The Newly Widowed Employee

Although significant numbers of the recently widowed are in the labor force, little attention has been directed to how employment counselors, supervisors, personnel managers, and colleagues can be more supportive to grieving employees and maintain harmony, productivity, and employer-employee satisfaction. This article outlines normal reactions to the death of a spouse, the needs and problems of the newly widowed, and techniques of helping the recently bereaved worker. The author discusses the benefits of those involved in counseling, supervising, or advising employees in terms of investment in employee productivity, good personnel practices, and improving human relations.     

New Procedures for Analyzing Relational Communication

The purpose of this paper is to present a system for describing and indexing patterns of communication at the relational level, primarily in dyadic systems. Relational communication refers to the control aspects of message exchanges that define an interactor's relationships with others. The reciprocal definition of each individual's role at a given moment in the interaction is reflected in the relative control each individual has and/or is given by the other individual. The control-defining aspects of communication, rather than other information such communication may convey, is the focus of the coding system to be described. Further, the analysis deals with sequences of messages rather than individual messages, and attempts to index the control dimensions of those messages according to their similarity or difference. While previous interaction analysis techniques have been predominantly monadic in nature, i.e., single-message coding schemes, the present approach is based on a systems level of analysis. ¹ 1 See Rogers ( 9 ) for a detailed review and critique of existing interaction coding schemes.
     

Religion and Health: Holistic Wellness From the Perspective of Two African American Church Denominations

This study examined differences in beliefs, concerns, practices, and perceptions of susceptibility to illness by gender and religion in 2 Baptist and 3 Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) African American churches. A modified Health Belief Model Questionnaire was completed by 363 African Americans. Health beliefs were more related to gender than to religion. Results revealed that women were concerned about being ill, being susceptible to illness, and expressed confidence in doctors. Men exercised more frequently, were sick less, and felt less susceptible to illness. SDAs believed in following a certain diet and avoiding alcohol and cigarettes. SDA women and Baptist men thought more about health than did SDA men or Baptist women.     

Reaction to Gunnison's Article on the Similarities Between Erickson and Rogers

Rogers and Erickson had no direct contact with each other's work. Whatever similarities exist developed independently. Rogers stresses his reliance on an intuitive relationship to the client's inner core and discusses the basis for this intuition. He also relies on a fundamental directional tendency which exists in every person. He trusts the client to choose his or her own goals. In these respects he sees some similarities between himself and Erickson, confirming Gunnison's points and going beyond them.     

Suicide and Alcohol: Conceptualizing the Relationship From a Cognitive-Social Paradigm

This article presents a formulation of the association between alcohol consumption and suicidal behavior derived from recent advances in the area of social cognition. It is suggested that the social cognitive mechanism of alcohol-induced myopia may serve an important role in developing a comprehensive conceptualization of the alcohol-suicide relationship. Implications for practitioners and ethical considerations of further research in this area are discussed.     

Female Suicide: The Trend Toward Increased Lethality in Method of Choice and Its Implications

Results of recent analyses of statistics on suicide in the United States have documented a trend toward increased lethality in the method of choice in female suicides. A brief review of this research is presented, and its implications for female suicidal risk assessment are discussed.     

The Other Philosophy Club: America's First Academic Women Philosophers

Recent research on women philosophers has led to more discussion of the merits of many previously forgotten women in the past several years. Yet due to the fact that a thinker's significance and influence are historical phenomena, women remain relatively absent in “mainstream” discussions of philosophy. This paper focuses on several successful academic women in American philosophy and takes notice of how they succeeded in their own era. Special attention is given to three important academic women philosophers: Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot , and Marietta Kies.