No abstract

Military families experience considerable stress, periods of long separation, and changes to the family system due to family members planning to enter a war zone, actively living in a war zone, and reuniting after being in a war zone. Anticipation and understanding of the stages of deployment improves family, couple and individual functioning. The issues that the family and the couple are confronting at each stage of deployment: predeployment, deployment, and post-deployment are presented. Clinical interventions for the family and the couple are presented at each stage of deployment. Additionally, the impact of the service member's war time experience on the family, couple, and her/himself is discussed.

Impoverished Ghanaian youth often experience minimal early learning opportunities and under‐funded, over‐crowded, and woefully inadequate schools. Female youth face even more formidable challenges as a result of sex stereotypes and other forms of gender discrimination in education. This combination of factors also predisposes them to significant risk for dropping out of school and reduces their chances to attaining postsecondary education. Using ecological theory and a risk and resilience framework, we examined gender differences in risk and protective factors for academic outcomes in a sample of 276 Ghanaian youth recruited from 4 colleges in the northern and southern regions of the country. t tests and regression analyses revealed significant gender differences in risk and protection in relation to the presence of a school mentor, parental educational values, and delinquency at p<.05 significance level. Presence of a school mentor and poor neighborhood safety were significant but inversely related to achievement while region of residence predicted female achievement (Beta = .360, p <.01). Implications for practice and policy are discussed.

An etiological model of sexually abusive behavior including dissociation could have utility for researchers and treatment providers working with sexually abusive youth with trauma histories. This article explores relationships between dissociation, victimization, and juvenile sexual offending. Self-reported data on dissociation and 5 types of abuse were collected from 2 racially/ethnically diverse groups of sexually abusive and general delinquent male adolescents (n = 502). Bivariate analysis showed significant correlations between all types of child abuse and dissociation with the exception of emotional neglect. Hierarchical logistic regression analysis indicated that dissociation was significant in predicting sexual offender status. Moreover, dissociation, sexual victimization, and physical abuse showed significant effects in predicting membership in the sexual offender group. The results confirm the need for additional research in the areas of assessment and treatment of dissociation among sexually abusive youth.

Symptoms of depression include feelings of sadness, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and self-dislike. Adolescent depression is viewed as a problem in Japan, but there is little research on the correlates of depression in Japanese youth. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depression in Japanese youth and to examine correlates of depression using a risk and promotive factor framework. This study examined the symptoms of depression among 802 Japanese youth attending postsecondary schools in the Sapporo area. Separate analyses were conducted for males and females to determine whether the importance of risk and promotive factors varied by gender. The results showed that many factors that had been linked to depressive symptoms in Western samples were predictive of depressive symptoms in Japanese youth. The risk and promotive factors accounted for 50% and 59% of the variance in depressive symptoms for the female and male subsamples, respectively.