Mental illness,partial hospitalization,and the family

Summary When illness is socially defined, the task of therapy is to enable the patient to move from a sick role to one of maximal social functioning. In a day hospital setting, methods are explored to involve a patient with his family both directly and indirectly. Thus the patient is supported both in the treatment milieu and when he is at home. Not only the patient, but the family, is vulnerable at this time and each must be helped to make parallel and complementary shifts in interpersonal behavior. To view the family solely as a resource for the support of the ill member and his treatment is to fail to accept the need of the family as a whole for reorganization and strengthening.     

A Contradiction in the Health Care Delivery System: Problems of Access*

State-wide sample survey data regarding issues and problems frequently incurred in gaining access to health care delivery systems, as well as reports of illness, are utilized in an analysis covariance. The results indicate that the black population reports receiving more preventive health care services than the white population when controlling for all relevant independent variables. This surprising reversal of the most frequently found relationship between black and white populations, coupled with the reporting by the black population of experiencing more difficulty in gaining access to the system for needed help, presents evidence of a contradiction in the delivery of care.     

Book reviews

Steven E. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers. The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923 (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1982). Pp.xiv + 331. $25.00.

Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars (Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press, 1983). Pp. 300. £19.25.

Hans van Amersfoort, Immigration and the Formation of Minority Groups: The Dutch Experience 1945–1975 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982). Pp.vi + 243. £19.50. (Translated from the Dutch by Robert Lyng).

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in ‘70s Britain (London, Hutchinson University Library, 1982). Pp.324. £5.95.

Susan Benson, Ambiguous Ethnicity: Interracial Families in London (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982). Pp.xi + 172. £16.50 (hardback); £5.50 (paperback).

Ashok Ohri, Basil Manning and Paul Curno (eds.), Community Work and Racism: Community Work Seven (London, Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1982). Pp.xv+188. £5.95.

Harold Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England (London, Associated University Presses, 1983). Pp.339. £20.

Australian Council on Population and Ethnic Affairs, Multiculturalism for All Australians (Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1982). Pp.54. NP.

Peter D. Osborne, The Other Australia: The Crisis in Aboriginal Health (Occasional Monograph 2, Department of Political Science, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 1982). Pp.144. NP.

J.W. Blassingame (ed.), The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One, Volume 2: 1847–54, Speeches, Debates and Interviews (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1983). Pp.616. £38.

Robert Ross, Cape of Torments: Slavery and Resistance in South Africa (London, Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1983). Pp.xi + 160. £9.50.     

Queens Field Instruction Center: A Field Instruction Center for Multilevel Education in Social Work

This paper will describe the organization and educational program for undergraduate and graduate social work students in the Queens Field Instruction Center, an administrative unit that provides a closer working relationship between schools of social work and social agencies on all levels. The center's structure and program allow for the concurrent and integrated placement of social work students. Research opportunities are offered to identify and conceptualize the outcome and learning experience for each level. The field instruction program offers further research possibilities in examining whether multimethod training provides students with skills equal to those receiving single-method training.     

Charles Tilly and the Practice of Contentious Politics

Charles Tilly developed the concept of the repertoire of contention over a long and distinguished career. It wasn't easy and it wasn't quick. In addition to being easily distracted, Tilly also needed to develop the analytical tools with which to study repertoires and performances and complete his transformation from what he called "an old structuralist" to what he came to call a "relational realist." This long development came to final fruition in the book he completed shortly before his death, Contentious Performances, which the author of this tribute regards as his masterpiece.     

Premarital pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births in denmark, 1950–65

Although comprehensive investigation of child spacing patterns requires consideration of those births that were conceived before marriage, detailed data on such births often are not available, especially in the United States. Danish statistics on first births by duration of marriage and on out-of-wedlock births permit evaluation of trends in premarital pregnancies. For the period 1950-65, they point to (1) a rise in the percentage of all brides who are pregnant at marriage; (2) an increase in the proportion of first births occurring within both six and nine months of marriage; and (3) a rise in out-of-wedlock births.The trend for the country as a whole also characterizes Copenhagen, but at a higher level, and this reflects the capital's more urban character, greater permissiveness, and attraction to young migrants. Age differentials indicate that as high as 90 percent of all first births among married women aged under 20 years and over 50 percent of those to women aged 20-24 years are premaritally conceived. The rise in the number of first births among young women largely accounts for the overall rise in the level of premarital conceptions. Compared to its suburbs, Copenhagen in 1965 had higher levels of premarital conceptions. The overall residential differential stems both from higher proportions of such births in all age groups in Copenhagen (but especially those aged 20 years and over) and from the fact that Copenhagen has proportionally more first births occurrinq to women aged under 20 years, the age group in which the rates of premarital conceptions are especially high.     

The relationship between childhood abuse and suicidality in adult bipolar disorder

This study evaluates the effect of childhood sexual and physical abuse on suicidality in adults with bipolar disorder. We conducted a retrospective chart review of adult outpatients (N= 381) with DSM-IV-TR-defined bipolar disorder seeking evaluation and treatment at an academic specialty research program (i.e., Mood Disorders Pharmacology Unit, University Health Network, University of Toronto) between October 2002 and November 2005. Eighteen percent (n = 68) of adult patients with bipolar disorder had a recorded history of childhood abuse (p = 0.009). Sixty-three percent (n = 43) of bipolar patients with a history of childhood abuse reported lifetime suicidality (chi2 = 6.885, df= 1, p = 0.009). Logistic regression analysis indicated that Childhood abuse was a significant predictor of lifetime suicidality in adult bipolar patients (OR = 2.05, CI = 1.19-3.510). Childhood abuse is associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in adults with bipolar disorder. Anamnestic inquiry regarding childhood maltreatment is salient to risk assessment, illness management planning, preventative strategies, and treatment interventions in bipolar disorder.