A Note on Mourning an Adoptive Parent in an Orthodox Jewish Family

ABSTRACT

A sensitive and potentially problematic manifestation of family bereavement situations may occur when one of the mourners is an adopted child. Using an ecosystems perspective, this paper examines the nature of mourning in Orthodox Jewish adoptive families and the therapeutic use of religious ritual and dicta to assist with the maintenance of family homeostasis during the potentially destabilizing period following the death of a relative. A case example is presented, illustrating the value of cooperation between therapists and clergy to determine appropriate interventions. Suggestions are made for the use of analogous rituals to assist a broader range of families.     

An Endangered Species: The Female as Addict or Member of an Addict Family*

When a woman is the identified addict or a member of a drug/alcohol abusing family system she often experiences considerably more psychiatric abuse than her male cohorts. This paper surveys some of the representative literature reflecting attitudes and practices imposed on these women. Explanations based on a study of healthy family systems are given with interpretations anchored in cultural rather than sexist phenomena. It is suggested that women need to be understood according to the complex interlocking transactions within family systems.     

Family Structure Pathways and Academic Disadvantage among Adolescents in Stepfamilies*

Using National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data, this research documents the prevalence of the different stepfamily forms in which American adolescents live, examines the family structure pathways through which adolescents traveled to arrive at their current family form, and explores the effects of these pathways on grades, school‐related behavior, and college expectations (N = 13,988). Compared to those who have always lived with both biological parents, youth in pathways including divorce/separation or a nonunion birth experience significantly lower academic outcomes, while those whose pathways include parental death do not. Specific effects vary, however, according to the outcome examined. For example, the combination of divorce/separation and movement into the least common of family forms is associated with particularly poor GPA outcomes. Divorce/separation is also more detrimental than nonunion birth for college expectations, particularly when coupled with a transition into a stepfamily based on cohabitation. Divorce/separation and nonunion birth have similar, negative effects on school behavior problems. Overall, results indicate that living in a stepfamily does not benefit youth, and can in some ways disadvantage them, even compared to their peers in single‐mother families. This is especially the case if youth transition into a stepfamily following a combination of stressful family experiences. These findings underscore the importance of examining family effects from a longitudinal perspective.     

Training Marriage and Family Counselors in an Industrial Setting*

The paper focuses on the interface between family life and the world of work with special reference to the field of marriage and family counseling. The empirical and theoretical rationale for incorporating marriage and family counseling services in an industrial setting are presented along with estimates of industry-wide receptivity. The final section of the paper describes a specific plan of action being implemented at Purdue University and explores some of the basic issues associated with the training program, the clientele to be served, and the delivery system to be employed within an industrial setting.     

Critical Elements of Criminal Behavior Explanation*

Many theorists have suggested what might be considered elements necessary to committing a criminal act, but no one has attempted to formulate and test a model of criminal behavior which includes the elements appearing most often in the literature: motivation, freedom from social constraints, skill, and opportunity. This paper presents a review of conceptual problems in using two of these elements, followed by a multiplicative model of criminal behavior containing all four elements. The model is then utilizen date pertaining to the pertaining to the purchase of stolen merchandise. All four elements are implicated in this activity.     

Goals of Family Therapy*

A review of family therapy goals is presented and discussed. Therapy goals are divided into two major categories: 1) Specific Goals for Specific Families; and 2) General Goals. The latter category is further divided into goals having to do with family interaction and those related to symptoms and character traits of individual family members. Familial and individual goals are discussed in relation to the concept of interrelated, hierarchically arranged systems.     

A Structural Approach to a Family with an Encopretic Child*

This article describes brief therapy using a structural approach. During the course of therapy the encopretic behavior of a pre-adolescent boy was observed in relation to the interactionand structure of the family system. The presenting problem was analyzed as a sign of family dysfunction and of the stress consequent to the parents separation. The success of the therapy didnot consist only of the disappearance of the encopretic behavior, but also in the discovery of different modalities of relating which produced a liberating effect on the identified patient and on other members of the family.     

A Systems Model of Family for Family Therapists*

A family model that provides a classification system for family therapists is presented, based on an integration of family systems research in healthy and disturbed families and clinical data. The model provides tools for cross-sectional, process-oriented family assessment derived from consideration of family competence in task performance and family operating style. Seven family types result-optimal, adequate, midrange centripetal, midrange centrifugal, midrange mixed, severely dysfunctional centripetal and severely dysfunctional centrifugal. Identifying characteristics of each type are provided, and intervention strategies and approaches are discussed that follow logically from the assessment.     

Family Structure and Music as a Model of Dyadic Behavior

The current study theorized that adult children from noncontinuously intact family structures seek models of dyadic behaviors outside of their home because their family structure lacks the necessary context from which to learn how to behave in a romantic relationship. The present research tested this prediction in two studies. Study 1 surveyed 366 college students from a midwestern university, and Study 2 surveyed 729 college students from a diverse southeastern university. In both studies, participants from noncontinuously intact homes reported risky sexual behaviors, and sexual lyrical content in popular music was able to partially explain the sexual behaviors of participants from divorced, reconstituted families, and never married homes.     

沟通：家庭教育的有效途径

本文分析了“烦恼期”孩子的心理特点,并根据父母与子女进行沟通的现状及其存在的诸多问题提出了父母应多参与孩子的活动,设法了解孩子；重新认定父母角色；多赞美孩子；及时传递“家书短信”；由于“烦恼期”阶段的孩子的大脑处于人生发展中的第二个高峰期,应培养孩子的学习兴趣等一些可行性的建议,希望能够帮助父母提高家教水平,促进广大青少年健康成长。     

Inequality as an Explanation for Obesity in the United States

Over the past several decades, there has been a sharp increase in obesity across all population groups in the United States. In fact, the United States has one of the highest rates of obesity compared to other countries throughout the world. Obesity has become a national public health concern because it is related to a number of negative health, social, psychological, and economic outcomes. It is particularly concerning because racial/ethnic minorities and populations with the least education and highest poverty rates bear the largest burden of obesity. In addition, disparities in obesity tend to be gendered, with women experiencing the largest disparities in obesity by income, education, and race/ethnicity. In this review, I describe how social inequality is linked to obesity in the United States. I highlight elements of disadvantage at the individual‐, family‐, school‐, and neighborhood‐level that are linked to energy intake and expenditure, which are directly related to obesity, and draw from evidence and theories from multiple fields of the social and medical sciences. I also highlight the important role stress may play in linking disadvantage to obesity, particularly for women. I argue that understanding the complex mechanisms and processes that link social inequality to obesity requires multidisciplinary and multilevel frameworks.     

Perceived Family Climate of Students Deciding to Pursue Counseling

Abstract

It was hypothesized that perceived family-climate factors would differentiate between students who applied for therapy help and those who had not. Further, within the applied-for-therapy group, it was hypothesized that perceived family-climate would be related to therapy outcome. It was predicted and found that the students applying for therapy were lower on the relationship and personal growth dimensions, but higher on the control dimension of family climate, than college students in general. Within the students applying for therapy it was found that perceived higher relationship and higher control dimension scores were related to longer time spent in therapy and to therapists' more favorable evaluation of the therapy experience. Suggestions were made for practical application of family-climate information to therapy.     

Family Life Cycle,Extended Family Orientations,and Economic Aspirations as Factors in the Propensity to Migrate*

This paper provides a simultaneous examination of three noteworthy causes of migration. The influences of the nuclear family life cycle, orientation toward the extended family, and economic aspirations upon the propensity to migrate were analyzed for husbands and wives with relatives in the same community. Multivariate analysis of variance and stepwise regressions of the survey data were utilized in testing several hypotheses There was support for the ideas that (1) propensity to migrate declines during successive stages of the nuclear family life cycle, (2) propensity to migrate is inversely related to extended family orientations for husbands and wives with relatives in the same community, and (3) propensity to migrate is directly related to economic aspirations. It is suggested that future theory and research on the causes of migration need to focus on decision making in which the implications of the nuclear family life cycle can be further specified at the personal-psychological level.     

Aspects of Family Formation in Canada*

La fécondité est en déclin au Canada. Nous tentons d'expliquer ce changement, et d'en dégager les implications pour la formulation de politiques. Nous faisons la critique des études canadiennes récemment publiées sur la question en les situant par rapport à une adaptation du cadre de référence Davis et Blake. Ceci nous permet de formuler des hypothèses relatives à deux niveaux dont la distinction est implicite dans le cadre de référence: (1) le niveau de la structure sociale (variables indépendantes), (2) le niveau des phénomènes qui déterminent plus directement la fécondité (variables “intermédiaires”). Les données disponibles nous permettent de vérifier nos hypothèses. Un problème demeure cependant: le déclin de la fécondité est-il lié au fait qu'on veut limiter les naissances ou les différer? Fertility is declining in Canada. We attempt to account for this change and to suggest policy implications. We review recent Canadian studies fitting them into an adaptation of the Davis-Blake framework. This permits the formulation of hypotheses at two levels implicit in the framework: (1) social structural (independent variables); (2) proximate (“intermediate” variables). Hypotheses were tested against available data, but a problem remained: does the decline result from deferring or averting of births?     

Personal Reflections of A Family Therapist*

In this informal paper I discuss my personal evolution as a family therapist, developments in the field, the politics of a systems approach in conventional settings, resistances to family and marital therapy by other professionals, some still puzzling aspects of family therapy, whether family or marital therapy works and what do we mean by working, directions my own work has taken, some comments about the nature of family life, the satisfactions and frustrations and stresses of being a family therapist, some hidden agendas of family therapy practices, how one's own personal family relationships affect and are affected by this kind of work, the casualties among family and marital therapists, and, finally, whether family therapists should have family therapy for themselves and their own families.     

An Educational Model of Family Consultation*

This approach to working with families under stress recognizes the family as a system interacting via communication patterns among its own members and within a larger context of peers, neighbors, school, work, and community agencies. The goal is to help the family become a support system for all its members, more capable of meeting both adult and child needs for ongoing socialization and personal growth. The model is educational in that the focus is on teaching the family to identify strengths as well as dysfunctional behavior, and to acquire some basic communication and problem-solving skills. Methods are both cognitive and experiential. The approach is useful in short-term therapy with single families or groups of families.     

Perceived Teacher Autonomy and the Meaning of Organizational Control*

This paper compares field data from three schools to generate explanations for teacher perceptions of their autonomy. These perceptions do not vary with control imposed on teachers in any regular way. Consideration of environmental pressure on the schools, however, reveals a pattern to the findings. Minimal environmental pressure allows the emergence of an all-pervading consensus that leads teachers to construe control as supportive of personal goals. Moderate pressure engenders teacher dependence on the principal to buffer them from uncertainty. The principal translates the dependence into control activities teachers perceive as constraints. High levels of pressure preoccupy the principal who, therefore, cannot coordinate the school effectively. This causes teachers, themselves, to feel ineffective and constrained.     

Perceived Family Functioning and Family Resources of Hong Kong Families: Implications for Social Work Practice

This article reports the results of a telephone survey (n = 1,015 respondents) that aims to identify the perceived general family functioning and family resources of Hong Kong Chinese families and their linkage to each other in a rapidly transforming society. The perceived general family functioning of the respondents was average, and the five types of family resources—time, income, human capital, psychological capital, and social capital—of the respondents ranged from average to good. The following family resource domains, in descending order, have accounted for significant variance in perceived general family functioning: income, time spent with family, stress coping efficacy, religion, and satisfaction with the living environment. Our findings provide empirical support for policy formulation and social work practice.