Common pitfalls of beginning therapists utilizing enactments

Empirical data, clinical observation, and theoretical rationales support use of enactments as a fundamental mechanism of change in relationship therapies. Yet beginning therapists may lack an adequate conceptual framework and operational training essential to effectively utilize enactments. Inadequate training may contribute to ineffective execution, and in turn to negative results, which could lead to abandonment of enactments. This study sought to identify proficiencies and nonproficiencies of beginning therapists in conducting enactments. Twenty beginning therapists from three Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE)-accredited programs were briefly trained in an indirect therapy style that incorporates enactments. Twenty-six therapist enactments were coded using a comprehensive observational measure designed to assess proficiencies and nonproficiencies in executing enactment phases, component tasks, and subcomponent operations. Results suggest that beginning therapists struggle with numerous clinical operations conceptually linked to the successful engagement of relationships in marriage and family therapy. In light of these findings, specific recommendations for additional enactment training in COAMFTE-accredited programs are offered.     

Differentiating transformational and non-transformational leaders on the basis of neurological imaging

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the viability of using neurological imaging to classify transformational leaders, versus non-transformational leaders, as identified through existing psychometric methods. Specifically, power spectral analysis measures based on electroencephalograms (EEG) were used to develop and validate a discriminant function that can classify individuals according to their transformational leadership behavior. Resting, eyes closed EEG was recorded from 19 scalp locations for 200 civilian and military leaders. We also assessed follower or peer perceptions of transformational leadership through the use of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). Our discriminant analysis, which involved a two-step, neural variable reduction and selection process, was 92.5% accurate in its classification of leaders. Patterns in the spectral measures of the brain of leaders, including activity and network dynamic metrics, are discussed as potential correlates of transformational leadership behavior. The current work provides a better understanding of the latent and dynamic neurological mechanisms that may underpin the transformational leadership qualities of individuals.     

Parents Forever: An Assessment of the Perceived Value of a Brief Divorce Education Program

The intent of this study was to examine the perceived value of a 4-hour divorce education program for adults offered in a Midwestern state. Parents Forever: Education for Families in Divorce Transition is a divorce education program directed toward educating adults about separation, divorce, and the effects on children. Participants included 342 adults who attended the class and responded to retrospective questionnaires assessing their perceived satisfaction, knowledge, and demographic status. Also, 32 legal and community professionals participated in the program and responded to questions designed to assess perceptions of program value. Both respondent groups reported high satisfaction levels and significant knowledge gains through the class experience. Implications of the findings for program support and brief divorce interventions are discussed.     

Gypsy fetish: music,dirt, magic,and freedom

This article offers a reading of Transylvania (2006) directed by Tony Gatlif. It makes evident Gypsy identity’s unconscious dynamics when it occupies the position of a fetish within the cinematic story and in the interaction of the viewer with the exotic images on the screen. This specific reading argues that Gypsy fetish signals and covers over a site of psychic pain for the protagonist as well as for the viewer. Our argument insists that as a fetish Gypsy identity props up the social order. In this sense Gypsy identity is not addressed as it often is as a symptom, or more specifically as a challenge to the social order, but instead the analysis renders it to be a concealment of the lack around which the symbolic network is articulated. The article further explores Gypsy identity’s music, magic, dirt, and freedom as its key characteristics which conserve a potential access to what was disavowed and covered over – a lost enjoyment.     

Measures of Spatial Segregation

The measurement of residential segregation patterns and trends has been limited by a reliance on segregation measures that do not appropriately take into account the spatial patterning of population distributions. In this paper we define a general approach to measuring spatial segregation among multiple population groups. This general approach allows researchers to specify any theoretically based definition of spatial proximity desired in computing segregation measures. Based on this general approach, we develop a general spatial exposure/isolation index (̃*), and a set of general multigroup spatial evenness/clustering indices: a spatial information theory index (̃), a spatial relative diversity index (̃), and a spatial dissimilarity index (̃). We review these and previously proposed spatial segregation indices against a set of eight desirable properties of spatial segregation indices. We conclude that the spatial exposure/isolation index ̃*—which can be interpreted as a measure of the average composition of individuals' local spatial environments—and the spatial information theory index ̃—which can be interpreted as a measure of the variation in the diversity of the local spatial environments of each individual—are the most conceptually and mathematically satisfactory of the proposed spatial indices.     

Costly and discrete communication: an experimental investigation

Language is an imperfect and coarse means of communicating information about a complex and nuanced world. We report on an experiment designed to capture this feature of communication. The messages available to the sender imperfectly describe the state of the world; however, the sender can improve communication, at a cost, by increasing the complexity or elaborateness of the message. Here the sender learns the state of the world, then sends a message to the receiver. The receiver observes the message and provides a best guess about the state. The incentives of the players are aligned in the sense that both sender and receiver are paid an amount which is increasing in the accuracy of the receiver’s guess. We find that the size of the language endogenously emerges as a function of the costs of communication. Specifically, we find that higher communication costs are associated with a smaller language. Although the equilibrium predictions do not perform well, this divergence occurs in a manner which is consistent with the experimental communication literature: overcommunication. We find that the sender’s payoffs, relative to equilibrium payoffs, are decreasing in the cost of communication. We also find that the receiver’s payoffs, relative to equilibrium payoffs, are increasing in the cost of communication. Finally, we find imperfections in coordination on the basis of the experimental labels.     

The BMI as a somatotypic measure of physique: A rejoinder to Jeremy E.C. Genovese

In 2008, Maddan, Walker and Miller promoted the use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a viable alternative to Sheldon's technique of somatotyping. Utilizing the BMI, Maddan Walker and Miller re-analyzed the original data from the Sheldon studies. This analysis indicated a statistically significant relationship between the two measures of somatotyping. Genovese wrote a response to this work suggesting the BMI is not a useful proxy for somatotyping individuals. We respond to Genovese's critique by providing a full explication of the Sheldon somatoype measure and an analysis of Sheldon's original data accounting for all of the different somatotypes identified. Analyses here indicate that the original somatotype measure was very subjective. Although not without flaws, the BMI provides an objective somatotype measure that is comparable, if not superior, to the measure promulgated by Sheldon.