This study utilized an ethnographic methodology to examine and describe the various aspects and processes occurring in a children's group as the members created their own puppets and accompanying puppet plays. Individual and interactive behavior patterns were isolated and analyzed as a means of gaining an in depth understanding of the puppetry process. The puppetry process, in turn, was viewed in terms of information it provided regarding the individual members and the group process. The facilitative and non-facilitative aspects of the procedure were delineated. The adult leader met with a group of six boys, in grades four and five, for 12 one-hour sessions in which they made puppets and then created puppet plays around issues that they had articulated as problems. The group sessions were videotaped and transcribed. The transcriptions were coded in an effort to extensively analyze the puppetry process and the group process, and the ways in which the two processes interacted. An independent observer/rater was utilized in order to provide some validity for the researcher's reported results. The puppet-making task appeared to offer an opportunity for individuals to begin to come together in a common, but individual task. Characteristic styles and individual personality dynamics were evidenced. General …

Between June and August, 1983, a postal survey was conducted to gather information on industrial mental health programs in mid-sized corporations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The sample included all companies listed in Standard and Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors, and Executives (1982) with an employee population of 500 to 2,000. Approximately 27% of the responding corporations indicated that they had formal existing industrial mental health programs. The responses indicated that the majority of formal industrial mental health programs were located in banking, insurance, high technology, media, and professional enterprises. The relationship between the size of companies and the provision of services was curvilinear.

Postal survey research was conducted between September and November, 1986, to gather information concerning the evolution, existence and extent of mental health services available to police personnel. Questionnaires were mailed to all 366 municipal, county, and state police agencies in the United States that employed 200 or more workers. Usable data were obtained from 76.8% of the agencies surveyed. Of the 281 respondents who returned usable data, 65.1% reported the existence of mental health services available to their police personnel. The majority of respondents (58.6%) perceived their mental health programs as being equally reactive and preventive in orientation. The most frequently reported existing components were outside agency counseling, stress management seminars, and testing of potential police recruits. Over half (54.8%) of the responding police agencies reported having between 10 and 19 components in their respective mental health programs. The implementation dates and evolution of twenty-five (25) components were examined, and specific components of various police agencies were also revealed. The majority of respondents (70.7%) reported their mental health programs were available to sworn and nonsworn personnel and their families. Almost all respondents (98.3%) viewed their programs as being cost effective. Also, most agencies were satisfied with the four treatment resources …

The problem of this study was to analyze the effects of contingent reinforcement on the presence of thoughts defined as anxiety responses. The two types of data, observed and introceptive, were used to determine the effects of reinforcement. The observed data from the peripheral physiological pre- and post-measures included heart rate, blood pressure, and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale data. The introceptive data supplied by subjects were the daily percentages of anxious thought detections subsequent to a baseline period. The daily percentages were formed by the subject's monitoring his own thoughts, with the monitoring prompted by an automatic tone device which emitted a tone approximately every four minutes. The daily percentage of anxious thoughts was formed by dividing the number of tones the subject heard into the number of anxious thoughts occurring at the time of the tone.The problem of this study was to analyze the effects of contingent reinforcement on the presence of thoughts defined as anxiety responses. The two types of data, observed and introceptive, were used to determine the effects of reinforcement. The observed data from the peripheral physiological pre- and post-measures included heart rate, blood pressure, and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale data. The introceptive data …

The principal investigator (PI) for this study surveyed 207 American School Counselor Association (ASCA) members on their attitudes toward utilizing trained counseling paraprofessionals in school counseling. The PI also examined the relationship between participants’ attitudes and their subjective reports of the counselor-student ratios in their schools, the amount of work time they spent providing direct counseling services to students, and the extent to which their districts experienced a school counselor shortage. The participants’ mean reported counselor-student ratio (1:464.63) significantly exceeded ASCA recommendations of 1:250. Elementary counselors reported the highest counselor-student ratios while high school counselors reported the lowest. Furthermore the PI found a significant linear trend for counselor-student ratios to decrease as school level increased. The participants’ reported mean percentage of time involved in direct counseling services (61.48%) fell significantly below the ASCA recommended 70%. Elementary counselors reported the highest amount of time involved in direct counseling services while high school counselors reported the lowest. The PI also found a significant linear trend for percentages of time involved in direct services to decrease as school level increased. Over one-fourth of the participants indicated school counselor shortages existed in their districts. A majority of participants supported utilizing counseling paraprofessionals in their …

This study presents a topical and chronological analysis of the published works of Fritz Perls with particular attention to specified theoretical continua. The theoretical continua specified are: 1. Determinism vs. Free Will, 2. Unconscious vs. Conscious, 3. Monism vs. Dualism, A. Physical vs. Mental, 5. Nativism vs. Environmental ism, 6. Elementalism vs. Holism, 7. Reactive vs. Proactive, 8. Subjective vs. Objective, 9. Responsibility vs. Helplessness, 10. Thinking vs. Feeling, and 11. Heterostasis vs. Homeostasis. Each continuum is analyzed in reference to Perls' published thought and his stated beliefs are described and reported. Large sections of the dissertation are devoted to the intellectual, philosophical, and emotional influences that led Perls to write the theory of Gestalt therapy. The dissertation concludes with the report of Perls' position on each defined continuum, with discussion of empirical studies, Gestalt therapy and other major theories of counseling that hold parallel theoretical positions, concluding with a discussion of the limitations of the theory of Gestalt therapy and of this dissertation.

The problem of this study was to provide a more comprehensive and accurate profile of various aspects of selective mutism—family atmosphere/dynamics, aetiology and manifestations of mutism, usages and outcomes of therapeutic approaches, and a profile of the affected child—and to provide a more comprehensive and consistent basis to guide effective treatment strategies and facilitate additional research. A content analysis of case studies of selective mute children completed from 1929-1994 was used to educe this data.

This study was designed to assess the effects of a peer ministry training course upon adolescents' ability to respond empathetically and upon their level of moral development. Volunteers from a church's high school group were blocked by gender and randomly divided into two groups . Adolescents in the treatment group were trained in thirteen sessions basic helping skills (emphasizing empathy) and measured before and after training on variables of empathy, moral development, and internality - externality. Adolescents in the second group were used as a control and were measured with the same assessment devices.

The problem of this study was to determine if career awareness groups which use Guided Imagery (GI) and the California Occupational Preference System (COPS), both individually and in combination, have a positive effect on career attitude maturity, oi* disabled college students as measured by the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale (CMI-A). This study involved three experimental groups (GI, COPS, & GI-COPS) and a control group. Participants included thirty-two volunteer disabled college students attending four community colleges in an urban area in the Southwest (Texas). There were eight volunteers per campus, and each campus constituted a group. Each group met once for 120 minutes. After consent was obtained, subjects completed the CMI-A. The general sequence was: introduction; instructions specific to the group condition; presentation of assigned stimulus condition; group discussion of reactions to the presented stimulus; control group members completed the post administration of the CMI-A; and group members' completion of the post administration of the CMI-A, with the exception of the control group which discussed reactions to the presented stimulus.

The principal investigator (PI) for this study analyzed mean scores on the National Counselor Examination (NCE) of students from CACREP accredited and non- CACREP accredited programs. Data was provided by the National Board of Certified Counselors, Inc., for a total of ten examination administrations across six years. The fourteen variables examined in the study consisted of the eight common-core knowledge domains identified in CACREP standards, the five counselor work behavior areas identified by NBCC via periodic job analysis of counseling practice, and one overall or total score on the NCE. NCE mean scores of students from CACREP accredited programs were higher than NCE mean scores of students from non-CACREP accredited programs on all variables across all ten NCE administrations. Data seem to indicate that students from CACREP accredited programs perform significantly better on the NCE than students from non-CACREP accredited programs, in all fourteen variables. Sample size was large, totaling 9707, so the PI calculated effect sizes using Cohen's d for each variable to aid interpretation of statistical significance. Five variables had large effect sizes of .70 or higher. The higher effect size statistics were associated with the counselor work behavior areas, with the highest effect size (.85) associated with …