Positive Identity Experiences of Young Bisexual and Other Nonmonosexual People: A Qualitative Inquiry

The majority of LGBTQ psychological research focuses on dysfunction. The exclusion of strengths-based perspectives in LGBTQ psychology limits the understanding of LGBTQ mental health. In this article we report experiences that young bisexual and other nonmonosexual people perceive as affirming of their sexual identity. A 28-day, daily diary study was used to investigate whether bisexual-identified participants encountered positive experiences related to their sexual identity, and which type of experiences they perceived to be positive. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, participants’ experiences were organized according to a social ecological model. Experiences were reported at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional levels, but most positive sexual identity experiences occurred at the interpersonal level. Implications for positive health outcome research and the integration of positive psychology with LGBTQ psychology are discussed, as well as study limitations.     

Violating Boundaries

This essay begins by questioning the role that the word “boundary” plays when we say that a “sexual boundary violation” has occurred in an analytic treatment. Boundaries are bright lines drawn to separate lawful from unlawful, consensual from coerced, free from exploited, ownership from trespass, fantasy from reality. But the notion of boundaries fails in a profound and fateful way to capture the inescapable circulation of erotic transference and countertransference feelings in an analysis. Instead, this essay proposes that we look to the notion of sublimation for insights into the psychic dynamics of sexual behavior between analyst and analysand. It explores the ambivalence and mourning that surround the sublimation of desire. This discussion of sublimation sheds light on sexual violations in other types of professional relationships as well as recently adopted affirmative consent laws and policies on college campuses.     

Availability of Mental Health Services for Individuals Who Are Deaf or Deaf-Blind

A survey of state mental health agencies found that a majority have no specific policy or procedure regarding how to provide mental health services to persons who are deaf or who are deaf-blind. Agency representatives report that staff lack knowledge of how to provide mental health services to persons who are deaf-blind and the agencies lack qualified interpreters. They recommend training for social workers and counselors to address best practices in working with people who are deaf-blind concerning communication methods and strategies, physical interaction, cultural issues, everyday life, sensory deprivation, ethics, use of an interpreter, and other general issues.     

Predicting Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gay Parent Families Among Portuguese Students from Helping Professions

The authors' goal was to characterize predictors of attitudes toward lesbian and gay parent families (LGPF), held by students enrolled in psychology, social work, medicine, nursing, elementary, and preschool education programs in Portugal. The authors examined the predictive value of students' (n = 600) sociodemographic characteristics when assessing their attitudes toward LGPF. Participant's gender, interpersonal contact with lesbians and gay men, gender role attitudes had indirect effects on attitudes toward LGPF, through attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Understanding characteristics associated with attitudes toward LGPF may inform decisions in terms of the education and training of helping professionals.     

Tests for Structural Changes in Time Series of Counts

We propose methods for detecting structural changes in time series with discrete‐valued observations. The detector statistics come in familiar L2‐type formulations incorporating the empirical probability generating function. Special emphasis is given to the popular models of integer autoregression and Poisson autoregression. For both models, we study mainly structural changes due to a change in distribution, but we also comment for the classical problem of parameter change. The asymptotic properties of the proposed test statistics are studied under the null hypothesis as well as under alternatives. A Monte Carlo power study on bootstrap versions of the new methods is also included along with a real data example.     

Fourier–type tests involving martingale difference processes

We develop testing procedures which detect if the observed time series is a martingale difference sequence. Furthermore, tests are developed that detect change–points in the conditional expectation of the series given its past. The test statistics are formulated following the approach of Fourier–type conditional expectations first proposed by Bierens (1982 Bierens, H. J. (1982). Consistent model speci?cation tests. J. Econometr. 20:105–134.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and have the advantage of computational simplicity. The limit behavior of the test statistics is investigated under the null hypothesis as well as under alternatives. Since the asymptotic null distribution contains unknown parameters, a bootstrap procedure is proposed in order to actually perform the test. The performance of the bootstrap version of the test is compared in finite samples with other methods for the same problem. A real–data application is also included.     

Feminine or feminist? Women’s media leadership

This paper presents a small-scale qualitative case study of five women’s experiences of leadership roles in Irish media industries. Relational Leadership Theory is used to examine whether there is a gendered dimension to women’s leadership and to explore why women’s participation in leadership has not resulted in significant feminist gains or changes to media organisations. The article finds that: the women saw their leadership as relational and simultaneously as socially constructed in a gendered manner. Moreover, the women led organisational change towards greater gender equality in the norms of media work. However, while the women’s leadership was relational and feminine, it was not necessarily feminist; it did not aim to generate systemic changes within the gendering of the media as an institution. The changes that the women wrought incorporated women into a system of production that remained nonetheless masculinist.     

The Role of Migration Policy Changes in Europe for Return Migration to Senegal

This study questions the role of migration policy changes in France, Italy, and Spain for return migration to Senegal, by analyzing biographic data from the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE‐Senegal) survey and the contextual data of the Determinants of International Migration (DEMIG) VISA and DEMIG POLICY databases that cover major changes in migration policies in these destination countries for the different categories of migrants. Event history logistic regressions reveal that Senegalese migrants are less likely to return when the entry restrictions have become tighter. This result suggests that the decision to return depends on the possibility of migrating again after the return, which is crucial for both theory and policy regarding Western democracies' attempts to regulate migration.