The Treatment of Violence and Victimization in Intimate Relationships

This essay presents an analysis of violence in intimate life that draws on multiple theoretical perspectives. These include but are not limited to feminist theory, object relations theory, systems theory, narrative and social constructionist theory, and neurobiology. It is argued that it is possible to be effective in ending violence and abuse through a modified couples treatment format that addresses relationship issues, individual trauma, and biological vulnerability while simultaneously taking a clear, moral position that violence, abuse, and inequality are intolerable in any form.     

Feminism and Family Therapy

Feminism has had a profound effect on contemporary culture and on thinking in most academic fields, including psychoanalysis. Interestingly, until very recently it had made virtually no impact on the theory and practice of family therapy. This paper proposes an explanation for this peculiar phenomenon and argues that family therapy has been considerably handicapped by its insularity from the feminist critique. Utilizing feminist scholarship in psychoanalysis, history, and sociology, the paper analyzes the structural contradictions in family life that family therapists have essentially ignored and then outlines their clinical implications. Key points in the discussion include the argument that systems theory is an inadequate explanatory matrix from which to build a theory of the family, that the archetypal "family case" of the overinvolved mother and peripheral father is best understood, not as a clinical problem, but as the product of a historical process two hundred years in the making, and that power relations between men and women in families function in terms of paradoxical, incongruous hierarchies that reflect the complex interpenetration between the structure of family relations and the world of work. This conceptual model then provides the basis for an analysis and critique of sexual politics as they emerge in the prototypical clinical situation.     

Australian Aborigine: Transition in Family Grouping

In the brief period of fifty years, under the tutelage of the missionaries, there has been a marked transition of family structure in one group of Australian Aborigines from polygynous to monogamous. Those who are now middle-aged have lived as man and wife in Western-style nuclear families. Presently, however, there is a tendency for the youth not to marry but for the young women to incorporate their offspring into the household of their monogamous parents. A matrilocal pattern is developing that has the potential for matriarchal dominance. Some of the forces contributing to these changes are discussed. Several parallels with transitions in American minority family groupings are presented.     

SEX ROLE STEREOTYPING,ABILITY AND PERFORMANCE: PRIOR RESEARCH AND NEW DIRECTIONS1

Although there is a reasonable body of research pointing up the negative impact of sex role stereotypical thinking on selection decisions, limited attention has been paid to the impact of such thinking on the perceived and actual performance of women in management. Among the suggested new research avenues are the ways in which sex role stereotypical thinking impacts on organizational factors, such as through differential placement, tokenism and supervisory bias, so as to impair on-the-job performance. Furthermore, it is argued that the relationship between power and political behavior and effective managerial performance needs examination, with particular emphasis on the way in which sex role stereotypical thinking may limit a woman manager's opportunity to acquire or utilize work-related power acquisition behaviors.     

POWER STRATEGIES IN ORGANIZATIONS

Two studies examined subordinate perceptions fo their own and their supervisors' use of behavior alteration techniques and the relationships between such use and subordinate satisfaction. The results indicated that subordinates seldom use most of the techniques in their interactions with their supervisors, but when they do they favor use of Expert and Self-Esteem approaches. Supervisors were found to use most frequently the techniques labeled Expert, Self-Esteem, Reward from Behavior, Legitimate-Higher Authority, and Personal Responsibility. Strong, positive relationships between supervisor and subordinate use of the individual techniques studied were obtained, suggesting a possible modeling effect within the organization. Almost all of the significant correlations between use of individual techniques and subordinate satisfaction with supervision were negative, suggesting the possibility that increased attempts at behavioral alteration stem from subordinate dissatisfaction or lead to that dissatisfaction.     

Generation and Gender: Normative and Covert Hierarchies

This essay argues that gender is an irreducible category of clinical observation and theorizing, as crucial to the family therapy paradigm as the concept of "generation." Gender, therefore, is not a secondary, mediating variable like race, class, or ethnicity, but, rather, a fundamental, organizing principle of all family systems. The author analyzes the history and politics of family therapy in order to explicate how gender, as a co-equal concept, was erased as a universal principle of family organization, leaving only generation. The theoretical and clinical implications of situating gender at the center of family therapy are then discussed.     

The Undecided Student: A Developmental Perspective

Student indecision regarding careers and college majors has been the focus of research studies for more than 50 years. Yet these students have indicated few significant differences between undecided and decided students. This article portrays undecided students as normal, growing, predictable individuals in various stages of vocational and cognitive development and discusses the use of developmental concepts in academic advising, career counseling, teaching, and administration.     

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AMONG EMPLOYEES,MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION STYLE,AND EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION: REPLICATION AND EXTENSION

Portions of three previous studies relating individual differences in employee satisfaction and one study relating Management Communication Style (MCS) to employee satisfaction were replicated across four organizational contexts. Major findings were supportive of the generalizability of the results observed in the previous studies. The interface of superior-subordinate relations and their impact on employee satisfaction were examined through perceptions of employees with regard to the MCS of upper management and the task behaviors (supervision and administration) of their immediate superiors. Results were supportive of the MCS conceptualization and indicated that MCS of immediate superior and MCS of upper management had their primary impact on different dimensions of employee satisfaction. Perceptions of superiors' task behaviors were found to have different impact on employees satisfaction for different organizational contexts. Variability in employee satisfaction predictable from individual employee differences and that predictable from superior-subordinate interface were found to have little overlap. It is recommended that both the individual differences (trait) and superior-subordinate interface (situational) approaches to the study of communication in organizational contexts be continued since the two generate independent predictions of unique variance.