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Growing instability in the labor market has led to an increase in recurrent job loss, which primarily affects women (Tamir, 2007). Numerous studies have shown that job loss is a stressful, traumatic experience that has consequences for the individuals who are laid off. However, few studies have examined how recurrent job loss affects individuals. The present study of 134 Israeli women aged 30-45 years aimed to examine how recurrent job loss affected individual women's perceptions of the event and the extent to which it generated emotional stress and psychiatric symptoms. Most of the women perceived job loss as a challenging event and their assessments of job loss had a stronger impact on the development of mental health consequences than did the number of times they had actually been laid off. The more the women perceived job loss as threatening, the more they reported emotional stress and psychiatric symptoms. Conversely, the more they perceived job loss as challenging, the lower their levels of emotional stress. Never-married women were laid-off more, and they reported more mental health symptoms following recurrent job loss than did married women. The findings suggest that perception of job loss as a threatening event might cause mental health problems as results of lay-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a community-based participatory action research demonstration project about women living with cancer. The project was named Project "M" and was developed in Israel. It began with funding from donors and the Israel cancer association. A steering committee was formed that included cancer patients, an oncologist, representatives of NGOs, medical organizations, and researchers. Its role was to suggest project methods, choose evaluation tools and recruit women suitable for the project. Participants in the project found that it gave them new insights and perspectives on themselves and prompted positive feedback from family members. The demographic details of participants are given.

This study examined the spousal relationship of 19 courtordered battering husbands as reflected in drawings of themselves and their wives. Two types of drawing characteristics were assessed: (a) graphic indicators of the spousal relationship and (b) graphic indicators of violent or aggressive behavior. Results revealed that the figures drawn by battering husbands tended to be smaller and placed lower on the page relative to the female figure but, nevertheless, resembled the female figures. Male figures also possessed more indicators of violent aggressiveness than did female figures. Findings suggest that battering husbands perceive themselves as being violated by their wives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Group work instructors often utilize the technique of simulating the class to a group model. Much has been written on the advantages of this method. We chose to raise questions as to its credibility. These questions refer specifically to the group's place among other existing systems which expect it to meet their needs, to the normative conflict which raises the risk of creating negative group norms and to the role of contradictory messages: freedom of choice or compulsory participation. Learning while doing, the relevance of the learning material to the students needs, decreasing the level of threat to the ego, clear definition of expectations and limits, easing the feeling of coercion, and a continual self-evaluation by the group leader, all of these enable the group to achieve its goals. The changes that we incorporated into the traditional group work course, enabled us to reach the results which we initially set out to accomplish: all the students worked with client groups, group attendance was high, working norms were developed and the students themselves testified to the course's success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]