Essay Review: Marital Therapy, Monogamy, and Menagés

Fitzgerald, R. V. Conjoint Marital Therapy .
Foley, V. An Introduction to Family Therapy .
Smith J. & Smith L. Beyond Monogamy .     

Risk factors for suicide attempts among African American women experiencing recent intimate partner violence

The purposes of this study were to identify risk factors for suicide attempts among 200 African American abused women (100 attempters, 100 nonattempters) and to test a cumulative risk model to determine if a woman's likelihood of making a suicide attempt increased as the number of risk factors increased. Results revealed that attempters were significantly more likely than nonattempters to report high levels of depressive symptoms, hopelessness, drug abuse, and childhood abuse and neglect. Results from the cumulative risk model revealed a linear association between the number of risk factors and the odds of making a suicide attempt. Compared to women with no risk factors, women with two risk factors, women with three risk factors, and women with four to five risk factors were 10, 25, and 107 times, respectively, more likely to attempt suicide. The identification of risk variables highlights the importance of designing interventions to address these factors in order to reduce the risk of suicidal behavior in abused, African American women.     

“Did I just do that?”—Six-month-olds learn the contingency between their vocalizations and a visual reward in 5 minutes

It has been shown that infants can increase or modify a motorically available behavior such as sucking, kicking, arm waving, etc., in response to a positive visual reinforcement (e.g., DeCasper & Fifer, 1980; Millar, 1990; Rochat & Striano, 1999; Rovee-Collier, 1997; Watson & Ramey, 1972). We tested infants to determine if they would also change their vocal behavior in response to contingent feedback, which lacks the social, emotional, and auditory modeling typical of parent-child interaction. Here, we show that in a single five-minute session infants increase the rate of their vocalizations in order to control the appearance of colorful shapes on an iPad screen. This is the first experimental study to demonstrate that infants can rapidly learn to increase their vocalizations, when given positive reinforcement with no social element. This work sets the foundations for future studies into the causal relationship between the number of early vocalizations and the onset of words. In addition, there are potential clinical applications for reinforcing vocal practice in infant populations who are at risk for poor language skills.     

Singular and plural objects: Thoughts on object relations theory

Object relations theory has been dominated by the concept of the mother as the primary and most influential object in infancy. New considerations of the role of the father are questioning this premise and raising issues about the influence of multi-object relationships in very early life. Illustrations are drawn from different cultures with a wide variety of child rearing practices. Implications for theory, assessment, and treatment are illustrated through case material.in private practice. This article is a revised version of an address to The New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Work, May 22, 1983.     

Appendix

Social Indicators Research -