Audit in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children and adolescents

The importance of multidisciplinary audit in child and adolescent psychiatry, including the work of child psychotherapists, is discussed. Research is highlighted which shows that certain groups of children in particular benefit from psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The problems related to auditing psychoanalytic psychotherapy are discussed, and a possible method of audit based on peer review of notes, which takes into account both inner and outer change, is presented.

A patient is discussed whose notes have been audited using the audit form. It is suggested that this form of audit has good educational potential as well as ensuring a high standard of patient care.     

Relations Between Parenting Behavior and SES in a Clinical Sample: Validity of SES Measures

Two common methods of measuring socioeconomic status (SES) were examined in relation to observed parenting behaviors in a clinical sample of 89 mothers of 3- to 6-year-olds referred for treatment of oppositional defiant disorder. Families were 74% Caucasian, 9% African American, 5% Hispanic, 1% Asian, and 11% Biracial. Most children were male (75%). Parenting behaviors were measured with the Dyadic Parent–Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS) categories of prosocial talk and negative talk. Analyses were conducted with SES measured in two ways: (a) the Hollingshead Four-Factor Index of Social Status (HI) was correlated with parenting behaviors; and (b) family income, parent education (5 categories), and parent occupation (5 categories) were used to predict parent behavior. SES was significantly positively related to maternal prosocial talk. When SES was operationalized as income, occupation, and education, the model predicted three times more variance in maternal prosocial talk than the HI alone. SES was not related to maternal negative talk by either measure of SES.     

Prologue: Introduction and Overview to Special Volume

Abstract

The editors provide an overview of the obstacles that prevent us from ending child abuse in the United States and briefly summarize the various articles in this volume that address these obstacles from multiple points of view.     

Do conflict management styles affect group decision making? Evidence from a longitudinal field study

This study examined the relationship between group conflict management styles and effectiveness of group decision making in 11 ongoing, naturally occurring workgroups from 2 large U.S. organizations. The major postulate of the study was that groups develop norms regarding how they will manage conflicts that carry over to affect other activities, such as decision making, even when these activities do not involve open conflict. To determine the impact of conflict management style on decision effectiveness, a longitudinal design was used that identified conflict management styles in the initial portion of each team's series of meetings and then analyzed a group decision taken in a meeting near the end of that series. Group conflict management styles were determined using observational methods, and decision effectiveness was measured using multiple indices that tapped member, facilitator, and external observer viewpoints. Task complexity also was considered as a possible moderating variable. The findings suggest that groups that developed integrative conflict management styles made more effective decisions than groups that utilized confrontation and avoidance styles. Groups that never developed a stable style were also less effective than groups with integrative styles.     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Clusters and Acquired Capability for Suicide: A Reexamination Using DSM-5 Criteria

This study used the interpersonal–psychological theory of suicide to explore the relationships among DSM-5 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom clusters derived from the six-factor anhedonia model and facets of acquired capability for suicide (ACS). In a sample of 373 trauma-exposed undergraduates, most PTSD symptom clusters were negatively associated with facets of ACS in bivariate correlations, but the anhedonia cluster was positively associated with ACS in regression models. Structure coefficients and commonality analysis indicated that anhedonia served as a suppressor variable for the other symptom clusters. Our findings further elucidate the complex relationship between specific PTSD symptom clusters and ACS.     

Evaluation of the psychometric properties of two forgiveness scales

This study examined the psychometric properties of two forgiveness scales using participants enrolled at a Midwestern Catholic university (N = 328). The Forgiveness Scale is a 15—item Likert-type scale designed to measure forgiveness toward an of-fender. The Forgiveness Likelihood Scale is a 10—item Likert-type scale designed to measure tendency to forgive across situations. Factor analyses revealed that the For-giveness Scale contains two subscales (i.e., Absence of Negative, Presence of Posi-tive) and the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale consists of a single factor. Both scales have adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Both subscales of the Forgiveness Scale were significantly correlated in the expected direction with mea-sures of forgiveness, religiousness, anger, hope, religious well-being, existential well-being, and social desirability. The Forgiveness Likelihood Scale was significantly correlated in the expected direction with measures of forgiveness, religiousness, trait anger, religious well-being, and social desirability. The authors thank Sarah Danko, Anne Hovancsek, Carla Kmett, Jennifer Martin, and Colleen Ryan for their assistance. We kindly request that researchers who use the forgiveness scales evaluated in this study provide us with a summary of their psychometric data for the scales. The idea for creating the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale was based upon the Willingness to Forgive Scale (Hebl & Enright, 1993).     

Supervisory styles index: Examining supervisees' perceptions of Supervisory Style

The goal of this research was to develop an instrument, the Supervisory Styles Index (SSI), that would examine supervisory style. Style has been described as the way in which the personality and convictions of the supervisor are demonstrated in the supervisory relationship (Leighton, 1991). This study focuses on the interplay between supervisory style and the influence of sex and gender. The findings of this study reveal that female supervisees discern their supervisors to be more self-disclosing than do male supervisees. Implications of the findings and utilization of the index are discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the 52nd annual conference of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Chicago, Illinois, November, 1994.     

Culture change: A training program for recent immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union

The article describes a training program in structural/integrative family therapy for immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union at the Training Center of the Shiluv Institute for Family and Couple Therapy in Jerusalem. The program was instituted to meet the pressing needs of a mass immigration of half a million people that came to Israel between 1990 and 1992. This is a retrospective look at the journey of the initial group of psychiatrists and psychologists who changed country, culture, language, and professional orientation in just two years. The authors state their conclusions as to the most expedient way to organize therapy for families from the former Soviet Union — a population in need of help but lacking an awareness of therapy and suspicious of the outsider.     

The impact of parental divorce on the attainment of the developmental tasks of young adulthood

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of parental divorce on young adult development. One hundred twenty-five participants provided demographic information and completed the PAFS-Q (college version) and the conflict subscale of the Family Environment Scale. Results indicate that parental divorce and family conflict significantly affect developmental task attainment. The interactions between sex and age and family structure (i.e., single-parent or stepfamily) were also significant predictors of post-divorce task attainment. Implications of these results for therapists as well as recommendations for future research are provided.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual conference of the American Psychological Association, Los Angles, California, August 1994.