Treatment outcome of a group cognitive therapy program for depression

A 12-session group program of cognitive therapy, designed by the first author, was evaluated with 35 persons suffering from major or minor depressive disorders. Effect-size scores were generated using the method of Nietzel, Russel, Hemmings, and Gretter (1987) and compared with cut-off points calculated using the method of Jacobson and Revenstorf (1988) and the norms established by Nietzel et al. (1987) in their meta-analysis. The effects of the Group Cognitive Therapy Program were found to be clinically significant according to the criteria of Jacobson and colleagues (Jacobson and Revenstorf, 1988; Jacobson, Follette and Revenstorf, 1984) for 73% of patients. It is concluded that the Group Cognitive Therapy Program is a clinically efficacious and cost-effective treatment for persons suffering from nonpsychotic, primary, unipolar depression.     

Death education in American medical schools: Tolstoy's challenge to Kübler-Ross

No one has done more to shape contemporary physicians' and nurses' understandings of dying and death than Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. A comparison of her views to those of another era, as delineated by Leo Tolstoy, raises questions concerning Kübler-Ross' five-stage theory and points out inadequacies in current medical education and in the values that shape American culture. According to Kübler-Ross, the dying person angrily asks “Why me?” Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych is more concerned about the implications for cosmic justice than for self-perpetuation, and angrily asks “Why death?” One's sadness is born of depression (sadness over the nearness of one's death), the other's is born of despair (sadness over the apparent meaninglessness of life or of life as one has lived it). Kübler-Ross and Tolstoy also differ in their views of what can be done to “sweeten the pill,” whether “acceptance” is the best way to face death, and whether death ought to be viewed as a barrier to self-fulfillment or a means of self-transcendence.     

Predictors of champion behaviors in an evidence-based parenting program: A structural equation modeling approach

The importance of champions in the implementation of evidence-based public health programs has been well established. Champions perform a range of behaviors which can have significant influence on the adoption and sustainability of interventions. This study investigates champion behaviors in parenting practitioners with the aim to provide insight into the range and extent that practitioners engage in champion behaviors and to examine predictors of practitioners' champion behaviors using structural equation modeling. Data were collected during a large international implementation survey of 1606 practitioners trained to deliver an evidence-based parenting program, the triple P—Positive Parenting Program. We developed a 13-item Champion Behaviors Scale which was administered alongside other measures of predictors of implementation outcomes. Perceived usefulness of the program was the most important facilitator of both public and personal champion behaviors. Certain desirable features of the program tended to not only be positively associated with the perceived usefulness of the program, but also had a unique impact on practitioners' personal champion behaviors. Higher positions within organizations were linked with more public champion behaviors. Although organizational support was found to be unrelated to champion behaviors in the structural model, it facilitated other predictors of champion behaviors.     

Future Colleague or Convenient Friend: The Ethics of Mentorship

Student mentoring is a common and often encouraged practice within graduate psychology and counseling programs. Although both mentors and protégés typically report multiple benefits from the practice, the mentoring relationship is also subject to a variety of ethical issues. The author presents a brief overview of professional literature regarding mentoring relationships, including key features and stages of development of these relationships, and then addresses potential ethical concerns. Guidelines and implications for ethical mentoring practice are also presented to encourage more specific attention to this vital component of counselor training.     

Predicting toddler anxiety/depressive symptoms: Effects of caregiver sensitivity on temperamentally vulnerable children

This research examines whether maternal sensitivity in early childhood reduces later anxiety/depressive symptoms for children with more temperamental vulnerability, and whether these effects are different for boys and girls. Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care study with 1,226 subjects (631 boys, 595 girls) were analyzed. Mothers and other caregivers rated children's difficult temperament at 1 and 6 months. Trained observers scored maternal sensitivity when children were 6 and 15 months. Child anxiety/depressive symptoms were rated by mothers and other caregivers when children were 2 and 3 years of age. Maternal sensitivity in early childhood significantly predicted decreased 2‐ and 3‐year‐old anxiety/depressive symptoms. Children with more difficult temperament were significantly more likely to show decreased anxiety/depressive symptoms at 2 years of age if their mothers had been more sensitive. Maternal sensitivity also was a significant predictor of decreased anxiety/depressive symptoms for more temperamentally difficult boys, and temperamentally difficult boys with more sensitive mothers were found to be significantly more likely than girls to show decreased anxiety/depressive symptoms at 3 years of age. The findings of this pilot research suggest that facilitating and supporting increased sensitivity for mothers with more temperamentally difficult children could be beneficial. ©2005 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Depressed mothers’ infants show less negative affect during non-contingent interactions

Infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers were videotaped interacting with their mothers in the [Nadel, J., Carchon, I., Kervella, C., Marcelli, D., & Reserbat-Plantey, D. (1999). Report: Expectancies for social contingency in 2-month-olds. Developmental Science, 2, 164–173] paradigm which consists of three segments including: (1) a free play, contingent interaction, (2) a non-contingent replay of the mothers’ behavior that had been videotaped during the first segment, and (3) a return to a free play, contingent interaction. As compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, infants of depressed mothers showed less negative change (less increase in frowning) in their behavior during the non-contingent replay segment. This finding was interpreted as the infants of depressed mothers being more accustomed to non-contingent behavior in their mothers, thus experiencing less violation of expectancy in this situation.     

Multiple‐Lens Paradigm: Evaluating African American Girls and Their Development

Developmental issues for African American adolescent girls are best understood using a multiple‐lens paradigm inclusive of gender, race, ethnicity, and social class. This article provides a context for assessing the relevance of these socially influenced constructs to identity development for adolescent African American girls. The relationship between the “myth of femininity” and personal worth and value is examined using this paradigm.     

Soul in the world: symbolic culture as the medium for psyche

Whilst the loss of a sense of living connection with the material world is mainly associated with the scientific revolution in seventeenth century Europe, it can be traced back to Plato's introduction of a hierarchy between soul and body. Jung's attempted solution to this – esse in anima – is ingenious but maintains the Cartesian split by which the aliveness of the world is reduced to a projection of psychic forces (the archetypes). An alternative approach is proposed, rooted in the Aristotelean emphasis on practical activity that sees the soul as a function of our way of being in the world. Human cognition is extended and distributed by our social and material engagement with the world, especially via collective representations whose symbolic character is constitutive of the reality of the world in which we live. Despite the dominance of ‘scientific Cartesian’ representations in the modern Western world, there remain numerous instances of participation mystique that cannot be captured by the Cartesian notion of projection. These indicate an opening to ways of being in the world that may lead us out of the impasse of the Cartesian matrix.