Publications by authors named "Alexis Abernethy"

Background: Meaning in life is a benchmark indicator of flourishing that can likely mitigate the severity of depression symptoms among persons seeking mental healthcare. However, patients contending with serious mental health difficulties often experience a painful void or absence of ultimate meaning in their lives that might hinder recovery. This two-wave longitudinal study examined temporal associations between perceived presence of meaning in life, struggles with ultimate meaning, flourishing, and depression symptoms among adults in a spiritually integrated inpatient treatment program.

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Understanding how forgiveness relates to mental health outcomes may improve clinical care. This study assessed 248 adult psychiatric inpatients, testing associations of forgiveness, religious comfort (RC), religious strain (RS), and changes in depressive symptomatology from admission to discharge. Experiencing divine forgiveness and self-forgiveness was both directly associated with RC and inversely associated with RS.

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Objective: Research has established religion and spirituality as important resources for Black people in the U.S. coping with adversity.

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Objective Latina and African American breast cancer survivors (BCS) are affected by health disparities that have negatively impacted their health outcomes and quality of life more than other BCS. Examining the relationships among social support, culture, and well-being in underserved groups may help clarify critical factors that influence health disparities in cancer survivors. Methodology Ethnic salience (impact of ethnicity on identity), religious support, social support, and well-being were examined in African American and Latina breast cancer survivors using archival data.

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Objective: Religious beliefs and practices may augment a sense of meaning in life that could support quality of life (QOL) in physical, social, and emotional domains amid mental health crises. However, these associations have not been thoroughly tested among persons with serious mental illness (SMI).

Methods: Focusing on 248 adults who had recently enrolled in a spiritually integrated acute psychiatric hospitalization program, we incorporated structural equation modeling to examine whether (1) religiousness would be associated with better overall QOL; and (2) inpatients' sense of meaning in life would at least partially account for the religiousness-QOL link.

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Background: Persons contending with serious mental health difficulties often experience struggles with religious faith and/or spirituality that may also demand clinical attention. However, research has not examined the relative importance of specific forms of spiritual struggles in mental health status or treatment outcomes of psychiatric patients.

Methods: Focusing on 217 adults who completed a spiritually integrated inpatient program, this study examined (1) which struggles in Exline et al.

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Purpose: The increased prevalence of body dissatisfaction and eating disordered behaviors (EDBs) among African American women warrants further examination of critical factors that may contribute to this recent trend. This study sought to investigate whether ethnic identification, spirituality, and internalization of the thin ideal would be associated with decreased body dissatisfaction and EDBs.

Method: A convenience sample of 55 African American college women was recruited from a college campus.

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Recent developments in brain imaging have enhanced our understanding of how individuals respond to racial cues and stereotypes. Evidence suggests that racial stereotypes are more emotional in nature than other phenotypic stereotypes. One challenging emotion that may be evoked is shame.

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This article presents a cultural adaptation of a group therapeutic approach that is being offered in the Bahamas. "The Family: People Helping People" project was designed as an intervention to improve socialization in New Providence, the Bahamian capital and its most heavily populated city. "The Family" group model offers support and training to improve communication in relationships and to encourage constructive emotional expression.

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Religion and/or spirituality (R/S) can play a vital, multifaceted role in mental health. While beliefs about God represent the core of many psychiatric patients' meaning systems, research has not examined how internalized images of the divine might contribute to outcomes in treatment programs/settings that emphasize multicultural sensitivity with R/S. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative information with a religiously heterogeneous sample of 241 adults who completed a spiritually integrative inpatient program over a two-year period, this study tested direct/indirect associations between imagery of how God views oneself, religious comforts and strains, and affective outcomes (positive and negative).

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Scapegoating in group psychotherapy is a pervasive, complex, and challenging phenomenon for many group leaders. How scapegoating is worked through by the group can have a profound impact on whole-group dynamics and functioning. Although some key aspects of scapegoating have been identified in the psychoanalytic literature, the authors urge group leaders to consider systemic and group-level perspectives in depth.

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Empathy has consistently been identified as an important quality of psychotherapists. Understanding unique ways that empathy emerges in group therapy may assist group therapists in fostering empathy. Rogerian and selected psychodynamic and interpersonal perspectives on empathy are discussed.

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Understanding factors that influence screening receptivity may enhance African-American men's receptivity to prostate cancer screening. Men of African descent (N = 481) between the ages of 40 and 70 were recruited. The hypotheses that Fatalism would be related to Intrinsic Religiousness and Fear, Intrinsic Religiousness would act as a mediator between Fatalism and Fear, and Fatalism as well as Prostate Cancer-Specific Fear would be negatively related to past Prostate-Specific Antigen Testing and Screening Intent were supported.

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Anne Alonso was passionate about the practice of supervision. An excellent supervisor herself, she sought to identify and teach the ingredients of effective supervision throughout her career. Her first book, The Quiet Profession (1985), was about the supervisory relationship and the various influences on it from within and without the relationship, and she insisted that the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies training program that she directed for many years include a required course on supervision.

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This study was designed to examine the relationship between religiousness (organized, nonorganized, and intrinsic) and religious problem solving (collaborative, deferring, and self-directing) in prostate cancer screening (PCS) attitudes and behavior. Men (N = 481) of African descent between the ages of 40 and 70 participated. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that religiousness and self-directed problem solving were associated with PCS attitudes.

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Over the past several years, the science of cancer communication has been recognized as integral to the dissemination of cancer prevention and control strategies in both the general population as well as higher-risk groups. In this article we draw upon current literature and small group discussion in the 2008 Society for Behavioral Medicine Cancer Special Interest Group Pre-Conference Workshop on Cancer Communication to identify current findings, critical challenges, and future opportunities regarding personal communication of primary and secondary prevention of cancer. We organize our article with six critical questions: (1) What are the most important directions of research in this area? (2) Does personal cancer communication work through rational processes, or are affective and nonrational processes also involved? (3) Are our efforts adequate to reach underserved populations? (4) Are naturalistic communicative contexts given adequate consideration? (5) Has the field been adequately informed by social psychological and communication theories? (6) What are the best outcomes to document communication effectiveness? Our goals are to initiate thought and collaborative efforts among communication, public health, and behavioral science experts, as well as to establish research priorities at the interface of communication and cancer prevention and control sciences.

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In this article, the authors discuss the application of Sue's cultural competence differential of hypothesis testing, dynamic sizing, and cultural specific expertise as a model for considering cultural factors in the treatment of an African American family. Three cultural dimensions are highlighted: spirituality, womanism, and community exposure to trauma. Given the centrality of spirituality for this African American family, prayer is used to facilitate the therapeutic process.

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In a study of psychosocial factors related to prostate cancer screening (PCS) of African American men, researchers achieved significant success in recruitment. Key strategies included addressing specific barriers to PCS for African American men and placing recruitment efforts in a conceptual framework that addressed cultural issues (PEN-3 model). To conduct cancer prevention research in the African American community, to engage in health promotion in collaboration with churches, and to recruit African American men, a culturally competent approach that incorporates the values of the community is essential.

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A cancer diagnosis frequently activates a range of coping responses in patients and their spouses and may affect their emotional well-being. The authors hypothesized a curvilinear relationship between religious coping and depression in 156 spouses of lung cancer patients. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted with blocks of variables entered as follows: demographic characteristics; cancer stage; perceived control, self-efficacy, and social support; religious coping (linear); and religious coping squared (quadratic).

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