Associations Between Hypochondriacal Symptoms and Illness Appraisals,and Their Moderation by Self‐Focused Attention

Hypochondriacal symptoms are associated with cognitive biases in the ways that illness is appraised. Self‐focused attention (SFA) may augment or reduce these biases. Using a healthy sample, this study examined relationships between hypochondriacal symptoms, assessed using the Illness Attitudes Scale; and illness appraisals, assessed using the Illness Perception Questionnaire–Revised. Participants were exposed to an SFA manipulation or a non‐SFA control, were given a health message about influenza, and were asked to imagine having the disease. Hypochondriacal symptoms were linked to higher symptom perceptions, greater perceptions of personal and treatment control, and higher disease coherence. SFA augmented the relationship between hypochondriacal symptoms and personal control. Findings are discussed in terms of illness appraisal biases and attentional components of these biases.     

Autophotographic Individuality Predicts Creativity: A Seven‐Year Follow‐up

Approximately seven years after completing a photographic essay about the self, 44 adults were surveyed about their lives, current creative activities, and their work values. In accord with prediction, those who devised richer, more multidimensional and creative photo essays‐the more individualistic — were engaged in more creative lifestyles as adults and rated creativity as a job value higher than their less individualistic peers. Thus, unique self‐portrayals through photography were shown to have impressive predictive validity well beyond the college years.     

So You Want Your Employees to Quit Smoking?

Today more and more organizations are trying to limit or ban workplace smoking. These actions are prompted largely by the costs associated with employees who smoke. Despite the proliferation of these attempts, corporate efforts in this area have been generally unsuccessful. In this article the most common antismoking programs are reviewed. After this review, a multidimensional, broad-based smoking cessation program is described.     

Women and Elderly Parents: Moral Controversy in an Aging Society

The human life span has been extended considerably, and among the very old, women outnumber men by a large margin. Thus, the aging society cannot be adequately addressed without taking into account the experience of women in specific. This article focuses on women as caregivers for aging parents. It critically assesses what some women philosophers are saying about the basis and limits of these caregiving duties.     

Some Serious and Some Not So Serious Reactions to AACD and Its Journals

Critical self-evaluation is central to our professional survival and to the survival of our professional association, the American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD). Although the association and its journals certainly have their critics, unfortunately very little criticism is published for the benefit of the general membership. The purpose of this article is to elaborate on some serious and not so serious criticisms of AACD, its journals, its leaders, and its members.     

WHAT WE SHOULD STUDY, PROBLEMS WE SHOULD SOLVE: PERSPECTIVES OF TWO CONSTITUENCIES

Qualitative data from management and non-management employees were content analyzed to assess their perceptions of what organizational problems they would most like academic researchers to study. These data are then compared to the publications that have appeared in empirical journals over ten journal years (Campbell, Daft, and Hulin, 1982). Results indicate: (1) specific problem areas health care practitioners want studied: (2) strong congruence between the interests of the management and non-management subsamples; and (3) areas where academicians are not meeting the research needs of this sample.     

An Object-Relations Approach to Psychotherapy with Marital Couples,Families, and Children

AN APPROACH to object relations is presented here that conceptualizes the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a thorough review of the object-relations school of thought, the concepts introduced here have direct clinical implications for understanding and influencing the dynamics of the patient-therapist dyad, of the marital pair, and of the family unit. Included are the following concepts: (a) Couples in conflict are viewed as more similar than dissimilar despite apparent differences; (b) The therapist's countertransference reactions are seen as not irrational but a valid reflection of the patient's struggle; (c) The adult or child who is the identified patient is often a carrier or container of the split-off, unacceptable impulses of the other(s); (d) The individual is perceived as part of a unit in which even the more obvious pathological traits have an inherent healthy reparative function.     

Career planning inventories: “do-it-yourself” won't do

This article explores the practical difficulties encountered in using self-administering, self-scoring, and self-interpreting career guidance instruments with students who have white-collar aspirations and blue-collar histories. After dramatizing and summarizing the problems, the author describes a model for successful use of one such inventory—as a text rather than a test—with career exploration groups.