Family dances and the rhythms of intimacy

Over time each couple evolves its own repetitive, rhythmic patterns of loving, fighting, etc. This dance is picked up by the couple's children and becomes kinesthetic, rather than intellectual, knowledge of how to be in an intimate relationship. For each new generation of couples, making one dance out of two is the unspoken challenge to a marriage. Often mates do not fit into each other's dance, do not know the right moves, and thus remain rhythmically unfamiliar to one another, making it difficult to live in comfortable intimacy.It is possible to quickly and graphically represent these family dances in a therapy session. From the dances of the family of origin to the current dance of a couple, the impact of the rhythmic patterns of intimacy can be seen. The objective of performing a couple's family dance is to bring the rhythmic patterns into awareness and to develop a powerful metaphor for use throughout therapy.Sandra Watanabe-Hammond, BS, OTR, a co-founder of the Boston Family Institute and a faculty member of the Family Institute of Chicago, also is in private practice in Chicago at 253 E. Delaware Place and at 2 Pine Circle, Urbana, IL.     

Oral and written language in a case of childhood phonemic deafness

Neuropsychologic and neurolinguistic studies performed on an 11-year-old Landau-Kleffner boy are reported. At age 3 his language began to deteriorate progressively until complete disappearance. At the same time, the patient developed epileptic seizures. When 6 years old, he was taught to match objects to the corresponding written word, and subsequently he was able to learn reading and writing to such extent that he could attend primary school. BAER and primary cortical auditory responses were normal, whereas late cortical components were grossly retarded and distorted. Phonemic discrimination, identification, and production were absent, and in contrast, lexical-semantic abilities tested through reading and writing were normal. In visual STM tasks, phonologic mediation was absent. The role of phonologic mediation in language acquisition is then hypothesized.     

The counseling psychologist in business and industry: Ethical concerns

Ethical concerns of counseling psychologists practicing in business and industry are explored in the context of values conflicts, operational issues, and strategies for resolution. An emphasis is placed on strategies evolving from preparation and self-knowledge.     

Identification of vowels in “vowelless” syllables by 3-year-olds

The ability of 3-year-old children to perceive the identity of vowels in full-vowel and silentcenter, consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables was investigated using a two-alternative pointing procedure. Silence replaced the middle 10%, 35%, 65%, or 90% of the steady-state formants of synthetic “bad” and “bud” syllables. Identification of the two full-vowel syllables was 87% correct, whereas performance for the silent-center syllables was somewhat lower (72%, 70%, 67%, and 66% correct for the 10%, 35%, 65%, and 90% deletion stimuli, respectively). The performance of individual children fell into two subgroups: (1) those who performed like adults by maintaining correct vowel identification for all of the silent-center syllables, and (2) those who identified the full-vowel syllables correctly but performed at chance for all of the silent-center syllables. Three additional experiments showed that none of the children performed poorly when noise replaced the gap in the silent-center syllables. These results demonstrate that many 3-year-olds can identify vowels correctly in CVC syllables in the absence of the full spectral properties of steady-state formants.     

Help for the Significant Others of Bulimics

A quasi-experimental design was used to assess the effects of a 5-week assistance program for the significant others of bulimics. A knowledge test, an attitude survey, and a behavior device were used to evaluate the effects of the program. One or more of the three instruments was administered to an experimental group of significant others before (pretest) and after (posttest) they attended the assistance program. One or more of the three instruments was also administered to a control group of significant others before (pretest) and after (posttest) a 5-week period. During this period they did not attend the assistance program. No significant difference was found between the pretest and posttest scores of the control group on the three instruments at the .05 probability level. Experimental group posttest scores were significantly higher than their pretest scores on the three instruments at the .05 probability level. An anonymous evaluation conducted following the program also indicated significant others who attended the program found it to be beneficial.     

Self-blame, self-efficacy, and adjustment to abortion

The causal impact of attributions and coping self-efficacy on adjustment to abortion was examined. Two hundred and eighty-three women were randomly assigned prior to their abortion to 1 of 3 counseling interventions: 1 designed to alter attributions for unwanted pregnancy (ATT-INT), 1 designed to raise coping expectations (EXP-INT), or a control (standard counseling) group. Depression, mood, anticipated consequences, and physical complaints were assessed postabortion. Women in the ATT-INT or EXP-INT group were better adjusted immediately postabortion than women in the control group. The EXP-INT group was also less depressed than the ATT-INT group. Three individual difference factors were also related to better adjustment: high coping self-efficacy, low self-character blame, and low other-blame. Self-efficacy also predicted adjustment 3 weeks postabortion. Implications for theories of adjustment to major life events, therapeutic interventions to assist coping with such events, and public policy on abortion are discussed.     

Religious experience and public cult: The case of Mary Ann Van Hoof

This study focuses on the first year (1950) of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported by Mary Ann Van Hoof of Necedah, Wisconsin. It argues that Van Hoof's experiences met not simply the needs of the community-at-large, but also helped the seer draw meaning from an emotionally-deprived and abusive childhood. The study concludes by suggesting that public serial apparitions are complex events that should be examined for the light they shed on the interaction between the seer's personal characteristics and experiences and the public events that take shape around those experiences.Support for this article was provided by the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas.     

Bilingualism,executive control,and age at diagnosis among people with early‐stage Alzheimer's disease in Wales

The observation of a bilingual advantage in executive control tasks involving inhibition and management of response conflict suggests that being bilingual might contribute to increased cognitive reserve. In support of this, recent evidence indicates that bilinguals develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) later than monolinguals, and may retain an advantage in performance on executive control tasks. We compared age at the time of receiving an AD diagnosis in bilingual Welsh/English speakers (n = 37) and monolingual English speakers (n = 49), and assessed the performance of bilinguals (n = 24) and monolinguals (n = 49) on a range of executive control tasks. There was a non‐significant difference in age at the time of diagnosis, with bilinguals being on average 3 years older than monolinguals, but bilinguals were also significantly more cognitively impaired at the time of diagnosis. There were no significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in performance on executive function tests, but bilinguals appeared to show relative strengths in the domain of inhibition and response conflict. Bilingual Welsh/English speakers with AD do not show a clear advantage in executive function over monolingual English speakers, but may retain some benefits in inhibition and management of response conflict. There may be a delay in onset of AD in Welsh/English bilinguals, but if so, it is smaller than that found in some other clinical populations. In this Welsh sample, bilinguals with AD came to the attention of services later than monolinguals, and reasons for this pattern could be explored further.