Video Home Training (the Orion Project): A Short-Term Preventive and Treatment Intervention for Families with Young Children

Developed in Holland and based on short-term, home-centered, filmed video feedback of family interactions, an experimental Orion project was conducted in Israel to determine whether it could be provided through local welfare departments as a routine treatment alternative. This article summarizes an evaluation of 52 families (with problems in parent-child interaction) and 64 control families that participated in the Orion Video Home-Training Project. Only the Orion families showed significant gains in all the eight areas of positive parent-child communication that are the focus of the program, which is based on reinforcing potential family strengths. These gains were generally sustained 6 months after program completion. There were several background variables, such as family status, income, health, education, and employment, that influenced the extent of family gains.     

Group Orientation for Persons on Probation or Parole

The group orientation program described in this article is a systematic attempt to transmit information and initiate a counseling relationship with persons newly placed on probation or parole. The group orientation process reduced tension and allowed reluctant clients to be guided into a helping relationship. Following the group sessions, individual meetings are designed to capitalize on those gains. During one 7-month period, 130 persons went through the group orientation, and 81 of these were subsequently transferred to reduced supervision.     

Marital satisfaction and topographical assessment of marital interaction: A longitudinal analysis of newlywed couples

Despite numerous tests of social learning hypotheses relating to marriage, important questions remain concerning how best to quantify behavior displayed in marital interaction. In the present study, 60 newlywed couples reported their marital satisfaction, engaged in a 15-minute problem-solving discussion, and reported their marital satisfaction again 6 and 12 months later. The interactions were microanalytically coded, the codes were assigned a numeric value, and each spouse's cumulative point totals were plotted as a function of time in the interaction. This was done separately for all 60 couples. Graphs were divided into groups based on the topography of the graphically represented interactions. These groups differed cross-sectionally and longitudinally in their level of marital satisfaction. Couples tended to have lower satisfaction scores when their initial interactions were characterized with behavioral parity between the spouses at the beginning of a discussion, changing to asymmetrical patterns of behavior later in the conversation. This method was found to be more predictive of marital satisfaction than were standard methods of assessing dyadic interaction (i.e., base rates of behavior and sequential analysis). Implications of these data for understanding how interactions relate to the course of newlywed marriage are discussed.     

Self‐esteem trajectories across 25 years and midlife intimate relations

Guided by a life‐span developmental systems approach, this study examined links between self‐esteem assessed over 25 years and adaptive interaction and relationship risk at midlife using data from 341 Canadian adults surveyed (or followed) from ages 18 to 43. Results showed higher self‐esteem at age 18 was associated with more adaptive interactions and lower perceived relationship risk at age 43. A more rapid increase in self‐esteem through the transition to adulthood into midlife (ages 18–43) was also associated with more frequent adaptive interactions and less relationship risk at age 43. These results held after accounting for potential confounding variables. This study is the first to demonstrate self‐esteem trajectories over a quarter century predict midlife intimate relationship functioning.