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Emotion-focused group therapy is a relatively new therapy format that utilizes individual emotion-focused therapy (EFT) work in a group setting to evoke and transform painful emotions, both directl...

Purpose: To examine change in gross motor function in children with cerebral palsy (CP) following repeated periods of intensive physiotherapy in real-life group-settings, with expected motor develo...

Mindfulness involves the cultivation of conscious awareness and attention, with an emphasis on seeing and accepting things as they are. While mindfulness-based interventions have been widely examined among adults with PTSD, thery were very scarcely studied among traumatized adolescents. In this paper, we address this gap in knowledge. We present evidence supporting the potential benefits of applying mindfulness-based interventions in PTSD, and argue that mindfulness, with its emphasis on non-judgmental thought, mind-body connection and a group setting, may be particualrly suitable for traumatized adolescents. We therefore encourage researchers to allocate more resources to systematically study the utility of mindfulness practice among this population.

This article, written by therapists who use group therapy as the context for engaging in the deconfusion process with patients, explains why group therapy can be a setting of choice for depth psych...

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the involvement of kindergarten and nursery school teachers with young children with congenital heart disease. The study was designed as a qualitative descriptive study. Interviews of kindergarten and nursery school teachers with experience in the care and education of young children with congenital heart disease were conducted, during which they described their experience. Verbatim transcripts of the interviews were prepared, and the content was categorized. The study participants were 11 kindergarten and nursery school teachers. Extracted from the content of the interviews of the study participants were 282 codes, 33 subcategories, 6 categories, and 2 major categories. In their responses, the teachers indicated that they had been "Providing care for the children while seeking ways to avoid special treatment in a group setting." In addition, they established a "Framework for school-parent cooperation in order to promptly accommodate the wishes of parents" of these children. The study showed that the kindergarten and nursery school teachers involved other pupils and monitored the condition of children with congenital heart disease to avoid special treatment of the children in the group setting. In addition, the teachers established a framework for cooperation between the school and parents. In the future, these findings will be used to create a nursing support model for the group life of young children with congenital heart disease.

Loss is a fundamental human experience that can impact a person’s mental health in diverse ways. While this experience is potentially formative, harmful manifestations can fracture one’s sense of self and undermine relational health. In this article, we present a rationale for process-oriented group therapy focused on healing relational injuries associated with loss. We draw on attachment, self-psychology, intersubjectivity, and Yalom & Leszcz’s (2005) model of group psychotherapy to explore how group processes allow clients to work through losses and relational frustrations in the here-and-now. A case vignette and discussion offer practical insight on the ways in which loss manifests in the room and demonstrate the uniqueness of the group setting for reparative processing.

Mixed methods research (MMR) is a useful paradigm for group work as it allows exploration of both participant outcomes and “how” or “why” such changes occur. Unfortunately, the group counseling literature is not replete with MMR studies. This article reviews the application of MMR to group contexts and summarizes the corpus of MMR on groups. Then, we synthesize lessons learned from planning, conducting, and analyzing 3 of our own mixed methods group studies that utilize consensual qualitative research. Practical guidance is presented as insights researchers may consider when they attempt to conduct meaningful and feasible MMR in a group setting.

This article presents evaluation of a course developed for training social work students in using art intervention activities in a group setting. The course components included didactic lea...

Mineralogy is an essential component of Earth Science education, yet many students struggle to obtain adequate comprehension and knowledge of mineralogy during tertiary (postsecondary) degree programs. The use of educational games can be an effective strategy for science teaching as games provide an active learning environment that enhances student engagement and motivation. This paper introduces a new card game called “Mineral Supertrumps” that can be used to counter the challenge of learning mineralogy at either secondary or tertiary level. The card game includes information on the properties of 54 minerals, which include the most important rock-forming minerals as well as minerals of industrial and economic significance. The game is easy to learn and play, and it is designed to motivate learning of mineral properties through active and competitive game-play in a group setting. Group play also helps to build identity and culture around student cohorts, which may also promote learning outcomes. ...

Mindfulness and acceptance based treatments are being increasingly implemented for a variety of emotional and psychological related problems, including the impact of military and combat related trauma exposure. This article describes a mindfulness skills group as it was implemented on a sub-acute inpatient PTSD Unit at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center, to demonstrate and explore the role of the mindfulness skills development in a group setting, for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other trauma related problems.

This paper describes the development of the Dance of Awareness™ movement practice, including the evolution of a new variation known as Free/Form. We aim to demonstrate how this provides a meeting point for body psychotherapy and dance movement psychotherapy. We reflect on evidence gathered over many hours of practice, which we hope may be of benefit to practitioners from both disciplines and encourage joint working.

This study employs a philosophical mode of interpretation in examining an approach to personal formation within a group setting. It argues that notions of finitude, mortality, death, inauthentic discourse and resoluteness are crucial in turning group members towards understanding the roots of their being. Immersion within this process is deemed formative and transformative in itself, especially when awareness of inauthentic modes of engagement is raised and practised. The purpose of this study is to encourage mindfulness of neglected issues (‘who’ it is being called, who it is being formed, for example) and demonstrates, through an exemplar, how turning towards these may bring about personal change within a group setting.

Motivational interviewing (MI) has emerged as an evidence-based practice for addiction treatment. Firmly rooted in the client-centered schools of therapy, key concepts include the “spirit” of MI, the 4 processes, microskills, and the provision of feedback, advice, and suggestions within an MI framework. Strategies for adapting this approach to group therapy are reviewed and include strategies for blending individual and group processes, responding to change talk within the group setting, normalizing motivational differences, and incorporating skills-training protocols.

The transition to undergraduate study is often a challenging step for students as they progress from relatively smaller school/college classes with a high degree of contact time with familiar staff to a university department where one-on-one interaction with staff members is significantly reduced. The first year tutorials module offers one of the few opportunities for students to interact with a member of academic staff in a small group setting. However, many students struggle to cope with this change in circumstances and do not adapt to university life. They may feel isolated, and rather than seek help, fail to attend tutorial sessions; particularly when attendance is not strictly monitored or enforced. Consequently, students may become disengaged and demotivated, resulting in failure of modules and poor student retention. The aim of this project was to enhance the experience of first year students, by promoting student engagement with staff and peers at the start of their undergraduate degree to...

The effects of a private vs. group test setting were examined on a reading comprehension test for a sample of typical college students. Participants took Forms G and H of the Nelson Denny Reading Comprehension Test in both private and group (classroom) settings. Contrary to expectations, performance was slightly better in the group setting. Performance was also better during the second session, regardless of setting. There was no setting by session interaction. The correlation between scores in the two settings was quite high, indicating that both settings produced similar results. The findings suggest that a private room does not produce a performance advantage for typical students, thus meeting one of the criteria of a valid test accommodation.

In a between-lab study, a constant and steady shift was found in hypnotizability scores measured with standard scales. To investigate a time effect in a Hungarian (within-lab) sample, 613 subjects’ scores on Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Forms A and B, 1898 subjects’ self-scores, and 1713 subjects’ observer-scores on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility were analyzed. From the 1970s to 2010, a significant increase was observed in the SHSS:A and B scores of female subjects and the HGSHS:A scores of both genders. Females proved to be significantly more hypnotizable than males in a group setting but not in an individual context. Time and gender did not interact. The possible reasons for these effects on hypnotizability and the role of the testing context are discussed.

CoursesGroup Communication and any communication course requiring the use of project groups.ObjectivesUpon completion of this semester-long project, students should be able to: analyze and reflect upon their own communication behaviors in a group setting, and explain the importance of examining actual communication practices as opposed to retrospective self-report of communication practices. This project also allows instructors to assess students' performance in learning group meetings both inside and outside of class time.

In 2011–2012, a qualitative exploratory pilot study was conducted to examine the experiences of immigrant Mexican women using a culturally specific domestic violence intervention model curriculum in a Midwestern state. Using a psychoeducational group format, 20 immigrant Mexican women participated in two 11-week groups over a 9-month period at a community-based health clinic. Findings indicated immigrant Mexican women examined current relationships, dating, and domestic violence dynamics in group settings and reported changes in self-esteem within their own culture. Implications for social workers include learning how they can use culturally competent curriculums and programs in group formats.

This study examines how self-reporting of alcohol-related perceived group norms and individual attitudes and behaviours varies as a function of assessment environment – an online assessment using electronic surveys completed alone and a live assessment using electronic handheld ‘clickers’ completed within one's salient reference group. Social comparison theory (Festinger, ) is used to help explain the study and interpret results. A total of 657 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I student-athletes (59% female) from two universities completed both the independent online and the in-group assessment using clickers. Results indicate that student-athletes overestimated both drinking and attitudes towards drinking of peers in their specific groups. Student-athletes also responded with higher scores on all measures when assessed live using clickers with other members of their peer group, as opposed to the individual online assessment. Gender moderates the relationship between type of assessment co...

This paper investigates the influence of reference groups on self-brand connections among Chinese consumers and the implications for advertising in China. Reference groups include the in-group (member group) and out-groups (aspiration, dissociative, and neutral). Two studies test five hypotheses involving both Chinese and foreign brands. The results indicate that Chinese consumers report higher self-brand connections for Chinese brands in member and aspiration group settings, but higher connections with foreign brands in a dissociative group setting. Furthermore, individualism/collectivism moderates the influence of reference groups on this connection. For brands with images congruent with the in-group, compared with more individualistic consumers, more collectivist consumers exhibit stronger self-brand connections with Chinese brands than with foreign brands. For brands with images congruent with the dissociative group, compared with more collectivist consumers, more individualistic consumers report stro...

In this article, the authors describe the preparations for introducing a psychotherapy group into a therapeutic community for seriously disturbed adolescents and young adults. They show how, rather than introducing a pre-prepared group setting, they constructed it gradually in collaboration with all the staff members of the community as well as with the guests who were present in the structure. They also describe the specificity of this group due to the type of structure and to the methods used for its construction. The authors believe that this process allowed for the creation of a ‘space’ and a group mentality even before the group itself started working.

The Bedouin community in the southern Negev desert in Israel is a population in transition. The article describes how deliberate intergroup dialogue enhanced the ability of a group of teachers from the community to discuss the complexities of the transition within a supportive group setting as a starting point to facilitate social change.

This paper describes a training program – ‘Learning to Live Together’ – for early childhood educators working with toddlers and preschoolers in daycare or nursery schools. The training aims to provide educators with (a) research‐based knowledge on socio‐emotional development, and on social ‘learning opportunities’ offered by daily social and emotional events in the group setting; (b) specific intervention skills that support socio‐emotional development; (c) The program further explores and clarifies the overt and covert attitudes and beliefs educators may hold concerning children’s socio‐emotional development, and concerning their own role in promoting this development. The training program consists of 12 workshop meetings guided by an early childhood expert. These are followed by four small‐group consultation meetings that offer video‐observation of challenging children. The program is divided into four units: (1) understanding young children’s group experience; (2) toddlers learn empathy; (3) toddlers l...

There is considerable evidence that marriage is good for both adults and children and marriage education programs are designed to help build stronger marriages. However, these programs have a variety of problems that limit their effectiveness and impact and the Couple Checkup overcomes some of those limitations. The Couple Checkup can also be used by a couple on their own or used with marriage education programs to improve its impact. The Couple Checkup is based on the PREPARE/ENRICH Program, and it customizes the assessment for each couple. The couple can view and print their Checkup Report and a Couple Discussion Guide. The goal is for the Couple Checkup to reach a more diverse group of couples, to empower couples to deal with issues on their own, and to emphasize prevention over remediation. The Couple Checkup can also be used in a group setting and group leaders can create a Group Summary to help them better understand and work with the couples in a group.

Looking at expertise from the vantage point of many knowledge domains allows the observations and resulting definitions to be useful across a broad range of subject areas. A stable set of definitions that work on a higher, more comprehensive level than the current literature offers is needed for an integrated description of expertise. A cohesive cross-domain definition and explanation of expertise can be used to optimise group interactions. Since group performance incorporates additional components of expertise that are not present in individual performance situations, these additional components must be examined in order to see a full picture of the successful utilisation of expertise in a group setting. This expanded expertise definition will allow group dynamics to be better understood and will help break down the expertise components required to have successful group interactions.

Teaching parents and their young children about ways to avoid harm can be accomplished with much success in a group setting. Parents as Teachers of Safety (PaTS) is a multi-family educational group which instructs families on environmental and personal body safety rules, with an emphasis on improving knowledge and skills related to sexual abuse prevention. This article reviews the process of the group, feedback from the group leaders, and outcomes related to both the child and parent participants. Recruitment and retention issues are described in order to assist in implementation of similar programs in the future.

The development of a brief structured intervention for family members of substance misusers is an important contribution to a growing area of work, which is focused on developing specific help for family members in their own right. Previous testing of the intervention in primary care and specialist drug and alcohol services has produced promising results, namely a reduction in negative symptomatology and the impact of the problem as well as positive changes in coping behaviour. The introduction of the intervention as part of services to families within a voluntary service in Bristol in South West England provided an opportunity to test the integration of the intervention into a weekly themed group programme for family members. Results indicated that the intervention can be successfully used in this way, with change occurring as expected across several domains for the family members. Further work is needed to enhance understanding of how the model functions in a group setting. Given the current climate of ...

This study investigated whether phonological awareness intervention is effective for children at risk when administered in a small group setting and whether such intervention is more effective following a period of language stimulation. A group of 20 children aged between 5;05 and 7;08 who attended a school in New Zealand with a government-defined low socioeconomic status participated in the study. These children displayed poor phonological awareness and weakness in some aspect of their spoken semantic and syntactic language development prior to intervention. The participants were randomly assigned to intervention groups. Group 1 received 16 hours of phonological awareness intervention, followed by 16 hours of language intervention, whereas Group 2 received the same interventions in the reverse order.The results indicated that the phonological awareness intervention implemented was effective in rapidly accelerating the participants' phonemeblending, segmentation, and manipulation skills and signi...

This article explores the parallel process of empowerment experienced by a first year MSW student and a group of homeless teen mothers in a residential setting. Individual and communal empowerment developed through the creation of an open-ended group that focused on a client-initiated activity–knitting; an activity that offered opportunities for the members to empower themselves. This article traces the parallel empowerment process for the intern and the group, moving from dependence, to self-assertion and risk-taking, to communal cooperation by individuals and the group-as-a-whole (Freund, 1993). Specific suggestions for instructors supervising first-year social work interns are offered by the author who is the intern describing her own experience.

In this study, the authors investigated the predictors of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and herbal supplement use among university students. They investigated demographic factors, trait affectivity, symptom reports, and individuals' worries about modernity as potential contributors to use of CAM and herbals. The authors surveyed 506 undergraduates at a large southeastern state universityand administered the following questionnaires to participants in a group setting: a CAM survey, an herbal use survey, a negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) scale, Modern Health Worries scale, and the Subjective Health Complaint scale. Overall, 58 % of the participants had used at least one type of CAM, and 79 % of the students had used at least one herbal substance in the past 12 months. A hierarchical regression determined that increased age, female gender, flu-like symptoms, musculoskeletal symptoms, pseudoneurological symptoms, and modern health worries were significantly related to students' CAM use. Herbal use was related to increased age, musculoskeletal, pseudoneurological, and gastrointestinal symptoms.

Shame is a powerful, universal experience; yet because of its painful, secretive nature, it often remains an underground affect for many therapists. On behalf of our patients and ourselves, we must de–stigmatize it. My aim is to further a dialogue among group therapists about processing our own shame, by openly discussing the phenomenology and dynamics of shame. Such discussion is not easy, as shame by its nature seems almost unspeakable; yet leaders, due to the group setting, are especially at risk of having shame activated. Using a self-psychological/intersubjective approach, this paper suggests how we as therapists can become cognizant of and work with our own shame. Given the dearth of experience–near accounts of the group therapist's own shame, the author provides detailed vignettes of her own experiences with shame in the clinical setting.

The aha effect is a memory advantage for initially ambiguous stimuli (e.g., "The notes were sour because the seam split.") that are subsequently resolved ("Bagpipe") over stimuli that are comprehensible from the outset (see P M. Auble, J. J. Franks,S. A. Soraci, 1979; T. W. Wills, S. A. Soraci, R. A. Chechile,H. A. Taylor, 2000). The authors examined the influence of learning context on the aha effect by manipulating whether generative tasks were completed in a group setting or alone. In Experiment 1, participants in a group context either discussed difficult aha sentences, or overheard the discussion. In Experiments 2 and 3, lone participants were exposed to the sentences, and either spoke their thoughts aloud or thought silently. Participants in a group context did, as predicted, exhibit the aha global deletion of quotation marks effect. Moreover, in all experiments an aha effect was found for the active, speaking condition only. The authors discuss implications for generative learning and collaborative discourse processes.

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has been shown to reduce the loneliness of residents in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). In this study, we determined the relative contribution of socialization (human–human bonding) and human–animal bonding as mechanisms by which AAT reduces loneliness. Residents in LTCFs volunteering for AAT were randomized to receive AAT as individuals (Individual) or in groups of two to four (Group). Individual AAT was used as a measure of animal–human bonding, and Group AAT was used as a measure of the combination of animal–human bonding and socialization. Any greater effect of Group AAT in comparison to Individual AAT would be ascribed to socialization. Thirty-seven residents of LTCFs, who were cognitively intact, volunteered for AAT, and scored as significantly lonely on the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3), were studied. Six weeks of AAT, one 30-minute session per week, in an individual or group setting was performed, with posttesting during week five. Two residents dropped...

The Play Assessment for Group Setting (PAGS) was constructed to measure children's play performance. The study was undertaken with 93 children aged from 2 to 8 years to examine whether the items of the PAGS construct a unidimensional scale that can be used to measure children's play ability. The internal scale validity and the person response validity of the PAGS were investigated by examining the goodness-of-fit of the play items and children's play performance to the many-faceted Rasch model for the PAGS. In total, 46 of the 51 play items demonstrated acceptable goodness-of-fit. Of the 93 children, 90.3% demonstrated acceptable goodness-of-fit on the scale of play items. Overall, the results support both the scale and person response validity for the PAGS, as well as providing preliminary evidence that the PAGS can be used for a more detailed evaluation of children's abilities in play performance within natural day-care contexts. Further research is needed to examine other aspects of the validity and reliability of the PAGS measures.

Group discussion is characterized by "shared cooperative activity." Although there are at least three senses of the term cooperation that are relevant to group discussion, the focus in this article is on the cooperation inherent in the very nature of communicative interchange, even in situations not characteristically described as cooperative. The goal of this study is to describe cooperative interaction in efforts by 29 student groups working on a class project to find a mutually-acceptable meeting time outside of class. The description spotlights a feature of discussional cooperation found in these groups: a "standard sequence" of conversational offers and reactions to those offers through which group members arrived on mutually-agreeable meeting times.

Video Respite® (VR) is a videotape application that captures the attention of memory impaired persons, such as those with Alzheimer's disease (AD), by simulating a visit between an actor and the impaired viewer. Although VR initially was developed to create brief respite opportunities for family caregivers, long-term care (LTC) facilities are now using them as a way to engage their clients in stimulating and meaningful activities. VR tapes were mainly designed to be watched by a solitary viewer so it is unclear if a group setting would interfere with the ability of some AD patients to watch and participate with the videotape. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to compare how well Remembering When, a 20-minute videotape that reminisces about growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, captured and maintained the attention of 12 institutionalized AD patients when they were in a group setting (3 per group) versus when they each viewed it alone. A second objective was to identify factors related to ...

Volume 36, Number1, 2003 Contents: J. Coupland, Small Talk: Social Functions. J. Thornborrow, The Organization of Primary School Children's On-Task and Off-Task Talk in a Small Group Setting. M. McCarthy, Talking Back: "Small" Interactional Response Tokens in Everyday Conversation. J. Holmes, Small Talk at Work: Potential Problems for workers With an Intellectual Disability. J. Coupland, A. Jaworski, Transgression and Intimacy in Recreational Talk Narratives.

This article complements two previous papers which presented quantitative data about methods of peer assessment within a group project. The previous quantitative papers indicated that holistic peer assessment supports the purposes of summative group assessment better than category-based peer assessment. The qualitative findings presented here support this notion. Student attitudes towards the two methods of peer assessment were more supportive of the holistic approach than the category-based approach. This article raises the question as to whether the method of peer assessment has some influence on the extent to which students work cooperatively in a group setting.

Many people who enter treatment with intrapsychic conflicts also bring with them developmental deficits. These deficits stem from early environmental failures: Parenting figures did not provide needed maturational input, creating a gap that leaves the child with developmental deficits in their personality. These, like intrapsychic conflicts, engender formidable resistances to progress in treatment. This article intends to show that group treatment is ideally suited to the task of filling in these emotional voids. To enable members to address the deficit of a co-member, the group leader systematically initiates and oversees five basic steps.

There is national concern about teenage pregnancy and children parenting children in the U.S. There is also an established link between delinquent parents and future delinquent offspring. Parenting skills training for youth in trouble has been considered as one way of addressing this complex problem. Yet there have been few studies of the way troubled and troublesome adolescents see themselves as parents. In this study, juveniles being held in a detention center were observed in a small group setting on a weekly basis for more than nine months. Delinquents also responded in writing to open‐ended questions about their views on parenting. In addition, detainees who had not attended parenting classes were interviewed about families. Six significant social psychological concepts from Symbolic Interaction were identified under the general heading of socialization: self‐concept, self‐image, self‐control, self‐esteem, identity and roles. This preliminary study points out the need for a better understanding of de...

There is extensive empirical data associated with research into borderline personality disorder (BPD) and with research into group psychotherapy. However, these two lines of scientific inquiry have not yet been brought together. In this paper, an attempt is made to merge these two fields. First, borderline personality disorder is reviewed in terms of its history and epidemiological context; second, a description of the disorder is given; third, group psychotherapy with people with BPD is considered, giving special attention to the role of the therapist, the co-therapist model and the need to include in the group members who have not been given a borderline diagnosis; fourth, a case illustration is offered; finally, some conclusions are presented.

SUMMARY This paper examines the role of a laboratory in the teaching of introductory computer science courses. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine and compare the use of two specific laboratory‐based alternatives, one in which students worked individually in a hands‐on environment, and one in which students worked in an interactive group setting led by an instructor. Data were collected on general student performance, class attrition, and course‐related perceptions in both settings. The results indicated that students in both the hands‐on and the interactive demonstration laboratory sections performed relatively equally in the course activities. Also, an examination of student attrition rates noted a lower rate for each of the laboratory approaches when compared to a traditional lecture approach. Student opinions examined within the study suggested that students perceived a real need for laboratory‐based instruction in introductory computer programming courses, but that they were very con...

Participating in a self-awareness group (in this case for counsellors in training) is an exercise in give and take - an interweaving of stories - through which we share ourselves with our peers. This paper explores some personal discoveries about the processes at work in (a) listening to others, (b) relating my own story - and assessing thereby the extent of my belonging, role and investment in the group. A dream alerted me to our shifting to another dimension of story-sharing by the end of forty sessions. The imagery I use is of basket weaving and creating a mandala.

The views of academic and clinical teachers in Leicester Medical School on the criteria contained in the Leicester package for the assessment of small-group teaching skills (L-PAST) were investigated. A total of 100 academic and 154 clinical staff responded, giving response rates of 51% and 38% respectively of which a minority of teachers (32%) had received formal training in 'how to teach'. Some 97% of respondents approved of the need to identify explicit criteria prior to any assessment of teaching competence; 92% of respondents approved or strongly approved of the overall six categories of the L-PAST; 70% or more of respondents approved or strongly approved of 39 of the 42 component competences. There was no consensus for altering the L-PAST categories or component competences. Approval of the criteria contained in the L-PAST indicates that it could form the basis for using peer assessment of small-group teaching as a preliminary step in a faculty development programme.

Therapeutic factors have long been conceptualized as providing a theoretical foundation for the change that may occur in small group settings. This article examines interpersonal feedback, a process that in fluences the development of many therapeutic factors. It is theorized that through the use of a variety of feedback interventions, group leaders can facilitate positive growth among group members. A number of specific interventions that leaders may use to facilitate the giving, receiving, and using feedback messages in a small group setting are presented.

Therapist behaviours during treatment of 54 patients with spider phobia by massed exposure during one single session, individually, in a small group (3–4), or in a large group (7–8) were studied using videotaped recordings and rated on a 5-grade scale by two independent observers. The behaviours observed more frequently in the individual treatment than in the group treatment were reality testing, feedback, and empathy. Physical contact and determination were used significantly more often in the group treatment. Furthermore, differences in behaviours used in different phases of the treatment were found. Humour increased from the beginning of the treatment through the middle and final phases of the session. Demonstration and role play decreased from the beginning of the treatment through the middle and final phases of the session. Outcome on the behaviour approach test was predicted by three variables (positively by physical contact, and negatively by instruction and assurance), and on the Spider P...

Previous research has suggested there is a link between the degree of “individualism” in a country (Hofstede 1980), and the type of consumer advertisements most commonly used in that country. Specifically, the literature suggests that countries like the U.S., with a high score on the individualism index, will tend to focus on benefits to the individual. Alternatively, countries with a low score on individualism, will be inclined to portray individuals in a group setting in advertisements and thus suggest social benefits. This study examined advertisements from eight different countries (U.S., U.K., France, India, Japan, Turkey, Taiwan/Hong Kong and Korea) and contrary to previous studies, found the cultural dimension of individualism to be at best only a minor factor in explaining cross-cultural differences in advertisements.

This article is an evaluative study of a short-term grief and loss therapy group conducted at a large Midwestern university's counseling center. The group was held for students who had experienced loss through death of a significant person. The author examines brief group psychotherapy, special considerations of the college student's grief experience, an adaptation of the brief group model for grieving students, and data gathered from the members of the therapy group. Students' scores on a grief instrument showed mixed results. Group members made journal entries at four times during the group experience. They reported that the group was a supportive and helpful experience; five of Yalom's (1995) eleven therapeutic factors could be discerned. Recommendations regarding the treatment of grieving students in a group setting are made.

The current study is a cross‐cultural replication of a study that investigated infants’ and toddlers’ social interactions with a baby in a group setting. The focus was to determine if Chinese (Taiwanese) infants and toddlers exhibit similar interactional behaviors toward an infant in group care as did their American counterparts and to compare mediating factors of age, gender, sibling issues, and birth order. Data were recorded by video and a behavioral checklist. The sample consisted of 18 children, ages 11 to 41 months, who were attending a private daycare in Taipei. Taiwanese toddlers demonstrated significantly higher numbers of interactions toward the baby in child‐initiated, teacher‐initiated, and cooperating behaviors than American toddlers. Children with siblings exhibited more interactions with the baby than children without siblings. Cooperating behaviors increased with age for both males and females. However, females consistently had higher means. This information can aid caregivers/teachers in ...