Together or Apart

Psychotherapists often mistake their theories for realities that they are not and thus may operate with an overly confident sense of "knowing" what is true about a particular couple relationship. Many schools of therapy tend to "pathologize" the dynamics of couple interaction and practitioners need to guard against being too inducted into any one world view. Facility with the theories and techniques of many different couples counseling strategies (psychodynamic, behavioral, structural and strategic approaches) can increase flexibility and the "working base" of therapists. Ultimately, however, the personhood of therapists, their awareness of their own biases (about levels of connection, emotional expressivity, feminism, or power relationships) and their ability to adopt a neutral, therapeutic stance are the essential ingredients for meaningful and curative couples counseling.     

Singing Our Own Song

ABSTRACT

The demands of managed care and concurrent trends in our society challenge us to assert the crucial role of treating relationships and of pursuing the development of deepened self understanding in our patients and ourselves. In the name of speed, efficiency and cost containment too much that is healing can be undervalued and unreim-bursed. We must find ways to facilitate change in our patients through the treatment of their important relationships and through encouraging them to take the time for sensitive self confrontation and exploration.     

Using Genograms Creatively to Promote Healthy Lifestyles

ABSTRACT

Family therapists have used Genograms as an assessment tool for years to examine the interactions and relationships of family members across generations. This article discusses how a therapist can use a genogram creatively to help clients examine the impact of family relationships on healthy and unhealthy lifestyle patterns and how those relationships may be influencing the manner in which clients are currently managing their lives. The integration of a creative genogram can assist clients in recognizing inherited health-disease risks, learned lifestyle patterns, and parental behavior modeling. This technique can assist clients in developing a healthier lifestyle.     

Community,Affect, and Family Relations: A Cross-Cultural Study of Spiritual Resiliency in Eight Old Women

ABSTRACT

Paying attention to emotionally resilient persons is long overdue, particularly resilient old persons. Because seniors frequently cite religious faith as a primary source of strength during difficult losses and transitions, we asked how old women might be empowered by their spirituality to transcend significant losses and traumatic family events. Using triangulated methods, a feminist perspective and symbolic interactionism, we conducted focus groups and eight in-depth interviews with women over 65 in the United States and Germany. Themes of community, affect, and relationality occurred repeatedly in the narratives, revealing both unique and universal aspects of the women's spiritualities and confirming the centrality of religion as a neglected factor in family studies research.     

The power of one: benefits of individual self-expansion

The self-expansion model suggests that the acquisition of new identities, capabilities, perspectives, and resources primarily occurs in the context of romantic relationships and that self-expanding activities have numerous benefits for relationships. However, self-expansion can theoretically occur outside of a relational context, yet little is known about the benefits of self-expanding activities for individuals. Across six experimental studies, we examined: (1) whether nonrelational novel, exciting, and interesting activities produce self-expansion and (2) whether engaging in nonrelational self-expanding activities results in greater exerted effort. In Studies 1 and 2, individuals who engaged in novel, exciting, and interesting activities experienced greater self-expansion than those who engaged in control activities. In Studies 3–6, individuals who engaged in high self-expanding activities exerted more effort on cognitive and physical tasks than those who engaged in low self-expanding activities, and this effect was not due to depleted self-regulatory resources, altered mood, or changes in self-esteem (Studies 5 and 6).     

Making it last: Combating hedonic adaptation in romantic relationships

Increasing evidence that positive affect enhances associative processing has lent weight to the idea that positive affect increases false memory for information that is thematically interrelated. Using the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm, we examined whether mild positive affect facilitates monitoring processes in modulating false memory for associate words. When participants in the warned condition – in contrast to those in the unwarned condition – were overtly warned about possible false recognition of the critical lure, we found that positive affect, compared to neutral affect, significantly enhanced monitoring through a warning and reduced false recognition. Signal detection analyses suggest that when a warning is provided, positive affect enhances sensitivity to discriminate list items from critical lures, but it does not shift the overall decision criterion. Taken together, we conclude that positive affect facilitates the effect of a warning in reducing false memories for semantic associates.     

关系模式框架下的具身社会关系

具身认知受到越来越多关注, 社会心理学家认为社会关系与个体水平的认知一样都包含了具身方面, 这一问题最直接的解释框架是关系模式理论(Smith, 2008)。Fiske认为人类有4种基本关系类型：公共共享(CS)、等级排序(AR)、平等匹配(EM)和市场定价(MP), 前三种都是具身的, 与不同的具身线索存在联系, 也得到了实证支持。当前具身社会关系研究存在不足, 例如解释范围有限、缺乏整合和深入研究等。未来可以从婴幼儿的发展性研究等入手。     

Le Questionnaire sur les structures relationnelles : adaptation et validation de la version française du Experiences in Close Relationships–Relationship Structures Questionnaire

Introduction and objectivesThe Relationship Structures Questionnaire (ECR-RS), developed by Fraley, Heffernan, Vicary, et Brumbaugh (2011), measures a central construct commonly studied in the field of interpersonal relationships: one's specific attachment to a person. The objective of the two studies was to translate, adapt and validate a French version of the ECR-RS in the romantic relationship context.MethodData were collected from 110 French-speaking couples (Study 1) and 281 French-speaking students (Study 2). To evaluate the validity of the French version presented here, we investigated the factor structure, reliability (internal consistency and temporal stability), content validity, and concurrent validity.Results and conclusionResults support the French version presented here while revealing that the elimination of items 5 and 6 of the avoidance dimension is necessary for good psychometric properties. This adapted and validated version of the ECR-RS may be used for research with French-speaking populations.     

A Seat at the Table: Using Social Media as a Platform to Resolve Microaggressions Against Transgender Persons

Transgender, gender variant, and/or gender nonconforming persons are marginalized and pathologized in society and communities. The advent and widespread use of social media introduce an entirely new avenue of expression where cyber bullying and verbal assaults are common. Yet, social media also has the capacity to reach more people in more places, thus presenting a potentially powerful platform for advocacy. Grounded in digital critical participatory action research, the authors present a multimedia advocacy project that highlights advocacy strategies in which counselors can utilize social media to raise awareness, promote inclusion, and resolve microaggressions toward transgender persons.