Arlene Vetere

Life after homicide: accounts of recovery and redemption of offender patients in a high security hospital – a qualitative study

This study explores accounts of recovery and redemption from the perspective of offenders with a history of mental disorder who have committed homicide. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven men who were residing in a high secure hospital. The interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Analysis of their accounts of their perpetration of homicide yielded a number of themes: the role of previous experience and its impact on their personal development; periods of loss of grip on reality; the reframing of events in their life via therapeutic interventions and internal integration, and roadblocks to the process of recovery. The findings highlight the importance of attending to offenders’ narratives about their offending and the context in which it took place as an inevitable aspect of their search for meaning in the aftermath of the death they perpetrated. Themes generated contributed to future interventions to reduce risk.

Towards a richer understanding of school-age children’s experiences of domestic violence: The voices of children and their mothers

Millions of children are exposed to domestic violence. How children negotiate and make sense of living with domestic violence is still under-researched. This study sought to capture the dual-perspectives of school-aged children and their mothers, to develop a richer understanding of children’s experiences of domestic violence, using a community-based sample. A qualitative research design was employed, with interpretative phenomenological analysis used to interpret the data. Five school-aged children and three of their mothers participated in the study. Two master themes are discussed from the analysis of the children’s perspective: domestic violence through the eyes of children; and learning from children’s experiences. Two master themes are discussed from the analysis of the mothers’ perspective: reflecting on the child in the context of domestic violence; and learning from mothers: insights, support and services. The crucial importance of the mother-child relationship in shaping children’s experience of domestic violence was illustrated in both the perspectives; a finding which may have important implications for the development of interventions. It was also evident that children as young as eight were able to powerfully articulate their experiences of domestic violence.

Repressive Coping Style and Adult Romantic Attachment Style: is there a relationship?

Abstract Two studies aimed to explore whether individuals who possess a repressive coping style exhibit an avoidant style of adult romantic attachment. The Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MC) and the Bendig version of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety (MAS) scale were used to select a repressive coping style group (repressors: high MC, low MAS), three extreme-scoring control groups: low anxious (low MC, low MAS); high anxious (low MC, high MAS) defensive high anxious (high MC, high MAS), and an overall nonrepressor group. Two measures of romantic adult attachment were used: a categorical measure [Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualised as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 52 , 511–524] and a dimensional measure [Romantic Adult Attachment Style Questionnaire, RAASQ; Simpson, J. A. (1990). Influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 59 , 971–980]. Repressors scored significantly higher on the avoidant attachment scale of the RAASQ than all nonrepressor groups, although this result was not found with the categorical measure. The results indicate that repressors report higher levels of romantic avoidant attachment than nonrepressors, and also highlight the importance of the type of measure used to elicit information from repressors. These findings suggest a potential link between the repressive coping literature and adult attachment literature.

Adult romantic attachment styles and health-related measures

Two studies investigated whether there are differences in how individuals with secure, avoidant or anxious/ambivalent romantic adult attachment styles answer health-related questionnaires. In study 1, 111 young adults were divided into the three categorical Hazan and Shaver (1987) prototypes and completed a measure of coping resources. Individuals with a secure attachment style reported significantly more total coping resources than avoidant and anxious/ambivalent. The same pattern was found for emotional and social sub-scales. There was a different pattern of results for the other sub-scales, with secure reporting more cognitive resources than anxious/ambivalent, but there were no group differences for physical and spiritual/philosophical sub-scales. In study 2, 125 young adults completed the Hazan and Shaver prototypes, a dimensional measure of attachment, and measures of psychological and physical symptoms. The categorical and dimensional measures of adult attachment yielded similar results, with secure attachment associated with low levels of psychological symptoms and anxious/ambivalent associated with high levels of symptoms. There was no association between attachment and physical symptoms. These findings suggest the usefulness of measuring attachment styles when investigating health and coping.

Structural Family Therapy

Structural Family Therapy was developed by Salvador Minuchin and colleagues during the 1960s as part of the growing interest in systemic ways of conceptualising human distress and relationship dilemmas, and in working therapeutically with those natural systems and relationships, thought to give rise to distress. Structural family therapy is underpinned by a clearly articulated model of family functioning, and has been developed and used most consistently in services for children and families. A growing body of empirical evidence attests to the efficacy of structural family therapy. As an approach it was extensively critiqued during the 1980s by feminist writers and during the 1990s by those interested in the implications of a social constructionist position. Structural family therapy continues to evolve in response to challenges mounted from within and outwith the systemic field, and as part of integrative practice and multisystemic approaches, with practitioners ever mindful of the need for regular feedback from family members themselves.

Integrating couples and family therapy into a community alcohol service: a pantheoretical approach

This paper discusses the contribution of family systems theory and therapy to mainstream alcohol treatment programmes. Systemic psychotherapy is integrated with group analytic psychotherapy in a couples and family therapy service within a community alcohol service (CAS) which uses the Prochaska and Diclemente model of stages of change. Problems and solutions in putting these complex ideas into practice are discussed, with specific reference to issues of engagement. An example of our work with a couple is offered to illustrate our weave of theory and practice.

Are suppression and repressive coping related

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is a relationship between suppression and repressive coping. The Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Marlowe–Crowne) and the Bendig version of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) were used to select repressor and control groups, who completed a measure of suppression, the Courtauld Emotional Control Scale (CECS). Results showed that there were no group differences on the depression and anger scales of the CECS, although repressors (high Marlowe–Crowne, low MAS) and low-anxious (low Marlowe–Crowne, low MAS) scored significantly lower on the CECS Anxiety scale than the high anxious group (low Marlowe–Crowne, high MAS) and defensive high anxious group (high Marlowe–Crowne, high MAS). The results suggest that repressive coping and suppression are different constructs and that the CECS may bypass repressors’ tendency to answer self-report instruments in a positive fashion.

Working systemically with family violence: risk, responsibility and collaboration

In this article we describe a project which aims to ensure prevention and continued protection from violence for family members. We outline our theoretical approach to assessment and working with violence in family relationships and the associated ethical problems. We identify three recurrent themes: risk, collaboration, and responsibility. We focus on our work with couples, where the man is violent towards the woman. Within this discussion we identify other important clinical issues.

Setting Up a Domestic Violence Service

BACKGROUND This paper describes some of the issues we confronted and resolved in setting up an independent dedicated domestic violence service. METHOD In our project we work with violent behaviour that is known or suspected in the contexts of both assessment and therapy. We describe our policy on domestic violence, including confidentiality, our reflecting practices, our relationships with referrers as a means of managing the risk of violence, and the assessment and evaluation procedures we use for the assessment of risk of violence. We include some discussion of the effects of domestic violence on children and the effects of doing this work on ourselves. CONCLUSIONS We conclude by discussing the moral issues involved for us as therapists in doing this work, the impact of the legal frame within which we work, and some of the social and psychological theories we find helpful in understanding the causes and effects of violent behaviour in the family.

Ethical dilemmas of a clinician/researcher interviewing women who have grown up in a family where there was domestic violence

This paper attempts to illuminate some of the ethical dilemmas of a clinician/researcher interviewing women about a sensitive topic- their experience of having witnessed domestic violence in the family they grew up in, as part of a grounded theory study. Vignettes are presented to illustrate the self-reflexive process of the researcher and how she understood the effects of the interview process on her and the participants. The authors argue that doing in-depth qualitative research interviewing is an intervention in the life of the participants, especially, but not only, when the researchers are clinically-trained. However, this clinical training may also be an important resource from which to draw from, to act ethically and understand some of the complexity of the interaction between researcher and participants.