David G. Purves

Surviving the System as a Foster Carer

The foster care system in Britain is under pressure, with local authorities finding it difficult to offer sufficient placement choice to looked after children, so the retention of existing foster carers is vital. Foster carers dissatisfaction with the attitude and support offered by social services has been linked to their premature departure from fostering. Flora Maclay, Maureen Bunce and David G Purves explore the quality of the relationship between foster carers and local authority social workers and how it develops. From interviews with foster carers, four principle themes emerged: foster carers often feel under-supported and undervalued; independent networking acts as a survival mechanism; foster carers become more assertive with social workers over time; and some carers are able to manage the system whereas others become dragged into draining conflict. A model tracing the evolution of the relationship that foster carers have with social workers, from entry into the service to departure, is proposed to explain the existing levels of conflict. Recommendations for change within the system are suggested.

An open trial in the NHS of Blues Begone: a new home based computerized CBT program.

BACKGROUNDnComputer based treatment for depression and anxiety has been available for several years and has demonstrated useful clinical effects. Most existing computerized CBT products in the UK that are designed to treat depression and co-morbid anxiety require patients to visit a clinic and require staff input to manage the process. Such intervention adds to the costs and bottlenecks in delivering a clinically effective treatment with mass availability. Internet treatment options are becoming more readily available, although data to support use are not yet strong, and most still require human assessment and telephone support. Blues Begone is a new computerized CBT program that has been designed to be used at home with minimal human support.nnnMETHODnThis pilot project provides data from an open trial of Blues Begone with both primary and secondary care patients.nnnRESULTSnOne hundred patients started Blues Begone, 58 completed the program, 72% (n = 42) of completers achieved reliable change and (n = 36) 62% achieved both reliable and clinically significant change, and may be considered to have recovered by the end of the program.nnnCONCLUSIONnThese data provide the first demonstration of the potential viability of Blues Begone as a home based computerized treatment for depression and anxiety.

A study of posttraumatic stress in a student population

Abstract The authors examined the incidence of posttraumatic stress (PTS), with respect to levels of exposure to traumatic events, in a British student population. Respondents (N = 700) completed a standard questionnaire booklet that contained a posttraumatic stress disorder interview. The questionnaire collected personal demographic information and was used by researchers to ascertain whether respondents had experienced a traumatic event. Consistent with previous American studies, PTS was found to be relatively common; 23.3% of the sample showed either current or past PTS. Female participants had a significantly higher incidence of PTS than did male participants, although the latter were more likely to report having experienced a traumatic event. The experience of trauma was significantly associated with the likelihood of PTS. The authors discuss implications of their results in terms of long-term consequences of unresolved trauma.

Task Characteristics and Performance in Interpersonal Cognitive Problem-solving

The authors examined the extent to which performance on interpersonal cognitive problem-solving (ICPS) tasks is affected by whether the goals within the dilemmas to be addressed are sex typed. Fifty children, aged 7-8 years old, were tested for the core ICPS skills of Alternative Solutions Thinking (AST) and Consequential Thinking (CT) on a series of 8 social problem-solving tasks, 4 having goals characteristically more attractive to boys and 4 with goals more attractive to girls. A 2 × 2 MANOVA was used to compare the performances of boys and girls on each set of sex-typed tasks with the 3 dependent variables of liking for the tasks, number of alternative solutions suggested, and the number of consequences anticipated. As expected, liking for the tasks was higher if the activities were characteristically associated with the participants own gender (p < .001), although the different tasks did not produce any significant gender differences in the numbers of AST or CT suggestions they prompted. Gender differences in childrens peer relationships were considered, and the implications of these results for the format of ICPS interventions are noted.

Post-traumatic stress and self-disclosure.

Post-traumatic stress (PTS) is a significant clinical problem in the general population. However, only a portion of those exposed to trauma develop PTS. Patterns of emotional self-disclosure have the potential to explain some of the individual differences in the development and continuation of symptoms. In this study, the authors investigated the links between emotional self-disclosure, as measured by the Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale (ESDS; W. E. Snell, R. S. Miller, & S. S. Belk, 1988), and a post-trauma psychological state, as measured by the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI; J. Briere, 1995). Their results showed that, in general, men engaged in less emotional self-disclosure than did women, and as TSI scores increased, the men were significantly less willing to disclose emotions of happiness. For women, as TSI scores increased they were significantly more willing to engage in talk about emotions related to anxiety but less willing to talk about emotions related to fear. The authors considered these data within current understandings of the role of emotional self-disclosure in the processing of traumatic experiences.

Food sharing and perceptions of the status of a relationship

This study examined how individuals may form an impression of the closeness of the relationship between two individuals based on an observation of them sharing food. An opportunity sample of 72 participants watched a video clip of young adults in same-sex or mixed-sex dyads eating a meal together. In the experimental conditions, each member of the dyad also offered or fed a morsel of food to the other person. Analysis showed that food sharing was seen as indicative of familiarity between the members of a dyad. Actually feeding the other person a morsel of food was seen as an indicator of intimacy in male dyads but not in mixed-sex or female dyads. Results are discussed in terms of expectations of intimacy in male and female relationships.

Attachment Style, Family and Romantic Relationships

In 1987 Hazan and Shaver showed that patterns of romantic love reflected attachment styles. In an extension of that study with 39 men and 33 women in college (ages 18–36 years), this research shows that family relationships may also affect romantic relationships indirectly through their association with attachment styles.

Involvement and outcomes in short-term interpersonal cognitive problem solving groups

This study examined the extent to which patterns of involvement in interpersonal cognitive problem solving (ICPS) groups were predictive of improvements in ICPS skills. Thirty-one 7–8-year-old children were assigned to experimental or control groups. Participants in the experimental group participated in six sessions of ICPS group work. All participants were tested for the ICPS skills of alternative solutions thinking (AST) and consequential thinking (CT) immediately before and after the group work period. As predicted, the experimental group showed significantly greater improvements in AST and CT skills than the control group. Means-end thinking was significantly correlated with improvements in AST and CT, level of involvement and positive behaviour within the groups were predictive of improvements in AST but not CT. Findings indicated the importance of group dynamics for ICPS outcomes and are discussed in relation to their theoretical and practical implications.