Heinz Kohut's Ideas of Self.

The authors explore Heinz Kohut's ideas of self, including its nuclear and virtual forms, in the critical period from the late 1960s to about 1975. Kohut's creative process, it is argued, has not been fully appreciated. The authors establish the baseline of Kohut's ideas about the self in his first book, The Analysis of the Self in 1971. His ideas then evolved significantly in the next few years, as he came to define the self as the center of psychological experience and then to consider what he came to call the nuclear self and the virtual self as extensions of his core ideas about the self-selfobject system. The authors trace the specific sequence of conceptual steps that Kohut took in his reexamination of what he meant by self. Kohut's thinking in this area proceeded unevenly and not always chronologically. His pathbreaking work in the early 1970s on fragmentation, on the cohesion and continuity of the self, and on the mutable nature of the nuclear self and the virtual self represents a seminal development in the understanding of these psychoanalytic concepts.

The Impact of Cuban Economic Reform on Older Persons.

This paper discusses the economic reforms initiated by Cuban President Raúl Castro in 2008 and its effect on the country's fast-growing, vulnerable population of older persons 60+ years of age. Cubans are living longer and the country has a very low birthrate. These two factors combined have reduced the proportion of the population in the work force. This adversely affects the economy. Population aging is a major reason why the government has introduced structural reforms and reduced social spending, which have weakened the welfare state on which older persons depend. Many older persons have become critical of the reforms over time. Policy makers need to address the impact the reforms are having on older Cubans and consider them as active participants in economic reform. Data for this paper come from qualitative, case study research carried out in Havana between the years 2008-15 and from a review of the literature on aging and economic reforms in Cuba. Two case studies illustrate the impact of the economic reforms on older persons.

How older Hispanic immigrants in New York City cope with current traumatic stressors: practice implications.

Older minority immigrant groups in the United States may be at increased risk for traumatic stress in an age of terrorism and of civil and political unrest. This exploratory study investigated how older Hispanic immigrants in New York City coped in response to current traumatic stressors, and whether they differed from a comparison group of older US-born non-Hispanics. We administered the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) and the Brief COPE instruments to 24 older Hispanic immigrants and 15 older non-Hispanics, born in the United States, at 2 senior centers. Hispanic immigrants showed greater symptomatic response to current stressors as measured by significantly higher scores on the hyperarousal and avoidance subscales of the IES-R. Both groups used passive coping strategies. Older Hispanic immigrants may be at increased risk for negative psychological consequences caused by a current stressor. Practitioners should encourage older Hispanic immigrants to use active coping strategies to deal with those stressors.

Service needs of male caretakers of HIV-infected and affected children: policy and practice implications.

The number of male caretakers (biological fathers and other men) of HIV-infected and affected children is substantial and may increase in the US and elsewhere as more women become infected. Little information exists about the needs these men have for support services to help them better perform their parenting roles as male caretakers (MCs). This paper discusses the service needs of MCs at Ryan White CARE Act Title IV programs, the challenges providers at these programs face in serving MCs, and the strategies they have found effective in working with MCs. Providers report that MCs have specific service needs including the need for emotional support. Title IV programs meet these needs in a limited way because they are organized primarily around the needs of female rather than male caretakers. We discuss how Title IV programs can tailor existing service delivery and implement organizational change to facilitate MCs' service access and utilization. Further research directly with MCs is necessary to learn more about their service needs and the barriers MCs face in accessing services.

Challenges and changing roles in HIV/AIDS social work: implications for training and education.

HIV/AIDS social work was changed fundamentally by the introduction of more effective medications to combat the disease, and by the spread of HIV/AIDS beyond the gay community to intravenous drug users and their sexual partners, women, children, adolescents, and people of color. This paper describes the professional challenges HIV/AIDS social workers now face at this stage in the history of the disease as a result of improved medications, and the spread of the disease to newer groups. We describe the roles HIV/AIDS social workers will play in the next wave of the epidemic, and discuss the implications of these changing roles for social work education and training.