Treating distressed couples with coexisting mental and physical disorders: directions for clinical training and practice

Relationship difficulties frequently coexist with significant emotional, behavioral, and physical health problems in one or both partners. Moreover, couple therapists report individual emotional and behavioral disorders as among the most difficult problems that they encounter in clinical practice. In this article, we summarize empirical evidence regarding the association between relationship distress and the onset, course, and treatment of mental and physical health problems. Based on these findings, we propose five critical implications for clinical training and the practice of couple therapy.     

Effects of Exogenous and Endogenous Distracters on Immediate and Long‐Term Recall in Toddlers

We explored the role that exogenous and endogenous competitors for attention play in infants’ abilities to encode and retain information over a 6‐month period. Sixty‐six children visited the laboratory at 15 months, and 32 returned for a second visit at 21 months. Children observed models of conventional‐ relation and enabling‐relation action sequences. Half the children were distracted by a “Mister Monkey” mechanical toy during the conventional‐relation sequence, while the other half was distracted during the enabling‐relation sequence. The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire indexed endogenous factors at both ages. Immediate postmodel production of target actions indexed encoding efficiency, and 6‐month production of target actions indexed long‐term recall. The exogenous distracter impacted encoding efficiency (i.e., immediate recall), but not long‐term recall. Endogenous factors (i.e., temperament) were primarily associated with long‐term recall. Of special interest was our finding that endogenous factors, especially surgency, moderated the effect of the exogenous distracter. It appears that when learning conventional‐relation sequences in the presence of exogenous distracters, surgency mobilizes attentional resources toward the learning objective; however, when learning enabling‐relation sequences under the same conditions, surgency either boosts the saliency of the distracters or boosts children’s susceptibility to them.     

Bayesian hierarchical duration model for repeated events: an application to behavioral observations

This article presents a continuous-time Bayesian model for analyzing durations of behavior displays in social interactions. Duration data of social interactions are often complex because of repeated behaviors (events) at individual or group (e.g. dyad) level, multiple behaviors (multistates), and several choices of exit from a current event (competing risks). A multilevel, multistate model is proposed to adequately characterize the behavioral processes. The model incorporates dyad-specific and transition-specific random effects to account for heterogeneity among dyads and interdependence among competing risks. The proposed method is applied to child–parent observational data derived from the School Transitions Project to assess the relation of emotional expression in child–parent interaction to risk for early and persisting child conduct problems.     

Reliability of self-reported contraceptive use and sexual behaviors among adolescent girls

This study examines two issues relevant to adolescents' self-reported sexual and contraceptive use behaviors: reliability of partner-referent reports versus 3 and 6 month reports, and test-retest reliability of reports completed over a 2 week period. Data are from 196 13 to 18 year old girls recruited into this study while they south reproductive care from health clinics in a metropolitan area. All participants reported having had sexual intercourse during the past 6 months. Twice over a 2 week interval, participants completed the same paper and pencil surveys. The survey presented questions about sexual behavior and contraceptive use using 3 sequential frames of reference: within the past 6 months, within the past 3 months, and by specific sexual partners in the past 6 months. Findings demonstrate that adolescent girls can reliably report sexual behavior and contraceptive use over a 6 month interval. Study findings have implications for future research utilizing adolescents' self-reported sexual and contraceptive use behaviors.     

Social work with Bosnian Muslim refugee children and families: a review of the literature

More than two million Bosnian Muslims were ethnically cleansed in the Balkan region; of these, 200,000 were killed while the others were forced to flee their homes and become refugees. This article focuses on the influence of societal and cultural values coupled with wartime experiences on the transition of Bosnian refugee families to their new countries. Consideration is given to culturally competent theoretical frameworks and practice principles social workers can use to assist Bosnian Muslim children and families in their adaptation process within their resettlement communities.     

Power models and the farm workers' struggle: A case study of the agribusiness vs. UFW conflict

Power elite and pluralist frameworks are used to examine the conflict between farm workers and their employers, in California, from 1850 to 1977. Analysis focuses on four time periods which provide varying support for the contending frameworks. Assumptions and assertions of theorists in each camp are shown to be contradicted by some of the data in this case. We conclude by suggesting that a more accurate theoretical model of our national structure of power would emerge from a series of similar case studies of important national issues. This is a revision of a paper presented at the Eastern Sociological Society Meeting in New York, 1977. The research was supported by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation to the first author.