Childhood maltreatment and motivation for treatment in girls in compulsory residential care

The first objective of the current study was to examine the relationship between childhood maltreatment, trauma-related symptoms and motivation for treatment in girls in compulsory residential treatment facilities. The second objective was to examine the extent to which various forms of childhood maltreatment, trauma-related symptoms and motivation for treatment predicted (time to) dropout from these facilities. Participants were 154 adolescent girls recruited from three residential treatment settings in The Netherlands. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that age and ethnicity were associated with motivation for treatment. Furthermore, emotional abuse contributed to motivation for treatment. In addition, internalizing symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression) significantly predicted level of distress; symptoms of dissociation predicted doubt about treatment. Logistic regression analyses with multiple imputation and competing risk regression analyses revealed no significant predictors for (time to) dropout. The findings suggest that clinicians and therapists should focus on experiences of emotional abuse, traumatic symptoms and treatment motivation in girls in compulsory residential care settings.     

Family assets,postsecondary education,and students with disabilities: Building on progress and overcoming challenges

Students with disabilities are increasingly enrolling and participating in two-year, four-year, and other institutions of higher education. Federal policies and initiatives addressing the educational needs of students and adults with disabilities provided impetus for these increases. For example, mandates within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) have resulted in K-12 public schools increasingly preparing students for postsecondary education. Nonetheless, students with disabilities continue to face financial challenges as well as low educational expectations in their pursuit of postsecondary education. Family assets may provide a framework for addressing these challenges and provide specific implications for policy as well as educational practice.     

El modelo de reactancia-indefensión de Wortman y Brehm desde la perspectiva de la psicofisiología social

Resumen

Este estudio fue diseñado para poner a prueba la hipótesis de reactancia-indefensión de Wortman y Brehm (según la cual los efectos producidos por la incontrolabilidad están mediados por la duración del evento incontrolable) en relación al funcionamiento corporal. Para ello, se eligió como principal variable dependiente el control de la respuesta electromiográfica de la musculatura frontal. Se utilizó un diseño factorial 3 (expectativa de control alta, baja y nula) X 2 (entrenamiento en incontrolabilidad corto y largo). Asimismo, se incluyeron medidas sobre «locus de control», estilo atribucional, percepción y estrategias de control. Los resultados obtenidos confirman parcialmente la hipótesis establecida y son discutidos dentro del ámbito de la Psicofisiologia Social.     

Elders' Decisions To Enter Assisted Living Facilities: A Grounded Theory Study

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a substantive theory of elders' decision-making process to relocate to an assisted living facility. The researchers interviewed a purposive sample of 28 elders who resided in assisted living facilities. The theory of elders' decisions to relocate to an assisted living facility is a story about elders weighing and balancing gains and losses to go to where the help is. Decision makers weigh and balance gains and losses before, during, and after relocating to an assisted living facility. Elders stay at their current residence if gains outweigh losses and they relocate if losses outweigh gains. Understanding the process of decision-making in this segment of the population may lead to the development of interventions that can promote positive relocation experiences among elders and increase the effectiveness of their decision-making behaviors.     

Youth with Serious Mental Health Disorders: Wraparound as a Promising Intervention in New Zealand

Youth with serious mental health disorders present with a complexity of challenges for the mental health system, schools, youth justice, care and protection, and their communities. Research shows their needs are best achieved by providing coordinated intensive, multidisciplinary, and individualised services. This article outlines the prevalence and characteristics of youth with serious mental health disorders. It also discusses community‐based interventions used in New Zealand and their limitations. It introduces Wraparound, an intensive individualised coordination and care planning process as a promising practice for youth with serious mental health disorders and their families. Key principles and phases underpinning the Wraparound process are presented along with a case vignette to exemplify the process. Its theory of change, the challenges experienced in practice, and a brief overview of the evidence‐base are also discussed.     

Family,welfare state generosity and the vulnerability of older adults: A cross-national study

The availability of family can be considered a protective factor for aging well. In this article, we examine to what extent the family situation of older people creates vulnerability with respect to their quality of life. Because not everyone is vulnerable to the same degree, we try to identify the conditions under which older people benefit more from having family resources. Based on the resources perspective, we argue that the impact of family resources on life satisfaction is stronger for older people with fewer resources at both the individual level (material, physical and non-familial social resources) and the country level (welfare state services targeted at older adults). To test our hypotheses we make use of the fourth wave of the European Values Study, and the MULTILINKS Social Policy Indicators database. In general our data offer support for the idea that the presence of intimate family ties (with partner and children) can be considered an important resource for achieving psychological well-being, whereas their absence or loss may act as a constraint. Our vulnerability argument is partly supported by the findings. Partner resources are more important for the life satisfaction of older people with a low education and health problems. Similarly, having children only improves the life-satisfaction of lower educated older adults. However, family resources are not more important for older people with fewer material resources or for older people living in countries with low services levels targeted at older adults.     

What We Should Want with History: A Meditation on Cultural Studies,Methodology, and Politics

This essay evaluates two of the central problems for Cultural Studies as a field: how to generate methodologically rigorous scholarship that is also politically useful; and how to productively use models and theory in the practice of history. Beginning with conversations about the place of (disciplinary) history in Cultural Studies, this essay explores one of the legendary debates in the field: between E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson, and (at least in theory) Louis Althusser. Though the debate centered on the degree to which the English Civil War could be termed a “bourgeois revolution,” Thompson's fundamental critique concerned Anderson's use of abstract models in history. However, the distinctions Thompson makes are not nearly as clear‐cut in practice – particularly when we look at Ellen Meiksins Wood's attempt to intervene on Thompson's side in her 1991 book The Pristine Culture of Capitlism. Wood's understanding of capitalism relies on an abstract conceptualization of that mode of produciton that is ironically similar to that of Althusser and Anderson. Arguing this as an illustratration of the importance of explicit models and methods, the essay develops Richard Johnson's account of Marx's use of abstraction and theory in his own historical scholarship. Marx's framework is then deployed to reconsider the English Civil War in realation to a key contemporary concern: the origins of copyright and intellectual property. It ends by advocating for what I term anarchic abstraction: a conscious, rigorous, politically‐committed, and dialectical attention to the order and determinations of history with no strict hierarchy given in advance.