Political families in therapy: The impact of media coverage and therapeutic issues

Many political families are ultra cautious about seeking therapy because of the stigma it carries in the political arena. Various cases on record show where an aspiring political candidate's chances to run for high elected office were destroyed because of publicity over her or his involvement in therapy. Nonetheless, members of families in politics do seek treatment and bring with them their idiosyncratic circumstances. This article attempts to provide an interior view of the politician's family life as seen in the therapist's sanctuary and a consideration of how media coverage may impact politician and family. Clinical data and information from interviews with six acquaintances whose main occupation is politics are presented. It is hoped that the data will enable therapists to understand and treat political families more effectively.Florence Kaslow, PhD, is director of Florida Couples and Family Institute in West Palm Beach. She is a visiting professor of medical psychology in psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and a visiting professor of psychology at Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL.     

The relationship between counsellor interpersonal skills and the core conditions of client-centred counselling

The present study aimed to determine whether there was a systematic relationship between Rogers'(1957) core conditions of empathy, acceptance and genuineness, and counsellors' use of specific behaviours or skills which have been isolated for training. Video recordings of 12 counsellors' performance in 'naturalistic' counselling interactions were analysed. Counsellor, client and judges' ratings of the core conditions were obtained. Skill assessment included molar ratings of eight skill areas and molecular measures of 29 behaviours. The results indicated that there were few significant relationships. It is concluded that there is a discrepancy between specification of the skills or behaviours which are thought to communicate the core conditions and those which have been empirically demonstrated to do so. Implications for counsellor training and proposals for future research are discussed.     

Parallel distributed processing and neuropsychology: A neural network model of Wisconsin card sorting and verbal fluency

Neural networks can be used as a tool in the explanation of neuropsychological data. Using the Hebbian Learning Rule and other such principles as competition and modifiable interlevel feedback, researchers have successfully modeled a widely used neuropsychological test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. One of these models is reviewed here and extended to a qualitative analysis of how verbal fluency might be modeled, which demonstrates the importance of accounting for the attentional components of both tests. Difficulties remain in programming sequential cognitive processes within a parallel distributed processing (PDP) framework and integrating exceedingly complex neuropsychological tests such as Proverbs. PDP neural network methodology offers neuropsychologists co-validation procedures within narrowly defined areas of reliability and validity.     

Extinction instead of incubation following classical aversive conditioning in dogs.

Two dogs received a single paired classical conditioning trial, with tone CS and 12 mA shock US. Both dogs then showed a conditioned blood pressure increase in response to the nonreinforced CS, which extinguished with additional nonreinforced presentations. The CR showed spontaneous recovery four days later, but reextinguished with additional nonreinforced presentations. The results were interpreted as not supporting Eysenck's theory of "incubation" following one-trial aversive conditioning.     

Comparison of simultaneous prompting and constant time delay procedures in teaching sight words to elementary students with moderate mental retardation

Simultaneous prompting (a type of antecedent prompt and test procedure) and constant time delay were compared with four students with moderate mental retardation learning expressive sight words. A parallel treatments design across word sets and replicated across students was used. For acquisition, the simultaneous prompting procedures required fewer trials, sessions, and training time to criterion and resulted in fewer student errors during daily probe and training sessions. However, maintenance data indicated mixed results across the two procedures. Reliability data (both dependent and independent variables) revealed no differences between the two procedures in terms of the teacher's accuracy in recording student responses and implementing each procedure. Future research issues are discussed.