Lorna L. Hecker

Challenges of Being Simultaneously Gay or Lesbian and Spiritual and/or Religious: A Narrative Perspective

The purpose of this article is to describe the struggle that gays and lesbians face as they incorporate their sexual orientation and identity within the context of an existing religious or spiritual identity. An overview of the religious and spiritual context that makes individuals unique will be followed by how the narrative perspective can help individuals who identify themselves as gay or lesbian with their struggle for identity. Finally, new narrative directions will be suggested for marriage and family therapists and their work with gays and lesbians who are confronted with these issues.

The influence of therapist values, religiosity and gender in the initial assessment of sexual addiction by family therapists

Abstract A total of 400 randomly selected clinical members of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) were randomly assigned to one of four vignette conditions in which sex of the client and two extremes of sexual relationships (married and monogamous or nonmarried with varied partners) were experimentally controlled in a description of sexual interaction between two consenting adults. It was hypothesized that therapist values about sex outside of marriage, gender stereotypes regarding sexual activities, and sex and religiosity of the respondent would influence assessment of sexual addiction in vignettes read for the experiment. Results of the 199 (49%) marriage and family therapists who responded revealed that single male and single female clients with varied partners vignettes were pathologized more than monogamous married male and female vignettes. Male subjects tended to pathologize client vignettes more than female subjects. Highly religious males saw clients as more sexually...

Cultural Competence When Working With American Indian Populations: A Couple and Family Therapist Perspective

This article focuses on treating the underrepresented American Indian and Alaska Native population in therapy. The lack of literature on this topic may impede the ability of couple and family therapists (CFTs) to work effectively with members of this group. Issues such as the underutilization of therapy, dropout rates, culturally syntonic joining and assessment, religion, and spirituality are discussed. In addition, potential boundary issues of gift giving and community integration are explored. Finally, cultural strengths are addressed so they may be clinically integrated with this unique population.

The Body Tells the Story: Using Art to Facilitate Children's Narratives

This article illustrates an art activity for use in psychotherapy with children or adolescents. The purpose of the activity is to utilize creativity to increase problem solving for child clients and to allow their narratives to expand therapeutically. The processing of the activity allows the art to be transformed into language, thereby involving discursive (linguistic) as well as non-discursive (image-making) symbolic coding systems. The activity is theoretically and therapeutically flexible, as it can be used with rapport building, narrative work by allowing clients to tell their stories and externalize their problems, and trauma work by utilizing attachment of feelings to the childs physical self.

Trauma and Couple Therapy

Abstract While the most common reaction to trauma is resilience, trauma can significantly alter ones ability to attach to another. Post traumatic stress disorder and other traumatic responses can have significant effects on couple relationships. In this chapter, the effect of trauma on couples is explored. Of particular significance to clinicians is the effect of childhood maltreatment on adult attachment bonds. As such, the relational ramifications of childhood maltreatment on couple relationships is discussed. While the potential damage trauma can inflict upon a couple relationship is remarkable, the source of healing that a couple relationship lends is also powerful. Relationship attachments appear to be a central mechanism in healing from trauma. As such, treating trauma within the context of the couple relationship leaves therapists with a particularly potent tool with which to address healing the wounds of past and present trauma. Couple therapy that addresses trauma can also allow the couple to assume a new, more cohesive whole.

The Impact of HIPAA and HITECH: New Standards for Confidentiality, Security, and Documentation for Marriage and Family Therapists

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) of 2009 established criminal and civil penalties for violations of HIPAA regulations, and included funding for audits. HIPAA privacy protections include the systems that store, maintain, and transmit it. HIPAA will soon set the industry standard for privacy and documentation in marriage and family therapists practice. This article presents a primer on HIPAA privacy and security rules for marriage and family therapists.

CO-PARENTING FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Domestic violence in itself is one of the most difficult, specific and wide-spread social-legal problems containing the number of signs of violation. Conflict directly concerns people connected with coexistence; it has the local, exclusive character and the fight against it is less effective in accordance with common practice of fight against the crime. Specificity of the fight against the crime of this category is expressed in both complexity of its revealing and in effective and lawful choice of coercive measures against it. The issue of domestic violence has been tabooed in many countries for a long time, because the disclosure of such issues was considered as interference in people’s private life. Although the society has gradually realized that the problem of domestic violence must not be ignored as violence endangers people’s health and life. Domestic violence is not only the problem of separate individuals, it has negative effect on the other members of the family, especially on minors and leads to distortion of their psyche and consciousness which, in its turn, leads to the formation of an unhealthy situation in the society.The author analyzes the results of the four stages of victimization surveys and Unified Crime Reports prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia in 2010-2013. The results of victimization surveys and statistics reports related to indexes and structure of crime became important after the parliamentary elections held in October 1, 2012, resulted by defeating of the ruling political party “National Movement” which was in power for the last 9 years. The new coalition “Georgian Dream”, headed by the billionaire B. Ivanishvili, radically changed political climate and announced the acceleration of democratization of the country and adopted the legislation decriminalization policy. According the new policy, the government of the country carried out the general amnesty, and released more than 60% of all prisoners from the custody. Such policy became the object of serious criticism from the part of the oppositions and some experts. They have expressed concerns about the criminal situation and decreasing level of security in the country predicted anarchy and disorganizations. This article is an attempt to assess the real situation in Georgia and the level of real threat to stability posed by criminality.Everything has his pros and cons. Debtor’s rights and obligations during court order enforcement, causes of problems that may arise. This problem is in the whole country, not just in one city or in one social class. A very large number of families from everywhere around Georgia have been affected. How and where it started will be discussed below in the text. Rights of creditors and debtors overlap in many aspects. We need to be very careful when sorting out this issue. We cannot under any circumstances make a decision with a benefit of one party while the other party will suffer losses. Georgian law on “Law Enforcement” does not support in any ways rights of debtors and all the procedures highlighted are towards forcing the debtor to pay off the debt. At this stage based on the current law, current socio-economic problems, statistics, ways on sorting out the problem, this object of studies is very important and has a very high intrinsic value in its theoretical part as well as in its practical part. If the right approach is taken it is possible to minimise the need to protect rights of creditors or debtors in the futures, because every party will be fully aware of their abilities and punishments for failures to fulfil their obligations, before signing the contractThe article includes detailed employment and uniploymant analysis in each municipality. In the analysis we use results from household survey conducted by the National Statistics Service. More specific information about the labour market at the municipal level was collected through cooperation with local municipalities. For the analysis we used information from municipalities’ web pages, telephone conversations with stakeholders, personal meetings with experts and so on. It should also be noted that a certain part of the data obtained from municipalities and from administrative territorial units have an approximate nature, but based on these information it is possible to gain some valuable conclusions and make assumptions. Terms and reality of employment analysis is carried out not only at the level of the municipality but on the country and regional ones as well.This project aims to apply learning of operations research and optimizing resources to practical cases. The aim of this problem is to maximize the the fairness of the schedule , while respecting all the constraints . In regards with the results obtained after some tests ILP has found a very good solution to our problem . Better values of the penalties associated to the shifts could be defined in order to represent the reality more accurately especially by taking into account the length of the shifts. The models can also be solved by means of optimization software. As shown in this paper, the current schedules can benefit from this work. My problem is NP-hard that it means unsolvable.My objective is to do the objective values ( diff =0.1) . The ideal must be 0 but it is impossible.there is shown in the table in 5 shifts , 20 nurses 10 weeks. We see that when we increase the number of shift the objective value is decreasing. It is fact that when we add a shift the software must do more iterations but the penalty is decreasing. We see that with the same number of iterations the penalty is smaller when we add a shift.For the welfare of modern society and any state`s correct function it is very important to have straightened working court system and to ensure every person`s court accessibility. Each step of court case management is detailed in civil procedure code. The legislation of civil procedure of Georgia foresees some mechanisms and opportunities of the restriction of court accessibility, which must be studied. The meaning of this study is stipulated by huge importance of court accessibility itself and by need of due caution during its restricting. The access to the court right is reserved not only by national, but also by international law, as evidenced by Article 42 of the Constitution [1], ``The UN Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms`` Article 6 [3]. As any study issue, this one also needs scientific, systemic approach. For fully demonstrating the issue it is advised to classify and define court accessibility restriction mechanisms. Here presented work is about this matter.The Administrative Law is a part of public law, as it is depended on the subordinate principle. It aims to realize public interest. On the other hand, Enforcement Law is part of administrative space, which regulates the rules and procedures of the enforcement process for different court’s decisions as well as other acts. As administrating effects our everyday lives, it is a public interest that this process should be kept in the legal borders. This is exactly what the Administrative Law is all about. It regulates the social relations in which were government and other administrative bodies play a major role. It is true that Enforcement Law provides us with the norms, rules and procedures of the legal administration, but it is still court’s responsibility to assess the legal quality of it. This is why we need effective justice, to have the competent court ruling practice and to enforce them properly.Collision issues are discussed in family law such as conditions of marriage, results of marriage, annulment of marriage, duty of maintenance, relations between parents and children, relations related to child’s origin, conditions of adopting, guardianship and tuition. I discuss issues of guardianship and tuition in mentioned work, which I think is very interesting and actual.

The Role of Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance in Communication Modality and Relationship Quality of Romantic Relationships Initiated Online

ABSTRACT This study explores the relationships among an individuals attachment anxiety and avoidance, the ratio of technology mediated communication (TMC) in their relationship, and relationship quality for individuals who met their romantic partners online. Participants (N = 219) consisted of individuals between the ages of 18–25, who were US citizens, and met a romantic partner utilizing online dating, dating mobile web applications, social networking sites, online chatrooms, or any way of meeting through technology. A survey measuring relationship beliefs, relationship attitudes, and use of technology was distributed and completed via MTurk. Structural equation modeling revealed that anxious attachment was associated with a higher ratio of TMC, whereas avoidant attachment was not significantly related with the ratio of TMC. Higher ratios of TMC were associated with lower relationship quality. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Suicidal Risk Following the Termination of Romantic Relationships

Background: The termination of a romantic relationship is an established predictor of suicide attempt. Severing a relationship with a romantic figure can feel life-ending, based on attachment theory. Aims: The primary goal of this study was to determine if specific risk markers for suicide are related to an individuals commitment level to the romantic relationship prior to its dissolution. Method: The purpose of this study was to examine if commitment and investment are linked with suicidal risk in a sample of adults (n = 208) in the United States ages 18–64 who experienced the break-up of a significant romantic relationship within the past 3 months. Results: A structural equation model analysis revealed a significant association between commitment to the romantic relationship and suicidal risk when mediated by depression. This suggests that high commitment to the previous romantic relationship is indirectly associated with suicidal risk, indicating a need for increased attention to individuals who recently experienced a break-up. Limitations: This study is limited by its cross-sectional design and by retrospective accounts of the previous relationships. Conclusion: This study indicates that high commitment to a romantic relationship may serve as a risk factor of depression and therefore of suicide when the relationship is terminated.

Ethical Decision-Making While Using Social Networking Sites: Potential Ethical and Clinical Implications for Marriage and Family Therapists

The increasing popularity of social networking sites is changing the way therapists interact with others personally and professionally. Interface over the Internet present unique challenges to the therapeutic relationship concerning privacy and ethical boundaries. However, lack of guidelines concerning the use of SNSs often force therapists to navigate the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Code of Ethics and federal laws. This article provides a beginning discussion for therapists to consider new ethical decisions in the context of engaging in online interactions with clients. The authors provide guided questions and vignettes to elicit reflection among therapists on their decision-making.