The Genetic Counseling Workplace—An Australasian Perspective. A National Study of Workplace Issues for Genetic Counselors and Associate Genetic Counselors

Genetic counseling in Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) has been recognized as a profession since the 1980s and has steadily expanded over the past 20 years. The demography of major cities with metropolitan sprawl and sparsely populated rural areas has led to the establishment of 3 types of genetics units: main units in cities, metropolitan outreach, and rural outreach units. A questionnaire was developed to obtain information about the needs, resources, and day-to-day operation of the genetic counselors. The questionnaire addressed the areas of resource availability, professional development, responsibility of genetic counselors in the clinical setting, and their involvement in promotion of the service and public education. Differences observed between the 3 settings in all of these areas included large clinical loads for metropolitan outreach counselors, varying responsibilities in the clinical setting, and a lack of support and resources for rural outreach counselors. Australasian Genetic counselors were found to have a significant interest in developing mechanisms for supervision and were keenly interested in maintaining credentials and professional role development. The results of this study allows genetic counselors themselves to have a better understanding of the roles of their colleagues in the different units; they can also be used by service providers in establishing and supporting genetic counselors, and identifying inequalities and deficiencies in the different practice areas.     

Therapist responses to requests for disclosure of therapeutic records: An introductory study

This paper describes a questionnaire survey of therapists in the UK who have been subject to requests for disclosure of client records as part of a legal process. Therapist responses are outlined in terms of the perceived effect of such disclosure on the client, therapist and the therapeutic relationship. Negative effects included the experience of exposure of sensitive client material in an adversarial legal system, of powerful emotional responses by therapists, and a sense of feeling professionally de‐skilled in an unfamiliar and often challenging legal environment. Positive effects for the client included the achievement of valued outcomes such as compensation, and, for the therapist, the facilitation of support for the client in this process. These findings are discussed in terms of a contrast between therapist perceptions of consensual and contested disclosure. In the former, therapist and client are in agreement about the restorative value and outcome of disclosure. In contested disclosure, the process is experienced as disrupting therapeutic privacy, undermining professional self‐confidence and introducing an unwelcome element of critical re‐evaluation of client motives for undertaking therapy.     

The Therapeutic Community Sing: Music Therapy Inpatient Group Process

Early psychoanalytic authors and music educators in both Europe and the United States pointed to the contemporary use of music therapy as a powerful modality in an inpatient psychiatric unit. The inpatient community sing is discussed in its capacity to address both individual and group goals. A clinical vignette from such a group is presented and discussed.     

Rejoinder to Harold Blum2

The author's main disagreement with Harold Blum is over Blum's contention that symptomatic improvement is directly linked to the recovery of memories. The idea that memories are laid down in childhood and preserved until the time of their later recovery flies in the face of what we now understand as the creation of memories by the neurobiological systems underpinning this aspect of mental function. No evidence directly links symptomatic improvement to reconstruction and thus to outcome; care should be taken to avoid confusing co‐occurrence with causality. While reconstruction of how things actually were in childhood can significantly contribute to therapeutic action, it is the process rather than the outcome of this reconstruction that is therapeutic, due to the opportunity thus afforded to rework current experiences in the context of other perspectives. The author clarifies his definition of transference to show some areas of agreement between his position and Blum's. He disusses contemporary neuroscientific views on memory and identifies a number of psychoanalytic writers who have used these productively.     

工作场所的出勤主义行为：组织管理研究的新课题

出勤主义行为是指在生病时依然坚持工作的行为。工作场所的出勤主义行为不仅危害员工的个人健康，还会给企业带来额外的支出。近年来，出勤主义行为逐渐引起管理者的重视，并得到越来越多管理学和心理学研究者的关注。总结以往研究，对出勤主义行为的概念界定和测量方法进行了概述，从个人因素、工作相关因素、组织层面因素和团队层面因素四个方面探讨了出勤主义行为的影响因素，并总结了出勤主义行为对个人健康、工作方面和组织层面的影响。最后，对出勤主义行为未来的研究方向进行了展望。     

Destructiveness, atrocities and healing: epistemological and clinical reflections

In this paper, destructiveness is approached as a multi-dimensional phenomenon where the mental health perspective addresses only one of these dimensions. An attempt is made to locate this phenomenon in the context of epistemological and societal considerations. Critical of mono-dimensional explanations based on causal-reductive epistemology, the paper instead proposes the idea of an 'ecology of destructiveness', according to which mental health professionals cannot possibly continue to assume the role of detached observers. The ordinariness and archetypal fascination of destructiveness are discussed as preventing the psychologizing and pathologizing of it. In addition, it is suggested that 'destructiveness may be a tragic facet of the human condition', without this implying any justification of it. Based on my work with a group of Bosnian ex-camp prisoners, some basic principles of how one can work with survivors of atrocities are derived and discussed. A central feature of this work is the attempt to create an appropriate therapeutic context within which a 'therapeutic presence' and 'therapeutic witnessing' can be developed. Finally, the relevance of Jungian insights to this kind of work is reviewed and the emergence of new types of defences of the self is identified.     

Longitudinal relationships between workplace bullying,basic psychological needs,and employee functioning: a simultaneous investigation of psychological need satisfaction and frustration

The aim of this cross-lagged study was to provide new insight into the interplay between workplace bullying, basic psychological needs (for autonomy, competence, and relatedness), and employee functioning. Based on new developments in self-determination theory (SDT) research, we simultaneously examined the temporal relationships between workplace bullying, need satisfaction and frustration, as well as two indicators of psychological functioning: life satisfaction and psychosomatic complaints. Data were collected at two time points over a 12-month period from a sample of 508 Canadian nurses. Results suggest that bullying not only negatively predicted satisfaction for the needs of autonomy and competence, it actively frustrated all three needs. Frustration of the needs for competence and relatedness as well as satisfaction of the need for relatedness also predicted the psychological functioning of employees exposed to bullying behaviour over time. Taken together, the results suggest that evaluating need frustration provides in-depth insight into the detrimental effects of bullying on employees’ psychological inner resources and may explain the impoverishment of employees’ psychological functioning when confronted with bullying behaviour. The implications for the bullying and SDT literature are discussed.     

The impact of surface acting on coworker-directed voluntary workplace behaviours

The effects of emotional labour, that is, managing one’s emotions for work, not only predict a range of intrapersonal and organizational outcomes but can also spillover to affect non-work relationships. Despite this, relatively little is known about whether the performance of surface acting affects behaviours towards more proximal organizational members, how this occurs, and the role of supportive relationships in influencing this relationship. In this article, we examine the relationships between surface acting, state positive and negative affect, and co-worker support on co-worker-directed interpersonal behaviours in the workplace. Survey data collected at multiple time points suggest a moderated mediation model, in which surface acting interacts with co-worker support to influence employees’ voluntary behaviours through state affect. Specifically, our findings suggest that surface acting increases subsequent engagement in deviance behaviours by increasing the experience of negative affective states, especially when co-worker support is low. Surface acting also decreases the subsequent engagement of organizational citizenship behaviour through decreasing the experience of positive affective states. We conclude with a discussion of how surface acting can consequently lead to negative spirals in the organization and the implications of this for practice.     

Évaluation de la formation,auto-efficacité et bien-être affectif au travail chez les magistrats de l’ordre judiciaire : le rôle médiateur du sentiment d’appartenance sociale

Within the context of research evaluating magistrate-training programs, a questionnaire was sent electronically to three generations of French judges each from a different graduating class of the École nationale de magistrature (n = 147). The present study explores relationships between evaluation of initial training, perceived self-efficacy, feeling of relatedness in the workplace and emotional well-being at work. Our results show that feeling of relatedness in the workplace completely mediates the relationship between training evaluation and perceived self-efficacy as well as between training evaluation and well-being at work. In conclusion, practical applications of this study as well as future research in the field are discussed.