Working with unrealistic or unshared hope in the counselling session

Hope has long been identified as an important therapeutic factor in counselling. Further, research evidence for the importance of hope to counselling practice and outcome is abundant. However, the field is only beginning to explicitly consider how hope can be effectively and intentionally practised. One of the most challenging dilemmas encountered by counsellors committed to working with this important therapeutic factor is that of so-called unrealistic hope. In this paper, we outline two real-life counselling vignettes illustrating unrealistic hope, and consider these scenarios alongside relevant scholarship and practice experience. Guiding principles and practices for conceptualising and working with unrealistic hope are offered as a means of beginning the conversation about this complex aspect of working with client hope.     

Attachment and Mother-Child Communication in Adjustment to the Death of a Father Among Cambodian Adolescents

This study examined quality of attachment to the mother and child-mother communication in adolescents' adjustment to the death of a father. Forty-eight Cambodian adolescents whose father had died within the previous 3 years completed a set of measures that included attachment, communication, grief, and self-esteem. Results showed that quality of attachment to the mother and whether the adolescent communicated with the mother about the father and found this to be helpful were positively related to adaptive grief and self-esteem. Moreover, support was shown for an indirect effect of quality of attachment to the mother on adaptive grief as mediated by communication. Implications of the findings for quality of attachment in adjustment to bereavement in a non-Western cultural context are discussed.     

Adapting Parent–Child Interaction Therapy for Deaf Families That Communicate via American Sign Language: A Formal Adaptation Approach

While our field has made positive strides in adapting psychotherapeutic interventions for diverse groups of people, considerable work is still needed in this area. We present our formal adaptation procedure for parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) with Deaf persons. This includes a review of the cultural adaptation process for psychological interventions, including PCIT, as well as an introduction to Deaf culture. Details regarding the specific adaptation of PCIT for Deaf persons are outlined. We found that the utilization of a clear framework to guide the cultural adaptation process facilitated careful consideration of the numerous linguistic and cultural variables involved, while maintaining integrity of the treatment model. While the current focus was on adapting PCIT for Deaf families who communicate via American Sign Language, this framework can also be applied to other populations and/or interventions.     

Existential psychotherapy and the therapeutics of activism*

This paper considers the socio-political perspectives of Sartre, de Beauvoir and Fanon and their relationship to existential psychotherapy practice. It argues that their existential analyses of oppression must play a greater part in informing existential psychotherapeutic practice and pedagogy. In this current neo-liberal political age, in which therapy is increasingly being utilised as a form of psychological coercion and mystification, an understanding of the structures and systems of alienation and oppression that construct experience must translate to a broadening therapeutic concern beyond individual to social change. The author suggests that engaging with a politics of alienation and actively responding to the oppressive social conditions which generate distress and marginalisation should be intrinsic to existential psychotherapy practitioners and their representing institutions.     

A Narrative Analysis of Sibling Grief

Sibling grief is linked to serious physical and mental health outcomes, yet remains the least researched of all family bereavement. This exploratory study created a shared sibling grief narrative. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 27 participants who lost a sibling. Primary themes included Shared Life: Identity Within the Sibling Arrangement; Sibling Death: Pivotal Moments in Time; Life After Sibling Loss: Emotional Suffering, Life After Sibling Loss: Missing Roles & Changing Relationships; and The Sibling Lives On. The following study findings clarify the overlooked impact that sibling death has on the surviving sibling and demonstrate the crucial need for more sibling loss research.     

亲子关系对贫困儿童问题行为的影响

以247名贫困儿童为被试进行问卷调查,构建家庭社会经济地位和亲子关系对贫困儿童问题行为的多重中介模型,得到抑郁、自我控制的中介作用。结果显示,亲子关系和社会经济地位分别通过中介路径影响贫困儿童问题行为,与亲子关系有关的中介路径为91.25%,与抑郁有关的中介效应为57.60%,与自我控制有关的中介效应为57.15%. 结论：良好的亲子关系或成为贫困儿童的保护因子;应关注贫困儿童心理健康,增加有效心理疏导机制;注重培养贫困儿童的自我控制能力。     

Improved Parent Cognitions Relate to Immediate and Follow-Up Treatment Outcomes for Children With ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Presentation

We investigated treatment effects on parenting self-efficacy and parent cognitive errors, and whether these parent cognitions are related to short- and long-term outcomes in parenting behaviors in psychosocial treatment for youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, predominantly inattentive presentation (ADHD-I). In a randomized controlled trial across two sites (University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Berkeley), 199 children between the ages of 7 and 11 were randomized to the Child Life and Attention Skills (CLAS; n = 74) program, parent-focused treatment (PFT; n = 74), or treatment as usual (TAU; n = 51). Parents reported on self-efficacy, cognitive errors, positive parenting, and negative parenting prior to treatment, immediately after treatment, and in the next school year at follow-up. Compared to TAU, CLAS and PFT had higher posttreatment parenting self-efficacy, and CLAS alone had lower posttreatment parent cognitive errors. At follow-up, only CLAS had improved parent cognitive errors compared to TAU. No other between-group differences were found in parenting self-efficacy or cognitive errors. Improved parenting self-efficacy was associated with improved posttreatment negative parenting outcomes for PFT and CLAS, and improved parent cognitive errors were also related to improvements in positive and negative posttreatment parenting outcomes for CLAS. Posttreatment parenting self-efficacy mediated follow-up negative parenting outcomes for CLAS and posttreatment parent cognitive errors mediated improved follow-up positive and negative parenting outcomes for CLAS. PFT and CLAS led to enhanced parenting self-efficacy, and CLAS appears especially robust in improving parent cognitive errors both in the short and long term. Pathways provide support for the possibility of parent cognitions as mediators of treatment effects on parenting; clinical focus on such cognitions may be useful.     

Pathways to Help-Seeking and Mental Health Service Provision for African Female Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexualized Gender-Based Violence

ABSTRACT

African migration to Canada is a relatively new development. There is a dearth of literature on the mental health of this newer immigrant population, especially those from the conflict zones of Sub-Saharan Africa. Our exploratory study examined the experiences of African female survivors of conflict-related sexualized violence based on the insights of six community mental health professionals. Guided by interpretive inquiry, semi-structured interviews were analyzed thematically and interpreted in light of multicultural feminist and transnational perspectives. Findings highlight refugee women’s resilience in the face of threats of social isolation and stigma. Their prioritization of assistance with practical needs, parenting, community/social supports, and education attainment in the context of counseling raises questions about agency and identity in understanding the relationships between female survivors, what they identify as important to their recovery, and their pathways to accessing mental health services.