Many Vietnam veterans are currently suffering from PTSD. The vast literature on PTSD is grounded in the positivistic paradigm. Treatment approaches in the field of traumatology that are positivistic face significant limitations, including difficulty bearing witness to the survivor, forming a collaborative relationship, and crafting a coherent and meaningful survivor narrative. This author plans to listen to the stories of Vietnam combat veterans within the context of postmodern theory. Based on the theoretical frameworks of narrative and social constructionism, this author will conduct in-depth interviews with Vietnam veterans which will then be transcribed, crafted into narratives, and analyzed for thematic connections, similarities and other elements of narrative analysis. The author seeks to understand trauma in the context of the veteran's life narrative as constructed in interviews.

This dissertation study examined the causal attributions made by 30 adult children for their severely mentally ill parent's symptomatic behaviors. A retrospective methodology was used in order to explore the development of attributions from their first realization that their parent was behaving in a problematic manner to the present time. This study also explored the associations between attributions and participants' levels of coping and resiliency, as defined by their present functioning. The results of this study lend support to the use of an attributional framework in the study of children of the mentally ill. The data gathered using the Adult Children of the Mentally Ill-Attribution Scale (ACMI-AS) indicated reasonable internal consistency and expected intercorrelations of the attribution stems. A factor analysis of participants' responses to the ACMI-AS revealed three factors, including Internal to Self, Internal to Parent and Predictability. The data suggested that participants' attributions significantly changed from their initial realization of parental symptomatic behavior to the present time. The analysis indicated that maturity was not wholly responsible for the change in attributions. Rather, the subjective amount of information concerning mental illness as well as extra-familial support were significant contributing factors. The analyses between attributions and coping as well as between attributions and resiliency suggested a relationship between these variables. The data further suggested that attributions for parental control of the symptomatic behavior or personal control by the child were associated with increased psychopathology and lower self-esteem and self-efficacy in respondents. Attributions that highlighted predictability, external causation, and biological causation were associated with fewer somatic complaints and increased social self-efficacy.

Historical accounts, clinical theory, and empirical research converge in suggesting that intimate attachment and feelings of attraction permeate the psychotherapy relationship. When ignored or mismanaged, feelings of attraction can result in transgressions of the therapeutic boundary, often in the form of therapist sexual misconduct. This study explored predoctoral psychology interns' clinical judgment and ethical reasoning in response to incidents of attraction in their clinical and educational relationships. Survey data from a cluster sample of 160 interns revealed that in the course of training, 95% experienced attraction in one or more of their clinical relationships, although 96.9% never seriously considered engaging in sexual contact with a client, and none actually engaged in contact. Similarly, 83.3% experienced attraction in one or more of their educational relationships, with 13.1% seriously having considered engaging in erotic contact with an educator, and 4.4% having done so. Content analysis indicates that attraction in clinical dyads is more likely to be evaluated as growth-promoting, whereas attraction in educational relationships is more likely to be evaluated as growth-inhibiting. Training environments are more likely to be described as supportive in their response to incidents of attraction within clinical dyads, and more likely to be described as unsupportive in their response to incidents of attraction within educational dyads. Ethical reasoning was assessed by means of analysis of self-generated narrative accounts of incidents of attraction in psychotherapy relationships. Narratives were interpreted for level of ethical reasoning using a model operationalized by Arnold (1945) and derived from Bakhtin's (1981) paradigm of authoritative discourse and internally persuasive discourse. Level of ethical reasoning was found to be unrelated to interns' global rating of their ethical training and their experiences of attraction. These results suggest that further examination is needed to identify the dimensions of ethical training which facilitate the development of more complex levels of ethical reasoning.

Mainstream orientations to conflict management neglect to account for the long-term impact of emotional satisfaction during interpersonal interactions. Thus, this paper proposes a new approach to conflict management, the “Multi-Dimensional Orientation” (MDO), which builds upon prior notions of conflict management by incorporating affective and instrumental elements of conflict. The MDO suggests that people's short- and long-term relationship quality can be enhanced if their affective and instrumental needs during conflict situations are satisfied. To test hypotheses derived from the MDO, survey participants reported on a recent interpersonal conflict and their relationship quality with the other disputant during the reported conflict. Analyses revealed a positive relationship between the extent to which disputants' affective and instrumental needs were satisfied during the conflict and their assessments of their working and post-conflict relationship quality with one another. Affective satisfaction showed to be the more powerful predictor of long-term relationship satisfaction in general, although characteristics of the participants influenced affect's predictive power. In particular, gender differences emerged, showing that affective and instrumental satisfaction relate to long-term relationship quality for females, while for males long-term relationship quality relates only to instrumental satisfaction.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Psychology, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-214). Also issued in print.

Both coping behaviors and physiological vulnerability to stress have been found to be associated with the development of psychopathology; however, less is known about the interrelations between coping and physiological stress responses. This study explored relations between late adolescents' styles of coping with distress and their physiological reactivity and recovery to negotiating conflict with their romantic partners. Partners' coping styles and the interaction between partners' coping styles were also examined as predictors of stress responses. One hundred and ninety couples were asked to discuss and attempt to resolve a conflictual issue that they had disagreed about in the previous month. Physiological reactivity was assessed using samples of salivary cortisol, a primary hormonal product of one of the major stress response systems. A salivary cortisol sample at entry, a pre-task anticipatory sample, and 5 post-task samples were collected. Growth modeling of the cortisol data indicated that dyadic coping was a better predictor of cortisol reactivity and recovery during relationship conflict than individual coping behaviors alone. In addition, relations among coping and physiological stress responses were found to be significantly different for males and females.

In this project, I used an object relations model to examine the benefits of the relationship between athletes and influential coaches. To accomplish this task, I examined the formative experiences of five men who were varsity athletes in college and focused on two questions: (1) In what ways can an athlete's relationship with his coach compensate for deficits resulting from parental inadequacies or empathic failures? (2) In what ways can an athlete's emotional bond with his coach enhance his self-esteem and facilitate his transition from adolescence to adulthood? In addition to interviewing these athletes, I interviewed the coach designated by each athlete as the most influential in his personal development. Subjects participated in a semi-structured interview, and the data from these interviews were qualitatively analyzed. Seven themes emerged from the stories told by these five athletes and their coaches: (1) the coach/player relationship as a "good fit" for the athlete, given his circumstances and psychological needs; (2) the coach/player relationship as reparative of the player's early childhood deficits; (3) the coach/player relationship as an opportunity to help the player to modulate his aggression; (4) the coach/player relationship as a facilitation of the player's experience of separation-individuation; (5) the coach/player relationship as a medium for identification with an important adult male role model; (6) the coach/player relationship as a means to enhance the player's achievement; and (7) the coach/player relationship as a context in which limits are set on the player's behavior. From these ten interviews, a template emerges in which the coach/player relationship can be seen as a therapeutic construct in which caring and strong role models can have lasting effects on the lives, values, and successes of young men.

Many Puerto Ricans living in the United States have underused mental health facilities. Addressing the problem requires knowledge of the clients' perspective, which has not been obtained. This writer studied clients' perspectives on mental health and their expectations of those who help them. Included in the study was a view of Espiritistas and Santeros, practitioners of traditional religions in Puerto Rico, the former religion of French, the latter of African origin. They have functioned as therapists among Puerto Ricans, so the reason for clients' choice of help was important to a study of the problem as a whole. A survey of 100 Puerto Rican subjects in Springfield and Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, showed that while many clients liked the opportunity to talk about their problems and be understood at a mental health facility, the folkloric practitioners' concentration on and promise of concrete results and delivery of those results, together with the social networking through those practitioners, were a powerful attraction to clients. Men and middle class respondents generally did not use mental health facilities, but did go to the folkloric practitioners.

Immigration to the United States is a complex process of psychological adaptation and change not only for immigrants but also for their children. This study initially explored processes of identity in second-generation immigrant Asian Americans, considering a variety of factors influencing processes of self-making. In interviews with eleven Asian American men and women of various ethnicities, aged 18–30, who resided primarily in the Northeast, open-ended questions were asked about immigration history and significant relationships. In subsequent analysis, this researcher proposed utilizing a framework of loss and trauma to explore aspects of participants' experiences, including family relationships, academic achievement, gender role identity, sexuality, and racism. Traumas of immigration were speculated to have been recreated in family relationships. Regarding academic achievement, participants described feeling pressured by and conflicted about pursuing lucrative financial careers, perhaps in an effort to recover losses of immigration and to achieve the “American Dream.” Regarding gender role identity, women in the study described feeling restricted, perhaps in response to a parental effort to preserve a nostalgic vision of cultural purity. Men in the study talked about feeling pressured to assume leadership roles in the family as young adults. They also discussed feeling emasculated in the context of U.S. culture. Regarding sexuality, women felt the pressure to be chaste and to marry someone of the same ethnicity, perhaps in a parental effort to recreate their parents' nostalgic of the ancestral homeland. Men described feeling similar pressures in marrying, but also described feeling asexualized in U.S. culture. Both women and men talked about the pressure to delay sexuality until after achieving career goals. Participants also described various experiences of racism that often led them to feeling marginalized. Racism may have exacerbated the losses of immigration as participants struggled to claim the U.S. as home. This research highlighted not only Asian American lives but also the complex transnational political, historical, and economic forces in which they are embedded. Looking at the experiences of Asian Americans (and other ethnic minorities) through the lens of immigration, rather than through generalized notions of culture, is encouraged as a new paradigm for research in psychology.

The present cross-sectional study adds to the extant literature by exploring how parenting and child behavior problems relate to elementary school children's academic achievement and engagement. Parenting was investigated as a possible mediator of the relationship between behavior problems and academic outcomes. A diverse sample of 62 children, their primary caregivers, and teachers participated in the study. Videotaped observation of parent-child dyads doing a homework task allowed the following behaviors to be studied: parental autonomy support, positive-minus-negative presence, quality of teaching, and child engagement. To assess behavior problems, parents and teachers completed behavior rating scales, and parents completed a structured interview. Children participated in language and literacy based achievement testing, and school personnel provided grades. Children who displayed higher levels of engagement performed better on measures of academic achievement. Positive parenting behaviors were associated with academic achievement and engagement. An exploratory analysis was consistent with child engagement partially mediating the relation between parenting behavior and reading achievement. Child behavior problems were related to lower engagement, but contrary to expectations, they were not related to parenting or achievement. Boys rated by teachers as displaying behavior problems, however, had lower academic achievement, but this was not the case for girls. Though parenting was not related to child behavior problems, findings did suggest that parenting and child behavior are associated with child engagement. This research points to the critical role of engagement as a component of academic success and the potential for parents to foster children's academic engagement and achievement through the parent-child relationship.