Debra Mollen

Attachment and conflict communication in adult romantic relationships

This study explored the connections between adult attachment styles (i.e., secure, preoccupied, fearful-avoidant, dismissing) and communication patterns during conflict (i.e., mutual constructive, demand-withdraw, mutual avoidance, and withholding). Specifically, this study examined how the combination of both partners’ attachment styles, or couple type (i.e., secure-secure, secure-insecure, insecure-insecure), related to self-reported conflict communication patterns. Couples had been together for at least two years (i.e., in a dating, cohabitating, engaged, or marital relationship). Participants included 43 different-sex couples and 10 same-sex couples, who lived primarily in a large metropolitan area in the southwestern US. Secure-secure couples reported the most mutually constructive communication, while the insecure-insecure couples group reported the most demand-withdraw and mutual avoidance and withholding communication. Implications for counseling with couples and families are discussed.

Beyond Microskills: Toward a Model of Counseling Competence

Heeding the call to the profession, the authors present both a definition and model of counseling competence. Undergirding the model are 15 foundational principles. The authors conceptualize counseling competence as more complex and nuanced than do traditional microskills models and include cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. The model consists of 4 superordinate competencies—determining therapeutic outcomes, facilitating therapeutic outcomes, evaluating therapeutic outcomes, and sustaining therapeutic outcomes—and 12 subordinate competencies: self-appraisal/self-evaluating, structuring the therapy, building a therapeutic alliance, applying a conceptual map of therapeutic change, using therapeutic techniques, self-correcting, surmounting obstacles, leveraging opportunities, managing special situations, working with other systems of care, consulting other sources, and terminating therapy. Integral to the model is the integrated deep structure, which consists of 5 metacognitions: purposefulness, motivation, selection, sequencing, and timing.

Microskills Training: Evolution, Reexamination, and Call for Reform

For more than four decades, the microskills approach has been the dominant paradigm for training entry-level counseling students. At its inception, the model met a critical need: instruction in discrete counseling behaviors, which at the time was conspicuously missing from training curricula. Although these behaviors have become essential components of training in counseling psychology and other mental health specialties, the authors’ reexamination of the literature leads them to question the overall adequacy of the model. After reviewing prominent textbooks in the field and evaluating the research on microskills training, the authors identify five serious limitations of the model. While respecting and retaining the positive features of the microskills approach, its limitations bespeak the need to develop training paradigms that embrace a broader model of counselor competence.

Locus of control, minority stress, and psychological distress among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.

Within the framework of minority stress theory, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals are conceptualized as members of a minority group defined by sexual orientation. Two of the component processes of minority stress hypothesized by Meyer (2003), internalized heterosexism and the experience of prejudice events, were examined in the current study. Both internalized heterosexism and the experience of prejudice events have been associated with increased psychological distress in LGB populations. Researchers have also observed a relationship between external locus of control and increased psychological distress in general population samples. The current study explored whether locus of control served as a moderator in the relationship between the overall psychological distress of LGB individuals and both internalized heterosexism and the experience of workplace-based prejudice events (n = 165). Results indicated that locus of control served as a moderator in the relationship between experience of workplace-based prejudice events and overall psychological distress but not for the relationship between internalized heterosexism and distress.

Voices of Early Career Psychologists in Division 17, the Society of Counseling Psychology

This article reports on a survey of early career members of the Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP). Seventy early career psychologists completed a survey assessing the usefulness and climate of SCP, barriers to and facilitative factors for involvement in SCP, inclusiveness of SCP regarding cultural diversity and professional interests, degree of involvement in various aspects of SCP, and their areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with SCP membership. In general, participants were split on the degree to which they were satisfied with SCP, with participants in faculty positions reporting significantly more positive views of SCP than their practitioner counterparts did. Faculty members viewed SCP as more useful to their careers and reported more positive social interactions within SCP than did non–faculty members. Open-ended responses suggested that satisfaction with SCP was related to availability of mentorship and opportunities for involvement in SCP. Suggestions for engaging new professionals in SCP are offered.

Counseling Competence Application and Implications of a Model

Working from their proposed model of counseling competence, the authors address critical implications and applications of the model. First, they present a 10-parameter juxtaposition of the model of counseling competence and the microskills training model, including points of comparision and contrast. Second, they discuss implications of the model for practice, including guidelines for teaching and an application exercise. Third, they discuss implications of the model for research, including improvements over design flaws and the limited focus that has typified research on microskills training.

Positive Psychology Considerations and Implications for Counseling Psychology

Why has the specialty of counseling psychology been overlooked in the larger conversation about positive psychology? Is it reasonable that counseling psychology claims positive psychology as its own? What are some of the problems in defining positive psychology, and how does the lack of consensus around operationalization thwart discourse on this construct? In this reaction, the authors address these questions and pose implications for positive psychology beyond the typical applications to clients.

Training in Counseling Psychology An Introduction to the Major Contribution

This Major Contribution, consisting of four articles, critically evaluates the status of training in counseling psychology, especially at the entry level, and offers a model for moving the field forward. In this first article, we provide a rationale for the contribution, laying the foundation for the subsequent three articles. Specifically, we ask the questions, Do training programs in counseling psychology produce the desired results? and Is the prevailing paradigm of training effective in developing counselor competence? Then we report on the research showing a disappointing relationship among training, experience, and expertise. We conclude by inviting the profession to engage in honest self-reflection about the status and future direction of training in counseling psychology.

Women's Sexuality and Meaning Making

The purpose of the current study was to challenge depictions of traditionally oppressive female sexuality by explicitly exploring diverse womens positive experiences of sexuality and to capture the unique meanings women ascribe to their sexuality through the use of participant-generated metaphor. We interviewed 17 diverse women regarding the meaning of sexuality in their lives. Coding revealed that metaphors for sexuality provided a creative and integrative way for women to express the complexity of their sexuality. In addition, a sexual developmental trajectory emerged from the analysis, as did themes of fluidity and ideal sexuality. Implications for theory and therapy, as well as future directions for research, are offered.

Gender-Based Violence and Armed Conflict: A Community-Informed Socioecological Conceptual Model From Northeastern Uganda

The high prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) in armed conflict has been documented in various national contexts, but less is known about the complex pathways that constitute the relation between the two. Employing a community-based collaborative approach, we constructed a community-informed socioecological conceptual model from a feminist perspective, detailing how armed conflict relates to GBV in a conflict-affected rural community in Northeastern Uganda. The research questions were as follows: (1) How does the community conceptualize GBV? and (2) How does armed conflict relate to GBV? Nine focus group discussions divided by gender, age, and profession and six key informant interviews were conducted. Participants’ ages ranged from 9 to 80 years (n = 34 girls/women, n = 43 boys/men). Grounded theory was used in analysis. Participants conceptualized eight forms of and 22 interactive variables that contributed to GBV. Armed conflict affected physical violence/quarreling, sexual violence, early marriage, and land grabbing via a direct pathway and four indirect pathways initiated through looting of resources, militarization of the community, death of a parent(s) or husband, and sexual violence. The findings suggest that community, organizational, and policy-level interventions, which include attention to intersecting vulnerabilities for exposure to GBV in conflict-affected settings, should be prioritized. While tertiary psychological interventions with women and girls affected by GBV in these areas should not be eliminated, we suggest that policy makers and members of community and organizational efforts make systemic and structural changes. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQs website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index