Bargaining With Time: An Interview With Helen Pavlin

Helen Pavlin is an accredited mental health social worker and family therapist and accredited family dispute resolution practitioner in private practice in Darwin. She has been involved in social work and family therapy since the early 1970s in Australia and internationally. In 1996 she received the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal from the Australian Association of Social Workers. She is one of the assessors and associate editors for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. In 2007 Helen received the Journal Award for her outstanding contribution to the family therapy field in Australia. She is an accomplished writer and a member of the Australian Society of Authors. Her poems and book reviews have been published frequently in ANZJFT.     

Bursting With Laughter

Celio Ferreira. Palauan cosmology: dominance in a traditional Micronesian society (Gothenburg Studies in Social Anthropology 11). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. 1987. vi, 300 pp., figures, plates, glossary, references. SEK 200 (paper) ISBN 91 7346 183 0 ISSN 0348 4076.

Richard J. Parmentier. The sacred remains: myth, history and polity in Belau. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1987. xxiii, 309pp., figures, maps, photographs, tables, glossary, place names, references, index. ISBN 0 226 64695 5 (hardcover) ISBN 0 226 64696 3 (paper).     

Training and Generalization of Peer-Directed Mands With Non-vocal Children With Autism

The current investigation evaluated the effects of extinction and prompts on training and generalization of peer-directed mands for preferred items using a picture exchange communication system with 2 children diagnosed with autism. Results showed that independent mands with a peer increased during treatment for both participants, generalized to a novel peer without explicit training for 1 participant and following training for the second participant, and maintained in a more naturalistic setting that simulated a free-play activity in a classroom.     

Career Counseling With Persons Living With HIV: An Ecological Approach

Advances in medical treatment have greatly extended the life span and quality of life of persons living with HIV, with the nature of the disease evolving from causing an early death to chronic, manageable illness. Career counselors will increasingly be called upon to assist persons living with HIV. This article provides an overview of HIV disease and of career‐related issues unique to persons living with HIV. Career counseling interventions are discussed from an ecological perspective.     

Comparing Acquisition of Exchange-Based and Signed Mands With Children With Autism

Therapists and educators frequently teach alternative-communication systems, such as picture exchanges or manual signs, to individuals with developmental disabilities who present with expressive language deficits. Michael (1985) recommended a taxonomy for alternative communication systems that differentiated between selection-based systems in which each response is topographically identical (e.g., card selection and exchange systems) and topography-based systems in which each response is topographically distinct (e.g., signed language). We compared the efficiency of training picture exchanges and signs with 3 participants who presented with severe language deficits; all participants acquired the picture-exchange responses more readily.     

Coping With Antigay Violence: In-Depth Interviews With Flemish LGB Adults

In view of the possible negative mental health outcomes of antigay violence and the limited understanding of how lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) men and women cope with such experiences, this study examined the coping and social support-seeking strategies that victims adopt. In 2012, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 Flemish sexual minority victims of violence. These in-depth interviews show that antigay violence can generate profound negative outcomes. However, the respondents employed a range of coping strategies, of which four were discerned: (1) avoidance strategies, (2) assertiveness and confrontation, (3) cognitive change, and (4) social support. Applying a diverse set of coping strategies and actively attaching meaning to negative experiences helps victims of antigay violence to overcome negative effects such as fear, embarrassment, or depressive feelings. However, the presence of a supportive network seems an important condition in order for these positive outcomes to occur.     

Experiences With Implosive Therapy

Implosive Therapy (IT), which was originated by Thomas Stampfl in the 1950s, is an imagery technique built on psychoanalytic theory and learning theory. IT can be an effective means of helping people who have phobias and aversions. Examples illustrate the rationale, application, and outcome of the procedure.I am a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work and have extensive practice experience in family services, child guidance, and schools. I am now retired and do volunteer work with parent support groups, as well as independent evaluation of children and youth.     

Thinking Sociologically With Mathematics

Affect Control Theory was developed to address some issues in role theory. However, a mathematical formulation allowed the theory to expand rapidly to a variety of substantive issues, such as labeling, attributions, emotions, and the impact of settings on social interaction. Formalization raised theoretical issues that might have been neglected otherwise, and helped in defining the boundaries of the theory. A reasonable lesson to draw from development of affect control theory is that even modest mathematical analyses can expand theoretical productivity.     

Interview With Michael Kerr

The following article was written by Dr Michael Kerr in response to questions put to him by Barbara Fraser; Linda Mackay and Lu Pease when he visited Australia two years ago. These three family therapists took it upon themselves to prepare this interview in recognition of Dr Kerr's unique vantage point on Bowen Theory and family therapy. Michael Kerr was trained by Murray Bowen in the 1970s and subsequently went on to work as faculty at the Georgetown Family centre. He succeeded Bowen as director of the centre where he has devoted his professional life to the understanding, application and extension of theory. He is the co‐author with Dr Bowen of Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory (Kerr & Bowen, 1988), which remains the most esteemed text on this theory. He is also the editor of Family Systems: A Journal of Natural Systems Thinking in Psychiatry and The Sciences. Bowen's Family Systems Theory grew out of years of research from the 1950s‐1970s, which included observations of inpatient families with a schizophrenic member and using data from Bowen's own interactions with his family of origin (Bowen, 1978). The theory continues to be influential in family therapy with its most well‐known contributions being the process of triangling, the intergenerational transmission of family patterns and the concept of differentiation of self. (Brown, 1999). The following discussion from Dr Kerr brings a fresh perspective on the current applications and developments of this systems theory     

Staying With The Client

Abstract

Since the early seventies there have been widespread assumptions in social work that: (a) effective therapy is necessarily brief-lasting, at most, eight to ten sessions, and (b) that we should only deal with the problems that the client wants help with.

The author challenges the universality of these assumptions, and their basis in research and considerations about supposed cost-effectiveness. He illustrates through a single case study of a depressed adolescent girl and her unhappy mother that although contact could have been terminated after ten sessions, when the identified patient was better, in fact it would probably have achieved very little, since intervention up to that point had had the effect of making the mother only too painfully aware of her life predicament and reducing her almost to despair.

At the mother's request, social work contact continued for a further eleven sessions, spread over five months. She appeared to use this to achieve a considerable degree of acceptance of her painful and deprived childhood, and adopt a very much more positive attitude to her future. Her depression lifted, and her anxiety diminished. Follow-up eighteen months later strongly suggested that the gains made had been maintained for both mother and daughter.     

Family Life With Children With Disabilities: The Key Role of Rehabilitation

This study examines the effects of children's medical impairments and functional disabilities and the use of medical care and rehabilitation on three family consequences (job changes, severe financial problems, and sleep disruptions). We use a life course perspective on the interlinked lives of family members, countertransitions, and career contingencies to understand the family impact of child disability. Using data from the 1994 and 1995 National Health Interview Surveys (N= 3,446), we find that the rehabilitation services that children receive account for (mediate) a large part of the observed association of children's medical impairments and disabilities on these family outcomes. Assistance in obtaining rehabilitation for children with disabilities could reduce the family costs and disruptive countertransitions associated with raising children with disabilities.     

Reasoning With Partial Knowledge

We investigate how sociological argumentation differs from classical first–order logic. We focus on theories about age dependence of organizational mortality. The overall pattern of argument does not comply with the classical monotonicity principle: Adding premises overturns conclusions in an argument. The cause of nonmonotonicity is the need to derive conclusions from partial knowledge. We identify metaprinciples that appear to guide the observed sociological argumentation patterns, and we formalize a semantics to represent them. This semantics yields a new kind of logical consequence relation. We demonstrate that this new logic can reproduce the results of informal sociological theorizing and lead to new insights. It allows us to unify existing theory fragments, and it paves the way toward a complete classical theory.     

In Touch With People,not Paper: An Interview With Doug Sotheren

Doug Sotheren has been conducting well‐regarded training courses in relationship counseling for over 25 years, outside a university setting. In conversation with his former trainee Cathy Zervos, he presents his personal philosophy of counsellor training, emphasising the need for trainees to be ‘in touch with people’ rather than with theory. His whole course is experiential and based on the concept that training (including the way the co‐trainers handle their own relationship in front of the group) should model the counselling process itself. He talks about his way of selecting students, and his views on counselling students out of the course where necessary. A long‐serving member of the AAMFC and former editor of their newsletter, Sotheren praises the AAMFC for requiring demonstrated competence in its members.     

With the Best of Intentions

Abstract

Charities and humanitarian organisations in Singapore that were involved in post-Tsunami relief and reconstruction work are repeatedly queried by volunteers, donors, and journalists. The world has pledged and donated billions to Tsunami relief and reconstruction, and I have personally given money to Singapore charities. Why do I still read about needy people in temporary shelters? Where has the money gone? Another question reflects similar sentiments of puzzlement, even frustration: I am moved by the devastation and would like to help by volunteering my time and expertise. I have signed up to volunteer with several humanitarian organisations. I am highly qualified and could help people. Why am I still not sent overseas?

These are good questions that deserve solid answers. This article discusses the latest thinking in relief circles as to which volunteers are best sent overseas and how donations can most responsibly be used for effective and sustainable reconstruction. The authors draw on Singapore's experience with providing relief in the aftermath of the Tsunami along with Dr. Tay Keong Tan's observations of relief and rehabilitation efforts in the Tsunami-affected areas of Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The article finds that volunteering requires much more than just a giving heart. Also, donations may be used most effectively by thinking long-term rather than just short-term. Further, donations are best administered in a way coordinated with local relief plans and in consultation with local people. The article closes by considering lessons for volunteers, donors, and humanitarian relief agencies from the Tsunami's aftermath.     

Working With Missing Values

Less than optimum strategies for missing values can produce biased estimates, distorted statistical power, and invalid conclusions. After reviewing traditional approaches (listwise, pairwise, and mean substitution), selected alternatives are covered including single imputation, multiple imputation, and full information maximum likelihood estimation. The effects of missing values are illustrated for a linear model, and a series of recommendations is provided. When missing values cannot be avoided, multiple imputation and full information methods offer substantial improvements over traditional approaches. Selected results using SPSS, NORM, Stata (mvis/micombine), and Mplus are included as is a table of available software and an appendix with examples of programs for Stata and Mplus.     

At Home With Derek Jarman

Home is never only of the present. A sense of personal robustness and sometimes political resistance can emerge through a tacking back and forth between homes past and present—especially for those who felt and feel socially or culturally marginalized. We see this vividly in the way the filmmaker Derek Jarman created his home and garden at Prospect Cottage at Dungeness on the Kent coast in the context of his failing health. In this piece I show how formative homes, homes of early adulthood, and aspirations for a different kind of home life inflect the way Jarman lived at Prospect in his here and now. This is about the rolling together of different ages and experiences in ways that can give a sense of endurance in uncertain times.     

Working With a Deadly Serious Problem — An Interview With Brian Cade

Brian Cade is an internationally respected family therapist, noted for his work with teams and the one-way screen, for the creative use of metaphor and humour, and strategic interventions. Yet our interview, squeezed into a lunch-break in the middle of a workshop held in Adelaide in September 1984, touched none of these. Instead we talked of the nuclear issue and beneath this discussion ran basic questions all therapists should ask of themselves — What is the appropriate role of the therapist? Should a therapist's own strong values have a place within therapy? And how can the therapist make an impact on society?     

Children's Interaction With Commercials*

Public policy attention to numerous issues arising from children's television commercials has resulted in considerable research interest in this area. Most studies have been based on 1) cognitive developmental approaches; 2) survey methods based on parental reports of child viewing; 3) a view of the child as an atomized entity in the viewing environment. This study focuses on interactive episodes of child viewing. Behavior specimens of interactive viewing collected by naturalistic methods are presented illustrating children and parents actively shaping the commercial viewing situation.