Monty Roberts is a real life "horse whisperer" who creates connections between horses and humans. This article extends these concepts to the challenge of connecting with guarded, distrustful youth. It presents a description of one youth, followed by seven profiles that are compilations of the work of Nicholas Long, Frank Fecser, and Mary Wood…

To what extent does the wording and syntactic form of people's writing reflect their personalities? Using a bottom-up stratified corpus comparison, rather than the top-down content analysis techniques that have been used before, we examine a corpus of e-mail messages elicited from individuals of known personality, as measured by the Eysenck…

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to empirically evaluate the effects of a 21-day wilderness therapy program (WT) on the defense styles, perceived psychosocial stressors (expressed concerns), dysfunctional personality patterns, clinical syndromes, and maladaptive behaviors of 109 troubled adolescents, as measured by the Defense Style…

One portion of a national study of bullying, which surveyed gifted 8th graders regarding bullying during their school years (N = 432), used structured interviews (N = 57) to explore the lived experience of being bullied or being a bully. Qualitative analysis of interview data found that even just one incident was highly distressing for some. Also…

The Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, 1986) was used to assess the impact of education and personality variables on college students' prejudicial attitudes toward African Americans. Prejudice was lower in students who completed a diversity course specifically addressing race and gender issues and in students who measured high in need for cognition…

Studying art from the target culture and student creation of original artwork in the second language (L2) classroom have many benefits. Both provide a springboard for discussion of the culture(s) under study as well as one's own. These activities also positively change the classroom atmosphere, generating student curiosity and lowering the…

Participants were 30 adult outpatients diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder who enrolled in an open trial of cognitive therapy for personality disorders. Treatment consisted of up to 52 weekly sessions. Symptom evaluations were conducted at intake, at Sessions 17 and 34, and at the last…

Black and minority ethnic (BME) leaders are greatly under-represented in English schools compared with the number of BME pupils. This paper reports the findings from research with BME leaders in 2004-2005 and links them to insights from a systematic literature review. The paper shows that BME teachers experience many barriers in developing their…

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of self-reported suicidality and distress during research assessments in a sample of 63 women meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder and current and chronic suicidality. The risk management protocol we used during the two-year study period (University of Washington Risk Assessment…

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is often characterized by multiple low lethality suicide attempts triggered by seemingly minor incidents, and less commonly by high lethality attempts that are attributed to impulsiveness or comorbid major depression. The relationships among life events, impulsiveness, and type of suicidal behavior has hardly…

This report presents findings supporting the hypothesis of a clinically relevant subtype of childhood speech sound disorder, provisionally titled speech delay--developmental psychosocial involvement (SD-DPI). Conversational speech samples from 29 children who met inclusionary criteria for SD-DPI were selected from a case record archive at a…

Using both surveys and the experience sampling method (ESM), community violence exposure, social support factors, and depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed longitudinally among inner-city African American adolescents. Moderator models were tested to determine protective factors for youth exposed to community violence. Several social…

Objective: To integrate findings from cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of the relationships between childhood injury, child behavior, parenting, family functioning and neighborhood characteristics. Method: Logistic modeling of cross-sectional (n=12,666) and longitudinal (n=9796) data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and…

Character education's history in the United States goes back to the beginning of public schools. The emphasis and profile has waxed and waned, frequently with political trends. The current standards-based environment poses particular threats and challenges to character education. In spite of these pressures, character education continues and - by…

Positive psychologists found the increase of seven character strengths that encompass the so-called theological virtues, including hope and spirituality, in Americans after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Little is known about how they may affect post-September 11, 2001, mental health. Using multivariate analysis, this study investigated the…