The present research aims to examine the mental welfare of parents to autistic children, the degree of social support they receive and their perceived satisfaction with it, and how these variables affect their couplehood. The research population included parents of children between the ages of 4 and 17 diagnosed within the autistic spectrum. Each parent (within 33 couples) received a personal questionnaire, which was completed by 32 women and 23 men. The research questionnaire was composed of four measures: demographics; degree of child's autism; social support; and mental wellbeing and closeness/distance in the marital relationship. We found that social and familial support is statistically related to positive marital relationships and that the older the child, the less emotional wellbeing is felt by the parents and the more distant their relationship.
In order to better understand the principal influences that cause social work professionals to choose their profession, an empirical research using the circumplex model for family evaluation was conducted, measuring perceived aspects of cohesion and change in the families-of-origin of social work students versus students from other disciplines. A total of 306 undergraduate students from social work, education, biotechnology, computer science, and economics participated. Students filled in questionnaires measuring their perception of families-of-origin, and their influential figure in choosing their profession.Findings: Social work students were found to perceive significantly more extreme views of their families-of-origin, compared to students from other disciplines, while the latter scored higher in the category of 'balanced family'. Finally, students of therapeutic disciplines, both males and females, rated a stronger influence of their mothers on their choice of profession, compared to students from non-therapeutic professions.Applications: The findings indicate that students who train for therapeutic professions have presumably experienced more hardships in their families-of-origin compared to students who choose non-therapeutic studies. On the one hand, this may equip them with higher helping skills; on the other hand, being raised in a troubled family may render the future therapist more vulnerable to potential pitfalls in the helping relationship or impair the therapeutic process. Social work training institutions should
This study examines the lives of wives who are living with former combat soldiers with chronic PTSD, from the subjective perspective of the wives themselves. Structured interviews with 20 wives indicated the following main results: 1) About 2/3 of the wives reported that, for a long time, they did not know what the problem with their husband was and had no idea that it was connected to his military experience. 2) All of the wives described many negative effects of their husband's situation on daily family functioning. In most cases, the wives described their husbands as handicapped individuals who could do very few things that are usually associated with normal family functioning. 3) Most wives described their husbands as "absent-present": The husband was present physically but would often detach himself from everyone around him. 4) Most wives reported suffering from anxieties of all kinds and other symptoms, which also characterized their husbands. Study results are discussed in light of relevant theories.
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