The Relationship Among Major Depression, Depressive Symptoms, and Self-Preoccupation

The present study investigates whether highly self-preoccupied people (exhibiting a tendency to focus primarily on the self and to maintain self-focused attention) were more likely to experience major depressive episodes (MDEs) than those without such tendencies. One hundred nineteen young community residents, aged 18 to 21, took part in semistructured interviews, during which we investigated their past and present history of mental illness, including MDEs, as delineated by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed. rev.; DSM-III-R). Self-preoccupation was measured by the Self-Preoccupation Scale (SPS). Of the 119 participants interviewed, the lowest and highest quarters in the SPS scores formed the low- and high-self-preoccupation (SP) groups. The lifetime prevalence of the DSM-III-R MDE was significantly greater among those high in SP than in the low SP group. Moreover, the high-SP group had significantly more depressive symptoms than the low-SP group. The contributory role of self-preoccupation to suicide ideation and the interpersonal aspects of self-preoccupation were discussed.     

Rethinking a Familiar Model: Psychotherapy and the Mental Health of Refugees

This paper examines with a somewhat critical eye the primary role that psychotherapy and other clinic-based services currently play in addressing the mental health needs of political refugees in the industrialized countries. Two factors are considered which suggest that refugee mental health needs might be better served by complementing clinic-based treatments with a variety of community-based interventions. The first factor concerns the pervasiveness of psychological distress within refugee communities, coupled with the reluctance of many refugees to utilize formal psychological and psychiatric services. This calls into question both the adequacy and appropriateness of clinical-based services as cornerstones of our response to the mental health needs of refugees. More precisely, it suggests the need to complement such services with a variety of culturally grounded, community-based strategies that do not require attendance in formal mental health settings. Second, recent findings have shown consistently that a considerable amount of the distress reported by refugees is related not to prior exposure to violent events, but to a constellation of exile-related stressors such as the loss of one's community and social network, the loss of important life projects, changes in socioeconomic status and related concerns about economic survival, the loss of meaningful structure and activity in daily life, and the loss of meaningful social roles. It is suggested that while psychotherapy can play an important adjunctive role in helping people confront these exile-related stressors, they may most effectively be addressed through targeted community-based interventions. Examples of such community-based approaches are briefly described, and suggestions are offered for community-level strategies that might be explored. The paper concludes by emphasizing the complementary nature of clinical and community-based programs, and by suggesting that psychotherapy might best be conceptualized as one component of a more comprehensive approach to addressing the mental health needs of refugee communities.     

Instrumental and expressive violence in Belgian homicide perpetrators

The present study aimed to examine offender types in a sample of Belgian single‐perpetrator/single‐victim homicide cases. First, it was investigated if the distinction between instrumental and expressive aggression could be documented in crime scene and offender background characteristics. Second, the instrumental and expressive themes from the first analysis were examined in relation to the motives the perpetrators themselves provided for their offence. A sample of 97 solved homicide cases was analysed using the non‐metric multidimensional scaling procedure Proxscal. The results revealed that 62% of the homicide crime scenes and 67% of the offender backgrounds could be classified as either expressive or instrumental. The self‐reported motives did not correspond with the themes according to the Proxscal analysis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The specifi city of torture as trauma: The human wilderness when words fail1

The author attempts to situate the specifi city of torture‐understood as the product of political violence and of totalitarian states‐within the historical framework of the concept of trauma in psychoanalysis. When the mind and social ties are simultaneously affected, the intrapsychic and transpersonal aspects of the suffered damage intertwine in a complex and unique web. The author aims to dismantle the notion of victim, considering it both stigmatizing and inaccurate. The goal is not just to identify the after‐effects and the disabilities suffered by those affected by torture, but also to integrate their experiences and their narratives into a life project. Rather than individual psychopathology, this essay refl ects upon those phenomena of suggestion and hypnosis that are at work in human groups under ordinary conditions and that are exacerbated under social crises, following the Freudian axis developed in Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.     

Shared Communities: A Multinational Qualitative Study of Immigrant and Receiving Community Members

Community psychology is central to understanding how immigrants and more established residents of their new settings join together to develop a shared sense of community and membership. In our present study, we explored how newer (i.e., first‐ and second‐generation immigrants) and more established community members form multiple positive psychological sense of community (PSOC) with one another. We conducted a multinational, qualitative study of PSOC through interviews with 201 first‐ and second‐generation immigrants and third generation or more “receiving community members” in three contexts (Baltimore‐Washington corridor of the U.S.; Torino, Italy; Lecce, Italy). Results indicated numerous similarities among the ways in which participants constructed PSOC in shared and nonshared communities, regardless of immigration/citizenship status, length of community residence, city, country, age, or gender. Small, proximal, and salient communities were often particularly important to building positive PSOC, which was formed around diverse membership boundaries. As intersectional beings, members converged and diverged on many characteristics, providing multiple opportunities for members to bring diversity to their communities while sharing other characteristics deemed essential to membership. Nonetheless, findings point to significant, structural challenges rooted in power and privilege that must be confronted to bridge the community‐diversity dialectic and build strong, shared sense of community.     

The Effect of Social and Situational Factors on the Intended Response to Aggression Among Adolescents

ABSTRACT

In this study, I explored intended response to aggression among adolescents. I drew hypotheses from social identity theory, cost/benefit considerations, and social information processing model. I asked 217 Jewish and Muslim male adolescents in this study to assess their intended use of aggression in 12 hypothetical conflict situations (vignettes), in which I manipulated the opponent's religion, gender, acquaintance, and severity of aggression. I mainly found that male adolescents respond to aggression by same-religion opponents more moderately than to cross-religion aggression; their response is more moderate to cross-gender aggression than to same-gender aggression; response is more moderate to the aggression of familiar opponents than to that of unfamiliar ones; and response is less severe toward moderate than toward severe aggression.     

Dimensions of Support Among Abused Women in the Workplace

The authors draw on social support theory to examine supervisor support match (support wanted and received), support mismatch (support not wanted and received) and work outcomes for abused low‐wage working women, and to determine if supervisor support match and mismatch are more strongly associated with work outcomes than global supervisor support Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with a community sample of abused, employed women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) in the past year (N = 163). Using hierarchical regression, we found, after accounting for global supervisor support; a higher level of supervisor support match was associated with greater job satisfaction, fewer job reprimands and less job termination. Findings from the study inform theories of social support and have practical implications for workplace interventions for IPV.     

Integrating Women's Voices and Theory: A Comprehensive Domestic Violence Intervention for Latinas

Using both academic theories and two decades of experience in community, this article presents the work conducted by Caminar Latino (Latino Journey), a comprehensive intervention for Latino families affected by domestic violence. Having developed in both analogous and independent ways from theories in the academic field, Caminar Latino provides a unique opportunity to explore ways in which ecological theory and tenets of feminist therapy can be combined within a social justice framework to address this severe social problem. Of particular relevance to therapists, advocates and others working in this field is the ongoing inclusion of the voices of women participants as a central tenet of the intervention.