The analytic template: Help or hindrance in the conduct of psychotherapy?

This paper explores the impact of psychoanalytic theory and practice on the conduct of psychotherapy. A brief review of the origin of the interface between the two modalities begins the discussion and case examples are used to highlight differences and commonalities. While recognizing the vast contributions made by psychoanalytic theorists to the field of psychotherapy, an attempt is made to establish an arena of legitimacy for the pursuit of psychotherapy. The role of goals is proposed as defining of the psychotherapeutic enterprise.     

Task force on Medicaid in Missouri: a community collaboration in gerontological social work education

Master's level social work gerontology students formed a Task Force on Missouri Medicaid as the primary course project of the Social Policy and Aging class at George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis. Led by students, the Task Force collaborated with community leaders to address issues with the escalating enrollment and cost of Missouri's Medicaid program, resulting in a widely disseminated policy brief. Students identified multiple professional skills gained through this assignment and community leaders determined the issue brief to be a significant contribution to Missouri's Medicaid policy debate.     

Sexual Activity During Menstruation: A Qualitative Study

This study utilized a grounded theory method to analyze qualitative narratives about sexuality and menstruation from 108 young women (ages 18–23; M = 19.8, SD = 1.07) and 12 young men (ages 18–24; M = 20.4, SD = 1.46). Five patterns were found: Sixteen women identified themselves as virgins and had not faced the issue of negotiating sex during menstruation. Among the 92 women who said they were sexually active, 37 women said they would never have intercourse during menstruation, eight women said they tried it once but never would again, and seven women said they rarely would and only under certain conditions. The largest group, 40 women, said they do have menstrual sex. Compared to the other groups, more of the women who do have sex during menstruation were in committed relationships, and none espoused a discourse of disgust. Considering the 12 men, three were virgins. Among the nine sexually experienced men, seven said they did have sex with a menstruating partner. Young adults who were comfortable with menstrual sex saw it as just another part of a committed intimate relationship.     

From Face-to-Face to Facebook: The Role of Technology and Social Media in Adoptive Family Relationships with Birth Family Members

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study of 77 individuals in 40 couples (same-sex and heterosexual), who had adopted publically, privately, or internationally, examined parents' engagement with their child's birth family via technology (e.g., texting, e-mail, social media) through the lens of the Couple and Family Technology frame-work (Hertlein & Blumer, 2014 Hertlein, K. M., & Blumer, M. L. C. (2014). The couple and family technology framework. New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). Parents used three approaches to contact: active, passive, and no contact. Regardless of approach, some parents described concerns about boundaries. Couples were generally in agreement in their perspectives on engaging with birth family via technology. Practitioners must be know-ledgeable about management of relationships via technology and help adoptive families set healthy boundaries.     

Female-partnered women conceiving kinship: Does sharing a sperm donor mean we are family?

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study explored how 36 initially female-partnered mothers defined their own, and their children's, relationships with families who share their unknown sperm donor (i.e., “linked” families). Shared genetics among children were sometimes sufficient to describe relationships among linked families as familial, especially from the children's perspectives. Most women described their own relationships with linked families as significant but not necessarily in traditional family terms. Family terms were sometimes seen as undermining ties to siblings and genetically unrelated mothers. As shared experiences have come to define “chosen family,” definitions of significant relationships must expand to include those defined by shared genetics alone.     

Volunteers and the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) result from exposure to a traumatic event and influence a person's ability to cope psychologically. Recent documentation from emergency rooms shows that medical personnel, including volunteers who treated severely injured people, can develop symptoms of PTSD even though the volunteers themselves were not personally subjected to the stressful event. This article finds similar results among adolescents who volunteered with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance, and blood bank service. Because of the security threats Israel has faced, these adolescents are likely to be exposed to traumatic events during their volunteer service, and some may develop PTSD. This article explores who is most susceptible to developing PTSD and the underlying theories of why that may be the case. Since the adolescents' motives to volunteer vary, the article proposes that volunteers with certain motives retain their enthusiasm for volunteering despite the danger of developing PTSD symptoms. It also finds that some of the motives to volunteer correlated with a reduction in the level of PTSD symptoms. Understanding the adolescents' motivations to volunteer will help nonprofit leaders and managers allocate volunteers according to their motivations and the levels of threat a particular job entails.     

Latino Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health Behaviors and Outcomes: Research Informed Guidance for Agency-Based Practitioners

Latinos are the largest and fastest growing minority youth group in the United States. Currently, Latino adolescents experience higher rates of teen pregnancy compared to any other racial or ethnic group and have disproportionately high levels of sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Latino teens are also affected by a number of social problems such as school dropout, poverty, depression and limited access to healthcare, which contributes to disparities in reproductive health outcomes for this population. Relatively few intervention research studies and programs have been dedicated to reducing sexual risk among Latino youth, despite their particular vulnerabilities in experiencing negative reproductive health outcomes. We provide recommendations for identifying the unique reproductive health needs of Latino youth and specific applied strategies so that agency-based social workers and other providers can develop family-based interventions that improve adolescent Latino sexual and reproductive health.