Joyce Baptist

The Effects of the Intergenerational Transmission of Family Emotional Processes on Conflict Styles: The Moderating Role of Attachment

This study of 203 emerging adults investigated the moderating role of attachment on the intergenerational transmission of the effects of family emotional processes (enmeshment and disengagement) on adult offsprings conflict management. Results indicated that higher levels of perceived disengagement led to more use of hostile and volatile and lower use of validating conflict styles. Results further indicated that attachment moderated the effects of disengagement on hostile and volatile but not validating styles. High levels of anxiety exacerbated the effects of disengagement while low levels of avoidance buffered the effects of disengagement. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

A Collaborative-Affirmative Approach to Supervisory Practice

As gatekeepers of the profession, supervisors must work to ensure that supervisees do no harm to their clients. At times this requires a more hierarchical approach to supervision, which may pose difficulties for supervisors working from a collaborative stance. These matters may become intensified when supervisees work with lesbian, gay, or bisexual clients and affirmative supervision becomes necessary, which tends to come from a “knowing” stance. By highlighting the aspects of collaborative and affirmative supervision and the necessity of affirmative supervision, this article provides an affirmative approach to supervision that is congruent with collaborative supervisory practices. A way of including the presence of the lesbian, gay, or bisexual client in supervision in an effort to merge collaborative and affirmative supervision is addressed. An overview of the collaborative-affirmative approach, as well as supervisees who may be suitable candidates for receiving collaborative-affirmative supervision are discussed. The implications of the approach and its possible limitations are provided.

Relationship Maintenance Behaviors: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Emerging Adults in Romantic Relationships

Attachment and maintenance behaviors in romantic relationships were examined in Americans (n = 324) and Malaysians (n = 182). Findings indicated that avoidant attachment more strongly influenced maintenance behaviors in both countries compared to anxious attachment. Compared to the American participants, Malaysian participants reported higher anxious and avoidant attachment. Unlike the American participants, Malaysian men and women did not significantly differ in their attachment and maintenance behaviors, although men reported higher maintenance behaviors and lower avoidant attachment. There appeared to be a distinct division based on traditional sex-role socialization among the American participants in which women did more to maintain relationships. Clinical implications are discussed.

An examination of the broaden-and-build model of positive emotions in military marriages: an actor-partner analysis

How emotional and cognitive processes combined to produce resilience in military marriages post-combat deployments was examined using the “broaden-and-build model of positive emotions” with 40 military couples. The model suggests that positive emotions expand, and negative emotions impede cognitive processes. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, the association between positive and negative emotions on insight-causation was examined. Actor and partner effects were found for service members’ positive emotions and spouses’ negative emotions but not for service members’ negative emotions and spouses’ positive emotions. Service members’ actor and partner effects were significantly stronger than those of their spouses. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

Resilience Building Among Adolescents From National Guard Families Applying a Developmental Contextual Model

A better understanding of resilience building in military-connected children is needed to serve the needs of military families and sustain the security of the United States. This study explored the development of resilience in 30 adolescents from National Guard families that had been deployed. Using thematic analysis, we found that military-connected adolescents are affected by events in settings far beyond their control—political and civil upheavals in foreign lands, military cultural values, societal perception of the military and of wars, and communities’ responses to military families. When comfort was not offered by familiar social and school networks, these adolescents had only their families to which they could turn. The extent to which adolescents can depend on parents for comfort was influenced by the quality of the parental relationship. Even when parents were available, adolescents were inclined to uphold the military value of personal courage and withdraw to self-soothe.

Relationship Maintenance Behavior and Adult Attachment: An Analysis of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model

Associations between relationships maintenance behaviors (positivity, openness, assurances, and sharing tasks) and anxious and avoidant attachment were examined in 265 married couples. Using structural equation modeling to employ the actor-partner interdependence model, the use of positivity, assurances, and sharing tasks were found to be negatively associated with anxious and avoidant attachment for both husbands and wives. Being open and self-disclosing in marriage was not strongly associated with attachment. Results indicated that the use of maintenance behaviors in marriages could have the potential to foster increased security in partners. Research and clinical implications are discussed.

Black Women's Ambivalence About Marriage: A Voice-Centered Relational Approach

The authors examine singlehood among heterosexual Black women in the United States. The decline in marriage rates is most prevalent in the U.S. Black community. The evolution of marriage from being an institution—associated with familism—to individual growth and personal fulfillment, means groups that value familism may experience a tension between individual pursuits and the collective good. Knudson-Martins 1996 reframed concept of differentiation was utilized in this study to better understand how single Black women manage the tension between individuality and togetherness. Findings from in-depth interviews of five Black women demonstrate how gendered power imbalance contributes to the ambivalence about marriage. These results extend the literature on Black families in the United States and can better inform clinical practice.

Children of the U.S. National Guard Making Meaning and Responding to Parental Deployment

This qualitative study explored how 24 youths’ behaviors during deployment were influenced by their perceptions of their non-deployed parents. Interviews were conducted with youths of previously deployed National Guard parents. Analysis of interviews suggests that the youths’ interactions with their non-deployed parents strongly influence their behaviors during deployment. Examined through the lenses of family systems and symbolic interaction, youths appear to base their behaviors upon perceptions of their non-deployed parents’ abilities to cope and manage the changes brought about during deployment. The majority of youths report reacting in ways intended to help their parents and families—whether by stepping up and assisting their non-deployed parents, or withdrawing physically or emotionally to reduce the emotional strain on parents. Implications of findings are discussed.

“I Don’t Like Being That Hyperaware of My Body”: Women Survivors of Sexual Violence and Their Experience of Exercise:

The experience of exercise among women survivors of sexual violence is a multifaceted phenomenon. In effort to inform treatment interventions, we used a phenomenological approach to describe the lived experience of exercise among women survivors of sexual violence. Data analysis from a focus group discussion and individual interviews with eight women survivors receiving services at a rape crisis center (RCC) revealed four themes: exercising (and not exercising) fosters safety, exercising is risky, past trauma restricts exercise choices, and exercising is beneficial. Findings indicate that survivors’ experience of exercise is related to their connections with self and their social environment. Survivors’ choices related to exercise were impacted by their stage of recovery. A variety of social-contextual factors appeared to support or impede motivation to exercise and it was not disinterest in exercise or low confidence in the ability to exercise, but restricted exercise options perceived as safe that influenced exercise motivation.

Managing Conflict with Parents-in-Law in a Secular Society Steeped in Islamic Traditions: Perspectives of Married Turkish Couples

ABSTRACT In Turkey, conflicts with parents-in-law can be shaped by opposing viewpoints that can emerge from the coexistence of modern secular and Islamic traditions. The integral role of parents-in-law in Turkish families makes it important to understand the nature of conflict between couples and their in-laws, and how these conflicts are managed. Guided by structural family theory, this preliminary study aims to explore the nature and management of conflict between parents-in-law and couples. This interpretive phenomenological study analyzed semi-structured interviews conducted with four Turkish couples. Conflicts with parents-in-law appeared to be gendered in nature and stemmed from unmet expectations and family roles. Gender also influenced how conflict was resolved. Daughters-in-law tended to avoid conflict by remaining silent, and sons-in-law were more forthcoming about their dissatisfactions or took the blame to avoid conflict. In-laws of opposite sex appeared to have more contemptuous relationships compared to in-laws of the same sex. Implications for clinical work and research are discussed.