Pathological Gambling and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Study of the Co-Morbidity versus Each Alone

This report is the first empirical study to compare pathological gambling (PG), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and their co-occurrence. The sample was 106 adults recruited from the community (35 with current PG; 36 with current PTSD, and 35 with BOTH). Using a cross-sectional design, the three groups were rigorously diagnosed and compared on various measures including sociodemographics, psychopathology (e.g., dissociation, suicidality, comorbid Axis I and II disorders), functioning, cognition, life history, and severity of gambling and PTSD. Overall, the PG group reported better psychological health and higher functioning than PTSD or BOTH; and there were virtually no differences between PTSD and BOTH. This suggests that it is the impact of PTSD, rather than comorbidity per se, that appears to drive a substantial increase in symptoms. We also found high rates of additional co-occurring disorders and suicidality in PTSD and BOTH, which warrants further clinical attention. Across the total sample, many reported a family history of substance use disorder (59%) and gambling problems (34%), highlighting the intergenerational impact of these. We also found notable subthreshold PTSD and gambling symptoms even among those not diagnosed with the disorders, suggesting a need for preventive care. Dissociation measures had mixed results. Discussion includes methodology considerations and future research areas.     

Too Strict or Too Lenient?: Examining The Role of School Strictness With Educational and Juvenile Justice Outcomes

Abstract

Although there is research exploring how school punishment practices are influencing academic and juvenile justice outcomes, how strict or lenient school punishment practices are related to aspects of education such as grade retention and dropping out, as well as juvenile justice contact, remains unknown. This study draws from the Texas Education Agency’s Public Education Information Management System to investigate the relationship between strict and lenient school punishment practices, academic progress or failure, and juvenile justice contact. Results indicate that schools with more strict punishment practices can contribute to higher grade retention and juvenile justice referral rates; however, it also appears that lenient punishment practices also exacerbate these same outcomes as well as higher referral rates. The importance of fair, just, and balanced school punishment practices is discussed.     

MSW Students in Private Practice

The increasing number of MSW students engaged in private psychotherapy practice concurrent with their graduate studies has received little attention in literature on social work education. This article examines the educational, ethical, and legal dilemmas effected by this trend, and describes the policy developed at the University of Denver to address these problems. More broadly, it argues that schools of social work in general have a legitimate interest in adopting policies to prohibit or discourage MSW students from conducting private practice.     

Postdivorce Parenting: A Study of Recently Divorced Mothers and Fathers

ABSTRACT

Divorce is challenging for parents with children, commonly resulting in a series of individual and interpersonal adjustments. The time immediately following divorce can be particularly difficult. This study used a modified grounded theory approach to explore the experiences of 99 recently divorced mothers and fathers. Analysis of written narratives revealed 4 emergent groups of parents who described their postdivorce parenting experiences: good divorce, good enough, bad to better, and bad. Each group described their experiences across several areas including coparenting, father involvement, challenges of single parenting, personal turmoil, and their children’s adjustment. Implications for research and divorce education are discussed.     

Professional women “rebalancing” in retirement: Time,relationships, and body

ABSTRACT

This is an interview-based study focused on how professional baby boomer women negotiate and narrate postretirement lives. This group came of age in the 1960s and represents a socially privileged segment of the baby boomer generation, a cohort that created new gendered pathways in employment. Today, these retired professional women are attempting to make sense of their multilayered complex and changing realities. In their accounts, the most salient themes are shifting identity, embodiment, and relationships. By using what we call a relational lens, we will show how many aspects of postretirement life, for these professional women, are mediated by changing relationships—relationships to time, work identity, friends and family, and body. Through these individual and relational contexts we see how female professional baby boomer retirees grapple with liberation and loss, autonomy and control, ongoing gendered work, and rebalancing in a new chapter of life. Perhaps most importantly, we see how learning about self in this stage of life, and perhaps across the life course, takes place largely in the context of relationships.     

A Nation of Immigrants: Living Our Legacy

Immigration is a social issue of global importance. Understanding immigration patterns and trends requires paying attention to historical trends, demographic patterns, public policy developments, and cultural attitudes and beliefs. In this article I call for an intensified social psychological analysis of immigration, using Pettigrew's (1997) three-level framework as a means to define the approach. Selected research examples build the case for the critical role that social psychology can play in understanding the individual, group, and intergroup dynamics of immigration.     

Body Image and Cultural Background

First place winner of the 2004 Alpha Kappa Delta Graduate Student Paper Competition
Poor body image affects women of all races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and cultural backgrounds. Researchers have found that body image can influence a woman's self-confidence, her assertiveness, and her attitudes regarding eating and exercise habits. Much research has examined White women's body image perceptions, but less research has examined this issue among women of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The goal of this study is to examine and explore the factors that influence university women's perceptions of their bodies. Semistructured interviews were conducted in the spring of 2004 ( N =11). Results indicate that participants have struggled to achieve positive perceptions of their bodies as adults, tend to feel that women of all races and ethnicities are increasingly held to a similar standard of beauty (i.e., thin and White), and believe that images of the female body depicted in the media have significant effects on the way women perceive their own bodies.     

Effects of Commitment and Psychological Centrality on Fathering

Propositions from identity theory suggest that interactional and affective commitment to a role identity affects the psychological centrality of that role identity. In turn, the centrality of one's role identity translates into role performance ( Stryker & Serpe, 1994 ). This conceptual model was tested with a sample of 186 fathers in first marriages with at least one child 18 years or younger. The results showed that fathers who perceived their wives as evaluating them positively as fathers were more likely to report higher levels of involvement in child‐related activities and place greater importance on the father role identity. This prominence, in turn, was associated with higher levels of involvement.