Changes in Stepparents' Coparenting and Parenting Following Participation in a Community‐Based Relationship Education Program

Studies of coparents typically center on the relationship between parents who share a biological child; limited attention in research on community‐based programs is given to the coparenting relationship within a stepfamily, even though clinicians note the challenges inherent in this relationship. We examined changes in coparenting agreement, parenting efficacy, and parental involvement for 96 stepparents following participation in a coparenting‐focused community education program. A significant main effect of time was found for improvement in coparenting agreement, yet a significant time × gender interaction effect suggests that this is driven by improvements for stepmothers only. Parenting efficacy improved, regardless of gender, race, residence, or curriculum. A significant time × race interaction effect on change in parental involvement indicates increases in parental involvement for European American participants only. Finally, increases in coparenting agreement were associated with increases in parenting efficacy, and increases in parenting efficacy were associated with increases in parental involvement.     

‘You were not born here,so you are classless,you are free!’ Social class and cultural complex in analysis

The unconscious impact of differences in culture and social class is discussed from the perspective of an analyst practising in London whose ‘foreign accent’ prevents patients from placing her within the social stratifications by which they feel confined. Because she is seen by them as an analyst from both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the British psycho‐social fabric and cultural complex, this opens a space in the transference that enables fuller exploration of the impact of the British social class system on patients’ experience of themselves and their world. The paper considers this impact as a trans‐generational trauma of living in a society of sharp socio‐economic divisions based on material property. This is illustrated with the example of a patient who, at the point of moving towards the career to which he aspired, was unable to separate a sense of personal identity from the social class he so desperately wanted to leave behind and walk the long avenue of individuation. The dearth of literature on the subject of class is considered, and the paper concludes that not enough attention is given to class identification in training.     

Fieldwork Using the Professional Development Schools Model: Developing a Social Justice Orientation and Multicultural Competency

Practicum fieldwork was conducted in an urban high school setting using a Professional Development Schools (PDS) model, with a focus on multicultural and social justice counseling competencies (MSJCC). Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyze the journal responses of 16 counseling students to ascertain MSJCC development during fieldwork. Themes emerged related to multicultural counseling skills, self‐awareness, understanding educational inequities, and serving as agents of change. Implications of using a PDS model in counselor training are explored. Se llevó a cabo un trabajo de campo en práctica clínica en una escuela secundaria usando un modelo de Escuelas de Desarrollo Profesional (PDS, por sus siglas en inglés), con un enfoque en las competencias en consejería multicultural y de justicia social (MSJCC, por sus siglas en inglés). Se empleó un análisis fenomenológico interpretativo para analizar las respuestas registradas de 16 estudiantes de consejería para determinar el desarrollo de las MSJCC durante el trabajo de campo. Surgieron temas relacionados con las habilidades en consejería multicultural, la autoconciencia, la comprensión de desigualdades educativas, y la actuación como agentes de cambio. Se exploran las implicaciones de usar un modelo PDS en la formación de consejeros.     

Predictors of Involvement and Warmth of Custodial Fathers in Israel: Comparison with Married and Noncustodial Divorced Fathers

This study compared the levels and predictors of paternal warmth and involvement of 218 custodial fathers to 222 married fathers and 105 noncustodial (NC) divorced fathers in Israel. The examined predictors were fathers' perceptions of their own fathers; their own caregiving behaviors and parental self‐efficacy; and child characteristics and coparental coordination. Results indicated that being a custodial father was associated with more involvement than being a married or NC divorced father. Regression analyses revealed that experience of care with own father predicted fathers' involvement, whereas own father control was related to lower paternal warmth. Lower avoidant caregiving and high paternal self‐efficacy predicted both paternal involvement and warmth, whereas perceiving the child as more difficult predicted lower paternal warmth. Higher levels of coparental coordination were associated with more paternal involvement, whereas low coparental coordination was associated with less involvement, primarily among NC divorced fathers. These interactions highlight the distinct paternal behavior of custodial fathers. Unlike married and NC divorced fathers, they showed more warmth, regardless of their avoidant caregiving. Results are discussed in light of the different roles played by fathers in the three groups.     

Narrative Approaches to Organizational Development: A Case Study of Implementation of Collaborative Helping

Across North America, community agencies and state/provincial jurisdictions are embracing family‐centered approaches to service delivery that are grounded in strength‐based, culturally responsive, accountable partnerships with families. This article details a collaborative consultation process to initiate and sustain organizational change toward this effort. It draws on innovative ideas from narrative theory, organizational development, and implementation science to highlight a three component approach. This approach includes the use of appreciative inquiry focus groups to elicit existing best practices, the provision of clinical training, and ongoing coaching with practice leaders to build on those better moments and develop concrete practice frameworks, and leadership coaching and organizational consultation to develop organizational structures that institutionalize family‐centered practice. While the article uses a principle‐based practice framework, Collaborative Helping, to illustrate this process, the approach is applicable with a variety of clinical frameworks grounded in family‐centered values and principles.     

Sitting through the emptiness

This article explores clinical encounters with experiences of the ‘empty ego’ which arise from early relational trauma. The ego’s emptiness is held in repetitious complexes and arises out of affectively charged experiences between self and other which remain split-off from awareness. This kind of consciousness is viewed as dualistic, separating non-dual subjectivity from its dualistic objects of consciousness. In contrast, what I am calling healing void states of non-dualistic consciousness, when admitted to awareness, allow the individual to dis-identify from the traumatizing representations of self and other through an experience of non-duality. In contrast to an objectified, dualistic emptiness of the ego, healing void states come about in moments of non-dual, unified consciousness. These states occur in the ego-Self relationship by linking the ego’s dualistic awareness in chronic subject/object splits to ones of non-dual pure consciousness. The healing void state is always incipiently present and potentially able to bridge the ego-Self connection in bogged-down treatment. The paper explores potential integrations with non-dual models of consciousness such as Vedantic and Kashmir Shaivism, among other mystical traditions. A combined Vedantic-Jungian understanding can provide a transcendent bridge that integrates Eastern concepts of non-duality in treating emptiness.