Treatment issues for survivors of physical and sexual abuse*

Many clients who participate in family therapy have experienced trauma such as physical and sexual abuse in their families of origin. Extensive literature suggests that abusive experiences can result in post-traumatic stress disorders, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, and other long-term effects. Without recognition of the effects that abuse can have on individuals, it is possible to misdiagnose clients or fail to provide them with adequate assistance. This study is an attempt to compare the symptomology of nonabused clients with physically and sexually abused clients using an empirically sound measure. The results demonstrate that the majority of clients who experienced physical and/or sexual abuse in their backgrounds scored in the clinical range on scales from the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Instrument (MCMI) (Millon, 1984). In contrast, clients who did not report abuse had significantly lower scores than the abused clients, and the majority of the nonabused clients scored in the nonclinical range on the scales of the MCMI. Treatment and theoretical implications surrounding the issues of abuse are discussed, and recommendations for marriage and family therapists are provided.     

The Role of Criminal Social Identity in the Relationship between Criminal Friends and Criminal Thinking Style within a Sample of Recidivistic Prisoners

Previous research suggests a direct relationship between criminal friends and criminal thinking style; however, social identity theory proposes that identity mediates the impact of social group members on development of thinking styles. This research project is the first attempt to empirically test the mediating role of criminal social identity in the development of criminal thinking styles within a recidivistic prison sample (N = 312). The structural equation model of criminal thinking style presented and tested in this study supports the central predictions of social identity theory, with findings demonstrating an indirect effect of antisocial friend associations on criminal thinking through in-group affect and in-group ties with criminal in-group members that reflect two of three dimensions of the measure of criminal social identity applied in the current study. Further implications in relation to theory and previous studies are discussed.     

The politic,philosophy and practice of OR—A personal view of the issues

It is almost 50 years since Sir Henry Tizzard created the group of scientists in RAF Fighter Command who were to coin the term ‘Operational Research’. The group still exists, though its work, and the work of other defence OR groups, has changed from solving acute operational problems by the extrapolation of observed data, to an attempt at predicting the outcome of policy choices that are beyond experience. Inevitably this has forced OR further into a political arena. Yet most OR practitioners are scientists used to investigating apolitical and benign nature. In this paper the author gives a personal view of what he believes OR is trying to achieve, what practical problems and pressures have to be faced and attempts to give guidance on how to proceed.     

The Still Face: A History of a Shared Experimental Paradigm

When faced by a suddenly unresponsive social partner, young infants typically react by sobering and gazing away. This still‐face reaction has intrigued researchers for several decades. In this article, we present a history of the still‐face paradigm in which we locate early observations of the still‐face effect, describe the formalization of a procedure that reliably produces it, and discuss how this procedure has been used to investigate a broad range of questions about early social and emotional development. In addition, we reflect on the heuristic value of shared experimental paradigms.     

‘Female Heroes’: Celebrity Executives as Postfeminist Role Models

This paper explores the significance of contemporary celebrity businesswomen as role models for women aspiring to leadership in business. We explore the kind of gendered ideals they model and promote to women through their autobiographical narratives, and analyse how these ideals map against a contemporary postfeminist sensibility to further understand the potential of these role models to redress the under‐representation of women in management and leadership. Our findings show that celebrity businesswomen present a role model that we call the ‘female hero’, a figure characterized by 3Cs: confidence to jump over gendered barriers; control in managing these barriers; and courage to push through them. We argue that the ‘female hero’ role model is deeply embedded in the contemporary postfeminist sensibility; it offers exclusively individualized solutions to inequality by calling on women to change themselves to succeed, and therefore has limited capacity to challenge the current gendered status quo in management and leadership. The paper contributes to current literature on role models by generating a more differentiated and socially situated understanding of distant female role models in business and extending our understanding of their potential to generate sustainable and long‐term change in advancing gendered change in management and leadership.     

Using complexity theory in kinship practice

This reflective discussion draws on data from a collaborative enquiry into kinship or family and friends practice. It introduces perspectives from complexity and chaos theory as a way of re‐examining the challenges of kinship practice. The discussion highlights the enduring challenges for practitioners, not least, managing anxiety and uncertainty, sustaining continuity and containment, becoming experienced and taking account of the complex developmental needs of the children and their families. The discussion particularly raises questions about appropriate settings for practitioners to undertake such a demanding area of child and family social work.     

Can former Soviet Union top managers of large industries become successful leaders of privatized corporations?

Management training as a facilitative process in organizational change is a complicated undertaking even in the most innovative companies in the West. The Russian context adds problems of cultural and management unfamiliarity with the socio-business and the political environment within which Western management trainers operate. In the early 1990s 180 Russian senior managers from four large state corporations participated in a training-needs analysis, which was to estimate the level of knowledge of how market economy concepts work in the West. They were asked to 1) state their organization's training objectives, 2) indicate their understanding of the process, and 3) indicate the level of their personal ownership in carrying out the training objectives. The results showed that Russian top industrial management had no experience of top decisionmaking processes, and individually they felt disorientated by the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Their historical understanding of their professional roles and distrust of the present changes left them demotivated and without any constructive personal aspirations. By 1998, after a period of focusing solely on financial auditing training, large Russian companies began to be interested in management training and development programmes. These findings have some basic cultural implications for Western trainers working with Russian management.