Attachment and Coping Strategies in Middle Childhood Children whose Mothers Have a Mental Health Problem: Implications for Social Work Practice

Mental health has implications for the quality of relationshipswithin a family, particularly between parents and children,but also between other family and non-family members. Previousresearch has investigated parental reports of attachment infamilies with mental health problems, but relationship representationsas experienced by these children, especially in middle childhood,have not been so frequently investigated. An understanding ofchildren’s representations of attachment relationshipsand the different coping strategies that may result is importantfor social work practice when offering support, not only tothe children, but also other family members. Methods of investigatingattachment, such as the Separation Anxiety Test, have been usedto understand the relationship issues, fears and coping strategiesof other vulnerable children, and this study was designed specificallyto investigate relationship issues in middle childhood childrenwhose mothers had previously been hospitalized with mental healthproblems. We found that these children tended to be less emotionallyopen and secure, and generated fewer adaptive coping strategiesthan children whose mothers had never had mental health problems.Other themes also emerged from the interviews, such as a senseof trust in the parent–child relationship and the ‘containment’of fears. Implications for social work practice are discussed.     

General beliefs about the world as defensive mechanisms against death anxiety

Death ideation and death anxiety represent the cognitive and affective dimensions of death attitudes, respectively. General beliefs about the world are proposed to be useful defensive mechanisms protecting persons against the death anxiety provoked by death ideation. SEM is employed to test the proposed mediation model, using a sample of 133 Hong Kong Chinese university students. Results showed that death ideation was significantly and inversely linked to belief in social cynicism, reward for application, and fate control. Moreover, higher levels of belief in fate control and lower levels of religiosity predicted greater death anxiety. Only belief in fate control partially mediated the relationship between death ideation and death anxiety. Discussion focused on how social axioms serve as useful defensive mechanisms against death anxiety.     

Māori experiences of multiple forms of discrimination: findings from Te Kupenga 2013

ABSTRACT

Comprehensive exploration of Māori experiences of discrimination in Aotearoa New Zealand remains limited, particularly in relation to exposure to multiple and interlocking forms of discrimination. This paper presents findings from a secondary analysis of Te Kupenga 2013, the first Māori Social Survey, examining patterning and prevalence of different forms of discrimination for Māori (n?=?5,549). Māori report experiencing multiple forms of discrimination, both over their lifetimes and within the last year. Although racial discrimination was the most commonly reported form, Māori also experience discrimination on the basis of other grounds including age, gender, and income. Māori also report exposure to multiple forms of discrimination. Discrimination occurred in a range of settings, with schools and workplaces common sites. The findings support the lived reality of Māori that racial and other forms of discrimination are pervasive, and experienced in multiple domains across the life course, representing a persistent breach of rights. It is critical that other forms of discrimination are measured alongside racism in order to understand and address the realities of multiple discrimination for Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand.     

Unpacking Civic Engagement: The Sociopolitical Involvement of Same-Gender Loving Black Women

Employing a national sample of over 600 same-gender loving (SGL) Black women, we explore the relative impact of community-level support/comfort and the importance of sexual orientation and racial identity on two dependent variables—sociopolitical involvement within lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities as well as sociopolitical involvement within people of color (POC) communities. Findings indicate that feelings of connectedness to the LGBT community are the most important predictor of sociopolitical involvement within both LGBT and POC communities; while, counterintuitively, being comfortable within the LGBT community had a negative impact. Further, the impact of the importance of identity was negligible.     

Gender as a Sort Assembly Tomboys' Stories

This article draws on a study of tomboys to reflect on developmental theory in psychoanalysis. To illuminate the power of chaos theory and nonlinear dynamic systems theory in understanding gender and sexuality, I trace three lines of theoretical work on gender, relevant to conceptualizing tomboy love and tomboy identity. First, I reexamine the work on gender development in which bodily life as the wellspring and organizer or gender is prominent. The second strand begins with the organization of gender development proposed by Stoller (1976) and taken tip and developed by Fast (1984). Its most articulated form is in the work of Benjamin (1988, 1993). This line of argument conceptualizes gender development through the pattern of relationships and the resultant identifications. The third strand concerns the understanding of “masculinity” in women and the evolution of work on bisexuality.     

Hope the Beloved Country: Hope Levels in the New South Africa

The concept of hope seems to have attracted increased attention in popular and academic discourse in South Africa. Despite this increased focus, no empirical studies on national hope levels have been conducted in South Africa to date. This article sought to address this gap by investigating national hope levels using data taken from the 2009 wave of the Human Sciences Research Council’s nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey of approximately 3,300 South Africans aged 16 and older. Using a slightly modified version of the widely used Snyder Hope Scale, this study found significant geographic and social differences in citizens’ average hope levels. Differences appear to attest to the continued negative association between hope levels and membership of groups that have historically been relegated to the margins of South African society. Contrary to most current political portrayals, however, there does not appear to be a significant age cohort effect. Self-perceptions of marginalisation also appear to be related to hope. In light of the paucity of South African empirical work in this area, the paper concluded by identifying possible future research needs.     

Children Who Choose Not to Eat Meat: A Study of Early Moral Decision‐making

Can young children frame their own choices in terms of moral considerations, particularly when those choices do not match the practices of immediate authority figures? To answer this question, we studied 6‐ to 10‐year‐old independent vegetarians—children who have elected to become vegetarians, despite being raised in non‐vegetarian families. In Study 1, these children were asked about their reasons for not eating meat; their replies were compared with those made by vegetarian children from vegetarian families (family vegetarians) and non‐vegetarian children from non‐vegetarian families (non‐vegetarians). Unlike the other two groups, independent vegetarians universally focused on the suffering that meat eating implies for animals but, surprisingly, they did not condemn others for meat eating. Study 2 attempted to explain this tolerance by examining if children focus on whether an individual has made a commitment to not eating meat. All three groups of children condemned meat eating by morally committed vegetarians, but not by those who have made no such commitment. The two studies show that independent vegetarians are committed to not eating meat on moral grounds and judge that it would be wrong to break that commitment. Nevertheless, like non‐vegetarian children, they remain tolerant toward people who have made no such commitment.     

Parenting in poverty: Perspectives of high-risk parents

Parents considered high risk by child protection services commonly are striving to raise children in poverty but are identified as requiring improved parenting skills. Parent perceptions of their own needs are typically not sought or elicited. This longitudinal study of 35 parents over 18 months garnered 115 in-depth interviews focusing on parent views regarding barriers to effective parenting. Analysis indicated that parents uniformly identified poverty as the primary barrier to their capacity to provide adequate care for their children. Themes elicited indicated that financially parents were living precariously close to margins of defeat. Parents accepted personal responsibility for their economic and parental failings, equating no income with bad parenting. Depression and despair associated with poverty were acknowledged to impair parenting and increase self-doubt about parenting capacity. Experiences with social services generally led to low expectations of parenting assistance. The need for improved aid for impoverished parents is discussed.     

Attitudes and Beliefs of Marriage and Family Therapists Regarding Psychotropic Drugs and Therapy

Clinical members of AAMFT were solicited by means of a randomized multi-staged clustering technique to identify their attitudes and beliefs regarding psychotropic drugs. All participants were blind to the overall purpose of the study (n = 322) and were directed to read a clinical vignette and then identify what course of action they would take with the client. They were then asked to complete a small questionnaire regarding their attitudes and beliefs regarding psychotropic drugs. Results of the study showed that 35.7% of the clinicians identified medication and a medication referral as a viable treatment option they might pursue with a client meeting criteria for major depressive episode. Clinicians who reported having a dedicated university class (17.2%) in psychopharmacology were more likely to identify medication referral as a treatment option. However, 80% of the AAMFT clinicians we surveyed reported that they were not adequately trained about psychotropic medications in their graduate programs. Further implications regarding diagnostic practices are also discussed, as 26% of clinicians failed to explicitly diagnose the client in the case vignette with depression.