Grounded in a constructivist framework, this study constitutes a naturalistic inquiry into the psychodynamic nature of the mentoring relationship. The goals were both exploratory and descriptive; data was generated through surveys and semi-structured interviews. While some attention was given to the pragmatic, or manifest task of the protege's career development, the focus was placed on the psychological, or latent task of mutual personal development. The intersubjective and interpersonal aspects of mentoring were approached from a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing extensively from object relations and drive theory. Erikson's midlife stage of generativity was also considered as pertaining to the mentor's fitness for the role. Viewed as a transitional relationship with a developmental course of its own, three stages of mentoring were identified: The stage of initiation was examined in terms of pre-Oedipal concerns, the stage of cultivation in terms of Oedipal concerns, and the stage of resolution in terms of the process of working-through. Comparing the pre-Oedipal mother-infant dyad with the mentoring dyad, themes of the good-enough mother, the holding and facilitating environment, and transitional phenomena emerged. Modes of internalization were considered as bridging pre-Oedipal and Oedipal stages of development. Oedipal dynamics and development were articulated through an understanding of the mentoring relationship as hierarchical and thus as occurring within a transference-countertransference matrix. Given the parallels, an analogy was drawn to the relationship between analyst and patient in order to deepen the emphasis upon the tacit dimension of mentoring and the complex relationship in which it occurs. Further, the mentoring relationship was regarded as involving both libidinal and aggressive aspects requiring careful management. Finally, as mentoring is both transitional and transferential, it may be understood as a crucible of adult development which fosters a deeper integration of the various aspects of self. It is defined as an essential experience when intrapsychic deficit and conflict impede creativity and work. The study's theoretical foundation allows for an examination of how the external object world becomes internalized, and how internal objects become the structure of the self transformed into ideas, ideals, and acts of science and culture.

The purpose of this research was two-fold: to describe ways that therapists are consciously incorporating a spiritual dimension into their practice, and to identify the connection between the developmental level of the therapists and techniques, interventions, rituals, and inner attitudes (TIRIA) used in their incorporation of the spiritual into psychotherapy. The methodology had three phases. In Phase One, 215 questionnaires were mailed, of which 140 were returned. The responses indicated a variety of educational experience, professional trainings, religious backgrounds, spiritual experiences, and clientele. Thirty-five respondents were selected for a Phase Two phone call, which had two purposes: to select the sample for Phase Three interviewing, and to gather a description of TIRIA by asking for vignettes. Sixteen calls were half-hour interviews, while appointments were made with 12 others for a Phase Three two-hour interview. The interviews were divided into two parts, one to administer the Fowler Faith Development Interview (Fowler, 1982), and one to ask for vignettes. After administering the interviews, the analyses revealed that ten face-to-face interviewees scored at Stage Five or above. Fowler was sent two interviews, but he could not corroborate these scores, because of inadequate probing. Sixty-five techniques were classified as humanistic, bodywork, transpersonal, psychic, or unique. Eight interventions and twenty-one rituals emerged. Inner attitudes proved to be the key to the transpersonal psychotherapist. Each of them had a spiritual awakening, which shifted how they perceive themselves and their clients. All practice spiritual disciplines, meditation in particular. Six interviewees were profiled to show their personal and professional evolution. The conclusions are that spirituality can be incorporated into psychotherapy through a variety of TIRIA. Therapists can learn new transpersonal TIRIA and can learn to adapt traditional techniques to include the spiritual component. Such therapists are enthusiastic about their practice, indicating an absence of evidence of burnout. More significantly, it appears that a prerequisite for any incorporation of spirituality is the choice of a spiritual path, the practice of meditation and/or work with a spiritual director. Eventually the therapist's inner spiritual Self becomes more important than any TIRIA.

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the behavioral outcomes of two group approaches to helping wives of alcoholic men. Both were psychoeducational approaches combining didactic teaching and group counseling techniques. Both approaches were aimed at the ultimate goal of facilitating more effective coping by the wives despite their husbands' active alcoholism and its consequences. Both approaches were expected to result in decreased use of negative coping behaviors ("survival behaviors") and both were expected to facilitate entry into and involvement with Al-Anon. One group, Group A, received a program based on a family-systems perspective of family alcoholism using adapted techniques from Berenson, Wegscheider, and Borwick; Al-Anon was mentioned but not actively encouraged. A second group, Group B, received an identical format of six, two-hour sessions. However, the second group received a more person-focused approach with a more conventional program stressing the disease concept of alcoholism and Al-Anon concepts. Al-Anon attendance was directly encouraged in the latter group but not in the former. The "Spouse Survival Behavior Scale" which was developed by this investigator was administered to both groups at the first and again at the last session. Group A wives reported decreased use of "survival behaviors": group means for the scale as a whole and for two of six sub-scales significantly decreased. However, none of the wives reported attending Al-Anon on one month and and two month follow-up calls. Group B wives did not significantly decrease their self-reported use of "survival behaviors" when comparison of pretest and posttest group means were subjected to a t-test. However, analysis of adjunctive qualitative data raised the possibility that Group B wives were using less denial as a defense and had emotionally detached to a greater degree than Group A wives. One month and two month follow-up telephone call data on Al-Anon attendance revealed that 2 of the group B wives had also been regularly attending Al-Anon. Differences in gain scores between Group A and Group B were not shown to be statistically significant when examined at the level of the whole test. However, changes in one sub-scale (Cluster V: Blaming/Punishing) showed significantly less self-reported use of behaviors in this category by Group A as compared with Group B who increased their use of these behaviors. The latter was the only statistically significant finding of this study which supported one of the research hypotheses.

Research in parent training programs has shown that STEP (Dinkmeyer and McKay, 1976) can be presented in less than nine weeks, but little information exists with regard to its use with populations other than middle-class parents, and no studies have focused on presenting the program to low-income Puerto Rican parents. To test whether the STEP program (Spanish translation) would work with Puerto Ricans, twenty-four low-income Puerto Rican volunteer mothers of three and four year olds from a pre-school were randomly assigned to one control and one experimental group. Beside the "group" condition with subjects taking the training in consecutive weeks, there was, based on convenience to parents, an "individualized" condition in which subjects had individual appointments and rescheduled as needed. The modified program was taught in four sessions; the cuts involved focusing on the skills and omitting the discussions. A T-test revealed a significant improvement in experimental mothers' knowledge of the course material (T = $-$2.58, p =.033). A two-way ANCOVA showed a significant change in mothers' attitudes regarding their child behavior on an adapted APACBS (F = 4.7, p =.048) but not on the 32-item APACBS scale (F=.033, p =.85). A qualitative analysis revealed clinically significant changes of behaviors. Six of the ten experimental mothers when asked at post-test what they were doing regarding the target behavior they selected for their child focused on their own parental behavior and limitations. In contrast, control group parents focussed strictly on punishment or its absence. Some parents prefer to join large groups while others wanted the program on an individual basis. Very high interest for the program and training was expressed.

There is an inherent contradiction in a system of education in which a significant number of those who are to be taught, do not learn. The schools in the United States have contributed to a generations long pattern of non-achievement which contributes to many of society's ills. The author contends that many of these underachieving students have more ability than they are able to demonstrate easily. An experiment was conducted that empowered remedial mathematics students to pursue some mathematical problems in depth by removing the dual obstacles of poor computational skills and the lack of confidence that their computations produce correct answers.

This research project was a descriptive study of a peer mediation program in a junior high school of approximately one thousand students from 21 different nationalities. The focus was on discovering what factors inhibit and what factors encourage the use of mediation by the students in this school. Using qualitative methodology, 20 students, 12 faculty members, and eight parents from this school community were interviewed by the researcher. Surveys were filled out by 58 students, 57 parents, and 23 faculty members. The major criterion used in selecting interview and survey questions was whether or not the question contributed to a systemic understanding of the factors that inhibit or encourage students' use of the mediation program. Perspectives from different parts of the system were elicited by asking similar questions of parents, students, and faculty. After presenting a brief summary of the factors encouraging the use of mediation, the six key factors revealed by the data to be inhibiting the use of mediation were analyzed. The six factors included students' attitudes, feelings, and behaviors regarding mediation; student methods of handling conflict; attitudes, feelings, and behaviors of students in school; school dynamics; factors related to the mediation of program and societal issues. Each of these factors was analyzed for emergent themes and was illuminated through the words of the students, parents, and faculty who participated in this study. The findings illustrate the ways in which conflict resolution within a school is influenced by the climate or atmosphere of the school and in turn influences this climate or atmosphere. The six factors inhibiting the use of mediation in this school were explored within the context of both the climate of the school and the larger society.

This study considered a scale of social functioning as one measure toward understanding the problem of attrition at a selected Junior college. It was concerned with the use of the Heinler Scale of Social Functioning (SSF) as an aid to the counseling function. The purpose of the study was to use this scale to neasure life satisfactions and frustrations of a stratified sampling of students who left the junior college before the end of their first quarter and students who per- sisted and registered for the second quarter. The scale has had little former use within an educational setting and it was examined as a tool to provide individualized academic counseling.

No description available.

Problem. Catharsis is becoming more widely talked about as a method to get rid of negative emotions, to gain increased achievement, social maturity, and emotional well being. The emphasis on affective education is one example. There have been few controlled studies testing the catharsis hypothesis directly. No formal research is available that uses (randomly chosen) young people as subjects in studying emotional discharge. Purpose. The purpose of the study is to see whether elementary school students can accept training in this re-evaluation counseling mental health model. Comparisons of those who hear about the model are made with those who hear about and use the model. These are contrasted with those who have no contact at all with the model. Procedures. Eighty-seven subjects were randomly chosen from eight classes of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in a low-middle socio-economic school in Bakersfield, California. Each group met for a minimum of ten and a maximum of fifteen sessions between September and April, 1978 to 1979. The .10 level of confidence was adopted for all analyses of variance and t-tests. The Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills was given to the whole district and served as a pre- and posttest. The Vineland Social Maturity Scale, the Draw-a-Person Test, Sentence Completion items and an open ended interview were individually administered at the end of the study by blind school psychologists and graduate students. Findings. The pretesting on the CTBS revealed original inequality between groups. This confounded the study, making it invalid to draw conclusions about achievement, social maturity, or intellectual development as it relates to emotional catharsis or R.C. instruction. There was no measurable difference seen in achievement, social maturity, or intellectual development in this study. Students receiving the Instruction in Re-evaluation Counseling (R.C.) were statistically higher on the measure of self-concept than the other two groups. More students who used emotional discharge enjoyed giving oral reports to their class than those receiving R.C. Instruction or the no-contact group. An unanticipated finding was less physical fighting on the part of the catharsis group. This was self-reported and reported by their peers. Recommendations: (1) This study should be replicated, but with a slower, more gradual introduction to R.C. techniques to students. This may be difficult in a typical school setting because of the limited time available in the curriculum. (2) An alternative approach which might be tried is to train teachers in R.C. and perform research comparing trained with untrained teachers.

Although the federally funded TRIO Program entitled Upward Bound has been in existence for over thirty years and numerous federally and privately funded studies have been conducted about the hundreds of programs available throughout the nation, there has been relatively few investigations involving qualitative research approaches. Additionally, despite the fact that first generation college students, the primary target population for Upward Bound Programs, are most likely low-income and Latino, few studies have sought data directly from these target groups about their experience in Upward Bound. In this regard, the data gathered and reported in this qualitative education evaluation research study is unique. Twelve former first-generation, low-income, Puerto Rican Upward Bound students who had completed at least one year of college were interviewed for this study. The interviews utilized a protocol from a twenty-five year old study that also interviewed Upward Bound students (Bemak, 1975). The purpose of this inquiry was to investigate how first generation, low-income, Puerto Rican college students evaluate the impact of their participation in a high school Upward Bound program on their academic preparation for college, self-perceptions, family and social relationships, future educational goals, and ultimately their post-secondary success. The findings of this study shed light on the impact Upward Bound has upon first-generation, low-income, Puerto Rican students who have succeeded in post-secondary education. Data from the study indicate that the services and support provided by Upward Bound effectively intervenes in the unique struggles of first generation, low-income, Puerto Rican students who are at great risk for educational access and attainment. Reflections of former Upward Bound students inform the field of education regarding the impact of college preparatory programs on students who face the most difficult barriers in college completion. This research identifies practices that contribute to post-secondary success and uses the words and ideas of first-generation, low-income, Puerto Rican students as a guide to the implementation of future support services.