This study evaluated the Say It Straight™ (SIS) Training Program for its ability to improve straightforward communication, increase self-esteem, increase an individual's overall perception of group and family belonging or cohesiveness within a residential treatment setting and decrease an individual's perceived level of anomie. Effectiveness of SIS training was evaluated with paired sample t-tests (2-tailed) on six objective questionnaires given before and after training. Participation in the study was voluntary. Of the 39 patients in residence, 26 participated in SIS training, (23 attended over 80% of the sessions and 3 attended over 50%). Three were excluded from the study due to developmental or dementia-related diagnoses, 3 chose not to participate, 5 were discharged routinely prior to completion and were not post-tested; and 2 were discharged against medical advice during the training. It is interesting to notice that on the average there are about 5 discharges against medical advice per month at the facility, but during the five weeks of SIS there were only 2. Self-reports of empowering behaviors, quality of family and group life and self-esteem showed highly significant increases following SIS. Self-reports of disempowering behaviors (placating, passive-aggressive, blaming, irrelevant, intellectualizing) showed highly significant decreases following SIS and anomie showed a significant decrease. All p values are results from 2-tailed t-tests for paired observations. Subjective reports regarding training effectiveness were also very positive. Recommendations include: 1) follow-up and compare SIS trained Sante alumni and non-SIS trained Sante alumni for recidivism rate and participation in recovery oriented group activities; 2) develop a tool for measuring anomie specifically related to treatment settings as a construct versus a single variable, and 3) develop a tool for measuring group cohesiveness specifically related to treatment settings as a construct versus a single variable.

The study examined the relationships between subjects' degree of alienation and descriptions of their behaviors. The subjects were 42 male, senior students at Benson Polytechnic High School who attended one of two required social science classes. Benson High School is an all male, technical high school which admits students from all parts of the City of Portland, Oregon. Alienation was defined as a syndrome of feelings consisting of apathy, distrust, pessimism, cynicism, and emotional distance. The degree of subjects' alienation, as defined, was measured by the Multiple Alienation Measure devised by Dr. Laurence J. Gould. Subjects' were thereby divided into three alienation groups: high alienation, moderate alienation, and low alienation. School personnel described subjects' behaviors by selection of descriptions from a questionnaire. Two counselors described subjects' engagement in extra-curricular activities in terms of (1) whether they were inactive, (2) active in sports or other extra-curricular activities only, or (3) active in both sports and other extra-curricular activities. Two teachers described subjects' involvement in their social science classes in terms of (1) whether they did well in assigned work and did extra work, (2) did well in assigned work only, (3) or did not do well in assigned work. The vice-principal described the conduct of subjects in terms of whether they were (1) well behaved, (2) had problems that were handled in the classroom, (3) had problems for which they were sent to the office and, perhaps, suspended once, or (4) had problems for which they had been suspended more than once. A positive relationship was found between the degree of alienation and the degree of conduct problems as described by the vice-principal. This relationship was significant at the .05 level by a chi-square test. No relationships were found between the degree of alienation and extracurricular activities and behavior in social science classes. However, the alienated were described by teachers as either unmotivated or very motivated students. A tendency for the alienated to be described by the extreme statements concerning activities also appeared. The findings of the study were interpreted by a theory developed in the introduction and in the concluding chapter of the thesis. The theory presented the alienation process as an interaction of the individual and his social world in which difficulties in the formation of identity result in a tension expressed by the feelings measured as alienation by the Multiple Alienation Measure. The tension gives rise to intense and, often extreme attempts to explore the social world in order to establish identity, or to a lapse into apathy. The greater conduct problems of the highly alienated was seen as a result of the intense activity of the search for identity. The highly alienated subjects' tendency to be either very good or poor students was seen as an intense, and therefore, extreme drive to resolve alienation tension by embracing the student role or by rejecting it.

A collection of nonfiction and fiction pieces that seek to address contemporary moral dilemmas, including but not limited to the hapless, the hopeless, and the helpless. A newly divorced man grapples with nature and estrangement, a woman helps her former lover contemplate suicide, a family copes with the aftermath of breast cancer, a woman travels to the dark side of LA where she watches a porn filmed in her boyfriend's childhood home, and a final story that seeks to reclaim Callahan's relationship with her father that was founded in beekeeping but lost to religion. In each story there is a simultaneous desire and anxiety of closeness; in every story the stare into comedy and tragedy remains relentless. While fundamentally upsetting, these stories aim to charm and ruin in equal measure.

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Social connectedness, learned helplessness, and alienation characteristics as related to graduate/dropout behavior for residents in alcohol abuse programs. Purpose The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which a set of predictor variables would discriminate between a group who successfully completed an alcohol substance abusers program from the group who failed i.e. (relapsed) to complete the program. The predictor variables were cognitive and affective measures for social connectedness, learned helplessness, and alienation characteristics. A preliminary step compared the total sample to the norm groups from the FIRO-B and the MMPI. Sample and Measurements Sixty-three subjects from two intermediate treatment groups from San Joaquin County (CA.) programs were selected as the sample group. Three months sobriety post treatment was selected as the successful completion criterion. The FIROB measured social connectedness, the MMPI measured alcohol addiction, alienation characteristics, and defensive response set. The ASQ was employed to measure "learned helplessness". Findings One sample t-test disclosed deviance between the sample group and the norm group for five of six scales of social connectedness. The respondents reported less need for inclusion and affection and more "control wanted" than the norm group on indicators from the FIRO-B. The sample also indicated greater addiction (MAC scale), "defensiveness" (validity scales), and alienation characteristics (Pd. clinical scale and Pd. research scales) from the MMPI. The sample group endorsed more familial discord, authority problems, social imperturbability, social alienation, and self-alienation. Three MMPI measures, the MacAndrew Alcoholism scale, the K scale (defensiveness), and the self-alienation research scale reliably differentiated graduates from dropouts using the t-test for independent means. The highest correlations between variables were indicated for alienation characteristics and defensiveness as indicated by the validity scales. A multiple regression analysis disclosed that addiction (MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale) correlated r = .34 with graduate status. Conclusions Within this sample those variables most predictive of at risk behavior (relapse potential) were addiction, defensiveness, and self-alienation characteristics. The graduate means were more aberrant than the dropouts in each of these categories.

The objective of this research was to determine if students who are enrolled in intensive reading intervention classes due to limited reading and comprehension skill, experience greater alienation than students not enrolled in these classes. Ninth and tenth grade students from March Valley School, a small alternative high school in Moreno Valley, CA participated in this study.

A part of Charles Dickens's genius with character is his deftness at creating an appropriate idiolect for each character. Through their discourse, characters reveal not only themselves, but also Dickens's comment on social features that shape their communication style. Three specific idiolects are discussed in this study. First, Dickens demonstrates the pressures that an occupation exerts on Alfred Jingle from Pickwick Papers. Second, Mr. Gradgrind from Hard Times is robbed of his ability to communicate as Dickens highlights the errors of Utilitarianism. Finally, four characters from three novels demonstrate together the principle that social institutions can silence their defenseless constituents. Linguistic evaluation of speech habits illuminates Dickens's message that social structures can injure individuals. In addition, this study reveals the consistent and intuitive narrative art of Dickens.

The problem of this study was to identify relationships which might exist between variables measuring alienation feelings in high school students and variables measuring attitudes exhibited by those students toward the school environment. Mackey's Adolescent Alienation Scale was used to obtain student scores on three dimensions of alienation—Personal Incapacity, Cultural Estrangement, and Guidelessness. The Minnesota School Attitude Survey (MSAS) was used to obtain scores on attitudes toward factors in the school environment: School Curriculum, Self at School, Others at School, Support Received at School, Pressure at School, and Personal Development at School. Pearson Product moment correlations were computed for each dimension of alienation and the attitude clusters. Correlations were computed for each of nine statistical subgroups which comprised the sample group of 294 students— ninth-, tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-grade subgroups, male and female subgroups, and Anglo, Black, and Hispanic subgroups. Students in the population for the study were enrolled in a traditionally-organized, comprehensive curriculum, racially-integrated urban high school in a large-city public school district. Findings revealed that the single most influential environmental factor related to student alienation in this study was a feeling of pressure in the school setting. Pressure was related directly both to feelings of Personal Incapacity and to feelings of Guidelessness. Also, the greater students' feelings of Personal Incapacity, the less pleasant (more unpleasant) they felt their experiences were with the curriculum, themselves, and others at school. Alienation in the sense of Cultural Estrangement was related strongly and inversely to personal growth and development experiences at school. Feelings of Guidelessness were associated inversely with both students' attitudes of pleasantness/unpleasantness and their attitudes of importance/unimportance toward the school curriculum, themselves, and others at school. It is recommended that studies be conducted to determine specific learning activities, school experiences, and organizational processes which can reduce effectively students' feelings of alienation in the school setting.

The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent of emotional alienation consistent with ecological and chronic pain patients and to assess differences on this dimension between these two patient populations. Ecological group included 100 ecological inpatients, chronic pain group, 30 spinal pain clinic patients. Tests administered were the Sixteen Personality Factor (16 PF) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) including Harris and Lingoes subscales. The ecological group was significantly higher on measures of alienation than the pain group or the standardization population. Results also indicated that the ecological group demonstrated more psychopathology. Emotional alienation appeared to be a consistent stressor in ecological and chronic pain patients. Treatment of these patients should include the reduction of this emotional correlate.