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This article focuses on the underlying transformation produced by social ecological crisis– a transformation in the time scales for human agency. First, we trace how authors who conjunct readings o...

A recurring narrative in popular culture is imminent global catastrophe. Contextualizing the cultural phenomenon of disaster porn, I discuss the Anthropocene and explore Gregory Bateson’s ecosystem...

Wonder Woman 1984, by Director: Patty Jenkins. Writers: Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and Dave Callahan. Production companies: DC Comics, Warner Bros., DC Entertainment, Atlas Entertainment, The Ston...

I percolate on germane themes and concepts before I write a film analysis, so when I was asked to review this film, I Googled “women,” “medical illness,” and “cinema.” Ninety-five percent of the hi...

Armed conflicts disrupt families worldwide. This study examines the adaptation process of Greek Cypriot refugee families who suffered the traumas of displacement and death of family members in 1974...

I went to see Wonder Woman in a quaint, small town cinema built in 1912, 30 years before Wonder Woman first appeared in her own comic book. The theater’s long history is analogous to Wonder Woman’s...

Objective Attending to the potential impacts, both positive and negative, of clinical work with trauma survivors on professionals themselves is a crucial aspect of clinical training and supervision. Vicarious resilience refers to unique, positive effects that transform therapists in response to witnessing trauma survivors' resilience and recovery process. This study describes the development and exploratory factor analysis of the first instrument to assess vicarious resilience. Method The Vicarious Resilience Scale (VRS) was developed and administered via electronic survey to 190 helping professionals from around the globe working with survivors of severe traumas, such as torture. Results Exploratory factor analysis yielded 7 factors: Changes in life goals and perspective, client-inspired hope, increased recognition of clients' spirituality as a therapeutic resource, increased capacity for resourcefulness, increased self-awareness and self-care practices, increased consciousness about power and privilege relative to clients' social location, and increased capacity for remaining present while listening to trauma narratives. The Cronbach's alpha reliability of the VRS was .92 and, as hypothesized, the VRS was moderately and positively correlated with posttraumatic growth and compassion satisfaction, indicating convergent validity. The VRS was not significantly correlated with compassion fatigue (CF) or burnout, indicating discriminant validity and that vicarious resilience is a unique construct that is not merely "the opposite" of CF or burnout. Conclusion The VRS possesses sound psychometric properties and can be utilized in supervision and training contexts and for self-assessment by professionals working with trauma survivors to aid the recognition and cultivation of vicarious resilience. (PsycINFO Database Record

Humanitarian projects of DNA identification of the missing in conflict zones have impacts on the professionals conducting them, the networks and families of the missing, and societies at large. This chapter engages the multiple uses of forensics and bioconstitutionalism to trace the humanitarian project in Cyprus. It notes the ambivalence toward, and sometimes the impossibility of, closure, even when science reaches its conclusions in a laboratory. Interviews with anthropologists, psychologists, and surviving networks and family members shed light on the social and political complexities inherent in the identification and symbolic “return” of lost family members.

Breaking the fourth wall in her inimitable style, the titular character of Amazon and BBC 3’s comedy series Fleabag cheerfully announces in the second season premiere, “This is a love story.” How v...

Focused on a relatively brief period in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s career, “On the Basis of Sex” is a standard-issue biopic that conveys what she achieved in the fight for gender equality, and why it ma...

In the genre of comic book movies, origin stories are a vehicle to introduce audiences to key players in a cinematic universe, and quickly explain motive, crucial character traits and quirks, and t...

Interracial couples and multiracial families are burgeoning populations in our society and clinical practices. Three factors to assess when interracial couples present for services are the partners’ levels of racial awareness and sensitivity, how they negotiate or work through difference (fighting fair vs. conflict avoidance vs. destructive conflict), and their narrative about race. This chapter describes this niche area of practice and how the author developed an interest in it. The author covers the joys and challenges and business aspects of this area of practice and offers guidance on developing such a niche practice. Resources are given to assist in this process.

This qualitative study examines the coexistence of vicarious resilience and vicarious trauma and explores the inclusion of intersectional identities in trauma work with torture survivors in specialized programs across the United States. A constructionist framework and a method of constant comparison discovered themes that speak about the effects of witnessing how clients cope constructively with adversity, and intersectional identities in social context. The data suggest that trauma therapists can be potentially transformed by their clients’ resilience in positive, but not painless, ways. Choosing to work in the trauma field with survivors of torture and politically motivated violence involves immersion in profound ongoing experiences of intertwined pain, joy, and hope, and expanding the boundaries of self—personally and professionally.

In emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT), the completion of a blamer-softening event has been related to deeper emotional experiencing and relationship repair. However, the characteristics of those who are able to complete this event are unknown. The authors examined emotion regulation at intake in relation to key change processes in EFT. Results indicated that emotional control and emotional self-awareness, two emotion regulation strategies, at intake did not predict in-session emotional experiencing or the completion of a blamer-softening event. Results also indicated that gender was a significant predictor of emotional experiencing in the best session. Results attest to the efficacy and generalizability of EFT.

War rips the social fabric of refugees’ lives, disrupting physical, psychological, and emotional structures that may have been in place for generations and leaving persons without a home and without a sense of belonging. This chapter engages a crucial dimension of trauma—the disruption of the unifying thread of temporality—and the unique challenges presented by ambiguous loss in internally displaced Greek Cypriot refugee families with a missing member. A clinical vignette highlights the different ways family members respond or recalibrate to identification of remains of a loved one. Therapeutic work with refugee families erodes the Western dichotomy between public and private, and involves modalities that move beyond the “talking cure” of traditional psychotherapy. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the discourse of refugee trauma and the positionality of systemic practitioners who seek to be helpful with refugee families.

This paper discusses how interracial couples both resist and comply with the prevailing ideology and racial logic of homogamy through their use of dominant and subordinate discourses around (1) hypersensitivity of the partner of color and (2) history's insignificance. Qualitative interviews with interracial couples reveal their strategic responses to racism in the public context and to racial and ethnic differences in the relationship context. The narratives highlight marginalized “truths” crucial to effective clinical work with interracial couples. Implications for intervention with interracial and intercultural couples are discussed.

Stress disorders and other mental ill health may be brought on by the disruption caused by resettlement. We examine female newcomers’ experiences of adjusting to a new place, metropolitan Toronto, Canada and a new health care system. We consider sources of mental stress experienced during adjustment. We frame this adjustment as a process that happens over place and through time. Thematic findings of interviews (n = 35) with female newcomers from five cultural-linguistic groups are reported. Sources of stress in adjusting to life in Toronto include: navigating a new place, personal safety concerns, adapting to a new lifestyle, and finding employment. Sources of stress in adjusting to a new health care system include: learning how to access care, not having access to specialists, and adapting to a new culture of care. We conclude by considering the implications of what newcomers report for the delivery of primary mental health care (i.e. ‘first contact’ care).

There is burgeoning interest in secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and self-care in the helping professions. This multimethod study focused on therapists' stress and coping in their work with trauma survivors, identifying factors related to resilience and burnout. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 clinicians subscribing to a systems perspective, and 104 clinicians were administered a questionnaire inquiring about their caseloads, trauma history, coping styles, emotional self-awareness, work stress, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Interview data demonstrated that therapists detect job stress through bodily symptoms, mood changes, sleep disturbances, becoming easily distracted, and increased difficulty concentrating. Self-care strategies included processing with peers/supervisor, spirituality, exercise, and spending time with family. In the quantitative study, social support, work hours, and internal locus of control accounted for 41% of the variance in ...

This study explores the process by which interracial spouses construct narratives about their racial histories, identities, and experiences in their relationship together. Ten black-white couples were interviewed individually and conjointly. The results reflected interracial spouses' experience of their life together, their perception of others' perceptions of them, and their unique processes of negotiating racial, gender, and class differences. Black spouses, compared with white spouses, demonstrated a greater awareness of and sensitivity to social resistance to interracial couples, and black spouses' familial and personal histories were sometimes relegated to silence in the couple relationship. I discuss recommendations for marriage and family therapists working with interracial spouses.

Introduction: Adequate social support is associated with well-being and mental health, whereas disruptions to social support have been linked to elevated risk of psychological distress (e.g. anxiety, depression), especially in immigrant women, a population particularly vulnerable to distress during the process of resettlement. Immigration and resettlement entail opportunities and challenges for newcomers, and for most newcomers, a common challenge is change in availability of social support and the absence of social networks, resulting in significant decreases in perceived and experienced social support during the initial years in the host country. This study examined the relationship between social support and newcomer women’s mental health in a sample of 96 female newcomers living in the greater Toronto area.

Poetics, as an epistemological approach, articulates alternative imaginaries to those proffered by the neoliberal world order. With a long history of drawing upon various sites to further its aims (e.g. the academy, the international studies association, political parties, the state), the neoliberal world order has used its epistemologies to constitute a hegemony emphasizing the state as the primary actor of political life. Feminists and scholars in postcolonial IR, black studies, and ethnic studies have challenged this idea, arguing that there are differential epistemological economies in world politics. Larger questions at stake in these different sites/cites include self and collective knowledge of marginal peoples and the envisioning of alternative, oppositional histories of decolonization, struggle and contestation. Traditional disciplinary boundaries become sites/cites of contestation about the forging and making of alternatives as academics, grassroots organizers, and activists, through po...

This study explores how black-white interracial couples experience and respond to racism and how they negotiate racial and ethnic difference in their relationships. Twelve black-white couples were ...

This study explores how interracial couples experience their life together and negotiate race and gender in their relationships. Ten black-white couples were interviewed individually and conjointly...

Summary As the field of family therapy continues to gain exposure both in the U.S. and abroad, family therapists and their supervisors are increasingly likely to come from diverse cultural backgrounds. This study examines how differences in culture of origin influence supervisory relationships. Twelve individual interviews were conducted with six supervisors and six supervisees who had worked with one or more supervisees or supervisors whose culture of origin differed from their own. The descriptive data was analyzed using the method of constant comparison. Results reflect cross-cultural supervisees' acclimation to a Western/U.S. training context, specific challenges associated with cross-cultural supervision, and ways in which supervisors can sensitively and effectively supervise culturally different supervisees. Implications for education and training in family therapy are presented.

Afraid of Dark is a documentary that begins with the audio recording of a 911 call. A terrified woman provides voiceover for a scene unfolding before her, and another person can be heard crying out...

This study examined the representation of minorities and minority issues in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. The relationship between AAMFT conference program content and changing social demographics from 1980 to 1996 was explored through an ecosystemic lens, and descriptive data were elicited through structured interviews with clinical members. Results indicated that there was a significant increase in the percentage of programming devoted to minority issues from 1980 to 1996 while the percentage of minorities in the population also rose dramatically in the same period. Salient themes from the interviews are presented. Recommendations are made for enhancing diversity within AAMFT.

Premarital sexual coercion is conceptualized as nonconsensual sexual activity between two persons who are not married to each other but who are involved in an intimate relationship with one another. Factors and consequences associated with premarital sexual coercion are presented. Three possible clinical scenarios are discussed, and a case example is presented to highlight the importance of several therapeutic issues, including the need for individual sessions with the victim in order to provide crisis intervention and assess her safety and willingness to continue the relationship.

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of the Emotional Self-Awareness Questionnaire (ESQ), a self-report measure of emotional intelligence. The ESQ, Emotional Intelligence Scale, and measures of alexithymia, positive negative affect, personality, cognitive ability, life satisfaction, and leadership aspirations were administered to 1,406 undergraduate psychology students. The ESQ was reduced from 118 to 60 items via factor and reliability analyses, retaining 11 subscales and a normal score distribution with a reliability of .92. The ESQ had significant positive correlations with the Emotional Intelligence Test and positive affect, significant negative correlations with alexithymia and negative affect, and an insignificant correlation with cognitive ability. The ESQ accounted for 35% of the variance in life satisfaction over and above the Big Five, cognitive ability, and self-esteem, and demonstrated incremental validity in explaining GPA and leadership aspirations. The significance of emotional intelligence as a unique contributor to psychological well-being and performance, and applications for the ESQ in assessment and outcome research in couple and family therapy are discussed.