Money as a Tool for Negotiating Separateness and Connectedness in the Therapeutic Relationship

It is nothing new to suggest that money has meaning. Whether or not one accepts Freud's (1908)linkage of money and feces, within our culture money is frequently seen as a direct pathway to feelings of power, agency, self-directedness, and personal satisfaction. Trachtman (1999) states, Money, psychologically speaking, is our projection onto coins, bills, bank accounts, and other financial instruments of our beliefs, hopes, and fears about how those things will affect who we are, what will happen to us, and how we will be treated by others or by ourselves...(Trachtman, 1999, p. 283). Yet this material is often unavailable for therapeutic exploration or understanding until it explodes into the therapy, often in unmanageable and countertherapeutic ways. This article will look at some of the ways in which money can be utilized to negotiate the ever-changing tensions between self and other, object and subject, intrapyschic and interpersonal, connection and separation that appear in every relationship. In particular, it will explore some ways that money issues within the therapeutic relationship can be turned into significant tools for understanding and working with anxieties about connection and separateness, both within and outside the therapeutic dyad.     

Congenial public, contrary press, and biased estimates of the climate of opinion

This field experiment focused on perceived public opinion about the use of primates in laboratory research. We used this contentious issue to examine the simultaneous effects of three hypothetical ideas-the hostile media perception, the persuasive press inference, and the projection bias-on partisan perceptions of public opinion. Our data supported the projection hypothesis but also confirmed that partisans on each side of the issue judged news articles to be biased in a disagreeable direction relative to judgments of those on the other side. The perception of relatively disagreeable media bias, in turn, influenced perceptions of public opinion. Results supported the hypothesis that people make inferences about the climate of opinion based on their reading of the news, especially the perceived slant of that news.     

Internship training in marriage and family therapy: a survey of doctoral program objectives and implementation

This article presents the results of a survey that examined the implementation of the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE) internship requirement by accredited doctoral Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) programs. Representatives from each of 10 doctoral MFT programs provided responses to questions regarding program objectives for internship training. Respondents also provided subjective impressions regarding the effectiveness with which established internship goals are accomplished, associated benefits and difficulties, and adequacy of the standards. Results suggest that although most programs perceive the internship requirement as beneficial, many express concern regarding the effects of the internship requirement on other aspects of training and in relationship to the overall goals for doctoral MFT education. Conclusions and recommendations are offered based on the mixed findings.     

Facilitating a multidisciplinary parent support & education group guided by Allen's developmental health nursing model

Parents are generally the primary source of support and nurturing for children experiencing an eating disorder; yet, they often feel blamed for the illness. Guided by the developmental health model, the group focused on parents' competence and helped them share solutions; reframed situations related to development in adolescence and mid-life; and shifted the emphasis to process to help parents understand behaviors. Parents became partners in helping their children recover by sharing solutions and creating learning opportunities from adversity.     

A troubling triangle. An exploration of loneliness, helplessness, and boredom of residents of a veterans home

1. Lack of companionship, no opportunity to care for others, and little variety result in the problems of loneliness, helplessness, and boredom for many nursing home residents. 2. Loneliness, helplessness, and boredom may be even greater challenges than physical and functional problems for individuals in nursing homes. 3. Through clinical research and practice innovations, nursing has an opportunity to take a leading role in increasing information about emotional and functional issues that affect the quality of life for nursing home residents.     

Marijuana use and depression

The primary goal of this study is to examine the association between marijuana use and adult depressive symptomatology. The key independent variables examined are age of marijuana initiation, frequency of current marijuana use, the use of other licit and illicit drugs, and whether marijuana was used to cope with problems. The relationships among these variables are assessed using data from the Young Men and Drugs Survey (n = 1,941), a nationally representative sample of men from the 1944-1954 birth cohort. Results show that early marijuana initiation appears to be weakly associated with increased depression in adulthood. This effect, however, is mediated by educational attainment, employment status, marital status, and other drug use, notably alcohol and tobacco use. Adult frequency of marijuana use is not significantly associated with increased depression in adulthood. Finally, marijuana users who use the drug to cope with problems are more depressed than those who do not use to cope with problems.     

The role of friends, in-laws, and other kin in father-perpetrated child physical abuse

Thirty-five physically abusive fathers were matched with a comparison sample to test multiple systemic explanations for child physical abuse, using an ecological perspective, and to show the relationship between the structure of social ties and the function of those ties. The physically abusive fathers were found to have received significantly fewer emotional and instrumental supports from their friends, in-laws, and other kin than the comparison fathers, and were only weakly linked to members of their social networks--members who might have discouraged the fathers' aggressive impulses or provided additional support to them and to their families.     

Data-based organizational change: the use of administrative data to improve child welfare programs and policy

Administrative databases hold the potential to have a significant impact on the development of effective child welfare programs and policies. This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of administrative databases, issues with their implementation and data analysis, and effective presentation of their data at different levels in child welfare organizations.