Elaine S. LeVine

Critical phases among adoptees and their families: Implications for therapy

A growing body of literature indicates that families with adopted children seek mental health care for the adoptive and other family members more frequently and for different reasons than biologically-bound families. This paper addresses the struggles and corrective strategies for adoptive families at various levels of their development.

For parents: Recognizing and changing inappropriate services through an interactional approach

When a gifted child appears to have difficulty adapting to school, typically either the school or the child receives the blame. The source of the problem situation often resides in the interaction of school and child factors. One approach to alleviating such problems stems from a systems or interactional model. This article provides parents with specific strategies, based on an interactional model, for working effectively with schools to ensure the best possible services for a gifted child. Major steps include recognizing the need for intervention, developing parent‐school partnerships for change, and monitoring progress.

An overview of pluralistic therapy with application to Hispanics

Abstract This paper pinpoints three critical questions in pluralistic counseling: Are the psychological differences between ethnic groups extensive enough to necessitate ethnic-specific therapeutic techniques?; How should we educate and measure effectiveness of pluralistic therapists?; What research is needed to close gaps of our understanding about pluralistic therapy? Study of Hispanic cultures provides many examples of maladjustment syndromes that are culturally-specific. These culturally-specific syndromes of maladjustment among Hispanics are used to illustrate directions for developing ethnic-specific therapeutic modalities. The characteristics of effective pluralistic therapists as delineated in social and psychological literature are summarized, and directions for future research are outlined.