THE QUESTION CUBE: A MODEL FOR DEVELOPING QUESTION REPERTOIRE IN TRAINING COUPLE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS

This paper presents a three-dimensional model for teaching questioning to those wishing to develop skills in couple and family therapy. The model breaks questions into their component parts of format (the style of the question: open, closed, forced choice, rating, or ranking); orientation (the person who is being inquired about: self or other), and subject (the content of the question: behavior, feelings, beliefs, meaning, or relationship). The model is presented in the context of our post-Milan version of couple and family therapy training. The model is useful in that it allows students gradually to increase their repertoire of questions in a way that offers step-wise learning and integrates with their existing skills.     

Altruism and social solidarity: Envisioning a field of specialization

Conclusion This article has presented a vision of what a field of altruism and social solidarity could potentially involve. An additional perspective on the nature of this field and how it could contribute to the discipline and to society is provided by the science of psychology. In the last decade a fundamental new orientation has developed in this discipline, growing from the pioneering work of Martin E.P. Seligman. Generally identified as “positive psychology” it represents a shift from a focus on trying to understand and find solutions to mental illness and various pathologies of thought and behavior in a “disease model” to a focus on human strengths, virtues, and other positive characteristics. This shift in focus is regarded as making a direct contribution to understanding what is best in human emotions and traits and how society can support the psychological flourishing of individuals. This new perspective in turn provides increased awareness of how the problems studied in the disease model can more effectively be prevented (Seligman, 2003, 2005). The importance of this focus on the positive for sociology and a call to action is stated by Seligman (2003): The third pillar of positive psychology is the study of positive institutions and positive communities.     

Rural-Urban Differences in Obesity1

Abstract Obesity is an important social and health issue in contemporary society. Differences in relative weight, overweight, and extreme overweight were examined in rural, middle-sized, and urban areas in a national sample of 11,578 adults in the NHANES II survey. Rural-urban residence and weight were examined in bivariate relationships and in multiple regression analyses controlling for demographic and physical variables. Overall bivariate analyses revealed that some groups in rural areas had higher weights than their more urban counterparts. However, regression analyses showed that many bivariate rural-urban differences disappeared when demographics were controlled, although rural white women and men were still more likely to be overweight relative to their more urban counterparts. These findings suggest that the demographic composition of rural and urban populations explains most, but not all rural-urban variations in weight.     

Reference citations in B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

Use of vehicles with client groups

Conclusion In analyzing the group's behavior in the vehicle one needs to determine whether the behavior is obstreperous and aggressive or whether it is excessive energy and enthusiasm stimulated by the anticipated activity. If the worker determines that the group's hyperactivity is due to enthusiasm and delight over the anticipated pleasure, he may interpret to the group his awareness of their delight and enthusiams and support it. At the same time that he indicates his awareness of their impatience in not getting into the activity soon enough, the worker needs to help the group realize the danger potentials in their behavior and the need to maintain safety. Group members often have persecutional interpretations of regulations and rules (Redl & Wineman, 1957, p. 117). However, group workers need to help members acquire more realism about behavior that is appropriate in a vehicle.     

CONFIDENCE INTERVALS FOR POWER,WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MEDICAL TRIALS*

A technique is given for drawing valid inferences in cases where performance characteristics of statistical procedures (e.g. power for a test, or probability of a correct selection for a selection procedure) depend upon unknown parameters (e.g. an unknown variance). The technique is especially useful in situations where sample sizes are small (e.g. in many medical trials); the “usual” approximate procedures are found to be misleading in such cases.