“Nothing About Me, Without Me”: Participatory Action Research with Self-Help/Mutual Aid Organizations for Psychiatric Consumer/Survivors

Participatory action research with self-help/mutual aid organizations for psychiatric consumer/survivors is reviewed. We begin by tracing the origins of and defining both participatory action research and self-help/mutual aid. In so doing, the degree of correspondence between the assumptions/values of participatory action research and those of self-help/mutual aid for psychiatric consumer/survivors is examined. We argue that participatory action research and self-help/mutual aid share four values in common: (a) empowerment, (b) supportive relationships, (c) social change, and (d) learning as an ongoing process. Next, selected examples of participatory action research with psychiatric consumer/survivor-controlled self-help/mutual aid organizations which illustrate these shared values are provided. We conclude with recommendations of how the key values can be promoted in both the methodological and substantive aspects of future participatory action research with self-help/mutual aid organizations for psychiatric consumer/survivors.     

Effects of Self-Monitoring on On-Task Behaviors of At-Risk Middle School Students

The purposes of this study were to evaluate the effects of self-monitoring on increasing the on-task behaviors of four at-risk middle school students, and to examine its indirect effects on academic performance. Additionally, we attempted to develop and validate cost- and time-efficient procedures that typical classroom teachers could use. The data from a multiple baseline design across three academic settings, replicated with four students, revealed immediate increases in on-task behavior as each student began to self-monitor in each sequential setting. The data also revealed slightly higher levels of academic performance and, in most instances, gradually accelerating trends. These findings suggest that self-monitoring is a cost- and time-efficient procedure that classroom teachers can use to teach at-risk students to manage their own behaviors.     

Doing as Death Demands: encountering crisis in the context of migration

This article concerns the role and significance of religion in the lives of two South Asian migrant groups in the town of Walsall, West Midlands. Many studies dealing with ethnic group dynamics have seen religion solely in terms of its ability to answer needs and serve purposes and, consequently, religion is represented as a passive cultural object that is shaped and manipulated by external forces. Such perspectives do not take account of the fact that religion is also a source of value and meaning, often of ultimate value and meaning, which can determine group behaviour and identity. As an active rather than passive participant in the migration experience, religion interacts with other elements of the ethnic tradition in order to regulate and shape the changes made necessary by the new environment. The article seeks to demonstrate that interactive process by focusing on the experience that members of these two ethno‐religious groups have had of dealing with death. The double crisis experience of death in a strange land provides an intense context in which to study the interaction between needs, resources and values.     

Understanding Attributions of Blame in Stranger Rape and Date Rape Situations: An Examination of Gender,Race, Identification,and Students' Social Perceptions of Rape Victims1

This study examined factors that may influence attributions of rape victims. Three hundred and three university students completed a questionnaire, which included a measure of dispositional empathy and a vignette depicted either a date rape or a stranger rape situation. Subjects rated the extent that they blamed the rape victim as well as the degree to which they identified with the victim and perpetrator. Results indicated that male students blamed the victim to a greater extent than did female students; students consistently attributed more blame to the victim in date rape situations than they did in stranger rape situations; and, while empathy was not associated with students' attributions, perceptions of similarity to the rape victim and perpetrator were both related to attributions of blame. These findings are consistent with the notion of “judgmental leniency” presented in Shaver's defensive attribution theory (1970). Implications for rape prevention efforts and future research are also discussed.     

Effects of maternal distraction and reprimands on toddlers' transgressions and negative affect

Misbehaviors occur at a high rate during the toddler years, and parents use a variety of methods to control these behaviors. The present investigation compared the effectiveness of two commonly used strategies, distraction and reprimands. Twenty mothers and their 17- to 39-month-old children were observed in a laboratory setting in which mothers used either distraction then reprimands or reprimands followed by distraction in response to their children's transgressions. When reprimands were used as the initial strategy, they were significantly more effective than distraction in controlling children's transgressions. Distraction was effective in maintaining low rates of transgression when preceded by a period of reprimands. However, when reprimands were instituted following a period of distraction, children's rates of negative affect increased significantly. Implications for the etiology and management of child behavior problems are discussed.     

Within-family reproductive technologies as a solution to childlessness due to infertility: Psychological issues and interventions

Patients choosing new reproductive technologies benefit from psychological consultation as they face unforeseen emotional and interpersonal sequalae from these procedures. This paper focuses on those patients who choose family members or close friends (i.e., known donors) to donate sperm or eggs or uteri in order to conceive and produce their babies. Medical family therapy offers these patients and families a framework from which to examine the biological, psychological, and interpersonal issues involved in these within-family solutions to childlessness due to infertility.This paper is a revision of a talk, Medical Family Therapy, Infertility, and the New Reproductive Technologies, given at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on August 4 in Los Angeles, CA, as part of the Mini-convention on Families panel on Clinical Issues in Families and Health.     

THEORETICAL,PRACTICAL, AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN BEHAVIORAL TREATMENTS OF OBESITY

Although showing superior maintenance, behavioral treatments of obesity typically produce small weight losses at a decelerating rate. Rather than reflecting poor compliance with treatment, these findings are consistent with known compensatory metabolic changes that operate to slow weight loss and promote regain. Other problems associated with dieting include failure of caloric regulation, hyper-responsivity to food palatability, and hunger, which is greatest under conditions of moderate restriction and unpredictability of access to food. The inevitability of treatment failure in many instances must be faced and efforts made to prevent further worsening of the obese patient's self-esteem. Prognosis and treatment planning may be aided by consideration of the historical difficulties of weight loss, the degree of hunger experienced on diets, which may reflect important physiological differences among individuals, and the use of food to optimize arousal level. Full involvement of the patient in setting goals and planning treatment is recommended.     

Some further tests of the brief confinement effect and the SSDR account of flooding

Although brief confinement in novel or fearful places may occasionally produce flooding-like effects with regard to hastening avoidance response extinction, the results of the three experiments reported here indicate that this is not as robust a phenomenon as is flooding. Experiments 1 and 2 found that any tendency for a brief confinement effect to occur is likely to result from the use of a procedure where extinction is started on the grid floor as opposed to on the ledge of a jump-up box. Experiment 3 found no evidence at all that confinement in either a novel or a fearful place can hasten the extinction of a more well-learned jump-up response than that studied in previous experiments, even when the grids extinction procedure was used. Overall these results do not support the SSDR account of flooding, which has derived its chief support from experiments demonstrating a brief confinement effect.