and the like as scientific tools, this article advocates an approach based on the concepts of core affect and psychological construction, expanding the domain of inquiry beyond “emotion”. Core affect is a neurophysiological state that underlies simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energised. Psychological construction is not one process but an umbrella term for the various processes that produce: (a) a particular emotional episode's “components” (such as facial movement, vocal tone, peripheral nervous system change, appraisal, attribution, behaviour, subjective experience, and emotion regulation); (b) associations among the components; and (c) the categorisation of the pattern of components as a specific emotion.     

On the automatic activation of associated evaluations: An overview

A review of the literature concerning the phenomenon known as automatic attitude activation is presented. The robustness of the affective priming effect across many different procedural variations, the mediating mechanisms thought to underlie the effect, and the moderating role of associative strength are discussed. The relevance and importance of automatic attitude activation to many fundamental cognitive and social processes also is highlighted. Finally, an overview of the articles included in this Special Issue of Cognition and Emotion, their essential contributions, and their relation to the earlier literature is presented.     

Children's and adults’ understanding of the “disgust face”

By the age of 4 years, children (N=120) know the meaning of the word disgust as well as they know the meaning of anger and fear; for example, when asked, they are equally able to generate a plausible cause for each of these emotions. Yet, in tasks involving facial expressions (free labelling of faces, deciding whether or not a face expresses disgust, or finding a “disgust face” in an array of faces), a majority of 3- to 7-year-old children (N=144) associated the prototypical “disgust face” with anger and denied its association with disgust (25% of adults on the same tasks did so as well). These results challenge the assumption that all humans easily recognise disgust from its facial expression and that this recognition is a precursor to children's understanding of the emotion of disgust.     

Jung's reflections on self-healing

Not long before his death on July 17, 1998, Edward Edinger asked me to draw together a book of quotations by Jung on religious themes. Edinger's image was that of a thin, leather-covered book containing spiritual uplift and consolation, that one might carry around in a pocket or purse: a “vademecum” or “enchiridion,” as he termed it. It was a project he had begun by collecting quotations from Jung's Answer to Job and Letters. Always fond of “giving the last word to Jung,” he then employed those quotes to conclude Transformation of the God-Image and The New God-Image, respectively. But he lacked the energy, he confessed, to complete this project

The Vademecum which, I hope, resembles what Edinger had in mind-is now nearly complete. It is tentatively entitled, Jung on Soul: Quotations on Religious Themes. The following excerpted chapter is entitled “On Self-Healing.” The other topical divisions are: First Principles; The Inner Life; Consciousness; Good and Evil; The Paradoxical God-Image; Individuation; Continuing Incarnation; Psychology and Christianity; Old Age, Death and Beyond; Community, Society, Culture; Civilization in Crisis; Love and Sex; Parents and Children; Healing; Analyst and Patient; C. G. Jung: Personal; and From Jung's Answer to Job.     

Introducing the sick face

Research on disgust in neuroscience, medicine, and psychology often relies on a disgust facial expression from a standardized set. Two studies (N = 60 and N = 160) compared this standard disgust face to a new facial expression called the “sick face” posed by three different actors asked to look as if they were sick and about to vomit. Relative to the standard disgust face, the sick face was significantly more likely to be endorsed as disgust, less likely to be endorsed as another emotion, and rated as conveying disgust more intensely. Disgust may not have a facial signal, but various faces may serve as cues to disgust.     

Parenting Practices and Prospective Levels of Hyperactivity/Inattention Across Early- and Middle-Childhood

This study examined specific parenting practices as predictors of prospective levels of children’s hyperactivity/inattention across early- and middle-childhood. Participants were a mixed-sex community cohort (N?=?976; 52 % boys) aged 4–10 years (M?=?6.5, SD?=?1.3). Measures of parenting practices, hyperactivity/inattention, conduct problems, and maternal education were collected at baseline, and hyperactivity/inattention re-assessed at 12-month follow-up. Analyses examined predictors of 12-month hyperactivity/inattention while controlling for levels at baseline. High levels of parental involvement were associated with reduced levels of hyperactivity/inattention, but only across early childhood. Conversely, increases in child age were associated with increased levels of hyperactivity/inattention across middle-childhood, but only among children exposed to high levels of inconsistent discipline. Inconsistent discipline and parental involvement appear to be uniquely associated with prospective hyperactivity/inattention across childhood, independent of associated conduct problems. Our results further suggest some developmental specificity with regard to the effects of these distinct dimensions of parenting on hyperactivity/inattention at different points in childhood.     

An appreciative response to Niels Henrik Gregersen's JKR research conference lecture

Abstract

Using human embryos in research remains a controversial issue, especially in Christian bioethics. Although the official Catholic stance rejects human embryonic stem cell research, Christian thinkers T. Peters, K. Lebacqz and G. Bennett support it. They endorse the 14-day Rule and argue that ex vivo embryos lack moral worth. I examine and challenge the 14-day Rule and location argument (in vivo/ex vivo). I develop a theory of holistic anthropology and intrinsic moral value for human embryos. I conclude that intrinsic moral value is not equal to full moral value, and therefore use of embryos in biomedical research is morally permissible.