Clinical Issues with Gay Male Couples

SUMMARY

Although gay male couples share with all couples three essential tasks of couplehood-creating boundaries in order to form a couple identity, negotiating closeness and distance, and accommodating to their individual differences-gay male couples face special complications in each task. These complications, examined herein, are largely the result of the marginalization gay men experience from living in a homophobic culture, and male gender acculturation that makes male-to-male intimacy difficult. A model of brief couple therapy for gay men is presented that is designed to honor, as well as challenge, the relationship the men have co-constructed and specifically addresses the difficulties men have in maintaining intimate bonds. A case study illustrates the treatment of clinical issues presented by male couples.     

Responding to Terrorism in the USA

Abstract

In this article, career firefighters from Oklahoma City, New York City, and Arlington County, VA, and volunteer firefighters from Pennsylvania, share their on-site experiences and the emotional aftermath of responding to terrorism. The authors acted as facilitators, compilers, and organizers so that major themes firefighters have raised are presented to inform the work of first responders and others seeking to understand the experiences of firefighters during and after terrorist incidents. The authors conclude by presenting survey data indicating high levels of firefighter job satisfaction and the major sources of emotional support they use following exposure to terrorism.     

Planning ahead: college seniors’ concerns about career-marriage conflict

Career-marriage conflict (CMC) reflects the reality that for many college seniors, the next decade of their lives will be spent launching a career, often a very demanding one, building a long-term romantic relationship, and coordinating the demands of two careers. We focus on the antecedents and correlates of these concerns. Based on social-role theory, we hypothesized that seniors whose mothers worked outside the home while the seniors were children would express less concern about CMC than seniors with at-home mothers. We also hypothesized that seniors’ expectations about the timing of their marriages and childbearing relate to their concerns about CMC, with students who plan to delay family formation having fewer CMC concerns. These hypotheses were supported through an analysis of secondary data from a sample of 324 college seniors at a private university in the Northeast.     

社会认知中印象形成的启动效应研究:频因,近因效应

本文以社会认知为出发点,考察印象形成的启动效应,它采用性质不同的成语作为实验材料,并操纵启动刺激的结构,系统探讨了印象形成的启动效应中原因与近因效应,结果发现：当呈现表示同一品质但性质相反的成语时,如果启动刺激和目标刺激之间不延迟,则近因在启动效应中起作用,但在延迟情况下,频因在启动效应中占优势;同时随着延迟的出现,启动效应明显变小。实验结果支持启动效应的突触模式说;     

Free recall and retrieval speed of categorized items by kindergarten children

Kindergarten Ss were presented with 16 pictorial items in four category sets or a partially random ordem with one item from each category composing the four presentation sets. The pictures were presented either on conceptually related background pictures or on white backgrounds. The categorically grouped presentation facilitated free recall performance, both in terms of number of items recalled and the speed with which the items were recalled, and increased the amount of clustering in recall. Categorical clustering in recall was associated with shorter within- than between-category intervals and for those Ss who recalled items from each of four categories successively, the over-all temporal pattern in recall closely approximated that found with adults. No background effects were found.     

Should One Be A Left or A Right Sellarsian? (And is There Really Such A Choice?)

The followers of Wilfrid Sellars are often divided into “right” and “left” Sellarsians, according to whether they believe, in Mark Lance's words, that “linguistic roles constitutive of meaning and captured by dot quoted words are ‘normative all the way down.’” The present article anatomizes this division and argues that it is not easy to give it a nontrivial sense. In particular, the article argues that it is not really possible to construe it as a controversy related to ontology, and goes on to argue that it is also not easy to construe it as one concerning the translatability of the normative idiom into the non‐normative one. The conclusion is that the only coherent interpretation of this disagreement is as a disagreement about the possibility and desirability of assuming a standpoint “inside” our linguistic practices.     

Health behaviour change theory meets falls prevention: Feasibility of a habit-based balance and strength exercise intervention for older adults

ObjectivesHabit formation is a proposed mechanism for behaviour maintenance. Very few falls prevention studies have adopted this as an intervention framework and outcome. Therefore, we tested feasibility of a theory-based behaviour change intervention that encouraged women to embed balance and strength exercises into daily life routines (e.g., eating, self-care routines).DesignThe EASY LiFE study was a mixed-methods, 4-month feasibility intervention that included seven group-based sessions and two telephone calls.Main outcome measuresWe obtained performance-based (i.e., Short-Physical-Performance-Battery) and psychological self-report measures (i.e., intention, self-efficacy, planning, action control, habit strength, quality of life) from 13 women at baseline (T1) and 4-month follow-up (T2). We applied the Framework-Method to post-intervention, semi-structured interviews to evaluate program content and delivery.ResultsIn total, 10 of 13 women completed the program (M_age = 66.23, SD = 3.98) and showed changes in their level of action control [mean difference_T1−T2 = 1.7, 95% CI (−2.2 to −0.8)], action planning [mean difference_T1−T2 = 0.8, 95% CI (−1.1 to −0.2)], automaticity [mean difference_T1−T2 = 2.5, 95% CI (−3.7 to −1.2)], and exercise identity [mean difference_T1−T2 = 2.0, 95% CI (−3.2 to −0.8)]. Based on the Theoretical Domains Framework we identified knowledge, behavioural regulation, and social factors as important themes. For program delivery, dominant themes were engagement, session facilitators and group format.ConclusionThe theory-based framework showed feasibility for promoting lifestyle integrated balance and strength exercise habits. Using activity and object-based cues may be particularly effective in generating action and automaticity.     

Social Desirability in Patients Seeking Surgical Treatment for Dentofacial Disharmony: Associations with Psychological Distress and Motivation for Treatment

The role of socially desirable responding in the report of treatment motivation and psychological distress by patients seeking surgical treatment for dentofacial disharmony was explored. Participants completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR; Paulhus, 1988), which measures two components of socially desirable responding (SDR): impression management (IM), which is the purposeful tailoring of answers in order to create the most positive social image, and self-deceptive positivity (SDE), which is an honest, but overly positive self-presentation. When simple bivariate relationships were examined, statistically significant inverse associations were observed between socially desirable responding and specific motives for treatment and between SDR and psychological distress. However, the relationship between socially desirable responding and motives for treatment disappeared when the effect of psychological distress was controlled. The positive relationship between psychological distress and the report of social well-being, and self-image motives for treatment remained statistically significant even after the variance attributable to socially desirable responding was removed. Implications of the findings for the evaluation of psychological distress and treatment motivation in this population are discussed.     

Discerning the Spirits, Practicing the Faiths: Why Be Lutheran?

Some spiritual wanderers today are "unstuck" in their faith, therefore, they have many faiths; while others are securely "stuck" in their tradition. Getting stuck is desirable, and the path is through spiritual practice. One's inner life and even perception of reality become transformed through daily habits such as prayer, worship, and discipline. The Lutheran insight that a practicing Christian is simultaneously saint and sinner offers comfort and honest self–understanding.