The modified cognitive constructions coding system: reliability and validity assessments

The cognitive constructions coding system (CCCS) was designed for coding clients' expressed problem constructions on four dimensions: intrapersonal-interpersonal, internal-external, responsible-not responsible, and linear-circular. This study introduces, and examines the reliability and validity of a modified version of the CCCS-a version that involves coding clients' problem constructions at the level of speech turn. Results indicate that the modified CCCS generated reliable ratings of clients' problem constructions in 15 sessions of family therapy. Validity was established by comparing 71 subjects' own ratings of over 250 self-generated problem constructions to the ratings of trained CCCS coders. The modified CCCS allows for identifying moment-to-moment changes in clients' problem constructions and, ultimately, examining the impact of therapist behaviors on such changes.     

The ADHD treasure hunt: a group intervention using a social model approach to disability

ABSTRACT

This article describes the ADHD Treasure Hunt - a groupwork model that integrates the spirit of a social model of disability into therapeutic practice with parents and children. Following a discussion on the discourse and controversy over the nature and treatment of ADHD in Western society, we evaluate our intervention in terms of its usefulness in addressing a family’s sense of helplessness and frustration in the face of social interactions. The model also focuses on helping the families recognize the value of their own experiential knowledge. We examine the contributions of the model to current practice as well as offer future directions for its development.     

The Quality of Spontaneous Movements of Preterm Infants: Associations with the Quality of Mother–Infant Interaction

The assessment of the quality of infants’ spontaneous movements is a diagnostic tool for the young nervous system. We examined whether it relates to the quality of the interactions between infants born preterm and their mothers. Thirty‐nine healthy infants born preterm (M_{age in weeks} = 14.59, SD = 2.21; 38.46% female) and their mothers participated in the study. Infants’ quality of spontaneous movements was assessed using the General Movement Assessment according to Prechtl (Prechtl, Early Human Development 1990, 23, 151). A new measurement was employed to evaluate the following aspects of the mother–infant interaction: maternal sensitivity in the motor modality (i.e., when touching, picking up, holding, and putting down the infant), maternal sensitivity in the modalities of vocalization and eye contact, and infants’ positive engagement. Several aspects of infants’ quality of movements were associated with maternal sensitivity in the motor modality and infants’ positive engagement, but not with maternal sensitivity in the modalities of vocalization and eye contact. These findings suggest that the quality of infants’ spontaneous movements may explain some of the variability in the interactions between infants born preterm and their mothers. The results also highlight the importance of differentiating between the modalities of mothers’ behavior when assessing their sensitivity. Implications for research and practice with families of preterm infants are discussed.     

“Now I am also Israeli”: From Illegality to Legality ‐ Life experiences and identities of migrant workers’ children after receiving civil status in Israel

In 2006 and 2010, following demands from local and international civil society organizations, Israel granted civil status to approximately 1500 undocumented migrant workers’ children. This was considered a “one time humanitarian gesture,” not to be repeated. Thousands of other children, who did not fulfill the required criteria, were left without civil status. Within the context of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people, this mixed‐methods study explored how the children's life experiences have been constructed and reconstructed since the inception of their new civil status. According to the findings, 80 per cent of migrant workers’ children reveal a high degree of belonging to Israeli society, defining themselves as Israelis. For them, receiving civil status has four practical implications: being able to serve in the Israeli army; the ability to travel abroad; better access to the job market; and freedom from fear of deportation. Our study also revealed difficulties due to their religious and ethnic identities, reflected in the children's understandings of what it means to be Israeli. The complex manifestations of their newly acquired civil status is embedded in the concept of “freedom,” i.e. to do and to be what they really want to be.     

Looking Ahead to Voluntas’ Contribution to Research on Civil Society

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Eritrean Refugees’ Utilization of Antenatal Services in Israel

This study analyzes Eritrean refugee women's utilization of antenatal services in Israel by means of retrospective self‐reports surveys (N = 63) targeting women's service utilization (array of services used, frequency rates, facility rates and demographic correlates) and semi‐structured interviews (N = 10) targeting women's experienced barriers for service utilization. Findings show that Eritrean women make substantive use of the full array of services, with user rates increasing over time. However, frequency rates are low, although increasing when women have more experience with the system. Facility rates are not in keeping with the recommendations of the Israeli Ministry of Health. Interviews reveal that the barriers of work and a complex system of antenatal care limit women's frequent service utilization in the right facility, while the barrier of miscommunication limits their understanding of the services they actually utilized. Findings stress the importance of analyzing different facets of utilization and their demographic correlates.     

The emerging self in conceptualizing and treating mental illness

1. The course of severe mental illnesses is more heterogeneous than previously thought and is influenced by many complex, interacting factors. 2. The experience of self and capacity to cope of people with mental illnesses contribute to the recovery process. 3. Changes in traditional treatment models and a focus on broader societal interventions are needed to facilitate recovery. 4. Psychiatric nurses play an important role in these new developments as evident, for example, in the 3R Program (relapse, recovery, and rehabilitation).     

From ‘Russianness’ to ‘Israeliness’ through the landscape of the soul: therapeutic discourse in the practice of immigrant absorption in Israel with ‘Russian’ adolescents

This article explores the increasing incorporation of professional therapeutic knowledge and practices into the state-led apparatus of absorption of new immigrants in Israel. Singling out this phenomenon is the seemingly unexpected alliance between the therapeutic ethos, which leans on individualist, a-national and universal values, and state-led absorption practices, based on a Zionist, collectivist and local ethos. According to the Zionist ethos, the newcomer ‘returning to an historical homeland’ is expected to become part of a territorially bounded collective entity and to adopt a new national identity that will predominate over other identities. The therapeutic ethos undermines moral authorities promoting collective redemption through identification with community goals and challenges a patronizing attitude towards new immigrants. Analysing the rhetoric and practice of Na'aleh – a decade-and-a-half-old project for adolescents immigrating from the former Soviet Union, characterized by a ‘therapeutic absorption policy’, this article examines the meaning of ‘therapeutic’ absorption in shaping a new Israeli citizen within the current social context. In order to clarify the historical uniqueness of this phenomenon, Na'aleh's absorption paradigm is compared to Youth Aliyah – the project that absorbed youngsters in a distinctly different ideological period of Israeli history (early 1940s), particularly with regard to the status of Zionism. A locus of comparison is the perceptions of the absorbing personnel and the absorbed immigrants in both ventures. The main claim of this article is that the psychologizing of the absorption apparatus both challenges and fortifies the traditional role of statist Zionism under global, postmodern conditions, typified by the erosion of the nation-state and questioning the moral status of its constitutive ethos. Therapeutic absorption transforms the newcomer into the object of therapeutic intervention rather than assimilative education. However, it simultaneously enables the ‘Russian’ teenagers from a ‘pre-therapeutic society’ to internalize a ‘therapeutic habitus’, which grants them the skills and competency to become a ‘local’ and to attain symbolic goods significant in their new social environment. Therapeutic personnel, characterized by emotional skills and cultural proximity to the absorbed pupils, rather than ideological identification with Zionist project, serve as a newer version of traditional agents of Israeli socialization, by virtue of their own unique course of absorption in Israel that blends the process of ‘becoming Israeli’ with socialization into a professional/therapeutic culture.     

Who Gives,Who Gets,and How do We Know? The Promises and Limitations of Administrative Data for Cross-border Philanthropy Tracking

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Cross-border philanthropy occurs across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Seemingly domestic actors become players in...