USING PARENTS AS THERAPISTS TO EVALUATE APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR OF THEIR CHILDREN: APPLICATION TO A TERTIARY DIAGNOSTIC CLINIC

We conducted a preliminary analysis of maintaining variables for children with conduct disorders in an outpatient clinic. Eight children of normal intelligence between the ages of 4 and 9 years were evaluated during 90-min sessions. The children's parents conducted the assessments by varying task demands (easy and difficult) and parental attention (attention and no attention) within a multielement design. The assessment focused on appropriate child behavior and was conducted to formulate hypotheses regarding maintaining contingencies. Results demonstrated that the children's appropriate behavior varied across assessment conditions and, for 7 of the 8 children, occurred at a higher rate during one condition than during other conditions. In addition, treatment integrity data demonstrated that parents were able to implement the procedures as intended. The recommended treatments were rated as being both effective and acceptable to parents for up to 6 months following the evaluation. Our results extend previous studies of functional analytic procedures conducted by trained experimenters with severely handicapped children in more controlled settings.     

Benefiting from Wrongdoing and Moral Protest

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - Some normative theorists believe that there is a principled moral reason not to retain benefits realized by injustice or wrongdoing. However, critics have argued...     

Women and Aging: Insights for Care from a Clinical Perspective

The purpose of this article is to generate pastoral clinical insights from the life experiences of three women entering the fourth quarter of life. The author considers how both physical, emotional, and spiritual resources as well as challenges can either enhance or disturb well-being. The author concludes that each of the women, having been in counseling for at least one year, has experienced an enhanced personal sense of well-being. Emerging from the clinical analysis, the author makes suggestions for helpful congregational pastoral care.     

What's the difference between children and adults? Conflict,cooperation and indifference in relationships between adult and children's therapeutic services

Children's and adult mental health services come from different traditions and have for long tended to work in ignorance of, or in conflict with, each other. This has led to many opportunities for a joined‐up approach to family difficulties being missed. Family therapy as a method is in a good position to make links between these separate silos and tackle the divisiveness of tribal professional thinking through the development of a crossover practice that draws on the best in both traditions.     

Family therapy by default: developing useful fall‐back positions for therapists

This article looks at some of the effects on practitioners of the increasing complexity and variety of ideas within the family therapy field. In adopting the currently popular notion of ‘default position’ from information technology, I argue that therapists can easily feel that their work has a random quality to it. I examine how our own default positions can be based on force of habit, a quest for novelty or the effects of stress. Some suggestions are offered for how we can more accurately go about choosing ideas that will be of help to the families with which we work and to ourselves.     

A COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING ACROSS THREE TOPOGRAPHIES OF SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

We evaluated the separate treatment components of a functional communication training program for 3 severely handicapped persons who each displayed different topographies of aberrant behavior. Following a functional analysis of maintaining conditions for inappropriate behavior (self-injury, stereotypy, aggression), each participant was trained to emit a communicative response that functioned to solicit reinforcement. For 2 participants, consequences (time-out or graduated guidance) for inappropriate behavior were also included. Treatment continued until the participants emitted the communicative response independently and no occurrences of inappropriate behavior were observed for at least two sessions. Following treatment, the separate contributions of the treatment components for communicative responding and for inappropriate behavior were evaluated with a reversal design. The results indicated that both sets of treatment components were necessary for maximal control over aberrant behavior. These results are discussed in relation to the efficiency, history, and control over reinforcement of both appropriate and inappropriate responses.     

Mankind and Kind Men: an agenda for male family therapists

This article examines some of the gender issues involved when male therapists interview women, children and other men. It looks at issues in the family life of male therapists which have parallels with therapy, and offers some practical suggestions for beginning to overcome obstacles of gender in therapy.