Enrich marital inventory: a discriminant validity and cross-validation assessment

To assess the validity and clinical utility of the marital inventory ENRICH, a discriminant validity study was conducted using a national sample of 5039 married couples. The sample was randomly split in order to form a cross-validation group. ENRICH is a multidimensional scale and two types of analysis were conducted to assess the value of these various scales. Results from discriminant analysis indicated that using either the individual scores or couples' scores, happily married couples could be discriminated from unhappily married couples with 85–95% accuracy. These results were cross-validated with a second sample. Using regression analysis, it was clearly demonstrated that background factors account for little of the variance in discriminating happy from unhappily married couples compared to their relationship dynamics, i.e., scale scores. All ENRICH scales except equalitarian roles proved significant, indicating the validity of a multidimensional inventory.     

Therapeutic compliments: setting the stage for successful therapy

Compliments are often viewed primarily as a linear event in which one person expresses approval or admiration of another. Far less attention has been given to the circular nature of compliments and the manner in which they enhance the positions of both the giver and the receiver of the compliment. Therapeutic compliments have proven to be highly effective means of motivating clients, while at the same time increasing therapeutic leverage. This article proposes that compliments should be purposefully given, and that the type of compliment should vary with the stage of therapy and the intended response of the client to the compliment.     

The prediction of learning in family therapy training programs*

Research on family therapy training has produced very little data regarding the kinds of trainees that do best in family therapy training programs. This study attempts to provide some rough and preliminary data on that issue. One hundred and seventy trainees, drawn from seven different structural!strategic training experiences, were evaluated as to how much they learned by taking the Family Therapy Assessment Exercise pre- and posttraining. Their performance was correlated using a hierarchical regression analysis with a number of trainee variables such as amount of conjugal family experience, amount of experience doing family or individual therapy, or prior knowledge of family therapy. The results indicate that, as predicted, conjugal family experience was positively related, and prior knowledge was negatively related to performance. Prior experience doing individual therapy was also positively related to performance.     

Training with o (observing) and T (treatment) teams in live supervision: reflections in the looking glass*

Working with a treatment and observing team at the same time, behind the oneway mirror, offers a variety of ways to: (a) generate multiple realities; (b) work with two different models of family therapy simultaneously; and (c) provide feedback on the teams' own roles, rules and group process. The process that 6 trainees and two supervisors used with T and O teams to examine their own coevolution as a therapeutic system using the Milan model of family therapy and Ericksonian hypnotherapy is described. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages and pitfalls of this type of dual supervision.     

Student desires for a university drug education program

A questionnaire was designed to determine the type of drug education program most desired by undergraduate students attending a major university. The survey was to provide the basis for a comprehensive drug education program. The 101 item questionnaire elicited responses from 656 undergraduates in categories ranging from knowledge base to credible information sources. The analysis of student desires as they relate to program design is included in this article. The students strongly believed the university should provide a drug education program. In particular they desired a credit course dealing with both drugs and alcohol. They also wanted regularly published articles on drugs in school publications. The most credible knowledge sources were PhDs and MDs. Students also wanted contact with former drug users. More than half the students believed that values clarification and "coping skills" training would decrease their drug use. In general more women than men were likely to utilize such resources.     

The developmental implications of migration from and between small island nations

This article discusses the role of migration in relieving population pressures, thus making continuing development possible, using small nations in the Caribbean and the South Pacific as examples. The Caribbean islands and many Pacific islands have used out-migration to ease population pressures in this century. Surplus labor has been emerging in various Caribbean nations, independent of the international marketing problems of plantation agriculture. Rural populations alienated from plantations have had to make do on questionable and/or remote land. Population surpluses appear to originate in rural areas, but little evidence exists to suggest that those surpluses are the basis for the emigration patterns of the Caribbean islands. Emigration does not solve population problems because when ambitious, skilled workers leave their country, their actions have little to do with the existence of domestic surplus labor and their leaving may do little to facilitate domestic labor absorption. Thus, if mini-states wish to sustain their hopes of economic expansion, they must find the means to employ their surplus labor. Since mainly skilled migrants leave, their going may actually slow development and retard opportunities for labor absorption. Population movements internal to the Caribbean region may further complicate surplus labor and/or population problems. If protective entry requirements impede normal inter-island relations, they may interfere with developmental processes. In general, migration is not a feasible strategy for population control for small island nations. While temporary migration has a more positive impact than other forms of migration, problems do exist. For example, temporary migration 1) can impose significant economic costs on the source-country, and 2) may result in the source country being unable to capitalize on its initial investment in training and education of temporary migrants. In conclusion, import substitution through cooperation between small island nations, production for export where feasible, and more attention to more sophisticated international service linkages hold a better prospect for material progress than relying on the export of surplus populations.     

Compulsive gambling and the medical model

The medical model as a conceptual and operative approach to compulsive gambling is discussed. The terms medical model and disease are defined and the practical implications of their application to compulsive gambling are explored. Special attention is given to the addictive disease concept. Finally, a variety of objections to the medical model are described, but it is concluded that the many individual and social advantages of the medical model make it the preferred conceptualization at our present state of knowledge.     

Evidence for a common dissociative-like reaction among addicts

A questionnaire was designed to test selected aspects of the author's General Theory of Addictions (Jacobs, 1982). Data were collected from groups of compulsive gamblers, alcoholics, and compulsive overeaters, and compared with the responses to the same questionnaire obtained from normative samples of adolescents and adults. The more inclusive term, compulsive gambler, has been used throughout, since the sample of gamblers in this study included an inpatient subgroup who had been diagnosed as pathological gamblers, as well as a subgroup of Gamblers Anonymous members who had not been clinically evaluated. Findings support the author's theoretical position that, when indulging, different kinds of addicts will tend to share a common set of dissociativelike experiences that differentiate them from nonaddicts. This has been termed a state of altered identity.