Reviews the research and theory related to middle age. The literature survey is divided into three parts: (1) When is middle aged?; (2) What are its psychosocial dynamics?; and (3) Is there a mid-life crisis? Suggests implications for educational practice. (Author/CSS)

Parents from child-abuse and matched-control families were examined for variation of life-change scores, perceptions of physical and emotional health, and punitiveness of their own parents. Abusive parents had higher life-change scores, more numerous perceptions of emotion physical ill health, and more punitive childhoods. (Author)

Role strain is discussed as it occurs in the context of presenting complaint and treatment, and issues of feminine sexuality and role adjustment are examined. It is suggested that medical schools can increase their awareness of how sex bias and institutional sexism affect the mental health and well-being of women students and can make appropriate…

Compared social skills and cognitive-relaxation interventions for general-anger reduction with a no-treatment control in a pretreatment, postreatment, and five-week follow-up design. By follow-up, treatment groups reported significantly less anger, lowered tendencies to suppress or exhibit anger, and lowered state anger, and greater constructive…

Used two retrospective measures of childhood stress to evaluate divorcing adults' (N=333) progress through the transition initiated by marital separation. Found the stress measures to have satisfactory reliability. Their relationship to indicators of transitional status suggests that exposure to early conditions of stress may affect how well…

Sought to compare the visual imagery (i.e., the drawings) and the metaphorical statements (i.e., the words used to describe the pictures) of coping and noncoping children to ascertain whether the pictures and words of coping children reflect emotional health, whereas those of noncoping children signify inner turmoil. (ABB)

Families having the extraordinary caretaking demands of a developmentally delayed child are at risk for added stress, social isolation, and reduced feelings of autonomy. Stress-coping theories relevant to these families are reviewed, and specific social work roles are recommended for maintaining and developing "normalized" family resoures.…

Found groups for wives of gay and bisexual men to be an effective therapeutic intervention for the problems that arise when a husband makes a disclosure to his wife that he is interested in pursuing homosexual relationships. The groups helped wives resolve the issues of the marriage and to make positive changes in their lives. (Author)

Examined effects of short-term, family-oriented supportive therapy program for older veterans with anxiety, depression, or impaired coping mechanisms. Improvement in coping and social skills was noted for program participants, but morale scores improved only for those with normal initial scores, suggesting program is useful only as adjunctive…

Findings from a study of 18 Alzheimer's patients in a day hospital program and their caregivers in family support groups indicated that such therapeutic programs may slow behavior deterioration in patients and promote enhanced coping in caregivers. Other findings suggest an improvement in caregivers' coping. (Author/ABB)

Surveyed 1,684 secondary school students on stress and inhalant use. Classified inhalent users as abstainers, experimental, and regular users. Male abstainers exhibited lower mean stress scores than did males in other groups; female abstainers exhibited lower mean scores than did regular users but did not differ from experimental users. Suggests…

Investigated relationship of experienced purpose in life to strategies used to cope with loss resulting from death and amount of time since the loss in 40 undergraduates who had suffered death of a significant other. Found that people who experienced low purpose in life reported using more emotion-focused coping strategies than did individuals…

Describes a cognitive-behavioral model for coping with stress that counselors can use as the basis for family assessment and personalized intervention. Discusses the model, assessment procedures, and appropriate counseling strategies. Examines translation of the model into clinical practice with families of handicapped young children. (Author/ABB)

Compared pregnant adolescents who attended a parent education program (N=9), those who did not attend such programs (N=14), and nonpregnant adolescents (N=29) for differences in self-concept, anxiety, and depression which might account for postdelivery outcomes. Results suggest that the groups did not differ in terms of these personality…

Analysis of questionnaires completed by mothers (N=60) of mentally retarded children indicated that characteristics of the child and the family's crisis-meeting resources were significant predictors of various forms of stress. (Author/DB)