This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of filial therapy training in: (a) increasing immigrant Chinese parents' empathic behavior with their children; (b) increasing immigrant Chinese parents' acceptance level toward their children; (c) reducing immigrant Chinese parents' stress related to parenting; (d) reducing immigrant Chinese parents' perceived number of problem behaviors in their children; and (e) enhancing the self concept of the Chinese children of immigrant Chinese parents.

This study utilized a qualitative/phenomenological research methodology to study the development of child molestation. Five volunteer male juvenile perpetrators of child molestation and their consenting family members participated in three one-on-one in-depth interviews. The juveniles were referred by juvenile justice departments in Texas. The investigation was pursued along three paths: (1) what factors in the perpetrators' life experiences may have influenced the formation of molesting thought and behavior patterns? (2) how did the perpetrators construe social relationships? (3) in developing sexual preference, what process did the perpetrators utilize to achieve the degree of sexual arousal needed to motivate the act of molestation? During analysis, 16 categories and 9 subcategories were developed from the data; these were evaluated in order to address the lines of inquiry listed above. Factors contributing toward deviancy were identified: these included general environmental factors and relationship issues with both parents and peers. The data also elucidated the perpetrators' characteristic ways of viewing themselves and other people, as well as the strategies that they relied upon to cope with their lives. These same strategies were subsequently used in their molesting. The results revealed that the answers to the investigational questions posed above were synthesized by the individual …

This study was designed to investigate the function of an individual's level of Christian conservatism and one's current attitude toward seeking professional psychotherapeutic help.

The study focused on the student service related problems of culturally distinct groups of students attending a community college. The groups selected for the study were sixty international students and sixty English as a Second Language students. The researcher administered the Michigan International Student Problem Inventory, an instrument which has been widely used to indicate foreign students' problems. Combining the use of naturalistic research methodology, the researcher utilized an indepth interview to document the problems they were facing. Patterns and trends among the problems were analyzed and reported. The results indicated that many international students experienced concerns in the area of financial aid, had difficulties with some of the immigration regulations and work restrictions, and experienced forms of racial and social discrimination. The English as a Second Language students tended to experience most difficulties in the area of English language functioning but also experienced problems related to academic functioning and making friends. The student service areas most closely related to the international students' concerns were Financial Aids, Admissions, Placement, Counseling, and English Language Services. English as a Second Language students' problems were most closely related to the areas of English Language Services, Admissions, Counseling, and Academic Advisement. Recommendations generated by …

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.

Male youths ages 13-18 incarcerated at two minimum security detention facilities participated in a program to determine if Alfred Adler's concept of social interest could be developed through group interactions led by non-professionals. The youths answered a self-report attitudinal scale, the Sulliman Scale of Social Interest and were rated by their classroom teachers on the Behavior Dimensions Rating Scale as pre-test measures. Volunteers from a liberal arts college sociology classes were randomly assigned to work in male-female pairs over a ten week period of time with the experimental population. These pairs led their constant group of incarcerated youths in ninety minute discussion sessions once per week for the duration of the program. Structured human relations exercises specifically designed to encourage elements of social interest; belonging, cooperation, and significance were assigned for each of the sessions. At the end of ten weeks, the youths in the experimental groups and the control population were tested again on the two scales. The results of Pearson Product Moment Correlations Test indicated no relationship between attitude and behavior for either the experimental or control groups on the pre-test and the post-test. A Mann Whitney U t-test indicated a highly significant increase in the social interest …

Counselor self-awareness is considered an important aspect of counseling effectiveness according to the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association and in numerous studies and articles within the counseling literature. With the effort to improve the effectiveness of counseling practicum students comes the need to understand the relationship between effectiveness ratings and the levels of counselor self-awareness. Gestalt Therapy literature, and the development of the Personal Orientation Inventory (Shostrom, 1963) provided the working definition of self-awareness in this study. Research and evaluation are means for improving the correlation between students' characteristics in counselor training programs and their effectiveness as perceived by faculty and doctoral supervisors. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of practicum students' ages and their levels of self-awareness upon counseling effectiveness as measured by faculty and doctoral supervisors in a university clinic setting. Twenty-nine students who were enrolled in four practicum classes were administered the Personal Orientation Instrument. Four faculty supervisors and eight doctoral supervisors were administered the Counselor Effectiveness Rating Scale (Myrick & Kelley, 1971). The instruments were administered in the tenth week of the counseling practicum semester. Analyses of the data revealed a statistically significant interaction between the older practicum students' …

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 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 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 primary purpose of this study was to use some of the action methods of playback theatre to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge through the experience of building community. The impact of action methods on group dynamics and the relationship among methods, individual perceptions, and the acquisition of knowledge were analyzed. The researcher suggested that playback theatre action methods provided a climate in which groups can improve the quality of their interactions. The Hill Interaction Matrix (HIM) formed the basis for the study's analysis of interactions. Since the researcher concluded there were significantly more interactions coded in the "power quadrant" after training, the researcher assumed that playback theatre action methods are a catalyst for keeping the focus on persons in the group, encouraging risk-taking behaviors, and producing constructive feedback between members. Based on session summaries, individual interviews, and an analysis of the Group Environment Scale (GES), the training group became more cohesive, became more expressive, promoted independence, encouraged self-discovery, and adapted in innovative ways. The experience of an interconnected community created a space where positive growth could occur. The researcher concluded that the process of community building is intricately connected with a person's ability to make meaning out of experiences. …

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 …

This study was designed to investigated the role of religious ideology in one's willingness or reluctance to seek professional psychotherapeutic assistance. The subjects consister of 220 members randomly selected from six different denominations: Baptist, Church of Christ, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Unitarian. The major findings of the study were as follows: 1. HC Ss displayed significantly less personal recognition of need for psychotherapeutic help, less interpersonal openness and greater overall reluctance to seek professional psychological help than LC Ss. 2. There was no significant difference between HC and LC Ss in terms of sensitivity to stigmatization and confidence in the mental health profession and mental health professionals. 3. MC Ss scored lower in each of the five areas investigated than did either HC or LC Ss. It was concluded that individuals who are highly conservative in their religious beliefs may be more reluctant to admit that they have a psychological problem with someone else than individuals who subscribe to more moderate or liberal religious beliefs.

The effectiveness of guided imagery as an enhancement to the Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) program was explored during a shortened 8-week program using three parent groups of elementary-age students matched for parent training experience and couple participation: a) an imagery-modified STEP group (STEP-Im, n = 14); b) a traditional STEP group (STEP, n = 14); and c) a drop-out comparison group (n = 10). Guided imagery consisted of centering exercise(s) for focus and concentration; structured imagery of Adlerian concepts; and open-ended role-assumption imagery for clarifying personal values, the perspectives of others, and concept practice.

An increasing number of empirical investigations have demonstrated that a wide variety of extra-legal factors are influential in the jury deliberation process and in the verdicts rendered. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if mock jurors possessing high levels of self-actualization would be more resistant to the biasing effects of the courtroom. One hundred eighty subjects were selected on the basis of their scores on the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI). Subjects were divided into two groups, those scoring within the high self-actualized range, and those scoring within the low self-actualized range. From this subject pool, thirty six-person juries were selected; ten high self-actualized simulated juries (HSA), ten mixed self-actualized simulated juries (MSA), composed of fifty percent high and fifty percent low self-actualized subjects, and ten low self-actualized simulated juries (LSA). Statistical analyses of the five hypotheses produced the following results. Hypothesis 1, HSA juries make more pertinent legal evidence remarks than LSA juries, was not supported. Hypothesis 2, HSA juries make more accurate legal evidence statements than LSA juries, was not supported. Hypothesis 3, HSA juries would render more relevant punishment than the LSA juries, was not supported. Hypothesis 4, HSA juries would require less deliberation time than …

This study was designed to investigate the correlation of the variables of gender, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality preferences, and androgyny as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) in Counselor Education graduate students. Instruments were administered to Counselor Education graduate students at nine institutions in five national regions. A total of 172 participants (18 males and 154 females) who were enrolled in Master's level theories courses or practicum courses completed a student information sheet, informed consent, MBTI, and BSRI. Instruments were hand scored and chi-square test was used to determine significance of the hypotheses; the saturated model of log linear analysis was the statistic used for the research question. As predicted, of the sixteen MBTI types, the most common for Counselor Education graduate students emerged as ENFP: extraversion, intuition, feeling, and perception. Additionally, this MBTI type was found to be significantly more common among the population of Counselor Education graduate students than is found among the general population. The expectation that more male Counselor Education graduate students would score higher on the androgyny scale of the BSRI was unsupported; low sample size for male Counselor Education graduate students prevented use of chi-square; however, it was apparent through the …

Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology emphasizes the uniqueness of individuals and describes the life style, or personality, as the unique and characteristic pattern of coping with and solving problems and interacting with other people. The purpose of this study was the development of a similar instrument that would quantitatively identify life styles in children.

The problem with which this investigation was concerned was that of determining the relationship between the variables of acculturation, imagery, self-concept, anxiety, stress, and seriousness of disease in Mexican-Americans. The purposes of this study were 1) to determine the statistical predictive efficiency of stress and its relation to disease, 2) to determine if a combination of anxiety, acculturation, self-concept, imagery, along with stress, would increase the statistical predictive efficiency concerning seriousness of disease, and 3) to provide information that may help to develope a theoretical base concerning the above variables and disease in Mexican-Americans.

This study describes certain characteristics of mature women students in a community college in a large metropolitan district. Three standardized instruments gathered data on self-actualization, self concept, and locus of control. A questionnaire collected demographic and education data as well as information on attitudes, motivations, problems encountered, and suggestions. The women perceived attitudes of their families as positive toward their education. They were motivated by desires to gain knowledge, get degrees, obtain promotions, and improve themselves. They cited themselves, long-time ambition, friends, and husbands as influential in motivating them to attend college. They selected this community college because of its convenience. The majority were married, had children, and were of the middle to upper-middle class. Over half were employed. Their average age was thirty-seven. They were active outside the home, although continuing to perform most traditionally feminine home responsibilities. The majority were part-time students, classified as freshmen. Education, business, nursing, accounting, and psychology were popular majors. Over half planned to obtain bachelor's degrees. Most felt they encountered no problems in pursuing their education; lack of sufficient time was their major complaint. Most were pleased with their community-college experience. their suggestions included special counseling, flexible class schedules, a club for mature …

This research study investigated the effectiveness of a child-centered play therapy intervention conducted by trained high school students on the behavior of preschool and kindergarten children with adjustment difficulties. Specifically, this research determined if play sessions conducted by high school students trained in child-centered play therapy skills and procedures facilitated change in the children's behaviors. The experimental group children (N=14) each received 20 weekly individual play sessions from a high school student enrolled in a Peer Assistance and Leadership class. The high school students were randomly paired with a referred child. The high school students completed 7 one-hour training sessions in child-centered play therapy procedures and skills prior to beginning the weekly, supervised play sessions. The control group (N=12) received no treatment during the study. Pre and post data were collected from parents who completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and teachers who completed the Early Childhood Behavior Scale (ECBS). Multivariate analyses of variance of gained scored revealed statistical significance in 2 of the 4 hypotheses. Specifically, the children in the experimental group showed significant decreases in internalizing behaviors (p = .025) and total behaviors (p = .025) on the CBCL. Although not in the statistically significant range, positive trends …

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Child Life Style Scale (CLSS) and clarify the underlying dimensions of the scale. Dr. Kathleen Stiles designed the 90 item CLSS to quantitatively identify life style typologies for children between eight and twelve. This questionnaire consisted of 6 scales based on Adlerian constructs of personality. They are pleasing, getting, controlling, rebelling, inadequacy, and socially useful. Ten items were deleted after an inter-judge reliability/validity study. The 80 item CLSS was administered to 314 third, fourth, and fifth graders in public and private schools in Dallas, Texas. Internal consistency coefficients for the six subscales ranged from .72 to .76 and test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from .70 to .80 (p < .001). Results from a factor analysis confirmed the original six scales but factors five and six were not strong. Exploratory factor analysis found four clear factors with internal consistency coefficients ranging from .76 to .84 and test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from .73 to .83 (p < .001). Underlying dimensions of the factors, which reflect Alfred Adler's four typologies exactly, were: Factor 1: Rebelliousness Factor 2: Social Usefulness Factor 3: Control Factor 4: Fear of Failure. Results of analysis …

This research study investigated the effectiveness of the application of child-centered play therapy procedures and skills by trained fifth grade students in play sessions with kindergarten children who had adjustment difficulties. Specifically, this research determined if play sessions with trained fifth grade students facilitated change in kindergarten children's self concept, internalizing behavior, and externalizing behavior and their parents' stress level.

The problem of this study was to survey the perceived effectiveness of a human relations training program for a select group of Public Safety Officers at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. In relation to this select group of Public Safety Officers, the purposes of the study were as follows: (1) to describe the selection procedures, (2) to provide a general overview of the procedures involved in a thirteen-week police training program, (3) to describe the human relations training aspects of the thirteen-week police training program, (4) to describe the public safety officer trainees in terms of their performance on various criteria measurements, (5) to assess and describe the personality characteristics of the Public Safety Officer trainees, and (6) to determine the Public Safety Officers' perceptions of, and reactions to, the human relations training aspects of the thirteen-week police training program.

Among the social sciences, guidance is relatively young, having evolved out of the American social experience with its concern for the welfare of the individual. As an independent discipline, guidance is about seventy years old. However, the foundations for guidance are imbedded in the nation's historical past. Beginning with seventeenth-century New Englanders, who stressed religious and economic reasoning, a systematic approach to occupational selection began. By the close of the colonial period, the precedent of freedom of choice of vocation and educational opportunity was well established.