Social Support Rejection and Reappraisal by Providers and Recipients1

Study 1 used recalled incidents involving offered or sought social support that were either rejected or later reappraised. Rejected offers of support were perceived to be ignored by would-be recipients, whereas rejected requests for support were viewed as due to lack of concern by would-be providers. For providers, upward reappraisal of support as well as downward reappraisal was usually based on direct feedback of consequences. Recipient reappraisals in either direction were also based mainly on outcomes that contradicted initial perceived effects of support. Study 2 provided additional evidence on the factors that might lead to rejected support. Evaluations of the effect of specific behaviors from potential support providers in hypothetical stress situations identified common behaviors such as offering advice, implying blame, second-guessing the victim's behavior, and minimizing the problem to be unhelpful. Implications for increasing the effective delivery of social support are discussed.     

With a brick in hand. Transformation in exile

‘I’m like the man who took along a brick/to show the world what his house was like.’ Reflecting on Bertolt Brecht’s brick, which is symbolically taken along from the homeland, allows us the opportunity to explore the changing modalities of traumatic experience in displaced persons. The brick does not merely represent lost objects, home, and homeland but also stands for the displaced person and his psychic integrity. The challenge for every displaced person is to transition away from the basic survival mode, dominated by the drives of self-preservation, to regain the ability to symbolize and to start dreaming again. The way a poet processes his own traumatic experiences of displacement and escape may serve as a roadmap for others. Works by Mario Benedetti and Bertolt Brecht, both émigré poets, alongside clinical examples, form the psychological material. Recurring thoughts of an uncertain return to the homeland may become debilitating, causing a displaced person to descend into mourning or melancholy and can even lead to open outbursts of previously strongly defended aggression. If it is not possible to sufficiently work through the trauma, then the bricks will fall everywhere. In the regressive emotionally charged condition, it holds true: in the beginning was the act.     

An Ecological Understanding of Kinship Foster Care in the United States

We review empirical studies on kinship foster care in the United States. We conceptualize kinship foster care within the context of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) most recent ecological systems theory. Because there are multiple levels of influences on the developmental outcomes of children placed in kinship foster home, understanding the interrelations between the individual (child) and his or her surrounding environments (e.g., biological families, social-support network) is important. We argue that Bronfenbrenner’s most recent ecological systems theory is an appropriate theoretical framework for policy and practice implications in addressing complex issues surrounding kinship foster care system in the United States. This review integrates the empirical findings collectively on the factors associated with kinship foster care within and between five systems levels of the ecological systems theory: micro- (caregiver-child relationship, attachment, and kinship family environment), meso- (biological families), exo- (social-support network outside the family), macro- (race/ethnicity and policies), and chrono- (welfare reform) systems levels. Theories that are relevant to the ecological factors (e.g., attachment theory) are also discussed. Finally, we draw policy and practice implications from the ecological systems analysis.