Charles R. McAdams

Promoting the moral reasoning of undergraduate business students through a deliberate psychological education-based classroom intervention

Educating business students for ethical professional practice is a growing concern for both the corporate world and business education. Highly publicised scandals have pushed public trust in business to an all‐time low, resulting in losses of customers and high employee turnover. Corporate and business education leaders have begun to press for more effective models for promoting ethical development in business education. This study examined the effectiveness of one such model, Deliberate Psychological Education (DPE), in promoting greater cognitive moral reasoning in undergraduate business students. Its significant, positive findings hold promise for the promotion of more ethical business professionals through preparatory classroom intervention.

Voices from "the front": how student violence is changing the experience of school leaders

ABSTRACT The nature of student violence in Americas schools has changed over the past two decades. Research suggests that there are two distinct kinds or “subtypes” of aggression in youth-reactive aggression and proactive aggression. Reactive aggression is characterized as a “hot-blooded,” automatic, defensive response to immediate and often misperceived threat. Proactive aggression, on the other hand, is described as highly organized, “cold-blooded,” and premeditated rather than automatic. According to responses from a national survey of school administrators, the frequency of proactive aggression has doubled among middle and high school students and nearly tripled at the elementary school level in the past 20 years. The purpose of this article is twofold: (a) to report findings of an inquiry into the impact of increasing proactive aggression in schools as experienced by principals and assistant principals nationwide, and (b) to present the views of “front line” school leaders with regard to the impact, causes and potential solutions to the problem.

The Safety Session: A Prerequisite to Progress in Counseling Families with Physically Aggressive Children and Adolescents

Strategies are needed that assist both current practitioners and counselors-in-training in working safely and effectively with potentially aggressive young people and their families. To emphasize with at-risk client families the seriousness of violence, all or part of an initial or early counseling session with an at-risk family should be devoted exclusively to prescribed risk assessment and crisis planning processes. This safety session is intended to reduce the risk of client violence by opening a forthright dialogue regarding the risk of violent behavior, specifying appropriate behavior, and setting limits and consequences for noncompliance. The specific framework for a safety session and a case study illustrating its application are presented.

Perceptions of the First Family Counseling Session: Why Families Come Back

This article reports the findings of a study that examined why families choose to return to family therapy after their first family therapy session. The 87 families that were referred to a university family counseling center for assistance with their children’s behavioral problems at school completed an author-developed survey in which they rated the influence of various therapist-related and family-related factors on their decision to return for a second session. Factor analysis of the survey data revealed that the families’ positive experience of the therapist during the first session had the strongest influence on their continuation decision. The findings suggest that family therapists are not helpless victims to client attrition after the first session, but rather, have the strongest potential for influencing client decisions to come back. Specific family therapist actions for maximizing family continuation after the first session are described.

A Tale of Two Families: Helping Military Couples Understand and Accept a Returning Soldier’s “Unit Family” Into Their Relationship

During military deployment, soldiers can become part of a system of people and experiences in their assigned military unit that may rival the importance of relationships and experiences within their natural families at home. Following deployment, returning soldiers may face the challenges of managing membership in two complex and powerful family systems, each with its own unique priorities, rules of engagement, and demands for the soldier’s attention and participation that may not always be compatible. Achieving a mutual understanding of the system of close relationships formed around military deployment and incorporating this new “unit family” system into a couple’s marital relationship and natural family system becomes a task that is important and, possibly, essential to successful family reintegration after deployment.

In-session therapist actions for improving client retention in family therapy: Translating empirical research into clinical practice

ABSTRACT Up to half of clients in psychotherapy do not return after their initial session, and clients in family therapy are more likely than those in individual therapy to terminate after the first session. Recent research has identified six therapist-related conditions in the family therapy session that have influenced client decisions to continue after the first session. This article reports the findings of a review of the professional literature aimed at operationalizing the six therapist-related conditions by identifying specific family therapist actions that can be deliberately applied during initial family therapy sessions to increase the chances that client families will return.