This study utilized ethnographic methodology to describe the communicative interactional patterns in families with a member who has breast cancer. Three breast cancer patients whose families were between the adolescent and launching of children developmental lifestage (McGoldrick & Carter, 1982) were chosen for the study. Data were collected from a series of three interview sessions over a period of four weeks with a two week time lapse between each of the interview sessions. Interview sessions were conducted in the families' homes by the researcher. All interviews were video and audio tape recorded for the purpose of preserving data for transcribing and coding. Research questions examined individual perception of meaning in regard to the disease, the structure and organization of the family in relation to the illness, and the effects of family communicative interaction on the course and management of the disease. Findings indicated that family members' responses to the diagnosis of "breast cancer were influenced by multi-generational "beliefs. All three families formulated a collective belief which supported the mother's belief about the disease. Each of the three families were mother-centered, and each mother seemed to use a metacommunicative approach to mediating family transactions. Each of the three fathers were reported …

This psychobiography used the framework of Individual Psychology to examine the life style development of the Honorable Ann Richards in order to provide insight into the creation of a life style by a successful, contemporary female leader. This single case study utilized a qualitative/phenomenological research methodology to examine from Ms. Richards' point of view the manner in which a highly visible and well-known individual created her particular style of life.

This study utilized a qualitative/phenomenological research methodology to examine the generational and transgenerational issues of five identified Japanese American families. To be included in this study, families were identified to contain at least one member who was interned during World War II or who had parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents who were interned. Semistructured interviews, including Adlerian lifestyle assessments, were conducted with the 28 research informants who represented the second, third, and fourth generations of their families.

This exploratory study drew from research in family art therapy assessment by Kwiatkowska (1978), Landgarten (1987), Kurinsky (1986), and Wilson (1988). The objectives of this study were to develop a theoretically consistent art therapy assessment tool for Adlerians to use in initial family therapy interviews and to evaluate its effectiveness in a field test with families of adolescents. Accounts of the families' perceptions of their AFAAT experience and the researcher's and three trained family therapists' interpretation of the six families were provided. An overview of the six families' perceptions of their AFAAT experience, their interactions, their art works, and hypotheses about indicators of adolescence as seen in their art works were also described. Although compelling anecdotal information about families of adolescents and their art work was obtained from the study, the validity and reliability of the AFAAT, as established in this study, is insufficient. Recommendations for improvements to the AFAAT and ideas for future studies to refine and utilize it more effectively concluded the study.

This study used a qualitative/phenomenological research methodology to examine the perspective of five bulimic subjects about their lives in order to understand the bulimic individual's point of view and develop a clearer picture of the world of the bulimic. This approach involved three interviews for each of the five subjects totalling 22 1/2 hours. The three interviews dealt with the subjects' past and present experiences and their ideas about the future. The qualitative/phenomenological methodology created an in-depth view of each subject's relationship to the beginning of her bulimia and its subsequent development. During the period when the interviews were being transcribed, patterns and concepts emerged and were examined. Nine categories were developed from this data reflecting some of the characteristics of a bulimic's personality. Six research questions were formulated and then answered by evaluating them in the light of the nine categories as well as data and descriptions from the interviews. No one single category was found to be uniquely dominant, but rather the categories tended to appear in a cluster-like fashion depending on the individual personality of the bulimic. The data of this study revealed a distinction between the personality and the behavior of the bulimic. A form with …

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to determine the therapeutic effectiveness of group counseling with visually-impaired elderly adults, and (b) to provide information concerning the effectiveness of group counseling to practitioners in the field. The study reviewed the literature regarding aging and vision, psychosocial reactions to vision loss, and group counseling with the visually-impaired and the elderly. Twenty subjects, who were above age 65 and had recently experienced a severe loss of vision, were selected to participate in the study. Ten subjects were assigned to an experimental counseling group and 10 subjects were assigned to a no-treatment control group. The experimental group participated in 1-1/2 hour group sessions once a week for 10 weeks. Both the experimental group and the control subjects were administered pre- and post-tests. The tests measured depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and life satisfaction.

Parent Adaptive Doll Play, a technique in an early stage of development, is designed for use by parents in assisting their young children to cope with the stresses of parental separation/divorce. The effects of technique implementation by parents of three- through six-year-old children were investigated. Data was collected before and after parents received training and implemented the technique over an eight-week period. Parents completed the Child Behavior Rating Scale, Burks' Behavior Rating Scales, the Parenting Stress Index, and the Parental Attitude Scale. Twenty-two parents, reporting marital separation through separation and/or divorce, within 18 months prior to the beginning of the study, and reporting more than 50 percent physical custody of a three- through six-year-old child qualified for participation. Twelve children were experimental subjects and ten were control subjects. To determine differences between groups, a one-way analysis of covariance was performed on each post test variable. Positive differences were calculated in several areas of child behavior by parents of subjects in the experimental group. No significant differences between groups were found in any area of child behavior. The score which most closely approached significance, however, was found in the Burks' Behavior Rating Scale area of poor anger control.

This descriptive study with quantitative aspects examined the phenomenon of elder abuse through the systematic review of 60 cases of elder abuse. Cases were randomly selected from the files of an Adult Protective Services agency in the North Central Texas area. Research questions examined the characteristics of the victims and abusers, types and duration of abuse, descriptions of abusive situations, the reporting and verification of abuse, case management strategies utilized by caseworkers, and the consequences of those strategies. The results of this study point to the probability of the elderly abuse victim being 75 years of age or older, female, white, and widowed. There did appear to be some connection between race and type of abuse with white victims more likely to experience physical and financial abuse. Approximately half of the elderly abuse victims had severe limitations in physical and/or mental functioning leading to some degree of dependence upon their abusers. However, eighty percent of the elderly victims resided in their own homes and half of these individuals were functionally independent. This study provided descriptions of the various types of abuse that were observed: physical, financial, emotional, passive neglect, and active neglect. Financial abuse was noted most frequently, and multiple …

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of filial therapy in: (a) increasing Chinese parents' empathic behavior with their children; (b) increasing Chinese parents' attitude of acceptance toward their children; and (c) reducing Chinese parents' stress related to parenting. The experimental group, consisting of 18 Chinese parents, received 10 weekly 2-hour filial therapy training sessions and conducted a weekly 3 0-minute play session with one of their children. The control group, consisting of 16 Chinese parents, received no treatment during the ten weeks. All the parents were videotaped playing with their child before and after the training as a means of measuring change in empathic behavior. The two written self-report instruments completed for pretesting and posttesting purposes were the Porter Parental Acceptance Scale and the Parenting Stress Index. Analyses of Covariance revealed that the Chinese parents in the experimental group had significant changes in all 12 hypotheses, including (a) a significant increase in their level of empathic interactions with their children; (b) a significant increase in their attitude of acceptance toward their children; and (c) a significant reduction in their level of stress related to parenting. This study supports filial therapy as an effective intervention for Chinese …

This investigation concerned the effects of behavioral charting, token reinforcement, social reinforcement, and combinations of behavioral charting with token or social reinforcement, upon the production rates of sheltered workshop clients. The differential effects of these reinforcement methods were investigated by arranging for the application of each reinforcement mode in a sheltered workshop setting and comparing the mean production rates achieved by two groups of sheltered workshop clients under each reinforcement condition. The findings derived from this sample led to the conclusion that positive reinforcement, and specifically social reinforcement used both alone and in combination with behavioral charting, can be a very effective mode of reinforcement for sheltered workshop clients. It was suggested that more attention might be devoted in rehabilitation facilities to using the simpler and more readily available forms of reinforcement which behavioral charting and social reinforcement represent.

Utilizing ethnographic methodology, this study examined and described the filial therapy process to provide an in-depth understanding of the process, the relations in progress, and effects on the parent, child, and parent/child relationship. This study supports filial therapy as a viable option for educating parents in effective parenting and training as agents of change. The results appear to be generalizable to other parents engaged in learning filial therapy since previous research reported similar findings.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Intensive Filial Therapy in: (a) improving the self-concept of child witnesses of domestic violence; (b) reducing internalizing behavior problems, such as withdrawal, somatic complaints, anxiety and depression, of child witnesses of domestic violence; (c) reducing externalizing behavior problems, such as aggression and delinquency, of child witnesses of domestic violence; (d) reducing overall behavior problems of child witnesses of domestic violence; and (e) increasing communication of empathy between mothers and child witnesses of domestic violence. A second objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of Intensive Filial Therapy with Intensive Individual Play Therapy and Intensive Sibling Group Play Therapy with child witnesses of domestic violence. The experimental group consisted of 11 child witnesses of domestic violence whose mothers received 12 Intensive Filial Therapy training sessions within a three week period and had 12 mother-child play sessions. The Intensive Individual Play Therapy comparison group, consisting of 11 child witnesses, and the non-treatment control group, consisting of 11 child witnesses, were utilized from the Kot (1995) study. The Intensive Sibling Group Play Therapy comparison group was utilized from the Tyndall-Lind (1999) study. Children in all studies completed the Joseph Preschool …

The problem with which this investigation was concerned was that of the use of parents as therapeutic agents. The purpose of this study was twofold. The first was to determine the effect of filial therapy on parental acceptance, self-esteem, parent-child relationship, and family environment. A second was to analyze the results and make recommendations concerning the effectiveness of filial therapy as a treatment modality for parents and their children. The experimental design of the study was a nonrandomized, pretest-posttest, control group design.The sample (N=47) consisted of the experimental group (parents N=15, children N=9) who received filial therapy and the control group (parents N=12, children N=ll) who did not. The treatment included ten, two hour weekly parent training sessions. During these sessions the parents were taught the principles of client-centered play therapy and were instructed to conduct weekly one-half hour play sessions at home with their own children. Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusions were drawn: 1) Filial therapy does significantly increase the parents' feeling of unconditional love for their children and 2) Filial therapy does significantly increase the parents' perception of expressed conflict in their family. In addition to the statistically significant results, there were some …

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of the microcounseling training model for the improvement of marital communication. The purposes of this study were (a) to assess the effects of microcounseling on the communication between married couples; (b) to determine whether the teaching of skills using microcounseling can have specific behavioral effects on the actions of individuals in training; (c) to assess whether this change has effects on sharing behavior of couples; (d) to determine whether skill training has any effect on marital adjustment of couples; and (e) to examine changes in meaning that training may cause. Based on statistical results it was concluded the microcounseling does not result in significant changes in marital communication. Neither does microcounseling bring about significant changes in marital adjustment or primary communication. Eleven of the semantic differential items did change significantly. It was nevertheless concluded that these changes were not enough to support the conclusion that great changes in meaning had occurred. It was concluded that from a time-cost standpoint, microcounseling is not an efficient way to train married couples' communication.