Institute Inbrief - 08/05/2014

WELCOME

Welcome to Edition 202 of Institute Inbrief! In the last edition of Inbrief we continued our series focusing on common (and often pressing) challenges faced by Australian families. The first two topics in the series were challenges faced by single-parent families due to death or separation, and challenges faced by blended and step “remarried” families.

In this edition, we focus on challenges faced by families who experience domestic violence.

Also in this edition:

Coping with life’s challenges
Articles and CPD updates
Social media updates
Upcoming seminar dates

Enjoy your reading!

Editor.

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INTOstudies

Bachelor of Counselling

Become A Counsellor or Expand On Your Qualifications

With Australia’s Most Cost Effective & Flexible

Bachelor of Counselling

AIPC is Australia’s largest and longest established educator of Counsellors. Over the past 22-years we’ve helped over 55,000 people from 27 countries pursue their dream of becoming a professional Counsellor.

The Bachelor of Counselling is a careful blend of theory and practical application. Theory is learnt through user-friendly learning materials that have been carefully designed to make your studies as accessible and conducive to learning as possible.

You can gain up to a full year’s academic credit (and save up to $8,700.00 with RPL) with a Diploma qualification. And with Fee-Help you don’t have to pay your subject fees upfront.

Here are some facts about the course:

Save up to $57,000.00 on your qualification.
Get started with NO MONEY DOWN using FEE-HELP.
Save up to $8,700.00 with RPL.
You will be supported by a large team of highly-qualified counselling professionals.
Study externally with individualised personal support.
Attend Residential Schools in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to hone your practical skills and network with other students.

You can learn more here: www.aipc.edu.au/degree

Bachelor of Psychological Science

Earn-While-You-Learn With Australia's

Best Value-for-Money & Flexible

Bachelor of Psychological Science

Psychology is one of the most versatile undergraduate courses, leading to many different career opportunities. And now there's a truly flexible way to get your qualification – with internal or external study options. It means working while you study is a realistic alternative.

Cost of living pressures and lifestyle choices are evolving the way we learn and Australian Institute of Psychology (AIP) is paving the way through flexible, innovative learning models:

Save up to $34,800 on your qualification.
Get started with NO MONEY DOWN with FEE-HELP.
Earn while you learn with flexible external learning options.
Be supported by a large team of highly-qualified Psychology professionals.
Study internally or externally with individualised personal support.
Enjoy a flexible and supportive learning experience.
Benefit from less onerous course entry requirements.

AIP is a registered Higher Education Provider with the Australian Government, delivering a three-year Bachelor of Psychological Science. The Bachelor of Psychological Science is accredited by the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC), the body that sets the standards of training for Psychology education in Australasia.

APAC accreditation requirements are uniform across all universities and providers in the country, meaning that Australian Institute of Psychology, whilst a private Higher Education Provider, is required to meet exactly the same high quality standards of training, education and support as any university provider in the country.

You can learn more here: www.aip.edu.au/degree

Diploma of Counselling

Imagine Being Passionate About Your Work

And Assisting People Every Day Lead Better Lives

It’s rare these days to hear people talk about their work with true passion. You hear so many stories of people working to pay the bills; putting up with imperfect situations; and compromising on their true desires.

That’s why it’s always so refreshing to hear regular stories from graduates living their dream to be a Counsellor. They’re always so full of energy, enthusiasm and passion. There’s no doubt that counselling is one of the most personally rewarding and enriching professions.

Just imagine someone comes to you for assistance. They’re emotionally paralysed by events in their life. They can’t even see a future for themselves. They can only focus on their pain and grief. The despair is so acute it pervades their entire life. Their relationship is breaking down and heading towards a divorce. They can’t focus on work and are getting in trouble with their boss. They feel they should be able to handle their problems alone, but know they can’t. It makes them feel helpless, worthless. Their self-esteem has never been lower. They’re caught in a cycle of destruction and pain.

Now imagine you have the knowledge and skills to help this person overcome their challenges. You assist to relieve their intense emotional pain. You give them hope for the future. You assist to rebuild their self-esteem and lead a satisfying, empowered life.

As a Counsellor you can experience these personal victories every day. And it’s truly enriching. There is nothing more fulfilling than helping another person overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.

You can learn more here: www.aipc.net.au/course_dippro.php

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INTOnews

Coping with Life’s Challenges

Life has a way of taking us by surprise, and challenging our emotional resilience. Dealing with stress, loss and grief, relationship breakdown, sudden unemployment, and many other challenging situations can sometimes be overwhelming, and almost paralysing. But in the end, these challenges often help us become stronger, more resilience and wiser.

In the meantime, you can learn strategies, skills and techniques that help you better understand each of these situations, your reactions to them, and how you can implement daily actions that can support you through these challenges. These are life coping skills.

Following is a list of life effectiveness guides developed by AIPC, and available for free download. Click in each of the links to download the guide (in PDF format), and feel free to share them with friends, loved ones, colleagues – well, anyone and everyone!

Nuts and Bolts of Counselling Conference

The Australian Counselling Association (ACA) will be partnering with their NSW member association PCA to host the 2014 1-day conference, “Nuts and Bolts of Counselling”. The conference will be held on Saturday 27th September, 2014.

The conference venue will be Macquarie Park Conference Centre (Talavera Rd, North Ryde, NSW), situated in the quiet rural setting on the picturesque grounds of the Macquarie University Campus at North Ryde, just 15kms from Sydney CBD and 25km from Sydney airport.

Nuts and Bolts conference will explore what constitutes counselling in Australia and what it is about counselling that holds us together as an independent profession. Conference speakers and subjects will reflect the diversity and richness of the profession.

Call for Papers/Abstracts

ACA invites you to submit a Paper for a 30-minute presentation or Abstract for a 90-minute workshop. Your paper/abstract submission should include the following:

Name:

Qualification/s:

Paper/Abstract presentation Title:

Outline of presentation (no more than 500 words):

Mobile:

Email:

The deadline for Papers/Abstracts is Monday 9th of June 2014. Presenters will be required to register and attend the conference. Please email papers/abstracts to philip@theaca.net.au.

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INTOmentalhealth

The inner life of the counselor

A psychiatrist’s wife once questioned him about why he was so faithful in going to see Zen master Shunryu Suzuki for mentoring and guidance. His response was simple: “Where he is, is where I want to be... in that place of sanity.”

One of the greatest gifts we can share with those who come to us for counseling or supervision is a sense of our own peace, resilience and healthy perspective. However, we can’t share what we don’t have. It is as simple as that. And so, for those of us in the counseling profession, strengthening our own self-care protocol is not only an important undertaking for ourselves, but also a gift to our clients and colleagues.

Click here to continue reading the original article via Counseling Today.

Family-based exposure therapy effective treatment for young children with OCD

Family-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is beneficial to young children between the ages of five and eight with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The study found developmentally sensitive family-based CBT that included exposure/response prevention was more effective in reducing OCD symptoms and functional impairment in this age group than a similarly structured relaxation program.

Click here to continue reading the original article via Science Daily.

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INTOcounselling

Families who experience domestic violence

This article is part of our special series focusing on common challenges faced by Australian. Other articles in the series include:

Challenges of Single-parent Families Due to Death or Separation
Challenges of Blended and Step “Remarried” Families
Challenges of Same-Sex Couple Families
Challenges of Families with a Parent Working Away From Home Base (next edition)
Family Issues When There is Disability, Illness, or Serious Injury

The family functions and domestic violence

Note: Refer to the first article in the series for further information about the family functions.

There is no way around it; all four functions of a family are put at risk in the sad situation of family violence, and to a large degree the risk factors are interrelated. Focusing first on Function One, family formation and membership, we can comprehend how the pervasiveness of family violence in Australia (which is a microcosm of the global picture) hugely distorts the capacity of the family to function positively as a “first tribe”, or initial place of experiencing membership for children. When there is domestic violence, there are issues of power and control. When family violence is so pervasive that a woman is physically abused by her husband every nine seconds, as in the United States (Commonwealth Fund, 1993), the question arises as to how well the family unit can function.

When it is further revealed that up to ten million children in the United States between the ages of 3 and 17 have witnessed parental violence (Straus, 1991), there is the serious question of what type of “club” the children are becoming members of when they live in a violent family. In fact, research has shown that children’s presence is correlated with higher rates of domestic violence, as there is more of it in households where there are children (Romans et al, 2007).

Fully 61 per cent of Australian victims of violence by a previous partner also reported having children in their care at some time during the relationship and 36 per cent said that these children had witnessed the violence (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006). Straus’ survey (1991) indicated that the similar percentage of American children who have witnessed violence between their parents have done so repeatedly. As we pointed out earlier, that witnessing is not only highly stressful for the children; it is also a risk factor for a variety of psychosocial problems, mental illness, substance abuse, marital conflict and violence, physical abuse of children when the witnessing children become parents, and assaults and other crimes outside the family (Flood and Fergus, 2008; Tomison, 2000; Strauss, 1991). But that is not all.

Men who beat their wives often begin abusing their children as well. Thus, children in violent families are at high risk of physical as well as psychological injury. They feel impelled to try to make peace between their parents, or to protect whichever parent appears to be the victim (usually the mother). They are in the firing line, and live lives of fear. True “family formation” (Function One) is non-existent, as the children effectively lose both parents: their father through emotional distancing, and their mother through her depressed, anxious focus on the abuser, with little energy left for the children (Carter & McGoldrick, 2005). Clearly, domestic violence spectacularly renders Function Four - protection of the vulnerable - null and void. And Function Three, appropriate socialisation, is also defunct, as the children learn that there is no safe place, that women are not to be respected, and that violence is an acceptable means of expressing emotion and frustration and solving problems.

Finally, Function Two, economic support, is prevented from being fulfilled because women may flee, but often return because they cannot support the children independently. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, 2008), domestic violence is the most common factor contributing to homelessness among women and their children. A study by the New South Wales Women’s Refuge Movement Resource Centre and the Urban Research Centre (2009, in Bartels, 2010) found that housing for women and children experiencing domestic/family violence has deteriorated significantly. The key concerns were affordability, length of stay, the physical condition of the housing, the neighbourhood, safety, and the availability of maintenance.

Accommodation is in general a critical factor in women’s decisions about whether to leave a violent relationship (Bartels, 2010). Fully one third of people accessing the government’s Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) in 2003-2004 were women escaping from domestic violence (AIHW, 2005). Even when women gain protection orders denying men access to the home, they are not always safe, because police are not always able to monitor the orders. Small, remote communities may not even have refuges (Oberin, 2008).

Domestic violence: risk factors to look out for

General factors. Given that domestic violence essentially destroys the family as a functional unit, support people will want to be especially clued up about the risk factors for it. While there is no single cause known to lead to violence in the home, a number of risk factors are associated with being a perpetrator. These include:

Age
Low academic achievement
Low income (or exclusion from the labour market)
Social disadvantage
Isolation
Exposure to or involvement in aggression as an adolescent (Flood and Fergus, 2008)

Because many of these factors are correlated with an increase in aggressive behaviour and offending generally, it is not surprising that Mouzos and Makkai (2004) found that, among women who had experienced violence with their current partner, the most frequently reported aspects of the perpetrator’s behaviour were drinking habits, general aggression, and controlling behaviours. These are also risk factors in Indigenous relationships (Bryant and Willis, 2008).

Rigid, traditional attitudes. Certain community attitudes elevate the risk of violence, especially towards women. These include:

Traditional “macho” norms for being male
Rigid gender expectations, such as that men are the primary breadwinners and women’s place is in the home
Norms encouraging excessive consumption of alcohol
Standards which facilitate peer pressure to conform to these ways of being male (National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children – NCRVWC – 2009a).

Other factors which influence attitudes are those such as being part of a subculture (like sporting) which facilitates negative attitudes towards women, exposure to pornography, being an adolescent male, and being a child who was exposed to violence (see below) (Flood and Pease, 2006).

Situational factors. Certain situational factors do not cause violence directly, but they may increase the risk of violence. Some of these are family or relationship problems, financial problems, unemployment, and recent stressful events or circumstances, such as the death of a family member. Alcohol is a chief situational factor, with women whose partners consume excessive alcohol being more likely to experience violence (Mouzos and Makkai, 2004).

Taking out the effect of other factors, we can see in the Indigenous communities that alcohol is the factor most strongly associated with victimisation (Bryant and Willis, 2008). Perhaps this is so because alcohol tends to decrease inhibitions and increase feelings of aggression. Thus, an angry, verbally abusive incident may escalate to physical violence with alcohol, making the incident more serious. About half of partner-homicides were found to be alcohol-related (Morgan and Chadwick, 2009).

Even when there is not wholesale physical violence immediately, situational factors may come together to create a pathway to it in the future. The subtle, out-of-awareness dynamic that begins to be set up in a family from the outset of any incident, even if only mildly violent, is worth noting. The perpetrator may only do one violent act, such as shoving his partner or making a hole in the wall with his fist, but that one occurrence often frightens the woman so much that she begins to organise the relationship around avoidance of further violence. She may, for instance, apologise when she is not at fault, agree to do things that she does not want to do, or notice a mood turning and quickly rush to “fix” things. The stage is thus subtly set for further lopsidedness of power and control in the family, which means further abuse.

Early exposure. We indicated above how damaging to children’s development it is for them to either witness violence or have it perpetrated on them. Looking at children’s early exposure from the other side of the fence – the effects on others in the child’s life and on society in general, it is clear that early exposure is a serious risk factor for the perpetration of violence later, when the exposed child becomes an adolescent or adult. With the experience of abuse in childhood (either as a witness or a victim), a young person develops inappropriate norms concerning aggression, and begins to model the behaviour to which he or she has been exposed. This increases the risk that an individual will enter into an abusive relationship as an adult, whether as a perpetrator or a victim (Flood and Fergus, 2008). Women experiencing some form of physical or sexual abuse during childhood are one and a half times more likely to report experiencing some form of violence in adulthood (Mouzos and Makkai, 2004).

Signs and symptoms of an abusive/violent relationship

In your role as support person, you may very well not know a lot about the background or attitudes held by the partner of your friend or casual acquaintance. Thus, going by risk factors alone, you might miss the cues that let you know someone needs your help to escape a violent relationship, and of course you can never know exactly what is going on behind closed doors. The following lists constitute warnings that someone is in a violent or abusive relationship. If you detect any of these tell-tale signs of abuse, it is important to talk immediately with the person showing them. Failure to do so could cost the person her life.

People who are being abused:

Seem highly anxious to please their partner, or even afraid of the person
Agree with everything their partner says; go along with all partner plans
Call their partner frequently to report where they are and what they’re doing
Receive abusive or harassing phone calls from their partner
Talk about their partner’s jealousy or possessiveness, or even their temper
Have frequent injuries or “accidents”
Frequently miss work or school without explanation.
Dress to hide bruises or scars (for example: wearing long sleeves in the summer or sunglasses indoors)

Control is the “name of the game” for the abuser. Perpetrators often “groom” victims to come more under their control by gradually isolating them from their friends, family members, and other support networks. Signs that someone might be isolating his partner are that the intended victim will:

Be restricted from seeing family and friends.
Rarely go out in public without their partner.
Have limited access to money, credit cards, or the car.

The psychological signs of abuse are that the person being abused may:

Have very low self-esteem, even if they used to be confident.
Show major personality changes (for example, the extravert becomes introverted)
Be depressed, anxious, or suicidal. (Smith and Segal, 2012)

What you can do as support person

If you suspect that someone is being abused, you can:

Ask if something is wrong.
Express concern.
Listen and validate.
Offer help.
Support the victim’s decisions.

What doesn’t work is for you to:

Wait for the person to come to you (they may die from assault injuries before that!)
Judge or blame.
Pressure him or her.
Give advice. Place conditions on your support. (Smith and Segal, 2012)

The victim of domestic violence may be too scared to talk today when you ask her about it. She may still be too frightened tomorrow. But if she is reassured that you are there when she is ready to talk, she is more likely to come forward. Remember that abusers wear their victims down over time through dominance and control, humiliation, threats, intimidation, isolation, and manipulation. Thus, most victims are drained, depressed, scared, ashamed, and confused. They may not believe that there is anywhere that they can be safe, and that, by reporting incidents or merely trying to escape, the abuser will assault them even more violently later if they fail to get away and get safe.

Fear of the unknown keeps many victims trapped, so it may be a slow process. You may have to keep letting the person know that you notice and care. Section Four includes emergency numbers to ring when you are reporting domestic violence. Both national service numbers and those for the respective states and territories of Australia are listed. If you are assisting someone in escaping from an abusive relationship, it is important to ensure that she has the numbers handy, as well as emergency contact numbers for her own social support networks (for example: friends or family with whom she might be able to stay, or who could come and pick her up at any time of day or night).

Domestic violence: who are the victims?

If we want to understand how a family transitions into violent mode, we need to know who the victims are. As noted above, because violence is perpetrated such a high percentage of the time by a man against a woman, most of the victims are different demographics of women. We name below the main groups which are most victimised in Australia, but the scene in this country is similar to that in most countries.

Indigenous women are over-represented as victims of domestic violence, with rates of victimisation being much higher than for non-Indigenous women. In 2002, seven per cent of non-Indigenous women had been a victim of violence in the previous 12 months; that figure shot to 20 per cent for Indigenous women in the same period. Not only do they experience violence more frequently; it is also more harmful when they experience it. Indigenous women were found to be as much as 35 times more likely to sustain serious injury and require hospitalisation as a result of violence committed by a spouse or partner than were non-Indigenous women (Mouzos and Makkai, 2004).

The problem for Indigenous women is that the decision to access counselling, medical, or legal support may mean giving up anonymity and confidentiality, as kinship groups are extended and close. Thus any decision to disclose offences may have both physical and social consequences, causing alienation and upheaval, not only in the family but also in the community. Unfortunately, many Indigenous communities are not equipped to deal with domestic violence issues, resulting in the victims from those communities getting little support (Morgan and Chadwick, 2009).

Women living in rural and remote areas are already isolated as a result of the abuse. In areas of geographical isolation as well, there are not many resources available, as few professionals wish to live in remote areas, or even travel to work in such communities. Service delivery is thus inhibited, and both confidentiality and safety become issues, a situation applying to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous women living remotely (NCRVWC, 2009a).

Women from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds are sometimes shown in research to experience more violence than mainstream, English-speaking women (O’Donnell, Smith, & Madison, 2002), and other times are shown to experience rates of physical violence lower than or equal to English-speaking women (Mouzos and Makkai, 2004). Thus, no conclusion can be drawn about the fact of being culturally and linguistically different (CALD) in itself; the various groups need to be examined individually. What is clearly an issue, however, is the reluctance of CALD and immigrant women to report domestic violence victimisation to police, or to access mainstream services.

There is a perception that the services would not understand their situation and respond appropriately. Too, translator/interpreter services may not be available, further complicating attempts to report. Thirdly, refugees and newly-emigrated women may decide not to report violence because they are dependent on the perpetrator for residential or citizenship status, and fear deportation. This situation is aided and abetted by perpetrators, who often use insufficient knowledge of English as a tool of power and control (NCRVWC, 2009a).

Pregnant women. As a family begins to add new members, the risks to women go up substantially. It is common for men to begin abusing their wives during pregnancy. Whether the men are worried about the additional burden the child will present or merely jealous of the time and attention that will be taken away from them to care for the child is unknown, but women in pregnancy become more vulnerable to both physical abuse and marital rape (Bergen, 1996).

The ABS (2006) Personal Safety Survey found that of women who had been abused by their partner, 36 per cent experienced the abuse while pregnant, with over half of those experiencing it for the first time during their pregnancy. Women with lower levels of education, those from poor communities, and those having an unintended pregnancy are at the highest levels of risk. The consequences of such abuse are far-ranging when one considers that physical injuries and stress to the woman – often leading to drug and alcohol abuse – impact greatly on the health of the mother, worsen the birth outcome, and also affect the health of the baby (Taft, 2002).

As women leave work because they cannot afford the day care, they become even more vulnerable. Women who do not work outside the home, who earn less than 25 per cent of the family income, and who have young children at home are at highest risk of abuse (Kalmus and Straus, 1990).

Older women experience violence at a rate two and a half times higher than older males. Many older women are long-term victims of abuse, committed in 20-25 per cent of cases by their partner, who often has a duty of care of the victim. Both physical disabilities and decision-making disabilities are common in victims of this sort of abuse (Morgan and Chadwick, 2009).

Women with a disability (physical or intellectual) are more likely than women without disability to experience intimate partner violence, and the abuse that they experience is likely to be more severe and to extend for longer periods (NCRVWC 2009a). As with older women, they may have decreased opportunity for leaving a violent relationship, so community and family supportiveness is essential.

Dating and relationship violence is common in adolescent relationships and school-age communities, with younger women being more likely to experience physical and sexual violence than older women (Mouzos and Makkai, 2004). As discussed in the risk factors section, traditional gender role attitudes, sexism, an encouraging peer culture, and attitudes supportive of violence which are shaped by the media and by exposure to pornography put young women at higher risk (Flood and Fergus, 2008). 42 per cent of young women 19-20 years old acknowledged being the victim of some form of physical violence from a boyfriend at least once (Indermaur, 2001).

Younger women may struggle to leave a violent relationship if they cannot afford private rental accommodation, are not eligible for public housing, and cannot access unemployment benefits. The remaining options – homelessness and staying in the abusive relationship – present a dark dilemma.

In the next edition we explore challenges faced by families when there is disability, illness, or serious injury.

This article was adapted from AIPC’s MHSS Specialty Course “Supporting Challenged Families”. For more information, visit www.mhss.net.au.

References:

AIHW 2005. Female SAAP clients and children escaping domestic and family violence 2003-04. AIHW bulletin no. 30. Cat. no. AUS 64. Canberra: AIHW. Retrieved on 9 July, 2012, from: hyperlink.

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2006a). 4102.0 - Family Formation: Remarriage trends of divorced people. Australian Social Trends, 1999. Retrieved on 19 June, 2012, from: hyperlink.

Bartels, L. (2010). Emerging issues in domestic/family violence research: Research in Practice no 10. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved on 6 June, 2012, from: hyperlink.

Bryant, C. & Willis, M. (2008). Risk factors in Indigenous victimisation. Technical and background paper no. 30. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved from: hyperlink.

Carter, B., and McGoldrick, M. (2005). The expanded family life cycle: Individual, family, and social perspectives (third edition). Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon.

Commonwealth Fund (1993, 14 July). First comprehensive national health survey of American women finds them at significant risk (News release). New York: The Commonwealth Fund.

Flood and Pease (2006). The factors influencing community attitudes in relation to violence against women: A critical review of the literature. Melbourne: VicHealth. Retrieved on 9 July, 2012, from: hyperlink.

Indermaur, D. (2001). Young Australians and domestic violence. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 195. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved from: hyperlink.

Kalmus, D., and Straus, M.A. (1990). Wife’s marital dependency and wife abuse. In M.A. Straus and R.J. Gelles (Eds.), Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8145 families (pp. 369-382). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Mouzos, J. & Makkai, T. (2004). Women’s experiences of male violence: Findings from the Australian component of the international violence against women survey (IVAWS). Research and public policy series no. 56. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved from: hyperlink.

National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (NCRVWC) 2009a. Background paper to time for action: The National council’s plan for Australia to reduce violence against women and their children, 2009 – 2021. Canberra: Australian Government. Retrieved on 10 July, 2012, from hyperlink.

O’Donnell, C. J., Smith, A., and Madison, J. R. (2002). Using Demographic Risk Factors to Explain Variations in the Incidence of Violence Against Women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17: 1239-1262.

Oberin, J. (2008). From Sydney squat to complex services. Challenging domestic and family violence: Taking stock. Parity 21(4): 24-25.

Romans, S, Forte, T., Cohen, M.M., Du Month, J., & Hyman, I. (2007). Who is most at risk for intimate partner violence? A Canadian population-based study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence (22(12): 1495 – 1514.

Smith, M. & Segal, J. (2012). Domestic Violence and Abuse: Signs of Abuse and Abusive Relationships. Helpguide.org Retrieved on 25 July, 2012, from: hyperlink.

Straus, M.A. (1991). Children as witness to marital violence: A risk factor for life-long problems among a nationally representative sample of American men and women. Paper presented at the Ross Roundtable titled “Children and Violence,” Washington, D.C. Retrieved on 26 June, 2012, from: hyperlink.

Taft, A. (2002). Violence against women in pregnancy and after childbirth: Current knowledge and issues in health care responses. Issues paper no. 6. Sydney: Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearing House. Retrieved from: hyperlink.

Course information:

Diploma of Counselling

Bachelor of Counselling

Bachelor of Psychological Science

Vocational Graduate courses

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INTObookstore

The Institute has a list of recommended textbooks and DVDs that can add great value to your learning journey - and the good news is that you can purchase them very easily. The AIPC bookstore will give you discounted prices, an easy ordering method and quality guarantee!

This fortnight's feature is...

Name: Theory & Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, 9th edition

Authors: Corey, G

AIPC Code: COREY

AIPC Price: $107.20 (RRP $127.95)

ISBN: 978-084-002-8549

Corey’s current conscientious and student-friendly book shows you how to put eleven key counselling theories into practice and helps you develop the counselling method that’s right for you.

To order this book, contact your Student Support Centre or the AIPC Head Office (1800 657 667).

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INTOarticles

A Case of Using Logical Consequences

Richard is a 41-year-old plant operator in a heavy machinery company. He works long hours and must start very early each day. Twelve months ago he accepted a transfer from a country location to a capital city 250 kilometres away from his family. Due to financial obligations this was seen as a necessity. He travelled back to see his family on weekends. He has a wife and 4 children to support.

His wife Amy is 38 years old, has 4 young children and works 2 days per week as a shop assistant. She now regrets the decision they both made for Richard to work so far away. The weekends he comes back to her and the children are getting fewer and when he does return, all they seem to do is argue. Amy is frightened that her marriage will fail and is also concerned Richard has found another women (Richard had an affair 15 years earlier soon after they had married). They both decided to come and see me for marriage counselling.

Click here to continue reading this article.

Sand Tray Therapy for the Intellectually Disabled

In the first half of the last century, British paediatrician and child psychiatrist Margaret Lowenfeld utilised sand and water in combination with small toys to help children express “the inexpressible” after reading H.G. Wells’ observation that his two sons would work out family problems playing on the floor with miniature figures (Zhou, 2009).

Lowenfeld added miniatures to the shelves of her therapy rooms, and the first child who came to use them took the figurines over to the sandbox, playing with them there. Thus, it was a child who “invented” what Lowenfeld came to call “The World Technique” (Zhou, 2009).

In the 1950s, Jungian analyst Dora Kalff (Zhou, 2009) extended the use of the sand tray to adults, realising that the technique allowed not only the expression of fears and anger in children, but also processes of transcendence and individuation (in adults) which she had been studying with Jung. She called it “sandplay” (Zhou, 2009).

Click here to continue reading this article.