Gina M. Brelsford

Spiritual disclosure between older adolescents and their mothers.

This study examines the role of spiritual disclosure within older adolescent-mother relationships. Spiritual disclosure is defined as mutual disclosure of personal religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Three hundred 18- to 20-year-old college students and 130 of their mothers reported on spiritual disclosure in their relationships. According to both parties, greater spiritual disclosure was related to higher relationship satisfaction, greater use of collaborative conflict resolution strategies, less dysfunctional communication patterns, less verbal aggression, and increased general disclosure in mother-adolescent relationships beyond global religiousness and demographics. Spiritual disclosure also predicted unique variance in collaborative conflict resolution strategies beyond these factors and general disclosure. The findings underscore the value of attending to the interpersonal dimension of religion/spirituality. More specifically, the results suggest that spiritual disclosure is an indicator of relationship quality, one that is tied to better relationship functioning, and one that merits further attention in studies of family dynamics.

Religiosity, Spirituality, Sexual Attitudes, and Sexual Behaviors Among College Students

The purpose of this study was to determine whether religiosity, spirituality, and sexual attitudes accounted for differences in sexual behaviors among college students. The sample included 960 college students enrolled at four northeastern colleges. Results indicated differences in sexual attitudes, religiosity, and spirituality by gender. Moreover, sexual attitudes, religiosity, and spirituality were associated with sexual behaviors among college students. Sexual behaviors among males were influenced by their sexual attitudes, religiosity, and spirituality, while for females, their sexual behaviors were mostly influenced by their sexual attitudes. College health professionals can use these findings when discussing sexual practices with students.

Core Principles in Cognitive Therapy with Youth

Cognitive therapy (CT) is increasingly being adopted by child psychiatrists for a variety of clinical problems. This article explains the cardinal principles, practices, and processes associated with this approach. More specifically, a brief overview of the treatment model is offered along with an emphasis on case conceptualization and modular format for treatment. The value of collaboration, guided discovery, establishing a good therapeutic alliance, empiricism, and transparency in clinical work, as well as bringing the head and heart to consensus, is explained. Finally, the hallmark session structure that characterizes CT is delineated.

Training Methods in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Tradition and Invention

Cognitive behavioral supervisors influence new generations of clients and clinicians. Accordingly, the task is meaningful, rewarding, challenging, and critically important. This article describes traditional and unconventional approaches to supervising clinicians in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Traditional methods such as the use of the Cognitive Therapy Rating Scale, videotape/audiotape review, live supervision, and cotherapy are reviewed. Further, inventive procedures for teaching supervisees cognitive flexibility, empathy, tolerance for ambiguity, and remaining steadfast when faced with negative emotional arousal are explained. Popular media, improvisation and acting exercises, and working with professional actors as teaching methods are explained.

Using Cognitive Behavioral Interventions to Help Children Cope with Parental Military Deployments

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are associated with more deployments than in previous years. Recent estimates show 1.2 million school children have a parent that is serving in the active military. Family stress increases proportionately to the length of deployment and the perception of danger. In a recent study, twenty percent of children whose parent was being deployed were identified as “high risk” for psychosocial disturbances. A deployed parent represents a stressor reflecting ambiguous loss which prompts emotional distress. Cognitive behaviorally based prevention and intervention efforts have shown considerable promise with children experiencing a variety of disorders who do not necessarily have a deployed parent. For instance the Penn Resiliency Program has enjoyed considerable empirical support. It seems quite reasonable that these favorable results would generalize to a population of military children. This paper will briefly review the extant literature on the effects of parental deployment on children’s emotional well-being and then recommend a variety of cognitive behavioral interventions to enhance their psychological welfare.

Religious and Spiritual Issues: Family Therapy Approaches with Military Families Coping with Deployment

Exploring religious and spiritual issues in family therapy has become more commonplace over the past decade (Walsh, Spiritual resources in family therapy, 2009), but understanding how religion and spirituality evolve within military families is unclear. Further, the stressors that family members face in the midst of a deployment are paramount, for which many individuals use a variety of coping skills. In this paper we explore these links further by reviewing the scant literature focused on military families and religious and spiritual coping. This literature review is followed by a description of strategies to understand family members’ religious and spiritual lives related to family functioning and military deployment. Finally, strategies to enhance family functioning through both an integration of secular, religious, and spiritual pathways in a family therapy setting are discussed.

Exploring Latino College Students’ Sexual Behaviors in Relation to Their Sexual Attitudes, Religiousness, and Spirituality

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, sexual attitudes, and sexual behaviors among Latino and non-Latino college students. The sample included 230 undergraduate college students enrolled at a mid-sized University in the western USA. Sexual behaviors among Latinos were significantly correlated with sexual attitudes and spiritual disclosure in close relationships. However, sexual behaviors for non-Latino respondents were only significantly related to sexual attitudes, not indices of religiousness or spirituality. Sexual educators, health educators, college-level instructors, and counselors can use these results to help Latino and non-Latino students alike understand the relationship between their religious and spiritual beliefs, sexual attitudes, and sexual behaviors.

Political Affiliation, Spirituality, and Religiosity: Links to Emerging Adults’ Life Satisfaction and Optimism

The goal of this study was to extend the existing literature regarding the intersection between belief systems shaping psychological processes and subjective well-being among emerging adults. A nationwide sample of 3966 college students reported on their political affiliation, spirituality, and religiosity in relation to their subjective well-being. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that politically conservative participants were significantly more optimistic and satisfied with life than their liberal counterparts and Republican emerging adults reported significantly higher life satisfaction than Democrats. Republican emerging adults also reported significantly higher rates of religiosity and spirituality than Democratic and Independent politically affiliated emerging adults. Our findings corroborate and expand upon existing literature regarding belief systems and political identity as determinants of subjective well-being in emerging adults.

Grateful and Sanctified: Exploring the Parent–Child Context

This study tested links between gratitude and sanctification of the current parent–child relationship for 452 college students and 194 of their parents. Intrapersonal religiousness and spirituality have clear links to gratitude, but there is a dearth of studies that explore sanctification of the family context in relation to gratitude. The cognitive process of sanctifying a family relationship that hinges on perceiving the parent–child relationship as having significant spiritual qualities may have important implications for gratitude. Thus, sanctifying a family relationship may be a contributor to gratitude. To test this assumption, an incremental validity model was employed. Hierarchical regression analyses predicting college students’ and parents’ gratitude were conducted, but only parents’ reports of parent–child relationship sanctification through manifestation of God was significant after controlling for gender, parents’ general religiousness/spirituality, and parent–child relationship quality. A discussion ensues focused on relational spirituality and gratitude in a family context.

Caring for Those Who Serve in the Stormy Present: Introduction to the Special Issue on Treating Military Personnel and Their Dependents

Springsteen (2005) in a mournful tribute, Devils and Dust, wrote, ‘‘And I’m just trying to survive. What if what you do to survive kills the things you love.’’ This profound lyric speaks to the emotional toll combat takes on veterans. Current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan reflect unique stressors for both the service personnel and their dependents. The combat theatre is radically different from previous conflicts. Lengths of deployment are longer and more unpredictable. Troops and their families are challenged to cope with many severe stressors. Veterans return from their tours of duty emotionally changed from their experiences. Sadly, many military veterans return home with physical and emotional injuries. The emotional wounds often take the form of Post Traumatic Stress, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. The emotional toll frequently tears at the fabric of marital and familial relationships. While many returning troops seeks services from the Veteran’s Administration and other military resources, the civilian clinical community must also ready itself for a burgeoning population of adults, couples, families, and children psychologically impacted by combat operations. Sammons and Batten (2008) commented ‘‘…we are truly at an epochal moment in developing our understanding of the psychological sequelae of war.’’ This special issue ideally expands the behavioral health community’s knowledge base and scope of interventions to help individuals, couples, and families deal with the emotional effects of serving during combat operations. It is our professional pleasure to co-edited these fine contributions and to introduce these timely and compelling articles to the journal’s