From Adoption to Residential Treatment Centers

Although children who have been adopted are referred for mental health services more often than their non-adopted peers and might be overrepresented within residential treatment centers (RTCs), little is known about adoptive families' experiences with RTCs. The present study sought to understand the experiences of families whose children were placed in residential treatment facilities after a finalized adoption. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a total of ten families who had adopted 21 children. Of these, 13 children had been placed in an RTC after the finalized adoption. Most of the children in the sample were between zero and five years of age at placement. Adoptive families reported the need for in-the-trenches training and community-based services that could provide ongoing support post-adoption. Implications from these findings include increasing in-home services and other options within the adoptive families' own communities. Future research could incorporate a larger sample to assess whether the experiences of families in this study are similar to other adoptive families.     

Games of chance or masters of illusion: multiline slots design may promote cognitive distortions

Problem gamblers often have distorted beliefs about gambling, including illusion of control and gambler's fallacy. Most multiline slots games allow players to adjust the number of wagered paylines and the amount bet per line, and over time this control may support incorrect conclusions and promote distorted gambling beliefs. We created software to run simulations of a popular multiline slots game and examined the effects of betting on single versus multiple paylines. Simultaneous multiline betting tends to produce a less varied gambling experience because it increases the frequency of legitimate wins and ‘losses disguised as wins’, while decreasing the occurrence of ‘big wins’. It also shortens consecutive series of losing spins and it prolongs the time a typical player takes to exhaust funds. Indirect control over losing streaks may give some players the false impression that they can play skilfully and predict the occurrence of wins. However, applying five different wagering strategies in our simulations showed that none had any real effect on the average percentage of wagers that would be ‘paid back’ to players as prizes. Player control over multiline slots games may lead frequent gamblers to incorrect conclusions that sustain excessive play despite recurring losses.     

Youth, drugs and resilience education

Billions of dollars are spent annually on school-based drug education programs, with youthful drug use remaining near peak levels since the 1980s. Institutional, policy, and program evidence presented here suggests that although primarily delivered in schools, the educational community rarely participates in the development of drug education; and despite the finding that "no-use" programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) or Life-Skills Training (LST) are likely ineffective, they continue to thrive in schools. This may be explained by insufficient educational participation and scientific discourse considering these issues; and the role of interest group politics, such as the symbiotic relationship between government, researchers, and the tobacco industry, in drug education. In addition to this evidence, resilience based program alternatives, evaluation, and implications are discussed.     

ESTIMATION FOR THE POSITIVE STABLE LAWS, I

Estimation of scale and index parameters of positive stable laws is considered. Maximum likelihood estimation is known to be efficient, but very difficult to compute, while methods based on the sample characteristic function are computationally easy, but have uncertain efficiency properties.
In this paper an estimation method is presented which is reasonably easy to compute, and which has good efficiency properties, at least when the index α (0, 0.5). The method is based on an expression for the characteristic function of the logarithm of a positive stable random variable, and is derived by relating the stable estimation problem to that of location/scale estimation in extreme-value-distribution families, for which efficient methods are known.
The proposed method has efficiency which →1 as α→,but on the other hand, efficiencies deteriorate after α >0.5, and in fact appear to →0 as α+ 1.     

Student-faculty perceptions of multicultural training in accredited marriage and family therapy programs in relation to students' self-reported competence

Although the marriage and family therapy field's recent attention to multicultural issues is laudable, there appears to be little clarity on what constitutes an effective multicultural training program and the impact of the effects of such training on trainee multicultural competence. The field continues to be challenged at different levels-training, practice, research, the setting of the standards and the work of the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education, and the goals and strategic plan of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Board. This study focused on assessing the extent of multicultural integration at different levels of training and the relationship between such training and students' perception of their own multicultural competence.     

Pathological gambling. Identification and treatment

1. Social gamblers view gambling as a form of entertainment or recreation and gamble with no harmful effects, while problem gamblers' behavior causes disruption or harm to themselves or others in major life areas. Pathological gamblers fail to resist the impulse to gamble, with the resulting loss of control in their gambling behavior. 2. Pathological gambling is a primary mental health disorder of impulse control. 3. Treatment for pathological gamblers should be individualized, and interventions should address both the gambling disorder and any comorbid disorders.     

Social roles,context and evolution in the origins of depression

This paper reviews the author's research on the social origins of depression begun in the early 1970s. It emphasizes the importance of taking account of the context and meaning of proximal causal factors by the use of investigator-based ratings using intensive interviews and the need to extend research to cover a whole lifetime. The implications of the research program that has involved some twenty inquiries in a variety of cultural settings is discussed in terms of the importance of both a comparative and an evolutionary perspective concerning meaning that bring together the biology involved in an evolutionary perspective emphasizing a common human nature with one that takes account of cultural and individual differences. In short an approach that take seriously a biopsychosocial perspective.     

Females' Coping Styles and Control Over Poker Machine Gambling

An investigation of the relationship between impaired control over gambling, coping strategies, and demographic variables was conducted by surveying female poker machine players (N = 163) in their gaming venues. Metropolitan (n = 14) and regional (n = 6) gaming venues in Victoria, Australia participated. Control over gambling was measured using the Impaired Control Over Gambling Scale (Baron & Dickerson, 1994). Coping strategies were measured using (Folkman et al., 1986) adaptation of the Revised Ways of Coping Checklist (Vitaliano et al., 1985). MANOVA supported the hypothesis that the lower the control over gambling the greater the reliance on emotion-focused coping (blamed self, wishful thinking, avoidance) with F = 9.92, 13.35, 14.04 respectively, all significant at p < .001. MANOVA failed to supported the hypothesis that problem-focused strategies (problem focus, seek social support) would be significantly related to control over gambling with F = .82 and .21 respectively. Control over gambling was not related to age, employment, relationship status, education, ordistress from significant life events, further supporting the relationship between control and coping strategies. Ways in which coping styles might be related to pathological gambling are discussed.