ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the impact of repeated child noncompliance on stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices in high- and low-risk mothers. METHOD: Fifty (25 high-risk and 25 demographically, matched low-risk) mothers responded to questions related to stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices following presentations of a child engaging in repeated noncompliance. RESULTS: After repeated child noncompliance, high-risk, compared to low-risk, mothers perceived more threat and uncontrollability, rated child behaviors as more stressful, and reported higher levels of negative affect. High-risk mothers also reported more stable, global, and intentional attributions, with a trend toward more internal attributions, but did not differ in their evaluations of wrongness and seriousness of the child's behavior. After repeated noncompliance, a risk group difference was found in estimates of future child compliance but not in the use of power assertive discipline. CONCLUSIONS: Results support the view that high-risk, relative to low-risk, mothers are differentially responsive to stressful situations and differ in their attributions for negative child behaviors and in their expectations of future child compliance. However, since risk group differences in disciplinary choices were not also found, additional research is needed to demonstrate the process through which risk group cognitive and affective differences are related to differences in disciplinary behavior.
Subject(s)
Child Abuse/psychology , Child Behavior , Mother-Child Relations , Punishment , Adult , Child , Cognition , Female , Humans , Male , Risk Factors , Stress, PsychologicalABSTRACT
There are nine major diagnostic categories of male sexual dysfunction in the DSM-IV. Psychotherapy outcome studies focusing on these problems are reviewed. Currently, there appears to be little evidence that effective psychological interventions exist for these problems. Reasons for this include numerous methodological problems of existing research, effect sizes that are not clearly clinically significant, lack of compelling follow-up data indicating durability of treatment gains, and lack of treatment manuals that allow replication. Also, some disorders have been ignored by researchers. Guidelines for sample selection and description, assessment and diagnosis, and research design are provided.
Subject(s)
Psychotherapy/methods , Sexual Dysfunctions, Psychological/therapy , Guidelines as Topic , Humans , Male , Outcome Assessment, Health Care/methods , Research DesignABSTRACT
The increasing recognition of the significant incidence of female sexual dysfunction as well as the increasing acceptance of sex therapy as the preferred option for addressing problems in sexual functioning give rise to questions as to effectiveness of psychotherapy for female sexual dysfunction. This article presents a review of empirical studies of the treatment of female sexual dysfunction that meet minimal methodological criteria. Because of the variety and seriousness of methodological problems in the studies reviewed, guidelines for sample selection and description, research design, assessment and classification, and data analysis are provided. In addition, the 21 studies reviewed are examined for information they give about the treatment of female sexual dysfunction.
