Family Therapy With Irish-Americans

This paper presents a paradigm for understanding the cultural values and family patterns of Irish-American families and offers suggestions for clinical intervention. Families' correspondence to the model described will depend upon their level of acculturation, socioeconomic status, and other contextual factors. The paradigm suggests a number of issues that may create difficulties for the therapist and for the family in therapy. In general, behavioral techniques, Bowen systems therapy, and strategic interventions may be more useful than techniques emphasizing expression of emotions in therapy or direct attempts to alter communication or family behavior in therapy sessions, as used in structural therapy.     

Difficulties in Family Therapy Evaluation I. A Comparison of Insight vs. Problem-Solving Approaches II. Design Critique and Recommendations

In Part 1, an outcome study comparing two methods of family treatment, is reported. Families were randomly assigned to one of two forms of conjoint therapy: an Insight-oriented treatment (N = 10 ) or a Problem-Solving intervention (N = 10 ). The results on self-report measures of family functioning indicate that the Problem-Solving intervention produced more favorable changes after three months. Experienced therapists did better than inexperienced therapists in the Insight-treatment condition but level of experience did not make a difference in the Problem-Solving therapy. A group of eight families who dropped out of the Insight-treatment group provided data on correlates of premature termination. In Part II, the study is critically reviewed. The practical obstacles to implementing an experimental design in a clinic setting are considered. Special attention is given to issues involving the selection of treatment and control conditions: sampling and the measurement of outcome. Alternatives to experimental designs are considered.     

Outline and description of an electronic system for lateralization of visual stumuli in studies of hemispheric asymmetry

An automatic electronic systenm for lateralization of visual stimuli research on hemispheric asymmetry is described. The system consists of three different units: 1) A stimulas projection- unit; 2)an electronic control-unit; and 3)a programming-unit. Necessary characteristics of apparatus for studies using lateralized visual stimuli are described in the paper. Among the listed requirements are: range of stimulus-duration, rise- and fall-time for onset and offset to full intensity of the stimulus, stimulus-eccentricity, and eye-fixation control. The system described in the paper has been in use in our laboratory for the last two years. It is concluded that the system meets the requirements for apparatus used in studies with laterlized visual input. A block-diagram of the electronics and a schematic outline according to scale of the stimulus projection-unit are enclosed with the paper.     

Schizophrenia and the Family: II. Adverse Effects of Family Therapy

Theoretical formulations of the past thirty years have championed the hypothesis that family interaction contributes heavily to the etiology of schizophrenia, a position that has dominated contemporary family therapy even in the absence of solid empirical confirmation. The possibility that sociogenic modeling of schizophrenia is not only incorrect but even harmful to families, and to the relationship between families and clinicians, has never been taken seriously, despite its implications for the practice of family therapy. The author describes untoward effects of the sociogenic hypothesis in his own ten-year experience with families of chronic schizophrenics and examines pertinent reports in the family therapy literature, offering the reinterpretation that many communicational aberrations are adaptations to two therapist attributes: (a) failure to absolve the family of initial causal responsibility, and (b) failure to inform the family about the nature of the illness.     

SOURCES OF VARIATION IN JOB SATISFACTION: JOB SIZE EFFECTS IN A SAMPLE OF THE U. S. LABOR FORCE

Survey data were used to examine hypotheses about job size and satisfaction in a broad spectrum of jobs. Job size, higher-order need importance, urban-rural residence, and blue- or white-collar job category were tested as predictors of satisfaction ( N = 2,094). Job size, need importance, and job category all related to job satisfaction. In constrast to earlier findings among blue-collar workers, there was no evidence that either the urban-rural variable or need importance moderated the job size-satisfaction relation. Job category did not moderate these results, indicating that the present results extend to white-collar workers. It was possible to control for income in a subsample ( N = 753). Controlling for income's effect, job size, need importance, and job category still related to satisfaction; again, no moderating effects were observed. Results are discussed in terms of three potential sources of variation in satisfaction: job, person, and interaction of job and person.     

BACKGROUND, NEEDS, JOB PERCEPTIONS, AND JOB SATISFACTION: A CAUSAL MODEL

Data concerning sex, social status, need strength, job perceptions and job satisfaction were collected from 411 people who were entering the work force for the first time at the time they obtained their jobs and approximately 10 months later. Using maximum likelihood path analysis, support was obtained for the following causal sequence: Background → Need Strength → Job Perception → Job Satisfaction. As in other studies, growth need strength was related to job dimensions. However, relatedness needs also appear to play a significant role in determining perceptions of jobs and job satisfaction. Sex and social status determined to some extent the subjects' initial level of need strength and indirectly their job perceptions.     

COMPARISON OF EARLY RETIREES AND NON-RETIREES

A group of 250 early retirees and a similar group of 422 nonretired Civil Service employees were compared on demographic, experience and job attitude variables. Consistent with earlier published studies, demographic, health, and income variables accounted for approximately three times as much variance in the retirement status variable as did the motivational and attitudinal variables. Retirees reported that their jobs afforded less Autonomy, Skill Variety, Opportunity to Deal with Others, and less intrinsic satisfaction, but more Feedback from Others relative to nonretirees. Analysis of the demographic variables indicated retirees were more likely to be female, have less financial commitments, and have had more jobs in their career. It is suggested that the retirement decision may represent a positive attempt on the part of individuals to pursue more challenging, interesting activities, and that longitudinal research be initiated to explore in more detail the determinants of the retirement decision and subsequent retirement satisfaction.