Timing Disclosure Sessions: Adding a Narrative Perspective to Clinical Work with Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Though the literature on the diagnosis and treatment of survivors of childhood sexual abuse has burgeoned in the last 20 years, relatively little guidance is available in the popular or professional literature to assist clients or therapists about issues of disclosure of this abuse to family members. When authors explicitly focus on disclosure, the timing of such disclosure is usually framed within a psychological and/or interpersonal perspective. In this article, we suggest that attention to characteristics of the sexual abuse narrative itself offers an important additional resource to guide decision making with respect to disclosure. We also describe ways that a narrative approach to disclosure can produce empowering conversational practices. A detailed case example provides the clinical material to illustrate this narrative approach to disclosure.     

TWO-STAGE SEQUENTIAL SELECTION PROCEDURES USING ABILITY AND TRAINING PERFORMANCE: INCREMENTAL VALIDITY OF BEHAVIORAL CONSISTENCY MEASURES

A behavioral consistency model was used to evaluate the predictive validity of ability and training performance measures as components in a two-stage pre-reject sequential selection procedure. Participants were 91 college students who completed ability tests and training relevant to an air intercept and traffic control operator task. A simulation study was conducted so that two groups could be examined: a high ability group, analogous to a screened hired employee group in an organization; and a quasi-random ability group, analogous to an applicant pool as a validation sample. The incremental validity of training performance was practically and statistically significant in the prediction of component and overall task performance after including ability as a predictor in both groups. Adding ability to the prediction of task performance after training performance had been used as a predictor had no practical effects in either sample. The validity and likely utility of using sequential procedures to select employees as well as implications of behavioral consistency measures for privacy and discrimination in employee testing are discussed. Future research directions using different types of training and employee samples are also described.     

Predicting conflict within romantic relationships during the transition to adulthood

We conducted a retrospective study between 1997 and 2000 with 200 participants in the Children in the Community Study at their mean age of 29 (range: 27–31 years). Participants completed detailed narrative interviews about their transition to adulthood and described monthly levels of partner conflict that had occurred between ages 17 and 27. Data from these interviews were used to investigate the developmental trajectory and predictors of conflict in romantic relationships. Multilevel growth models showed that partner conflict increased between ages 19 and 25 and then declined slightly. Parental divorce, low parental socioeconomic status, being an only child, being divorced, being married, cohabiting, and having biological offspring were associated with elevated partner conflict. Different patterns of association between these variables and partner conflict were observed in men and women.     

Sexual Harassment: A Problem Shielded by Silence

This article offers an overview of the complex issue of sexual harassment. Definitions, prevalence data, cultural context, barriers to reporting these experiences to appropriate resources, and the effects of sexual harassment on victims are outlined.     

Religion and Reproductive Genetics: Beyond Views of Embryonic Life?

Advances in new reproductive genetic technologies have spawned a very polarized public and political debate. As with the abortion debate, most formal opposition to these technologies comes from religious organizations that are concerned about embryonic and fetal life. In this article we conduct an analysis of the first nationally representative opinion survey on religion and reproductive genetics. We find, as in the abortion debate, that evangelicals, fundamentalists, and traditionalist Catholics are more opposed than more liberal religious groups. When we compare respondents with the same views on embryonic life, we find that differences remain in the level of approval for genetic technologies, suggesting that there is more to this debate than concern about embryos. We also find that religious conservatives are more distinct from the religious nonattenders in their views of health objectives of reproductive genetic technologies and less distinct in their views of improvement objectives.     

THE EFFECT OF TELEVISION AND RADIO ON CHILDREN'S CREATIVITY

The literature on creativity posits that creative abilities are stable and relatively impervious to short-term interventions. Several studies have, however, reported differential effects of media on children's imaginative play and thinking. The results of these studies are difficult to interpret owing to their reliance on nonstandardized measures of creativity. The present study examines the relative effects of television versus radio on children's creativity. Third and sixth graders were presented a story on television or radio and were then given an adapted version of the “Just Suppose” test of divergent thinking developed by Torrance (1974). Responses were scored in terms of ideational fluency, flexibility, and originality. The results indicated that the two media did not have a differential effect on children's creativity.     

Ethical,Legal, and Administrative Options to Address Sexual Relationships Between Counselor and Client

This article reviews the ethical, administrative, and legal options of redress that are available to clients who have had a sexual relationship with their counselors. Recommendations to prevent and deal with this issue are suggested for agencies and institutions.     

The Small and the Ordinary: The Daily Practice of a Postmodern Narrative Therapy

In this article, I contrast assumptions of a modernist worldview and a postmodern worldview as they relate to clinical practice. Two exercises are described that help therapists develop insight into and practice with the kind of thinking that is consistent with a postmodern narrative clinical practice. Particular attention is paid to the ways that even the small and the ordinary — single words, single gestures, minor asides, trivial actions — can provide opportunities for generating new meanings. Five concepts that I routinely use in my professional and personal life and that are consistent with a postmodern narrative practice — discourse, externalizing the internalized discourse, exceptions, power as the means to produce a consensus, and characteristics of narrative — are illustrated.