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No description available.

The focus of this thesis is the evaluation of three forms of an empirically-based cognitive-behavioural parenting program for separated families with adolescent children. However, to initially determine the existence of lasting affects of parental separation (occurring during childhood and adolescence), an exploratory study used a sample of 272 young adults (aged between 18 and 30 years) from intact families and 78 young adults from separated families. This study investigated the impact of parental marital status on young adult psychological adjustment, interpersonal relationships, attitudes toward divorce, and interpersonal behaviour problems. Results indicated that the effects of parental separation on father-child relationships persist into adulthood for men and women. Further, young women from separated families also reported more accepting attitudes toward divorce, and earlier age at entering into de facto or marital relationships. Young men reported more di fficulties in their relationships with mothers, moving out of the family home at a younger age, and higher levels of verbal attack behaviours in romantic relationships compared to their peers from intact families. Importantly, results suggested that both young children and adolescents experience adverse consequences of parental separation, albeit in different adjustment domains. Given these results, the need for intervention was established. While considerable efforts have gone into the development of intervention programs for young children from separated families, few efforts have focused on adolescents whose parents have separated. To redress this situation, this thesis describes the development and evaluation of three forms of delivery of a parenting program for separated families with adolescent children - group, individual, and telephone-assisted. Study 2 investigated the efficacy and acceptability of the Youth Adjustment to Parental Separation (YAPS) program - an empirically-based group cognitive-beha vioural parenting program for separated families with adolescent children. Overall, the results from this initial trial with four mothers suggested that the program was implemented as planned and that the program was acceptable to mothers. Further, the program lead to improvements in mothers' perceptions of adolescent symptomatology and their own symptomatology. However, there was limited or inconsistent change in mothers' perceptions of family relationships, the coparenting relationship, and their parenting practises, and in adolescents' perceptions of interparental conflict, coping, negative separation-related events, and problematic beliefs. Furthermore, adolescents reported deterioration in family communication and their own symptomatology. Based on the results of Study 2 and the limitations identified, recommendations were made regarding improvements to the YAPS program and to the procedures used to evaluate program effectiveness. According to the recommendations made in Study 2, the efficacy and acceptability of the YAPS program delivered as a therapist-administered individual program was evaluated with six families in Study 3. Results indicated that the program is acceptable to mothers, and that it leads to improvements in adolescent adjustment, parent adjustment, mother-adolescent relationships, father-contact, adolescent exposure to interparental conflict and other negative-separation-related events, and mothers' perceptions of family relationships. Less consistent changes were observed for adolescent ratings of family relationships, and the father-adolescent relationship, however improvements in the father-adolescent relationship were associated with increased levels of f ather-contact. Consistent improvements in adolescents' coping and their appraisal of parental separation were not observed. However, there appeared to be a relationship between parental utilisation of coping strategies and adolescent coping, suggesting that promoting adolescent coping indirectly through parental modelling and parental encouragement is an appropriate intervention strategy. Study 4 evaluated the efficacy and acceptability of the YAPS program delivered as a telephone-assisted program. Results indicated that the program is acceptable to mothers, and that it improves adolescent perceptions of family communication, their own coping, and their relationship with their father. However, mothers' ratings of their own and their child's adjustment, and adolescent ratings of their own adjustment did not change. Further, expected improvements in mothers' parenting practises, the mother-adolescent relationship, separation-related negative-events, separation-related beliefs, and the coparenting relationship were not observed. Overall, improvements observed in the evaluation of the minimal-contact, telephone-assisted YAPS program (Study 4) were considerably less than those observed in the evaluation of the individual therapist-assisted, face-to-face program (Study 3). Future evaluations of the YAPS program need to address the limitations of the current series of studies, particularly, comparison to a wait-list control group is required so that threats to internal validity can be minimised.

Surgical procedures that require general anesthesia can be stressful and create needless anxiety for school-age children. Interventions aimed at reducing preoperative anxiety can improve cooperation and enhance postoperative outcomes by lowering anxiety levels prior to induction of general anesthesia. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of behavioral interventions versus drug therapy in reducing pre-operative anxiety in children. The secondary purpose was to compare methods used to integrate anxiety reduction interventions into pre-operative care and to evaluate the most widely used and effective strategy for clinical practice. A literature review exploring behavioral based stress reduction interventions and drug therapy targeted at reducing preoperative anxiety was conducted from various online databases. Peer reviewed articles, published in the English-language between 2006 and 2015 that focused on postoperative outcomes in which preoperative interventions to reduce anxiety in children age two years and older, as well as the parent’s perspective of the outcome, were included for synthesis. Results from 9 randomized controlled trials that used behavioral based interventions implemented on the day of surgery, prior to anesthesia induction were compared for effectiveness at anxiety reduction versus the use of drug therapy prior to surgery. The studies suggest more successful post-surgical outcomes related to shorter length of stay and post-operative delirium for behavioral interventions to reduce anxiety prior to surgery and demonstrated even greater optimal outcomes for combined behavioral interventions. Drug therapy alone to decrease anxiety prior to anesthesia induction showed mixed results in reduction of physiologic and general outcomes following surgery. No significant difference between behavioral based interventions versus drug therapy was shown in any of the reviewed studies to have a significant effect on post-surgical outcomes. However, potentially promising behavioral based interventions such as clowns, electronic devices, parental presence and music over drug therapy prior to surgery, require further evaluation for their use in decreasing pre-operative anxiety in school-age children and having a positive impact on post-operative outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to examine how parental separation is related to eating disturbances and assertiveness in females who struggle with bulimic symptoms. Two-hundred ninety-two undergraduate females from the University of North Texas comprised the subject group. Using pen and paper measures of assertiveness, bulimia, and parental separation, support was found for the prediction that there would be a relationship between assertiveness and parental separation. Likewise, partial support was found for the prediction that there would be a relationship between bulimia and parental separation. Parental separation was found to affect levels of bulimia and assertiveness. Finally, it was found that subjects endorsed greater emotional independence from fathers than from mothers.

No description available.

This thesis is the product of our concerns about the significant repercussions caused by parental alienation, mainly the irreversible severing of the affective bond. The researcher recognizes that parental alienation is a social product that commonly is a part of the family dynamics occurring when couples separate. Mothers and fathers dissatisfied by the separation, use their minor children as an instrument to attack their ex husband‟s or wives‟ without considering that children are legally dependent and still developing. It was verified that this alienating practice is an interdisciplinary theme of legal interest (given that it emerges within the legal system and translates into a conflict of interests requiring state intervention) and therefore developing into a psychological conflict. Thus, from an interdisciplinary perspective the researcher seeks to understand the phenomena based on the experience and the work of judiciary psychologists who focus in the legal system (family court). The sample was derived from reports provided by these professionals and subsequently a transversal and qualitative study was conducted based on relevant literature. Testimonials from people who experienced the alienating process were also used, allowing us to observe the anxiety and suffering triggered by parental alienation. Throughout the study the researcher listed determining characteristics (such as unprocessed mourning), as well as, problems encountered by people involved in the context (for example, legal morosity). It should be noted that our analysis focused primarily on the child as a person whose personality is still developing. This fact pressures parents to accept responsibly their parental role in order to promote healthy emotional development of their children. Thus, throughout the study the researcher highlighted the need for parents to be mature, in order to distinguish between conjugal and parental responsibility, given that parental alienation has as a factor the need to differentiate between these two obligations. The researcher observed that the family dynamics carries with it peculiar characteristics requiring joint intervention of legal and psychological professional possessing special abilities in family mediation. In addition to jurisprudence that clearly states the role of the state psychotherapy is mentioned and family mediation are considered possible alternatives to assist in dealing with and promoting effective and operative restoration of social peace. The researcher also suggest that the afore mentioned professionals work with parents stressing the need to distinguish between parental and conjugal responsibility and that parents clearly understand that a child needs to live with both a father and a mother ( each one occupying effectively their parental function thus contributing to the full development of the child). Finally, the research suggests that only joint interdisciplinary cooperation of the professionals involved in an understanding that is broader than judicial norms is it possible to face and inhibit in a coherent and effective manner the existing alienating practice. / Esta dissertação é fruto de nossas inquietações acerca das intensas repercussões geradas pela alienação parental, principalmente no que se refere à quebra irreversível do vínculo afetivo. Reconhecemos que a alienação parental é uma produção social que comumente tem acompanhado a dinâmica familiar de casais após o término da união conjugal. Pais e mães, inconformados com a dissolução conjugal, utilizam os filhos menores como instrumentos para atacar o ex-consorte, sem minimamente considerá-los como pessoas juridicamente hipossuficientes e em pleno desenvolvimento. A prática alienativa é uma temática interdisciplinar que interessa ao direito (porque é um fato que eclode no Judiciário e traduz em um conflito de interesses que exige a força coativa estatal) e à ciência psi (pois traduz em um conflito de ordem psíquica). Assim, numa perspectiva interdisciplinar, propomos compreendê-la a partir da experiência e atuação de psicólogos judiciários que militam no âmbito forense (nas Varas de Família). A amostra foi composta de relatos proferidos por esses profissionais à qual incidiu posteriormente um estudo transversal e qualitativo dirigido por uma literatura específica. Utilizamos, também, depoimentos de pessoas que vivenciam a prática alienativa, o que nos permitiu perceber toda a angústia e o sofrimento que a alienação parental desencadeia. Na trajetória da pesquisa buscamos elencar características que a determinam (tais como o luto não processado), como também problemas que pessoas envolvidas nesse contexto enfrentam (por exemplo, a morosidade judiciária). Salientamos que a nossa compreensão tem como foco principal a criança como uma pessoa em formação de personalidade, fato que pressiona os pais no sentido de que assumam, de forma responsável, os seus lugares parentais em prol da promoção do saudável desenvolvimento emocional dos infantes. Nesses termos, durante a pesquisa destacamos a necessidade de os pais terem a maturidade para distinguir a conjugalidade e a parentalidade, haja vista que a alienação parental tem como um de seus fatores desencadeantes essa não diferenciação. Constatamos, ainda, que a mencionada dinâmica familiar porta peculiaridades e características que demandam uma atuação conjunta dos profissionais do direito e da ciência psi, os quais devem possuir conhecimento e habilidade específicos. Aliado à incidência jurisdicional que explicita a coação estatal, mencionamos a psicoterapia e a mediação familiar como alternativas que podem auxiliar na resolução da lide e promover a efetiva e operante restauração da paz social. Propomos que a atuação dos profissionais do direito e da ciência psi se direcione para a conscientização dos pais acerca da necessidade de distinção da parentalidade e da conjugalidade e de que eles reconheçam, de fato, que a criança necessita conviver com ambos, pai e mãe (cada um ocupando, efetivamente, a sua precípua função parental em prol do pleno desenvolvimento infantil). Enfim, o estudo nos sugeriu que somente com o trabalho conjunto e interdisciplinar dos mencionados profissionais, numa visão que ultrapassa a mera subsunção do fato à norma jurídica, é possível enfrentar e inibir de forma operante e efetiva a prática alienativa. / Mestre em Psicologia

This thesis focuses on the topic of parental separation and awarding custody of pre-school and early-school aged children. In the theoretical part the specifics of each developmental stage and also of the mother's and father's role are described. In the following chapter the thesis focuses on the process of parental separation, its phases, causes and its influence on children. Also the most typical phenomenons and risks connected with this complicated situation are mentioned. Not to be forgotten, the legal side of the process is also included. The thesis contains empirical part, in which structured interviews with social workers were led, in order to map current trends, the most serious risks, the possibilities of different forms of custody and the role of psychologists in parental separation in the Czech environment. Key words: parental separation, awarding custody of child, pre-school age, early-school age, sole custody, joint custody

This study examines the probabilities of attaining the highest level of education depending on parental education, and probabilities of reproducing parental education depending on parental separation. The theoretical starting point concerns social origin and social mobility. How parental separation affects educational reproduction among Swedish birth cohorts from 1905-1980 is investigated. Linear Probability Model (LPM) is used to analyze data from The Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU). The results show that the probability of reproducing parental education is higher for those from intact families compared to those who experienced parental separation. However, the differences in probabilities between groups are small, and after controlling for a number of demographic traits, the correlation weakens. Furthermore, differences in the effect of parental separation for groups of different parental education is shown, although this is confounded by the educational expansion that took place in Sweden during the 20th century. The conclusion of this paper is that parental separation has a negative effect on the reproduction of parental education, and that the experience affects groups of different social origin differently.

No description available.