Emily H. Mudd

Self-reports of emotional distress in a sample of urban black high school students

Emotional distress as assessed by the self-report Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL) was examined in a sample of 607 urban black high school students aged 15–18. These adolescents reported high distress primarily about feelings of disadvantage, volatile anger, interpersonal sensitivity and loneliness. Females were significantly more likely than males to indicate emotional distress, although several of the leading distress items were endorsed equally by both groups. Male and female scores across the HSCL factors differed in degree rather than form. The great majority of these adolescents did not report significant emotional distress. These data provide a base from a non-clinical sample for comparison with other adolescent groups where emotional distress may play a role.

Success in family living—does it last? A twenty-year follow-up

Abstract This paper reports selected findings from a 20-year ongoing study of successful family functioning. The study began in 1957–1960 with a nationwide sample of 100 young husband-wife-children families. In 1978–1979, 59 families, now in late middle age, completed a follow-up questionnaire. Their family histories are marked by pragmatic, flexible adaptation. Family dynamics are egalitarian in the marital dyad, democratic with regard to the sons and daughters. Relations with adult children are frequent, reinforced by a thriving transfer economy. Close friendships and active community involvement are cited as important sources of strength. While severely troubling situational events affecting family members are enumerated, few are defined as problems. Perceived problems are most often resolved within the family or, less often, with appropriate professionals. Husbands and wives express continuing satisfaction with marriage and family. They are optimistic about the future and, through careful planning, an...

Factors Affecting Movement in Casework

reality one cannot literally be another person but can only emulate the role of another. This was difficult for the stutterer because for him symbolic activity was felt as real activity, as illustrated in his speech. However, to make this change from the impossible to the feasible constituted separation from the person of the therapist. Again this separation was difficult for the stutterer because it flew in the face of one 103

YOUTH AND POPULATION

Nonhuman species, from unicellular forms to animal herds with instinctive socialized behavior, have been controlled in size by their available environmental resources. So far only the human species has been able to manipulate its environment. In the last ten centuries, accommodation has been made to include 31/2 billion people on our planet. The demographers tell us that i f the present rates continue, this number will double in 30 short years and become 7 billions before our eyes-and then to standing room only. What, then, of our already overtaxed resources? Common intelligence concedes that the youth of the world will have a determinative function in handling this problem. In the last analysis, population control is an intensely human problem. We must now ask what will influence youth in relation to the future? How real is this threat of overpopulation to warm-blooded and healthily sexed young men and women? What can substitute for the miracle of a wanted child nurtured by one’s own body? What brings man closer to immortality than the experience of reproducing himself? And to these instinctive forces must be added the cultural heritage of hundreds of generations throughout the world, in which survival for parents was dependent on support by their children, generations in which the religions of the world have blessed the advent of each new life as it arrived. Medical miracles have reduced the death rate and gladdened the lives of millions, but the resulting population explosion has gradually and insistently saddened the outlook of mothers and fathers throughout those areas in the world and in our United States where living conditions do not produce, and show no possibility of producing, situations in which numbers of children can be nurtured to healthy physical and emotional development, with a future worth living for. It has been shown conclusively that a succession of births in any substandard family increases greatly the odds against achieving adequate health, education, or job potential for every child in this family. “Children from smaller families can take better advantage of learning situations in and out of school. School dropout rates in turn are lower among such children and they have more years of formal schooling. Needless to say, greater education is associated with higher occupational status, higher income, and

Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Families

The conduct of human affairs, in contrast to progress in science and technology, has suffered from reliance upon generalities, superstitions, fallacies, and prejudices. There is all too little pertinent research concerning man’s relation to his fellows and few guides to aid in the attainment of creative, co-operative and mutually constructive interaction. In this connection certain students of human behavior have become increasingly interested in the family unit as one of the smallest social systems in which the dynamics of interpersonal conflict resolution can be observed. A family historian, Professor Goode, who recently completed a major study of current family patterns in many countries of the world observed, “So many ‘facts’ need to be corrected. Ideal patterns of family behavior have been thought to be real ones, and a hypothetical harmony in past family relations has been assumed, rather than treated as a hypothesis to be tested.” (1)

Pre-testing Methods for Follow-up to Validate Measures of Movement in Casework

The four authors are associated with the Marriage Council of Philadelphia, which is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Sellers is Research Associate, Dr. Preston is Research Consultant, Dr. Mudd is Director, and Dr. Peltz is Psychiatric Consultant, Marriage Council of Philadelphia. Also, Dr. Preston is Professor of Psychology, Dr. Mudd is Assistant Professor of Family Study in Psychiatry, and Dr. Peltz is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania. This paper was presented by Mrs. Sellers at the National Conference of Social Work, Atlantic City, New Jersey, May 13, 1954.

Effect of Echinid Egg-Waters on the Surface Potential Difference of the Sperm.

The egg-waters of the sand-dollar (Echinarachnius parma), starfish (Asterias forbesii), and sea-urchin (Arbacia punctulata), have been tested by electrophoresis for their effects on the sperm of each of these 3 species. Egg-water was routinely prepared by allowing freshly obtained eggs to stand a half-hour or more in contact with 0.5 M. NaCl adjusted with NaOH to an approximate pH of 8.2. This solution was filtered and mixed in equal volumes with suspensions of fresh sperm in 0.5 M. NaCl of pH 8.2. In 2 experiments the egg-water and sperm suspensions were both made with sea-water instead of NaCl solution. Later experiments showed that the exposure to 0.5 M. NaCl of pH 8.2 did not kill the sperm or the eggs from which the egg-waters were derived. For agglutination the egg-water used was the same as in the corresponding electrophoresis experiment, but the sperm were suspended in sea-water. The agglutination technique was essentially that of Lillie and Just. 1 In the earlier experiments precautions to obtain the sperm and eggs free from perivisceral fluid were not taken; in the later experiments such precautions were taken. Differences in result due to such precautions were not noted. Electrophoresis was conducted in a Northrop-Kunitz microcataphoresis cell 2 of a type described elsewhere. 3 Observations were made on sperm whose heads were in the focal plane. Each of the sperm species studied was found to be negatively charged. In Table I are given the mean cataphoretic velocities with their probable errors, and the surface potential differences calculated from these velocities making the assumptions of Northrop and Cullen. 4 The values in Table I are all for control sperm suspensions before contact with egg-water.

Training Dual Sex Teams for Rapid Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction: A Pilot Program

In this chapter, the authors describe the training program for sex therapists developed by the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in 1971. A number of the difficulties that were encountered as the program progressed are described. The relationship between the cotherapist trainees and the relationship between the trainees and their staff supervisors were both crucial elements in the training process.

POPULATION, HEALTH, AND FAMILY

In its report to The New York Academy of Sciences conference Environment and Society in Transition, the Working Group on Population, Health, and Family suggested that “a central concern is to make optimum provision for individual man while moving toward more effective and comprehensive planning for protection of the biosphere.” Accordingly, it recommended a biological bill of rights for individual man which would include : 1. The right to an adequate food supply, free from toxic additives or pollutants ; 2. The right to have clothing and shelter consonant with physiological and aesthetic requirements; 3. The right to live in an equitable physical environment, aesthetically attractive and physiologically healthful; 4. The right to an upbringing that does not emotionally malform and does lay the basis for healthy psychological development; 5 . The right to education continuing as desired throughout life, the aim of education to be the growth and development of the individual to the fullest extent of capacity and interest; 6. The right to live in an equitable psychological environment, characterized by respect for human dignity and diversity; 7. The opportunity for creative work and self-development at all stages of life; 8. The right to adequate medical care.’ The suggestion of a biological bill of rights is a recognition that public policies on population, health, and family are not ends in themselves but rather must be meaningfully related to improvements in the quality of life. For example, population growth is not by itself a “problem.” It is a “problem” only as it translates into increased pollution, environmental deterioration, rapid utilization of resources, congestion of outdoor recreational areas, higher crime and automobile accident rates associated with an increase in

Counselors' Attitudes toward Technical Aids to the Counseling Process

7. The reasons pensioners seek employment vary. The psychological need for occupation and the material need for financial assistance, however, are the two overriding issues. These color and magnify all the other ascribed reasons. 8. Once having terminated employment, older workers have more difficulty than younger workers in finding new employment; they are unemployed for longer periods of time; they must make more energetic job-seeking efforts; and ordinarily they are not as well organized in their hunt for jobs. In sum, they require some form of organized assistance. 9. Employment is so important to older workers that they are frequently willing to compromise on the positions they accept, the conditions of work and the salaries offered to them. It is important, therefore, to guard them against possible exploitation. 10. On special programs of this nature, 165