Au Revoir: An Attachment and Loss Perspective on Termination

Traditional views of psychotherapy hold that termination allows both for a consolidation of therapeutic work and an opportunity to work through issues of separation and loss. Such a view suggests not only that those issues will resolve in treatment, but also that endings are inevitable, permanent, and that the feelings invoked can and should be mastered and worked through. Recent research on termination, attachment, loss and grieving suggests a different conception. Consideration of that research can better ground therapists in more nuanced techniques for ending treatment in both child and adult psychotherapy.

Transference Enactments in Clinical Supervision

Transference enactments play a central role in clinical supervision regardless of whether supervisors or supervisees consciously recognize or acknowledge their presence. Supervisors who do recognize enactments better understand the core issues that interfere with supervisees’ capacity to relate therapeutically to patients. Supervisory process is markedly enhanced when supervisors consciously study manifestations of transference within the supervisory relationship and respond to them correctively. Corrective interventions, whether purposeful or unintentional, expand supervisees’ relational and self-reflective capacities.

Disrupting Power and Privilege in Couples Therapy

Power disparities underlie many of the issues that couples bring for therapy. People in relationships are not equal; often one partner is systematically conferred unearned advantage and dominance. This article synthesizes results from three qualitative research studies to propose a social justice approach for clinical practice with couples. Interventions are suggested to keep issues of power and privilege a central focus while addressing the ordinary issues partners present for therapy.

What is child care? Lessons from time-use surveys of major English-speaking countries

This paper examines the definition and measurement of time devoted to child care in the diary-based surveys administered by the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. Detailed analysis of the relationship between measures of care activity and supervisory care in the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) illustrate the larger conceptual issues at stake.

The scoring rules in an endogenous election

Plurality rule is mostly criticized from being capable of choosing an alternative considered as worst by a strict majority. This paper considers elections in which the agenda consists of potential candidates strategically choosing whether or not to enter the election. In this context, we examine the ability of scoring rules to fulfil the Condorcet criterion. We show for the case of three potential candidates that Plurality rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies a version of the Condorcet criterion in two cases: 1) when preferences are single-peaked and, 2) when preferences are single-dipped.

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Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Discrimination

We develop empirical estimates of the return to sexual orientation in the labor market and utilize the 2004 Current Population Survey to determine if lesbians and gay men are treated differently from their heterosexual counterparts. We find strong evidence consistent with the hypothesis of discriminatory treatment against gay men, and this evidence differs substantially by occupation. On the other hand, we find no evidence of discrimination against lesbians. These findings are consistent with priors based on economic theory of the standard taste for discrimination and statistical discrimination models. The results for both men and women are consistent across wage and total compensation regressions.

Therapeutic Ambition,Uncertainty, and Psychotherapy with Heterosexually Married Gay Men: A Short Commentary

A Short Commentary on the article 'Staying Put in the Closet: Examining Clinical Practice and Countertransference Issues in Work with Gay Men Married to Straight Women' by Edward Alessi. The focus is upon countertransference issues, especially therapeutic ambition, in working clinically with heterosexually married gay men. The work of the interpersonal school is emphasized as providing a creative approach to therapeutic ambition with Otto Allen Will's concept of the governing principle of uncertainty.

Winnicott,Tomkins, and the Psychology of Affect

Donald Winnicott’s work is rather well-known to most clinicians, and many of his concepts––e.g., facilitating environment, spontaneous gesture, going-on-being, impingement, annihilation, True and False Self––are utilized clinically and theoretically. Silvan Tomkins and his colleagues provide a profound understanding of the psychology of affect, and their work furnishes a lens through which Winnicott’s ideas can be further appreciated. The author suggests such an integration is crucial not only to deepening our understanding of Winnicott’s concepts, but also to enhancing the clinical dimension of affect theory. This discussion also has important implications for social work with respect to both treatment issues as well as prevention and early intervention programs.

Spillover Impacts of a Reproductive Health Program on Elderly Women in Rural Bangladesh

This paper extends the program evaluation literature by investigating intra-household externalities generated by a reproductive health program, administered as a quasi-control experiment in rural Bangladesh. Although the program targeted only mothers and children in randomly selected treatment areas, using a reduced form demand approach and data from Matlab Health and Socio-economic Survey of 1996, we found a significantly positive spillover impact of this reproductive health program on the health of the never-targeted elderly women.

The Monster Within: Countertransference Reflections on a Gay Adolescent’s Struggle with Sexual Identity

This paper concerns the author’s countertransference reflections on her work with a gay adolescent who identifies with powerfully destructive internal objects, including Hitler and the Monster. The author describes her countertransference inquiry through which she experiences her own potential destructiveness in order to help accommodate her adolescent patient’s rejected and disowned self states.

Did the legalization of abortion increase women’s household bargaining power? Evidence from labor supply

I estimate the impact of abortion legalization on spouses’ labor supplies to test whether legalization increased women’s household bargaining power, in a collective household behavior framework. Based on CPS data, I find that wives’ labor supply decreased and their husbands’ increased, which is consistent with the bargaining hypothesis. This contrasts with most studies of abortion and birth control technologies, which predict a labor supply effect only for women, and of opposite sign. Also consistent with the bargaining interpretation, I estimate no significant impact on anti-abortion religious couples or on those who regularly used contraceptives. PSID data yield supportive evidence.

A household production model of demand for childcare and meals: theory and evidence from the Philippines

Becker/Mincer theory of home production was the first to systematically incorporate time in economic models, and the theory generated much empirical research in a wide variety of areas. However, the direct applications of Becker/Mincer home production theory in empirical research are scarce because of the innate immeasurability of commodities. In this paper, I recover unobservable commodities from the cost functions under certain assumptions about production technologies. Then, using the Philippine Bukidnon panel study of rural households, I test for the core of the Becker model: negative substitution effects between a time-intensive and a goods-intensive commodity arising from wage increases. The estimates of the structural form as well as the reduced form relative demand between childcare, which represents a time-intensive commodity, and meal consumption, which represents a goods-intensive commodity, support the major predictions of the model.

Understanding and Utilizing Parallel Processes of Social Interaction for Attachment-based Parenting Interventions

In an effort to meet both the parenting and treatment needs of substance-abusing women who are parents, residential drug treatment programs have been struggling to find the best approach. A qualitative-quantitative study of the parenting experience of mothers in residential drug treatment programs housing both mothers and their children found that relational processes characterized how these mothers perceived parenting as well as treatment. The findings presented the interplay and mutuality between a mother’s interactions (natural or facilitated) with the external social world that includes her child and those connected to the treatment facility and the internal formation of her sense of herself, her child, and others, along with the changes in both areas that took place in the facility. These findings lend important support to the use of attachment-based parenting interventions in residential drug treatment programs by drawing on these relational processes.

Engaging Absent Fathers in the Treatment of Children

Absent fathers are often excluded from the treatment of their children for various reasons. They are often marginalized by mothers, and unintentionally excluded by clinicians. Absent fathers are also excluded from treatment in fear that their presence might undermine the competencies of single mothers, which social service agencies serve to empower. This article will discuss the potential benefits of including absent fathers in family therapy, and how to work with them once engaged in treatment.

An Examination of Factors Affecting Perception of Workplace Discrimination

This study investigates perceptions of workplace discrimination among racial minorities in Canada. Specifically, the study examines how objective experiences of disadvantage and expectations for equity influence racial minorities’ perceptions of discrimination. The results indicate that while both of these factors affect perceptions of discrimination, expectations for equity may be especially important. Although new immigrants are among the most disadvantaged groups in the Canadian labor market, they are less likely to perceive discrimination than longer term immigrants, who may have higher expectations for equitable treatment. Education also increases the perception of discrimination among immigrants, perhaps due to the higher expectations of educated immigrants. Lastly, objective income inequity is not found to be related to perceived discrimination.

Effects of Consumer Goods Shortages on Fertility in Post-Soviet Economy

This study makes two contributions to the study of family and economic issues. First, it investigates the effects of consumer-market shortage on fertility. Second, it considers the effects on fertility of eliminating consumer-market shortage using a survey of families from the Former Soviet Union. The estimated model of fertility showed that consumer goods shortage and fertility were positively related. The elimination of consumer goods shortage would, therefore, be expected to lower aggregate number of children in the transition (post-Soviet) economies.

Dissociation,Traumatic Attachments,and Self-Harm: Eating Disorders and Self-Mutilation

Self-harm, such as eating disorders and self-mutilation, represents dissociated compensatory attempts to serve self-regulatory functions. Self-harm develops when the child who has become attached to those who have inflicted pain and suffering maintains that attachment by inflicting pain on himself. Brain imaging studies have found that the communication pattern between parent and child shapes the way the child’s attachment system adapts to experiences with the attachment figure, literally hardwiring the child’s brain. The good news is that a safe and secure attachment is very good medicine and can rewire the brain. An attachment-based multi-phase approach to treatment is presented.

The Unbearable Fatigue of Compassion: Notes from a Substance Abuse Counselor Who Dreams of Working at Starbuck’s

Current research has determined that a larger percent of social workers and other counselors are affected by PTSD types of symptoms when working with traumatized clients than the general population. While much of this research addresses workers in specific trauma areas like sexual assault centers or child welfare agencies, little specific thought has been given towards the special stress that working with Substance Abuse Disorders (SA) and trauma may present. This paper takes a brief look at the issues of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue with SA practice and describes future investigation pathways toward this goal.

A Commentary on “Gender Perspectives in Cross-Cultural Couples”

This commentary expands on Kellner’s article by discussing clinical practice with Asian and Euro-American couples. Differences in Western and traditional Asian cultural expectations around intimacy and styles of emotional expression can often lead to misunderstanding among couples. Therapy can also be a challenge for couples when they do not share the same first language. A therapist who only speaks English can inadvertently create an alliance with the partner whose first language is English. On the other hand, bilingual therapists who use both English and an Asian language in the session can face challenges differentiating their roles as a therapist versus a translator. Case illustrations are presented to illustrate these challenges.

An Economics of Earthquake Prediction

For a long time, it is puzzling that in the field of earthquake prediction we have a large number of predictors together with evaluators who are supposed to be in charge of investigating their predictions, the discipline is however still in stagnation until now. We use a game-theoretic model to investigate this issue. In the paper we study a sequential game with two players (a predictor and an evaluator), and find that there always exists a unique equilibrium in which efforts by both parties are low and a learning-by-doing process cannot be triggered. It is then shown that introducing a mandatory exposure to peer review for the evaluator can induce a higher effort in both prediction and investigation.