Introduction to the special section on racial and ethnic identity in counseling psychology: Conceptual and methodological challenges and proposed solutions.

Racial and ethnic identity development have been important topics in counseling psychology research for the last four decades. At present, however, there appears to be some confusion and debate regarding the quality of theory and measurement in the topical area. The present article serves as an introduction to this Journal of Counseling Psychology special section on "Racial and Ethnic Identity in Counseling Psychology: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges and Proposed Solutions." A rationale is provided for the special section, the place of racial and ethnic identity scholarship is located within the history of multicultural counseling research, and the invited special section contributions by K. O. Cokley (2007), J. E. Helms (2007), J. E. Trimble (2007), S. M. Quintana (2007), J. S. Phinney and A. D. Ong (2007), and J. G. Ponterotto and J. Park-Taylor (2007) are introduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Session impact in counseling process research: Comment on Elliott and Wexler (1994) and Stiles et al. (1994).

R. Elliott and M. M. Wexler (see record 1994-27938-001) have introduced the Session Impacts Scale (SIS), and W. B. Stiles et al (see record 1994-27969-001) have undertaken a new factor analysis of the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) with a British sample of clients. These 2 measures of session-level psychotherapy effects have great potential as research tools. In this comment on the 2 articles, issues of retest reliability, the connection of session-level measures to research strategies based on other units of analyses, and suggested uses of the SIS and the SEQ are discussed. The importance of context-sensitive session impact research and of a comprehensive theory relating session impacts to therapy outcome is also stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Advances in research with sexual minority people: Introduction to the special issue.

Presents an introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology. This editorial discusses advances in research with sexual minority people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Change in working alliance, social support, and psychological symptoms in brief therapy.

Many interpersonal therapists use the working alliance as a vehicle for client change and as a corrective experience for clients to learn new relationship skills. 34 19–28-yr-old clients in brief therapy completed measures of social support and psychological symptoms at pretest and termination and a measure of working alliance after the third session and at termination. Path analysis suggested that improvement in the working alliance was significantly related to improvement in social support and that improvement in social support was significantly related to symptom reduction. The working alliance appears to have an important indirect connection to symptom reduction, through the mediating influence of increased support. After the effects of improved alliance were controlled, increased support was still related to decreased symptoms; however, after the effects of social support were controlled, the relation between change in alliance and symptoms was not significant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culturally sensitive assertiveness training for ethnic minority clients.

This article serves as a comprehensive resource to help bridge the gap of cultural understanding for those using assertiveness training with ethnic minority clients. Therapists providing cross-cultural assertiveness training must be certain that gaining such skills is a value shared by the client and not imposed by the therapist. A more culturally appropriate approach includes the following general assessment strategies: determining the etiology of the lack of assertiveness; using self-report inventories that avoid words, slang, or situations that may not be meaningful to the client; and the developing norms for the cultural group for which the inventory will be used. General treatment strategies may include "message matching," backup assertion, and discriminative cue learning. Specific strategies that are relevant for each cultural group are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Satisfaction with a new job after unemployment: Consequences of job loss for older professionals.

Participants were surveyed after joining a self-help group for unemployed professionals over the age of 40 and again 1 year later. A hidden cost of job loss, especially for older workers, may be decreased satisfaction with the new job obtained after a period of unemployment. Of the 24 initially unemployed participants who sought jobs, 1 year later 16 were reemployed, and 8 were still seeking jobs. The 16 reemployed participants indicated significantly less satisfaction in their new positions, compared to the ones held previously, with regard to pay and benefits. There was no change in satisfaction with co-workers. Satisfaction with supervision, the nature of the work, and prospects for promotion had increased. Positive self-esteem and internal locus of control at the initial survey were positively correlated with job satisfaction after reemployment. Contrary to expectations, age was also positively correlated with satisfaction in the new job. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social support and the effectiveness of group therapy.

Collected self-report data from 37 pretest clients and 26 of the same clients at posttest who participated in 6 counseling center therapy groups. Questionnaires assessed 6 functionally different types of social support provided from 2 sources, therapy group members vs persons outside the group, together with pre- and posttest levels of 3 distress symptoms, which were depression, self-esteem, and psychological symptoms of stress. Significant improvement in symptoms was noted during the 8-wk interventions, and this improvement was related to the availability of social support, depending on the type and source of support. In general, support from sources outside the therapy group appeared to have the most impact. Levels of certain types of support differed in groups depending on whether or not the group was composed of members with a common presenting concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Co-occurrence of eating disorders and incest: The role of attachment, family environment, and social competencies.

Childhood attachment, family environment, and adult social competencies were examined to explain the association between sexual abuse and eating disorders (EDs). Female college students (n?=?102) and female clients sexually abused in childhood (n?=?52) completed surveys retrospectively that assessed parental bonds, family environment, and sexual abuse, as well as current self-efficacy, social support, intimacy, adult attachment style, and ED symptoms. Client incest survivors had a higher ED rate (47%) than did sexually abused clients (22%), student incest survivors (24%), or nonabused students (17%). Significant associations were found between family environment, incest, social competencies, and eating disorders. Incest survivors had more dysfunctional families and lower social competencies than did nonabused women. Among incest survivors, those with the lowest levels of social competencies and poorest bonds with their mothers had more ED symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of selective reporting on estimates of weaning weight parameters in beef cattle

The effect of selective reporting on estimates of weaning weight parameters in beef cattle was evaluated by comparing REML estimates from unaltered and altered simulated data. Selective reporting reduced estimates of weaning weight direct (WWD), maternal milk (MAT), and error variances. However, heritability estimates were not greatly affected because the reductions in variance estimates were relatively proportionate. When the true value for the direct-maternal (DM) correlation was zero or negative, selective reporting caused estimates of DM to be less positive or more negative in 50 of 62 comparisons, with an average change of -.136. When the true value for DM was positive, selective reporting increased the positive magnitude of DM estimates in 12 of 20 comparisons, with an average change of +.040. In BLUP of unaltered data with a true DM value of -.09, using a -.28 and a zero DM correlation reduced the correlation of MAT EPD with true values .065 and .041, respectively. These results suggest that the reliability of parameter estimates (and BLUPs) would be improved by estimating parameters from representative subsets of data free of reporting bias.     

A bootstrap approach to confidence regions for genetic parameters from Method R estimates

Confidence regions (CR) for heritability (h2) and fraction of variance accounted for by permanent environmental effects (c2) from Method R estimates were obtained from simulated data using a univariate, repeated measures, full animal model, with 50% subsampling. Bootstrapping techniques were explored to assess the optimum number of subsamples needed to compute Method R estimates of h2 and c2 with properties similar to those of exact estimators. One thousand estimates of each parameter set were used to obtain 90, 95, and 99% CR in four data sets including 2,500 animals with four measurements each. Two approaches were explored to assess CR accuracy: a parametric approach assuming bivariate normality of h2 and c2 and a nonparametric approach based on the sum of squared rank deviations. Accuracy of CR was assessed by the average loss of confidence (LOSS) by number of estimates sampled (NUMEST). For NUMEST = 5, bootstrap estimates of h2 and c2 were within 10(-3) of the asymptotic ones. The same degree of convergence in the estimates of SE was achieved with NUMEST = 20. Correlation between estimates of h2 and c2 ranged from -.83 to -.98. At NUMEST < 10, the nonparametric CR were more accurate than parametric CR. However, with the parametric CR, LOSS approached zero at rate NUMEST(-1). This rate was an order of magnitude larger for the nonparametric CR. These results suggested that when the computational burden of estimating genetic parameters limits the number of Method R estimates that can be obtained to, say, 10 or 20, reliable CR can still be obtained by processing Method R estimates through bootstrapping techniques.