Extended family constellations workshop efficacy on intuition measure and experience

This study explored the efficacy of an intuition-oriented family constellations process workshop in influencing intuition and consciousness of extended family constellations. Participants were eight white South Africans (male = 1, female = 7; age range = 36 to 62 years). They took a pre-test and post-test measure on their intuition gains from the family constellations process in addition to responding to semi-structured questions on their perceptions and experiences of intuition and ancestral connections. Results suggest the participants experienced gains in intuition and experienced some, variable, form of ancestral connection. Intuition was described as a holistic, inspirational, bodily experience, flowing from an unknown or indeterminate source. Additionally, ancestral connection was experienced bodily and as a felt sense of energy. Results suggest the participants to have experienced gains in intuition and some level of ancestral connection.     

家庭功能和生存质量对学生社会责任心的影响：普高生与职高生的比较

采用回归分析和结构方程建模技术探讨了708名普通高中和职业高中学生的家庭功能、生存质量和社会责任心的差异及其关系。结果发现：（1）普通高中学生的家庭功能、生存质量和社会责任心均显著优于职业高中学生;（2）普高、职高学生的家庭功能和生存质量对其社会责任心的预测效应不尽一致,普高学生社会责任心受家庭功能亲密度和适应性两维度及生存质量心理功能和社会功能两维度的复合影响,而职高学生社会责任心主要受家庭功能亲密度及生存质量的社会功能维度的影响;（3）普高学生的家庭功能通过中介变量生存质量间接影响社会责任心,而职高学生的家庭功能直接影响社会责任心和生存质量。     

An exploratory path analysis of the factors contributing to life satisfaction in fathers

The purpose of this study was to present and test a model to examine those factors contributing to life satisfaction in fathers. A total of 268 fathers participated in this study. Path analysis was used to examine the direct and indirect influences of independent variables on life satisfaction in fathers. Results indicated that income and perceived family cohesiveness were the strongest variables in the model. Family cohesiveness mediated the effects of income, male role norms, conflict, and father involvement on life satisfaction. Income had the greatest total effect on life satisfaction. Perceived family cohesiveness and fathers’ education level followed income as the second and third most influential effects on life satisfaction. Results are discussed in light of the existing literature on family resilience, male role norms, and life satisfaction.     

Family Conflict and Children's Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior: Protective Factors

The current investigation examined whether the positive association of family conflict to adolescent depression and conduct problems is attenuated by maternal, paternal, and peer attachment, and maternal and paternal monitoring, within a low-income, multiethnic sample of 284 adolescents. Parental attachment and monitoring moderated the link from family conflict to conduct problems but not depression; the relationships among family conflict, the hypothesized protective factors, and conduct problems were further modified by adolescent gender but not ethnicity. In general, higher levels of the hypothesized protective factors attenuated the relationship between family conflict and conduct problems for girls but exacerbated this relationship for boys. These findings suggest that, in general, parental attachment and monitoring served as protective factors for girls while serving as additional risk factors for boys in conflictual families.     

Concordance Between Parent Reports of Children's Mental Health Services and Service Records: The Services Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA)

The concordance between parent reports of children's mental health services and medical and administrative service records were assessed in a field test of the Services Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA) interview instrument. Service use reports from primary caregivers, usually mothers, for their child's emotional or behavioral problems were compared against inpatient, outpatient, and school records in St. Louis, one of the pilot sites for the Multi-Site Study of Service Use, Need, Outcomes and Costs in Child and Adolescent Populations (UNOCCAP). A global any use service variable, comprised of inpatient, outpatient, and school reports, yielded an overall service use concordance kappa of .76 between parent reports and records. Parent reports of inpatient hospitalization services using the SACA yielded the highest agreement with medical records, with kappa statistics of 1.00 for use of any inpatient hospital care and for medication use. Parent reports of specific inpatient services concurred with medical records more moderately, yielding kappas from .50 to .66. Reports of any outpatient mental health services yielded variable rates of agreement, with kappas ranging from .67 for any use of outpatient care, to .66 for medication use, to negligible kappas for specific treatments. Parent reports of school services were weakly related to records for most services, except for moderate agreement (.48) on placement in special classrooms for emotional or behavioral problems. Family burden or impact discriminated more powerfully than other variables between respondents who concurred with records and those who did not.     

Play and liberty: A brief incursion into some ideological currents in the history of systems-oriented family therapy

We reflect on family therapy and its history from two points of view, as an entity that becomes understood with the help of a twofold concept of a game, and a twofold concept of liberty. Systemic family therapy has always been comprehended with the help of game theory. Its development becomes more properly understood if we keep in mind that game itself is a dualistic concept entailing both a cultural and a logico-mathematical interpretation of a game. We show how cultural ethos has molded the ways how game metaphor have been implemented to systemic thinking. In the same manner we show how Isaiah Berlin's idea of two incompatible concepts of liberty helps to contextualize family therapy in a way that its connections to sociopolitical theories of liberty become obvious. We believe that we have been able to demonstrate, how this twofold recontextualisation enriches the understanding of the ideological history of the family therapy. We claim that our reflections imply that family therapy is essentially a dualistic endeavor, that in the amid of it is a rift that cannot become repaired but only contemplated, that integrity of family therapy requires that we preserve both conflictual views, and don't try to simplify situation by abandoning one or the other. As a result, our article intends to develop further and deepen the idea that is originally presnted in the article "Strategy and intervention or non-intervention: A matter of theory" by Harold Goolishian and Harlene Anderson.     

Writing About Upsetting Family Events: A Therapy Analog Study

This therapy analog study investigated whether a writing intervention based on contextual therapy would have positive effects on physical, mental, and relational health. One-hundred-and-three college students were randomly assigned to write about either an upsetting family event/issue from childhood or a trivial event during a four-day period. As anticipated, relative to the control participants, those in the experimental condition reported an increase in negative mood and physical symptoms immediately after writing each day. Also as anticipated, the experimental participants also reported feeling better about themselves and their topics at post-test. Unexpectedly, there were either no significant differences or differences in the unpredicted direction between the control and experimental groups in physical, psychological, and relational functioning at posttest and follow-up. However, post-hoc analyses revealed differential changes within the experimental group as a function of the personal relevance and the degree of previous disclosure of the topics. Limitations of written expression as a therapeutic tool are discussed.     

Family Protection and Prevention of Alcohol Use Among Hispanic Youth at High Risk

Research regarding prevention strategies for Hispanic youth stress the importance of family interventions because of the particular importance of family as a protective factor within the Hispanic community. Starting in 1995, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention conducted the National Cross-Site Evaluation of High Risk Youth Programs, a 5-year drug and alcohol prevention study with a sample of approximately 10,500 youth, including nearly 3,000 Hispanic youth. Youth were surveyed regarding their alcohol use patterns and risk and protective factors, with several measures of family relationships, including family connectedness, family supervision, and parental attitudes toward their child's alcohol use. Analyses indicate that family factors are highly linked to alcohol use among Hispanics, particularly among Hispanic females. Longitudinal growth curve analyses indicate that improving the connections that young Hispanic females have to their parents can have positive long-term effects on delaying or reducing their alcohol use. This evaluation was conducted under the direction of Dr. Soledad Sambrano, Ph.D. of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention under contract #2777-95-5002 with EMT Associates, Inc. and ORC Macro. The views expressed herein represent the opinions and analyses of the individual authors and may not necessarily reflect the opinions, official policy, or position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, or the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.     

Unheard Voices: Experiences of Families Living with HIV/AIDS in India*

This study was aimed at understanding the impact of HIV on the family system in the Indian context. A sample of 20 families caring for a relative living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) was recruited from a HIV counseling clinic at the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences and a respite home for PLWHAs in Bangalore City in southern India. Qualitative data were collected from these families using a semi-structured interview guide and recorded in the form of narratives. Analysis of these data revealed the following themes: Stigma and discrimination; disclosure; changes in family functioning; financial difficulties; fears of the family; and helplessness. Each theme was presented in detail and implications for intervention to help these families and their PLWHAs discussed. V.A.S. Krishna, PhD, MPE, Fogarty Funded Post Doctoral Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63108 (krishnavas@epi.wustl.edu). Ranbir S. Bhatti, PhD, Professor of Family Therapy, Montfort College, Bangalore, Former Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatric Social Work, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India 560029 (ranbirbhatti@yahoo.com). Prabha S. Chandra, MD, Additional Professor, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India 560029 (prabhachandra@rediffmail.com). Srilatha Juvva, PhD, Reader, Department of Family and Child Welfare, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, India 400088 (juvvas@tiss.edu). *The authors would like to thank all the PLWHAs and their family members for volunteering to be part of this study. Post-doctoral Fellowship support for Dr. V.A.S. Krishna from Fogarty Grant—TW05811 (LB Cottler, PI).     

Working with Families from the Indian Sub-Continent: An Indo-German Experience*

Whereas most Western European therapists and clients consider emotional distance and abstinence as desirable and conducive in the therapeutic process, this may not always be the case with clients from India. Cultural components such as the contrast between linear and cyclic world-views and the traditional view of the psychologist as an advisor in India present a challenge to professionals with a Western background. Some factors such as the situation of women in society and seemingly too close familiy ties can mean that a Western therapist fails to promote the changes an Indian client is desiring for his or her family. However, besides cultural awareness and caution, one of the most helpful tools in work across cultures is curiosity in its most positive sense and the readiness to be surprised by ones’ clients.I would like to thank all my Indian colleagues who supported and advised me in my work in India.