Study includes variety of subjectively positive as well as negative outcomes of becoming a parent for the first time. Using large urban sample, crisis was found to be slight or moderate. Several variables were found to be significantly related to the ease of dealing with first year of parenthood. (Author)

When facing terminal illness, the dying individual needs to accept death and his feelings about it, deal with potential isolation from friends and relatives, and find meaning in his remaining time. Family members need also to accept death. Family counseling offers a treatment method for responding to these needs. (Author)

Should a stimulus be defined as the single event immediately preceding a response (simple stimulus) or as a constellation of antecedents representing several preceding events (complex stimulus)? Sixty-eight families with a child between four and eight years of age were observed, and family interactions coded in the naturalistic setting of the…

Examined the influence of mitigating circumstances on parents' beliefs and intervention behaviors regarding sibling physical aggression. Subjects were 40 Caucasian families. Results indicated that, although parents considered sibling physical aggression to be a serious transgression, they believed that mitigated aggression of both of their…

This paper discusses the concept of stress by drawing from social-psychological, occupational, family, and medical perspectives. A model of stress based on an integration of these perspectives is developed and then applied to the family relationship over time. The components of the model consist of: (1) a stressor stimulus, any situation that may…

Feelings and attitudes were investigated among family members with mentally ill relatives whose treatment delivery system was being "deinstitutionalized" or moved from hospital-based treatment to community-based treatment. Subjects (N=125) were interviewed at home by either mental health professionals or professional interviewers. Results…

Family stress theory as a framework for family policy and family impact analysis is compatible with, and a logical development within, a broader ecological context of immediate and wider social environments. The central assumption of the family stress framework is that families have the capacity to organize a variety of supports--economic, social,…

The Perception of Baby Temperament Scales (PBT) were used to elicit parental perceptions of infant temperament, with the results rated for internal consistency and congruence between parents. Data was obtained from 26 families, with both father and mother describing their first-born infants at five months of age. The PBT Scales deal with a range…