MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY CERTIFICATION AND LICENSING EXAMINATIONS: ONE MODEL*

The design of the North Carolina Marital and Family Therapy Certification Examination is outlined by its authors to provide a frame of reference for the development of other licensing and certification instruments. The purpose, procedures, resources, guidelines, content, and normative data of the examination are described. The model is offered to stimulate meaningful dialogue on marital and family therapy licensing and certification instrumentation. Guidelines toward the development of a national marital and family therapy examination are also presented.     

The New Theology and the Sociology of Religion*

La nouvelle theologie represente une forme contemporaine d'expression religieuse qui est d'un interet tout particulier pour la sociologie des religions. Non seulement pouvons-nous decouvrir quelques-uns des facteurs sociaux qui ont suscité ces changements dans la theologie, mais aussi certaines des consequences sociologiques de la nouvelle theologie suggerent une revision theorique de la perspective traditionnelle (centree sur l'Eglise) de la sociologie des religions. Nous pretendons que cette nouvelle theologie peut fournir des donnees objectives dans noire recherche d'une comprehension sociologique plus exhaustive et universelle de la religion. The New Theology represents a contemporary form of religious expression that is of specific interest to the sociology of religion. Not only can we uncover some of the social sources of this change in theology, but there are also sociological implications of the new theology that encourage a theoretical review of the previously restricted church-oriented perspective of the sociology of religion. It is our contention that the new theology can provide objective data in the quest for a more comprehensive and universal sociological understanding of religion.     

Reflections on Risk Perception and Policy1,2

This paper looks critically at the emergence and present status of risk analysis with the aim of assessing its usefulness for policy decisions on risk regulation and the acceptability of risk-bearing innovations. The authors adopt a personal narrative to illustrate their own involvement in risk research and to comment on empirical trends that have resulted in the current fashion for risk workshops. The second part of the paper confronts specific issues in risk research. These are not new problems-indeed several of the questions asked have been taken directly from a list used to structure a recent risk seminar; but the stand taken here is rather less conciliatory than is usual when these issues are discussed. The pessimistic message of this paper is that risk research, especially in the area of risk perception, is being used as a panacea with which to attempt to remedy what are essentially societal and political matters. Risk research is being used as a tool in a discourse which is not concerned with risks per se, nor with the cognitive processes by which people misperceive the risks of new technologies, but whose hidden agenda is the legitimacy of decision-making institutions and the equitable distribution of hazards and benefits. The authors take a subjectivist view, not just of risk but in general, and query the natural science approach to risk perception, with its assumption that universal dimensions of risk perception can be discovered and used in policy-making and setting regulatory standards. Although it is possible to collect subjective data on the wider meanings that risks and benefits associated with technological innovations have for lay publics, the interpretation and recombination of these data into useful policy guidelines is seen as fraught with technical and, above all, political problems.     

Early Marriage,Rape, Child Prostitution,and Related Factors Determining the Psychosocial Effects Severity of Child Sexual Abuse in Ethiopia

This study was aimed at identifying factors that determine the psychosocial effects severity of child sexual abuse. Data were collected from 318 female children in Ethiopia using the Children's Impact of Traumatic Events Scale–Revised and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The results revealed that respondents who survived rape and child prostitution were more symptomatic than those who were married early. Respondents for whom less time had elapsed since their first experience of abuse demonstrated a significantly higher level of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, negative reactions by others, self-blame, and guilt than those for whom more time had elapsed since such an experience. The respondents in an intact marital relationship were found to be less symptomatic than their never married and divorced counterparts. Implications for intervention and further investigations are discussed.     

Active Listening in Peer Interviews: The Influence of Message Paraphrasing on Perceptions of Listening Skill

Perhaps no communication skill is identified as regularly as active listening in training programs across a variety of disciplines and activities. Yet little empirical research has examined specific elements of active listening responses in terms of their effectiveness in achieving desired interpersonal outcomes. This study reports an experiment designed to test the influence of a specific element of active listening responses, namely, the message paraphrase. One hundred and eighty undergraduate students participated in peer interviews in which they received either a paraphrased reflection or a simple acknowledgement in response to their expressed opinions regarding comprehensive examinations. The results of data analysis indicated that message paraphrases were associated with the social attractiveness of the listener but were not associated with participants' conversational satisfaction or perceptions of feeling understood by the listener.     

Ein Forschungsleistungsranking auf der Grundlage von Google Scholar

Regarding the evaluation of academic research performance, the currently predominant method of judging an individual paper according to the academic journal it was published in implies a few drawbacks: Monographs and edited volumes cannot be assessed, and estimating the quality of an individual article by looking at the journal it was published in is problematic. Based on the work of Harzing (The publish or perish book: your guide to effective and responsible citation analysis. Tarma Software Research, Melbourne, 2010), this article applies a different approach by measuring the individual impact of each researcher. As a data source we use Google Scholar because it offers the best coverage available in the field of German academic literature in business administration. However, Google Scholar implies qualitative shortcomings that deserve a careful inspection and revision. We analyse all recent publications (2005–2009) of all members of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB). Among the researchers, the citations are distributed highly unequal and follow Pareto’s Law: Few scholars gather a large part of all citations. Between the different subfields of business administration there exist large differences regarding their publication and citation cultures. This should be considered carefully when interpreting the results of the ranking.     

Systemic Practice in the Time of COVID: Conversations Among Culturally Diverse Therapists

The COVID‐19 pandemic has changed the delivery of clinical services and education of health professionals, including family therapists. This paper distils two separate Zoom conversations between myself (as the lead author) and two eminent family therapists, Professors Maurizio Andolfi and Harry Aponte, where challenges and opportunities for the profession during and after the pandemic are discussed. Creativity and resourcefulness are two important elements therapists and educators have needed to access during the pandemic to find alternative ways to continue to provide clinical services and teaching. Most therapists have transitioned using online technology and various platforms such as Zoom and Skype; for some this has been a somewhat familiar experience, for most it has been a novel one. Key themes emerged from the conversations including the personal and professional ‘lived experiences’ of the pandemic; the financial impact on clients and students; the importance of touch for human social connection; the use of ‘self’ as an instrument of change and alternative platforms of service delivery and teaching. We reflected on what has been lost, such as the nuances inherent in face‐to‐face human interactions, and what has been gained, such as observing families in situ in their own environments.     

Robustness of the two-sample t-test umdeh violations of the homogeneity of farjance assumptioi

When the two-sample t-test has equal sample slies, it is widely considered to be a robust procedure (with respect to the significaoce level) under violatioa of the assuaptioo of equal variances. This paper is coa-earned with a quantification of the amount of robustness which this procedure has under such violations, The approach is through the concept of "religion of robustness" and the resluts show an extremely strong degree of robustness for the equal an extremely strong degree of robustness for the equal sample size t-test, probably more so than most statistyicians realise. This extremely high level of robustness, however, reduces quickly as the sample sizes begin to vary from equality. The regions of robustnes obtained show that while most users would likely be satisfied with the degree of robustness inherent when the two sample sizes each vary by 10% from equality, most would wish to be much more cautions when the variation is 20%. The study covers sample sizes n₁ -= n ² = 5(5)30(10)50 plus 10% and 20% variations thereof for the two-tailed test and nominal significance levels of 0.01 and 0.05.     

Multivariate extreme value modelling of laboratory safety data from clinical studies

Generally, in the interpretation of clinical safety laboratory data, it is extreme values that indicate potential safety issues. We illustrate the application of multivariate extreme value modelling to such data. Applying the methods to a clinical trial dataset, we find unexpected extremal relationships that have potentially important implications for the interpretation of such data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.