<p> The purpose of the current study was to investigate the dynamic process of disclosure within the adolescent&ndash;mother relationship by examining maternal characteristics that encourage adolescent disclosure of distressing experiences and risk factors that may interfere with mothers&rsquo; abilities to be supportive. A community sample of 66 mothers and their adolescent children (<i>M</i> = 14.31 years, 58% female) participated. The adolescents disclosed an emotionally distressing experience to their mothers for the first time.</p><p> Mothers&rsquo; validating behaviors and emotional distress in response to their adolescents&rsquo; expressions of negative emotion were predictive of adolescent disclosure. Adolescents who perceived their mothers to be validating of their negative emotions made more substantive disclosures and found disclosing to their mothers to be more beneficial. In contrast, greater maternal emotional distress was associated with less substantive disclosures, and maternal emotional distress was further indirectly associated with less substantive and beneficial disclosures through less maternal validation of negative emotion.</p><p> A developmental model of maternal risk for emotional distress in response to adolescent negative emotion was also supported. Maternal history of childhood trauma perpetrated by someone close to the mother (i.e., high betrayal) was associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing subsequent interpersonal trauma as an early adult; maternal interpersonal trauma in early adulthood was associated with mothers&rsquo; increased difficulty regulating their emotions; and greater maternal emotion dysregulation was associated with higher levels of maternal distress in response to adolescent negative emotion. An indirect association between maternal childhood high betrayal trauma and emotional distress was also supported through continued trauma and emotion regulation difficulties.</p><p> These findings suggest that when disclosing distressing experiences to their mothers, adolescents consider how validating their mothers are of their expression of negative emotion, as well as how distressing their emotions are for their mothers. Mothers&rsquo; histories of childhood trauma, ongoing interpersonal trauma in adulthood, and emotion regulation difficulties were further implicated in mothers&rsquo; reactions to their adolescents&rsquo; expressions of negative emotion. Interventions targeted to increase maternal emotion regulation skills and validation of children&rsquo;s negative emotions may be an effective way to promote better mother&ndash;adolescent communication, especially in regard to distressing experiences.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation is an exploration of the field in psychoanalytic research methodology aimed toward increasing understanding of unconscious processes that develop between researchers and their research topic. In this study, recent psychoanalytic research is discussed with an exploration of the research methods utilized. The methods used are then discussed in the context of the &ldquo;circle of research methods&rdquo; (Romanyshyn, 2012), a conceptualization of large groups of research traditions including natural science, human science, hermeneutic science, and science of the soul. The research approach of this study is centered in the traditions of hermeneutics and alchemical hermeneutics, which are grounded in the works of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Palmer, 1969). The researcher utilized the hermeneutic circle to explore research methods in psychoanalysis comparing the new information that arose from the process to the previous information that was already understood. Alchemical hermeneutics was also used to make a place for unconscious processes between this researcher and the research topic. The question of the place of the dynamic unconscious in research methods in psychoanalytic research opened up the larger question about the scientific status of psychoanalysis, and this topic is addressed throughout this study. For research conducted in the traditions of hermeneutic science and science of the soul in psychoanalysis, this study proposes that several theoretical concepts of analytic field theory be used and applied to develop a new research method in psychoanalysis that would make room for dynamic unconscious processes.</p><p>

<p> This qualitative study explored the question, <i>What is the experience of Albanian Americans&rsquo; bicultural lifestyle?</i> The heuristic research method was utilized to explore and better understand the phenomenon presented, as well as the primary researcher&rsquo;s personal experience. In this study, literature relevant to the research topic is included which contains information on Albania, reasons why Albanians immigrate, Albanian in the United States, global immigration challenges, acculturation, racism, prejudice, and discrimination, cultural trauma, and mental health and immigration. This study included 12 co-researchers that identified as Albanian-Americans who were willing to share their experience of living a bicultural lifestyle. Individual and detailed portraits of three co-researchers is included as well as a composite description of an Albanian-Americans experience of their bicultural lifestyle integrated with the primary researcher&rsquo;s personal experience. Five common themes were identified: gratitude, sacrifice and separation, culture clash, discrimination, cultural preservation, and acceptance of the new culture. Finally, in this study is included a creative synthesis of the phenomenon explored as well as a correlation of the research findings with the literature review, trustworthiness, and applications for future studies, as well as the clinical, social, and personal relevance. This study will be beneficial to Albanian-Americans, psychologists, social workers, counselors, doctors, educators, law enforcements, and society in general.</p><p>

Perspective-taking skills are central to the successful navigation of social situations. Children need perspective-taking skills to help them correctly interpret different cues and accurately assess social situations so they can determine how to best respond. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) exhibit marked impairments in this area. In order to develop successful social skills interventions for this population, it is critical that we have a strong understanding of the nature of their deficits. While there is robust evidence that children with ASD experience difficulty making inferences about the beliefs of others, research on their ability to infer emotions has had more mixed results (Baldwin, 1991; Baron-Cohen, 1991; Happe, 1994; Hillier and Allinson, 2002; Kaland et al., 2005; Joliffe & Baron-Cohen, 1999; Serra et al., 2002; Williams & Happe, 2010). This study examined how well children with autism spectrum disorders are able to make emotional inferences using three different measures of emotion attribution. The measures were administered to a clinical sample of participants with high functioning-autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD) and a comparison sample of typically developing participants to determine whether individuals with HF-ASD experienced more difficulty making emotional inferences from different cues than their typically developing peers. The hypotheses that children with HF-ASD make fewer spontaneous emotional inferences and have lower levels of emotional awareness than their typically developing peers were also tested. Finally, performance on these emotional inferencing measures was examined to determine whether they were able to reliably discriminate between participants with different levels of autism-related symptomatology. Participants with autism performed as well as their peers on all measures of emotion attribution in this study. These findings and their implications are explored.

The current study explored coping and the relationship between coping, stressors, seriousness of delinquency, and internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in a sample of 93 (69 male, 24 female, M age=14.3 SD=1.4) court-involved adolescents. Participation took place in the Juvenile Court Clinics of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin Counties in Massachusetts. Participants completed the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) with added items to measure aggressive coping, the Behavior Assessment System for Children Parent Report, Second Edition (BASC-2, PRS), and the Self-Report Delinquency Scale (SRD; Elliot, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985). The documented history of delinquencies and stressors was collected from court records. An exploratory principal component analysis of the 14 subscales of the Brief COPE was conducted yielding 4 factors: approach coping, avoidant coping, seeking support, and emotional coping. Male participants reported more Active Coping than female participants whereas female participants demonstrated more Self-Blame Coping than male participants. Caucasian participants used more Acceptance, Venting, and Seeking Emotional Support than African-American and Hispanic participants. Participants with financial hardships reported using more Denial Coping than participants without financial hardship. Participants who were raised in single-parent households reported less Seeking Emotional Support Coping than participants who were raised in two-parent households. Participants who were subjected to parental physical abuse used less Seeking Instrumental Support Coping than participants without a history of parental physical abuse. Participants with a history of physical abuse between parents reported more Denial than participants without such history. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) revealed that the avoidant coping factor was associated with more internalizing symptoms and that the approach coping factor was associated with fewer internalizing symptoms. Coping was not associated with externalizing symptoms or seriousness of delinquency. The current investigation provides preliminary evidence for the use of the Brief COPE scale in court-involved adolescents. Furthermore, the study introduced a novel way of capturing aggressive ways of coping that may be particularly relevant for delinquent populations. The differences in coping strategies as a function of stressor supports an argument that coping is flexible and is influenced by environmental circumstances. Implications of the results include the need to develop coping measures that capture unique dimensions of coping in court-involved adolescents and the need to develop coping-informed interventions for at-risk adolescents.

The aim of this study is to investigate the personality traits of a group of migraine sufferers using the psychometric method. The migraine, normal and psychosomatic control groups were tested on the Hysteroid-Obsessoid Questionnaire, the California Psychological Inventory and the Sixteen Personality Factor Test. The results indicate that the three groups do not differ significantly in terms of scores obtained on any of the three tests. The results are interpreted in terms of previous studies. In certain instances, they are similar to those obtained in other studies. Where the results of this study differ from those of previous studies, these differences are interpreted in terms of sample differences and differences in the nature of the measuring instruments. The results are also interpreted in terms of recent re-evaluations of concepts in psychosomatic medicine and migraine research. Two alternative approaches are suggested for future research. It is suggested that researchers attempt to identify whether meaningful differentiations exist within the migraine population. It is also suggested that researchers adopt a situationally based approach to the understanding of the personality of migraine sufferers.

The problem addressed by this study is the lack of information available to help concerned people create an effective support system for a friend or family member who is diagnosed with cancer. Six cancer support systems, including both cancer patients and their supporters, were interviewed in order to find out what was effective in these support systems. All the support systems were described by the cancer patient as "good" or "helpful". For purposes of this study, the concentration was on cancer patients' "personal" support people, consisting of family and friends. Major themes addressed in the interviews were: having support already in place, commitment, giving and receiving love, having no choice but to support, belief in the possibility of healing, openness to change, amount and variety of support, offering anything and everything, layers of support, making offers of support specific, supporters' inspiring and "pushing", different strokes, cultivating self-assertion, having support affirmed, supporters getting support, accepting mortality, joy in life, intimacy, being fully present, rewards intrinsic to supporting and finding new meaning in life. Conclusions were not formed concerning what necessarily makes a good support system. What was good for one cancer patient or group of supporters was not necessarily good for another. The help given also varied depending on the resources of a particular support group. Possibilities for helping are described in order that other support systems might experiment with them and vary them as seems appropriate. Although the particular ways of supporting differed from group to group, all felt that they had come forward to give help, and continued to help, as a response to the love they had for the cancer patient they were helping and a sense of "doing right". Supporters found that in being authentic to themselves and in honoring the love that existed between themselves and the cancer patient, they had "no choice" but to support. The love that existed between supporter and cancer patient sustained supporters in their often very difficult roles of supporting.

A vulnerability model of depression based on attachment theory was presented. It was proposed that people's early experiences with caregivers determine the nature of their mental models of the self and relationships. When early relationship experiences are negative, people develop a model of the self as unworthy of love and a model of attachment figures as unreliable. These negative self- and relationship schemas consequently make such persons vulnerable to depression and contribute to poor adjustment in romantic relationships. Two studies were conducted to explore the link among quality of relationship with parents, self- and relationship schemas, depression, and relationship functioning. The first study compared depressed and nondepressed college women; the second study compared married women who had recovered from major depression and nondepressed women. Remitted and depressed women reported negative childhood relationships with parents, low self-esteem, insecure attachment styles (preoccupied or fearful), neglectful caregiving, and poor relationship functioning. Depressed and previously depressed women report more negative self- and relationship schemas. Thus, people who have negative relationship experiences with their parents while growing up will develop negative self-schemas and insecure relationship schemas; these in turn increase vulnerability to depression and to problems in romantic relationships. Implications for attachment theory and therapy are discussed.

Substance abuse is a multidimensional problem that incorporates dispositional, behavioral, and physiological determinants. Yet, more systematic approaches to developing multidimensional models of drug use and typologies of drug abusers, using combinations of these determinants, are needed that can predict frequency of substance use and relapse rates. The model tested here is a combination of dispositional and behavioral variants. It was proposed that: (1) Drug users maintained on methadone can be classified into different addict profiles or typologies based on personality, coping skills, and motivation; (2) Different addict profiles are significantly related to different levels of drug use; and (3) The multidimensional model is superior to any one determinant; that is, personality, coping skills, and motivation make independent, significant contributions to the prediction of drug use. Ninety-four male and female IV drug users, who were enrolled in a methadone maintenance program and had at least three months of treatment completed, participated in the study. Subjects were assigned to sessions during which they completed a series of questionnaires. Results indicated that five different addict profiles could be identified, two of which were very distinct. One profile was characterized by a healthy personality structure, adaptive coping skills, and high motivation, the other profile displayed an opposite pattern. Addict profiles were significantly related to various self-reported drug use measures, including frequency of drug use, number of drug use temptations and slips, effort to resist temptation, and frequency of giving in to temptation. No significant gender differences were found across addict profiles. Furthermore, the multidimensional model was superior to any one determinant; personality, coping, and motivation each significantly predicted drug use. Additional results are presented on the influence of methadone beliefs on motivation and drug use, and the relationship among stress-coping skills, temptation-coping strategies, and drug use. These findings are discussed with regards to implications for theory development and treatment strategies for substance abuse.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of attributions, perceived avoidability, and acceptability on long-term adjustment following abortion. From an initial group of 192 women undergoing first-trimester, elective abortion, we conducted analyses on a subgroup of 75 women who returned for a post-abortion follow-up visit. We were most interested in psychological factors present at the time of the abortion that could be used to predict adjustment at the follow-up visit six to eight weeks later. Measures assessing coping, self-esteem, and depression were used as indicators of adjustment. Over time, we found that adjustment following abortion tended to improve rather than decline; however, feelings of vulnerability also increased. In terms of attributions, only attributions to luck were directly related to adjustment. Women who blamed luck for their unwanted pregnancy coped worse relative to women who did not. Perceived avoidability was also directly related to coping; women who felt that they could have avoided the past unwanted pregnancy or could avoid one in the future experienced better adjustment. Attributions to the self and behavior, while not directly related to adjustment, were associated by virtue of their relationship to perceived avoidability; that is, the attribution-adjustment relationship was mediated by perceived avoidability. Acceptability of abortion was associated with coping. Women who were least accepting of abortion reported having the most difficult time coping. Acceptability of abortion, future avoidability, and attributions to luck were found to be the best predictors of adjustment. Finally, we examined women in terms of whether or not they used contraception at conception and found no differences in adjustment.