Parental reflective functioning is associated with tolerance of infant distress but not general distress: Evidence for a specific relationship using a simulated baby paradigm

Parental reflective functioning represents the capacity of a parent to think about their own and their child's mental states and how these mental states may influence behavior. Here we examined whether this capacity as measured by the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire relates to tolerance of infant distress by asking mothers (N = 21) to soothe a life-like baby simulator (BSIM) that was inconsolable, crying for a fixed time period unless the mother chose to stop the interaction. Increasing maternal interest and curiosity in their child's mental states, a key feature of parental reflective functioning, was associated with longer persistence times with the BSIM. Importantly, on a non-parent distress tolerance task, parental reflective functioning was not related to persistence times. These findings suggest that parental reflective functioning may be related to tolerance of infant distress, but not distress tolerance more generally, and thus may reflect specificity to persistence behaviors in parenting contexts.     

Is family-to-work interference related to co-workers' work outcomes?

Previous studies have convincingly shown that employees' family lives can affect their work outcomes. We investigate whether family-to-work interference (FWI) experienced by the employee also affects the work outcomes of a co-worker. We predict that the employee's FWI has an effect on the co-worker's outcomes through the crossover of positive and negative work attitudes. Using a sample of 1430 co-worker dyads, we found that the employee's FWI had a positive relationship with the co-worker's sickness absence through the crossover of feelings of burnout. Similarly, employee FWI was positively related to co-worker turnover intention through the crossover of (reduced) work engagement. The results show that family matters at work, affecting not only employee but also co-worker work outcomes.     

Defining recovery from an eating disorder: Conceptualization, validation, and examination of psychosocial functioning and psychiatric comorbidity

Conceptually, eating disorder recovery should include physical, behavioral, and psychological components, but such a comprehensive approach has not been consistently employed. Guided by theory and recent recovery research, we identified a “fully recovered” group (n = 20) based on physical (body mass index), behavioral (absence of eating disorder behaviors), and psychological (Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire) indices, and compared them with groups of partially recovered (n = 15), active eating disorder (n = 53), and healthy controls (n = 67). The fully recovered group was indistinguishable from controls on all eating disorder-related measures used, while the partially recovered group was less disordered than the active eating disorder group on some measures, but not on body image. Regarding psychosocial functioning, both the fully and partially recovered groups had psychosocial functioning similar to the controls, but there was a pattern of more of the partially recovered group reporting eating disorder aspects interfering with functioning. Regarding other psychopathology, the fully recovered group was no more likely than the controls to experience current Axis I pathology, but they did have elevated rates of current anxiety disorder. Results suggest that a stringent definition of recovery from an eating disorder is meaningful. Clinical implications and future directions regarding defining eating disorder recovery are discussed.     

Validation of the Norwegian version of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Hellvin, T., Sundet, K.,Vaskinn, A., Simonsen, C.,Ueland, T., Andreassen, O.A. & Melle, I. (2010). Validation of the Norwegian version of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 51, 525–533. Studies of social functioning in severe mental disorders are disadvantaged by the multitude of different assessment instruments in use. The present study aims to establish reliability and validity of the Norwegian version of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) and to examine social functioning in bipolar disorder (BD) compared to schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC). SFS, a 76 item questionnaire divided into seven subscales measuring various aspects of daily life functioning, was administered to samples diagnosed with BD (n = 100) or SZ (n = 100) and to HC (n = 100), recruited from the ongoing Tematic Organized Psychosis (TOP) study. Reliability analyses prove adequate psychometric properties both for the composite full scale score (α: 0.81) as well as for the seven subscale scores (α: 0.60–0.88). Principal component analysis of the subscales confirms a one‐component structure, explaining 59% of the variance. Although significantly correlated with the Global Assessment of Functioning, our results indicate that the SFS measures different aspects of social functioning, is less influenced by demographic and clinical characteristics, but differentiates at the same time significantly BD from SZ. Thus, SFS adds valuable information as a supplement to standard clinician‐rated assessment tools of social functioning, suited both for research and clinical work.     

Thematic review of family therapy journals 2009

In this article the contents of the principal English‐language family therapy journals published in 2009 are reviewed under these headings: narrative therapy, child‐focused problems, adult‐focused problems, substance abuse across the lifespan, illness across the lifespan, family violence, couples, diversity, developments in systemic practice, training and research.     

A taste of reflecting practice

This article describes a training exercise in which students who are new to systemic practice but have some experience in therapeutic work in other modalities were invited to experience reflecting practice. The students were asked to follow a role‐played therapy session by offering reflections on the connections felt to a ‘family’ member. The students stood beside the ‘family member’, reflected on the problems and accounted for the connections felt in terms of particular resonances felt. The students thus experienced a therapeutic use of self congruent with the reflecting team approach and the therapeutic position adopted in reflecting practice.     

Validation of a 28‐item version of the Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation in an Irish context: the SCORE‐28

This article describes the development, in an Irish context, of a three‐factor, twenty‐eight‐item version of the Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation (SCORE) questionnaire for assessing progress in family therapy. The forty‐ item version of the SCORE was administered to over 700 Irish participants including non‐clinical adolescents and young adults, families attending family therapy, and parents of young people with physical and intellectual disabilities and cystic fibrosis. For validation purposes, data were also collected using brief measures of family and personal adjustment. A twenty‐eight‐item version of the SCORE (the SCORE‐28) containing three factor scales that assess family strengths, difficulties and communication was identified through exploratory principal components analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the factor structure of the SCORE‐28 was stable. The SCORE‐28 and its three factor scales were shown to have excellent internal consistency reliability, satisfactory test‐retest reliability and construct validity. The SCORE‐28 scales correlated highly with the General Functioning Scale of the Family Assessment Device, and moderately with the Global Assessment of Relational Functioning Scale, the Kansas Marital and Parenting Satisfaction Scales, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Mental Health Inventory – 5, and the total problems scale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Correlational analyses also showed that the SCORE‐28 scales were not strongly associated with demographic characteristics or social desirability response set. The SCORE‐28 may routinely be administered to literate family members aged over 12 years before and after family therapy to evaluate therapy outcome.     

癌症患者临床决策倾向性的研究

为了解癌症患者对医生、自己和家属意见的临床决策倾向性,采取问卷调查和半结构访谈相结合的方法,调查120例住院癌症患者的临床决策倾向性。结果显示,(1)生活习惯相关决策,实际和理想的患者自己倾向性构成比值最高,为40%和33%;求医行为方面家属最高,实际和理想均为50%;常规检查、总体治疗方案、手术、化疗和放疗相关决策方面均为医生最高,分别为100%、90%、100%、90%和100%;(2)癌症患者理想和实际的临床决策倾向性构成比值均无差异(P0.05),但访谈显示29.17%的患者认为目前决策状态不理想。提示:(1)癌症患者在不同方面的临床决策倾向性有所不同。(2)癌症患者对临床决策状态基本满意,但有患者希望医生参与沟通更多或自己参与更多。     

家庭功能：理论、影响因素及其与青少年社会适应的关系

该文综述了中西方近20年有关家庭功能的定义、理论、影响因素及家庭功能与青少年社会适应关系的研究进展。有关家庭功能的理论可以分为两大类：以家庭发展结果为取向和以家庭发展过程为取向的家庭功能理论。现有研究主要探讨了家庭结构、社会经济地位、家庭关系、发展阶段、生活事件等对家庭功能的影响,并发现家庭功能与青少年的社会适应有着非常密切的关系。文章最后分析了已有家庭功能理论及相关研究的不足,并指出了未来家庭功能领域的研究方向。