The Client Is the Most Important Common Factor: Clients' Self-Healing Capacities and Psychotherapy

I first briefly review the dodo bird verdict and suggest that we should be responding to it by looking for a new way to conceptualize how therapy works. Then I describe the dominant medical or treatment model of psychotherapy and how it puts the client in the position of a dependent variable who is operated on by supposedly potent therapeutic techniques. Next I argue that the data do not fit with this model. An alternative model is that the client is the most important common factor and that it is clients' self-healing capacities which make therapy work. I then argue that therapy has two phases—the involvement phase and the learning phase—and that the involvement phase is the most important. I next review the five learning opportunities provided by therapy. Finally, I argue that a relational model of therapy focused on consultation, collaboration, and dialogue is better than a treatment model.     

The Therapeutic Factors Inventory: Development of a Scale

Although Yalom's (1995) framework of the therapeutic factors facilitating outcome in group has been accepted by group specialists, no empirically based instrument assesses all of these factors. The Therapeutic Factors Inventory (TFI), with 11 scales based on the therapeutic factors, has been designed to fill this gap. This article summarizes the development and preliminary reliability testing of the TFI. Each scale of the instrument demonstrated high internal consistency; however, one scale obtained unacceptably low test-retest reliability. Further validity testing is needed. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

对伪医学现象的思考

伪医学是当今社会的普遍现象,给社会、家庭造成极大损失和危害。分析伪医学的滋生背景,并提出加强自身建设,加大科普宣传和媒体管理等扫除伪医学现象的对策。     

Stewardship Models of Pastoral Care,Counselling and Supervision: The Commonians Meet Ricoeur at Worship

The common factors debate in psychology and, more recently, marriage and family therapy is slow to erupt in pastoral care and counselling. This article introduces the common factors debate into pastoral science by proposing the Stewardship Models of Pastoral Ministry and Supervision. The model integrates common factors research and pastoral practice using Ricoeur’s “economy of the gift” ethic. The model’s focus is pastoral care, counselling and supervision in congregations, a unique community context in search of an adequate pastoral praxis.     

The Importance of Child and Adolescent Psychopathy

In commenting on the five articles in this special issue, this paper discusses (1) the concept of child and adolescent psychopathy, and whether adolescent psychopaths are qualitatively distinct from other young people; (2) the measurement of adolescent psychopathy; (3) the relationship between psychopathy and other personality dimensions; (4) childhood risk factors for psychopathy; (5) psychopathy in the context of risk factors for delinquency; and (6) the prevention and treatment of adolescent psychopathy. It is argued that the three dimensions of an arrogant, deceitful interpersonal style, deficient affective experience, and an impulsive or irresponsible behavioral style are most important at present in the definition of psychopathy. An ambitious research agenda is recommended, investigating the concept of adolescent psychopathy, developing new measures, conducting new longitudinal studies on development and risk factors, and mounting new randomized experiments on prevention and treatment.     

Trajectories of Peer-Nominated Aggression: Risk Status,Predictors and Outcomes

Developmental trajectories of peer-nominated aggression, risk factors at baseline, and outcomes were studied. Peer nominations of aggression were obtained annually from grades 1 to 3. Three developmental trajectories were identified: an early-onset/increasers trajectory with high levels of peer-nominated aggression at elementary school entry and increasing levels throughout follow-up; a moderate-persistent trajectory of aggression in which children were characterized by moderate levels of physical aggression at baseline; and a third trajectory with stable low levels of aggression. Children following the early-onset/increasers trajectory showed physical forms of aggression at baseline. Male gender and comorbid attention deficit/hyperactivity problems, oppositional defiant problems and poor prosocial behavior plus negative life events predicted which children would follow the early-onset/increasers trajectory of aggression. The outcomes associated with the early-onset/increaser children suggest high risk for chronically high levels of aggressive behavior.     

Reasoning with Factors

The paper proposes an analysis and a formalisation of factor-based reasoning. After examining the relevance of factors in legal reasoning, binary and scalable factors (dimensions) are distinguished and the relations between them are discussed. An account of a fortiori reasoning with both types of factors is developed. This article reports ideas which are discussed and developed in Sartor (2005). We refer to the latter work for the theoretical framework in which our analysis of factors is embedded.     

Revisiting Hispanic Adolescents' Resilience to the Effects of Parental Problem Drinking and Life Stress

Two previous studies found that life stress and parental alcoholism were not as highly related to distress for Hispanic adolescents as they were for European American adolescents (M. Barrera Jr., S. A. Li, and L. Chassin, 1993, 1995). Those findings could be interpreted as evidence of Hispanic youths' resilience, but limitations of the stress measure and the homogeneity of the Hispanic sample threatened this interpretation. The present study improved on those previous studies by using a new measure of uncontrollable stressors and a more heterogeneous Mexican American sample. Participants in this study were 175 Mexican American and 59 European American adolescents and their parents. Unlike the previous studies, results did not show that Mexican American adolescents were more resilient to parental problem drinking or life stress than were European American adolescents. Overall, life stress was related to adolescents', mothers', and fathers' reports of adolescents' psychological distress above and beyond the effects of ethnicity and socioeconomic factors.     

Parental Discipline and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Early Childhood: The Roles of Moral Regulation and Child Gender

We tested whether individual differences in a component of early conscience mediated relations between parental discipline and externalizing behavior problems in 238 3.5-year-olds. Parents contributed assessments of discipline practices and child moral regulation. Observations of children's behavioral restraint supplemented parental reports. Parents and teachers reported on child externalizing symptoms. Parental induction, warm responsiveness, and less frequent use of physical punishment generally were associated with higher levels of moral regulation and fewer externalizing problems. Moreover, moral regulation partially mediated relationships between discipline and externalizing symptoms, with the clearest case of mediation involving induction. However, relationships were found for boys only. Results support a mediation model wherein inductive and physical discipline may influence the expression of boys' externalizing behavior through effects on conscience. Finally, results suggest that different developmental processes may be associated with early externalizing problems in boys and girls, and confirm that fathers' reports contribute to our understanding of the origins of child externalizing problems.     

Resilience and Protective Factors in Adolescence: An Autobiographical Perspective From Disadvantaged Youth

This article focuses on the development of adolescent resilience and protective factors within a sample of 86 inner-city high school students in Chicago. Resilience was considered present when (a) children living in conditions of risk (b) show better-than-predicted outcomes (c) presumably due to some intervening process. Conditions (a) and (b) were met using quantitative comparisons. Condition (c), the intervening process, was examined using autobiographical essays to begin to understand protective factors youth consider salient in overcoming adversity. Internal attributes such as perseverance, determination, and having the awareness to learn from the risk-attrition process surfaced in the content analyses. Motivational support from family members and teachers was also highly valued for promoting successful adjustment.