The Slovak-American “Swaddling Ethos”: Homeostat for Family Dynamics and Cultural Continuity

This paper explores the systemic relationships among cultural ethos, family dynamics, personality configuration, and child-rearing patterns among multi-generation Slovak-Americans. The “swaddling ethos” is posited to serve as a homeostat whose regulatory function can be discerned through the analysis of family structure and process, in particular through the explication of values, affective patterns, roles, boundaries, and structural units within the family. The core of the ethos is a dependency-security complex that attaches the individual to an extended family network of obligation, indebtedness, and reciprocity (ethnic, Slovak); induces rebellion against such attachment (mainstream, American); and undermines efforts toward separation-individuation, resulting in the perpetuation of an ethnic tradition.     

A Religiously Oriented Group Counseling Intervention for Self-Defeating Perfectionism: A Pilot Study

This article briefly describes a group counseling intervention we used with devout Mormon college students who were struggling with issues of perfectionism. The treatment package contained several religious and spiritual interventions including religious imagery, religious bibliotherapy assignments, and discussions about religious concepts of perfection. Group participants scored lower on depression and perfectionism, and higher on self-esteem, existential well-being, and religious well-being at the conclusion of the group. The favorable results of this pilot study will hopefully provide incentive for researchers to further evaluate religiously oriented treatment approaches for perfectionism.     

A randomized study of the impact of a sensitizing intervention on the child‐rearing attitudes of parents of low birth weight preterm infants

Nordhov, S. M., Kaaresen, P. I., Rønning, J. A., Ulvund, S. E. & Dahl, L. B. (2010). A randomized study of the impact of a sensitizing intervention on the child‐rearing attitudes of parents of low birth weight preterm infants. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 385–391. The background for this study was that nurturant child‐rearing attitudes are associated with positive development in low birth weight (LBW) infants. The objective was to study child‐rearing attitudes and early intervention (EI) in parents of LBW infants from 12–36 months corrected age. LBW infants (BW < 2000 g) were randomized to an intervention (IG) or a control group (CG). The EI consisted of seven in‐hospital sessions prior to discharge, then four home visits. A Child Rearing Practices Report was administered at 12 (mothers only), 24 and 36 months. A total of 146 infants were randomized. The mean BW in IG was 1396 (SD 429) g and 1381 (436) g in CG. The mean GA was 30.2 (3.1) weeks in IG and 29.9 (3.5) weeks in CG. Mothers in IG reported significantly more nurturant child‐rearing attitudes at 12 and 24 months. There was a significant change in restrictive and nurturant attitudes over time. It was concluded that EI may lead to more nurturant child‐rearing attitudes in mothers of preterms.     

Father regression Clinical narratives and theoretical reflections1

The author deals with love‐hate enthrallment and submission to a primitive paternal object. This is a father‐son relationship that extends through increasing degrees of ‘primitiveness’ or extremeness, and is illustrated through three different constellations that constitute a continuum. One pole of the continuum encompasses certain male patients who show a loving, de‐individuated connection to a father experienced as trustworthy, soft, and in need of protection. Further along the continuum is the case of a transsexual patient whose analysis revealed an intense ‘God‐transference’, a bondage to an idealized, feared, and ostensibly protective father‐God introject. A great part of this patient's analysis consisted in a fi erce struggle to liberate himself from this fi gure. The other end of the continuum is occupied by religious terrorists, who exemplify the most radical thralldom to a persecutory, godly object, a regressive submission that banishes woman and enthrones a cruel superego, and that ends in destruction and self‐destruction. Psychoanalytic thinking has traditionally dealt with the oedipal father and recently with the nurturing father, but there is a gap in thinking about the phallic, archaic father, and his relations with his son(s). The author aims at fi lling this gap, at the same time as she also raises the very question of ‘What is a father?’ linking it with literary and religious themes.