Discourse analysis: Rich pickings for counsellors and therapists

Aim: It is only relatively recently that discourse analysis has begun to rise to prominence in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy. This paper briefly explains ways of understanding discourse analysis, discussing what the approach can offer counselling research and practice. Approach: An initial categorisation of recent discourse analysis studies is offered, to demonstrate diverse ways in which this type of research can address issues relevant to counselling practice. The five categories proposed range from the examination of language use in therapy to analyses that focus on the social structures, meanings and power relations related to therapy. Implications: The paper demonstrates that through the critical analysis of counselling sessions, research interviews, written texts and other materials, discourse analysis can provide insight into ways in which counselling operates as a social practice, and so help counsellors to contextualise their work within broader social structures and processes.     

Anxiety and depression in women with advanced cancer: Implications for counselling

Fifty-three patients with advanced cancer were studied prospectively for 6 months to assess whether the site and method of chemotherapy administration influence levels of anxiety and depression. Patients received chemotherapy either at home or in hospital. Cases of clinical anxiety (36%) and depression (27%) were highest in the hospital treated group during the middle period of therapy. Patients treated at home had a lower psychiatric morbidity for anxiety (21%) and depression (21%) at the same period. There was no statistically significant difference in the mean scores on anxiety and depression between the groups. Overall, anxiety was more prevalent than depression. This study indicates that a minority of patients with advanced cancer treated by chemotherapy experience measureable psychiatric morbidity. Counselling services should be provided for these women throughout treatment, not just at the outset.     

A Muslim response to Harnack

Mohamed Ali, an Indian Muslim political activist of the 1920s, hoped to articulate an empowering perspective for his generation of Indian Muslims. He found Harnack's critique of the history of Christian dogma a suggestive basis for a new image of the relation of Islam to the religious life of the centuries before the Prophet Muhammad. He wanted to create a scheme for a ‘Federation of Faiths’ which would enable Indian Muslims to co‐operate in the new India with persons of other traditions. The article explains the context of Mohamed Ali's thought. Although his perspective lost momentum in India after the collapse of the non‐cooperation and Khilaft movements, it may be that a reconsideration of his ideas would be useful in the context of inter‐religious dialogue.     

Investigating jury bias in a child molestation case

Defendants in most criminal cases have a constitutional right to be tried by a jury, however they may waive that right and elect to be tried by a judge. In several states and the federal criminal system, waiver of a jury trial requires the consent of the prosecution. Based on a United States Supreme Court decision in Singer v. United States, a criminal defendant does not have a constitutional right to bench a trial, although the Court acknowledged that certain cases might exist in which “passion, prejudice … public feeling” or other factors might render an impartial trial by jury impossible or unlikely. The present article describes one attempt to prove the Singer exception because of strongly biased pretrial publicity in a Virginia child molestation case.     

Extending the boundaries of psychoticism: Health care and the self-sentiment

A new questionnaire was constructed for the measurement of a hypothetical personality trait of ‘health care’, i.e. care and respect for the physical integrity of the body. It was found that the trait was a component of Cattell's self-sentiment factor. This yielded a new and more comprehensive self-sentiment questionnaire. The new questionnaire was validated by the demonstration of low scores in heroin addicts and alcoholics. Further investigation showed that the self-sentiment is highly correlated with P, of which it is best regarded as an additional expression. This result confirms the interpretation of P as the negative pole of a broad super-ego or socialization factor.     

Association learning and visual discrimination

The effect of learned stimulus associations on visual discrimination was measured in four experiments. The stimuli were visual shapes which had been scaled for similarity. Two shapes were selected as discriminanda, and each S was pretested and posttested for discrimination of these briefly presented simultaneous pairs of “same” and “different” shapes. During the training, each discriminandum was paired with another simultaneously presented associated shape on a paired-associate response-learning task. The two associated shapes were very similar, intermediate in similarity, or very dissimilar. There was more improvement in posttest discrimination following training with dissimilar associates. We conclude that learned stimulus associations affect visual discrimination.     

Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses

This study attempted to determine whether people who live with each other for a long period of time grow physically similar in their facial features. Photographs of couples when they were first married and 25 years later were judged for physical similarity and for the likelihood that they were married. The results showed that there is indeed an increase in apparent similarity after 25 years of cohabitation. Moreover, increase in resemblance was associated with greater reported marital happiness. Among the explanations of this phenomenon that were examined, one based on a theory of emotional efference emerged as promising. This theory proposes that emotional processes produce vascular changes that are, in part, regulated by facial musculature. The facial muscles are said to act as ligatures on veins and arteries, and they thereby are able to divert blood from, or direct blood to, the brain. An implication of the vascular theory of emotional efference is that habitual use of facial musculature may permanently affect the physical features of the face. The implication holds further that two people who live with each other for a longer period of time, by virtue of repeated empathic mimicry, would grow physically similar in their facial features. Kin resemblance, therefore, may not be simply a matter of common genes but also a matter of prolonged social contact.A. L.Dear A. L.: As far as physical appearance is concerned, likes seem to attract. Some experts feel that this resemblance may partly be explained by the fact that couples who've lived together for some time usually eat the same diet and share the same habits. The Joyce Brothers Column April 1985 This work was supported by Grant BNS-8505981 from the National Science Foundation. We wish to thank all those who offered their photographs for the purposes of this study, and Joseph R. Zajonc for his helpful suggestions.     

A comparison of 13-year-old boys with attention deficit and/or reading disorder on neuropsychological measures

This study compared 13 year-old-boys with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and/or reading disability (RD), and controls with neither disorder on a battery of verbal and nonverbal neuropsychological measures. The aim was to examine whether ADD was associated with a qualitatively distinct pattern of deficits compared with RD. None of the measures differentiated the boys with ADD-only from the controls; the only deficit associated with ADD was slightly lower IQ. RD, on the other hand, was associated with deficits in memory and verbal skills.The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council of New Zealand and involves several Departments of the University of Otago. Much of the data are gathered by voluntary workers from the Dunedin community.The authors are indebted to the many people who contributions make this ongoing study possible. We wish to acknowledge the advice and help of Dr. P. A. Silva, director of the Dunedin Unit, in preparing this report.     

The structure and correlates of self-reported symptoms in 11-year-old children

Self-reports of DSM-III symptomatology were obtained from 792 11-year-old children using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC). We report results concerning 13 subscales derived from the DISC. Factor-analysis of the subscales suggested a broad distinction between externalizing and internalizing disorder for boys' self-report. For girls, two separate internalizing factors representing anxiety and depression emerged. We also found sex differences in correlates of self-reported disorder. Finally, we examined agreement between child and parent and teacher reports. Overall, agreement was relatively low, although somewhat higher for child-parent than for child-teacher.The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council of New Zealand and the Departments of Education and Health, and involves several departments of the University of Otago. Much of the data are gathered by voluntary workers from the Dunedin community. The authors are indebted to the many people whose contributions make this ongoing study possible.