Narcissistic Vulnerability in Marriage

Many couples who seek therapy with issues around money, work, sex or children are actually dealing at a deeper level with problems of narcissistic entitlement, vulnerability to emotional injury, or defenses that protect against perceived attacks upon a fragile self. This paper considers the concept of narcissism as it relates to marriage and family issues and suggests some important ingredients in treating a narcissistically vulnerable relationship.     

What Is Unique About Supervising Couple Therapists?

Abstract

What is unique about supervising couple therapists? To answer this question I highlight three important therapeutic processes in CT and their accompanying supervisory implications. The first process, the attending to values and beliefs about the meaning of coupling to couples and therapists and its influence on CT, is facilitated by supervisors who help supervisees uncover values and beliefs about coupling. The second process, developing the therapeutic alliance which has a unique complexity in CT, is facilitated by the processing of the therapeutic alliance in supervision and discovering ways of strengthening it. The final process, attending to emotion prevalent in CT, is facilitated by supervisors who assist supervisees in becoming comfortable with the expression of emotion and work with it constructively in CT. After briefly describing each process and why it is viewed as important in CT, I suggest ways supervisors can assist supervisees' becoming more proficient in them. An abbreviated supervision illustration ends each section.     

The Constructive Use of Power and the Philosophy of the Self in the Training of Family Therapists

Abstract

This article presents findings from an exploratory qualitative study, which used individual interviews and a focus group to investigate how women in Black-White interracial heterosexual partner relationships retrospectively described their racial identity development and the influence of gender identity development on this process. Social consrructionist, feminist, and racial identity development theories guided the grounded theory methodology. Participants described both constraining and empowering racial identities. Salient constraining racial identities were being a “sell-out” or “traitor,” being a “rule-breaker,” having a masked reference group orientation, needing to prove reference group orientation, and having minority family status. Empowering racial identities included refusing to take sides, being “not racial,” being neutral, identifying by respect rather than by race, having a multiple reference group orientation, being strong, and being an educator and mediator.

Gender identity themes of strength and resiliency emerged as significant influences in racial identity development. Suggested questions for use within a narrative therapy context provide a clinical application of findings from the study.     

Emotional Support,Conflict, Depression,and Relationship Satisfaction in a Romantic Partner

One aim of this study was to determine the relative contribution of partner conflict and support to satisfaction with a romantic relationship when conflict and support are measured in terms of the same characteristics. Another aim was to ascertain whether support is indirectly associated with relationship satisfaction through reduced conflict and depression, as suggested by C. E. Cutrona (1996). The Relationship Assessment Scale (S. S. Hendrick, 1988), the Revised SCL-90-R Depression subscale (L. R. Derogatis, 1983), and a conflict and support scale were completed by 76 female and 35 male college students. Relationship satisfaction was explained only by support. Support was indirectly associated with relationship satisfaction through a reduction of depression but was not associated with conflict. The results suggest that a better understanding of satisfaction with a romantic relationship may be obtained through the study of support rather than conflict.     

Adolescents’ Conceptions of the Influence of Romantic Relationships on Friendships

Although researchers have investigated how adolescents’ friendships affect their romantic relationships, the influence of romantic relationships on friendships is unexamined. As a first step, 9th- (n = 198) and 11th grade students (n = 152) reported on their conceptions of friendship when one friend had a romantic relationship and when neither friend had a romantic relationship. As predicted, adolescents believed friendships in which a friend was dating would be characterized by less positive features and more negative features than friendships in which neither friend was dating. Additionally, older adolescents thought romantic relationships were more damaging to companionship and corumination than did younger adolescents. The closer nature of older adolescents’ romantic relationships may result in lower quality friendships or older adolescents may be more aware of the potential negative consequences of romantic relationships for friendships. Girls viewed friendships as higher in conflict-rivalry and lower in corumination when one friend was dating while boys did not. And although girls and boys viewed friendships as lower in intimacy and companionship when a friend has a romantic partner, the difference was greater for girls than boys. Girls may be more sensitive to the effects of a friend's romantic relationship on their friendship than are boys. Findings necessitate theories of close relationships that incorporate age and gender as important variables.     

Eating-Problem Patients' Conceptions of Normality

Three groups of people—anorexic patients, helping professionals, and a control group—filled out the Eating Attitude Test (Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) three times. The control subjects were asked to fill it out honestly for themselves; as they imagined an ordinary person might complete it; and, finally, as they would expect a patient with an eating disorder to fill it out. The anorexic patients were asked to complete it honestly for themselves; as they imagined an ordinary person might fill it out; and, finally, as they would expect to fill it out when fully recovered. The professionals filled out the questionnaires as they imagined the typical patient with eating disorders might; as they imagined the ordinary person might complete it; and as a recovered patient might complete it. The results provided support for some but not all hypotheses, the most central of which was that there would be a difference between how the patients rated the ordinary person and how control subjects (supposedly ordinary people) rated themselves.     

The Effects of Self-Esteem,Task Label,and Performance Feedback on Goal Setting,Certainty, and Attribution

An identical task was labeled as either difficult or easy. Bogus performance feedback was given to each subject at random after the first work period. Subjects were divided into high or low self-esteem groups based on a median split in their scores on the self-esteem measure. The results showed that subjects set lower goals in the difficult condition than they did in the easy condition in the first period; however, no difference was found in the second period. Subjects with high self-esteem had higher certainty than those with low self-esteem in the second period. Subjects in the positive feedback group made higher ability and effort attributions than those in the negative feedback group.     

Self-Monitoring and Future Time Orientation in Romantic Relationships

The author examined the relationship between self-monitoring and participant's gender, and future time orientation in romantic relationships (FTORR) and tested the concurrent validity of the FTORR scale in this respect. One hundred seventy-three undergraduate students from Middle East Technical University were given M. Snyder's (1974) self-monitoring scale and B. Öner's (2000b) FTORR scale. Low self-monitoring participants had a more extended future time orientation (FTO) than high self-monitoring participants in terms of romantic associations.