Chronicity of Violence Foretold: Toward an Integrated Theory of Intimate Partner Violence.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a worldwide social problem. The current study explores underlining mechanisms of phenomenon by tying together intergenerational transmission theory, socialization theory, and trauma theory. It learns from men how the father figure shaped by their childhood experiences has contributed to their violence, how the father's socialization to manhood has affected their intimate relations, and how they understand the effect of being exposed to the father's violence on their own intimate relationships and violence.

Understanding autism and its treatment: The child's perspective.

Introduction: While parents' and professionals' perceptions regarding children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been studied extensively, limited data regarding the perspectives of children with ASD on their needs and the challenges they face are available. The study aimed to examine how children with ASD understand their condition and the aims of the interventions they undergo.

Methods: Nineteen children and adolescents (ages 5.

The experience of men following stillbirth: the case of Israeli bereaved fathers.

Purpose: This paper explores the impact of stillbirth among men in Israeli society, which is marked by strong pronatalist norms. It sought to evaluate the impact of perceived social expectations and interactions with family, friends, and healthcare providers on the experience of problematic levels of grief among men experiencing stillbirth.

Methods: Thirty men after stillbirth were interviewed using semi-structured interviews and transcripts, which were analysed using the phenomenological approach.

Passing as normal: Negotiating boundaries and coping with male breast cancer.

Background And Objective: Male breast cancer is a rare and understudied disease. In addition to coping with cancer, suffering from what is perceived as a "woman's disease" significantly burdens men's illness experience and can lead to stigmatization. The way men cope with these challenges has not been studied to date.

Treating Sex Offenders: Effects on Male and Female Therapists.

The aim of the present study, based on in-depth semistructured interviews conducted in Israel with 18 social workers (nine women and nine men), working as probation officers who diagnose and treat sex offenders, was twofold: The first goal was to examine how treating sex offenders affects the male and female practitioners' daily lives and specifically, their parenting. Second, in light of the claim that support of colleagues and family members is very important for coping with secondary traumatization, the study investigated how working with sex offenders influenced the practitioners' ability to share their experiences with their colleagues in the workplace and with their partners at home. The study findings, based on a phenomenological analysis, revealed that male and female probation officers working with sex offenders experienced anxiety, suspicion, and concern for their children's safety.

Impact on Therapists Working With Sex Offenders: A Systematic Review of Gender Findings.

Although there is a great deal of literature about the distress of therapists who work with sex offenders, little is known about possible gender differences in their distress. The article presents a systematic review and small-scale meta-analysis that address two questions: whether one gender is more susceptible than the other to the adverse effects of treating sex offenders and whether their distress is manifested similarly or differently. Findings of 36 measures of association reported in 10 eligible studies with a total of 1,754 sex offender therapists (785 males) indicate that males are somewhat more vulnerable to the adverse effects of treating sex offenders ( = .

The Unheard Gender: The Neglect of Men as Social Work Clients.

This critical review shows that, despite increasing attention to fathers in social work practice and research, men are still largely the 'unheard gender'. Almost all the social work literature that deals with men discusses them as fathers, namely in terms of their function in the family. Very little of it looks at men in other roles or situations or concerns itself with men's experiences, feelings or needs.

Inequalities in a National Health Care System From the Perspective of Social Workers in Israel.

This study explores social workers' perceptions of inequalities in Israel's national health care system. Unlike previous studies, which relied on patients' and practitioners' reports, it is based on interviews with 60 social workers in hospitals and ambulatory clinics. The findings show that although Israeli law provides for (almost) free, universal medical care, the treatment of persons lacking in money, education, and social affiliation may be compromised by difficulties in paying for medications, treatments, and travel to and from hospital; by difficulties in understanding doctors' instructions; and by reluctance to ask questions.

Secondary Traumatization in Mental Health Professionals: A Systematic Review of Gender Findings.

The issue of gender is largely ignored in studies of secondary traumatization (STS). This article addresses the question of gender differences in susceptibility to STS among clinicians who treat traumatized clients. It does so by systematically reviewing the very limited body of published findings on this subject to date.

Social workers' role in tempering inequality in healthcare in hospitals and clinics: a study in Israel.

The paper presents an empirical examination of the role social workers play in tempering inequality in medical care. Data were collected in 2011 through face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 60 social workers employed in hospitals and clinics in Israel and selected through purposive sampling. The interviews probed the social workers' perceptions of the scope, causes and manifestations of inequality in health and healthcare and the actions they took to ameliorate it.

Heightened susceptibility to secondary traumatization: A meta-analysis of gender differences.

Although secondary traumatization has been extensively studied, gender difference in susceptibility has received limited attention. This study addressed the issue by a meta-analysis of published findings on male and female persons in close, extended relationships with trauma victims, namely, their spouses, parents, children, and therapists. The analysis included peer-reviewed studies, written in English and published between 1990 and January 2012.

The contributions of persons in the work environment to the self-identity of persons with mental health problems: a study in Israel.

This study explores the contribution of others in the workplace to the self-identity and job integration of persons with severe mental health problems. Thematic content analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in 2009 with 15 Israelis with severe mental health problems who work in a variety of frameworks (protected and supported employment and open market) revealed three main themes: (i) dissatisfaction with the protected work settings in which they were initially employed; (ii) the importance they attributed to their relationships with others in their workplace; and (iii) the change in self-identity they underwent from persons defined by their mental health problems to persons who had worth, abilities and being beyond their illness. The findings underscore the important role of managers and colleagues in integrating persons with mental health problems at work and in strengthening the self-identity of those individuals.

Female receptivity and secondary traumatization in the family.

This paper addresses the question of gendered receptivity to Secondary Traumatic Syndrome (STS) in the family. Unlike other manifestations of distress in the family, where gender comparisons are a matter of course, very few such comparisons are made in studies of STS. Review of the findings of 12 studies, the only studies, to date, that provide data enabling the comparison of STS in males and females, shows that females in the family, whether daughters, wives, or mothers, are consistently more likely than the males, whether sons, husbands, or fathers, to experience the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms of a traumatized family member without having experienced the traumatic event itself.

Jewish Israeli social workers' responses to ethnic health inequality.

In this study I explored the perceptions and responses of Jewish Israeli social workers to the health inequalities facing their Arab clients. Findings drawn from face-to-face, in-depth interviews with 26 Jewish Israeli social workers employed in the health field show that they were highly aware of the health inequalities. Although they uniformly insisted that there was no discrimination in the hospitals where they were employed, they observed extensive structural and individual discrimination outside the hospital and linguistic and sociocultural impediments to health equality within it.

"There's a man in my bed": the first experience of sex among Modern-Orthodox newlyweds in Israel.

The first experience of sex is a significant life event for men and women. Studies investigating first-time sex focus largely on relationships at a young age and among teenagers, whereas studies of that experience in the context of marriage are extremely sparse and focus mainly on clinical population of unconsummated marriage. The authors explore the individual and mutual emotional effect of first-time intercourse among Modern-Orthodox newlywed couples in Israel.

No longer pregnant, not yet a mother: giving birth prematurely to a very-low-birth-weight baby.

In this article we present the findings of a qualitative examination of 30 mothers of very-low-birth-weight babies. Interviews conducted with the mothers when the babies were still in neonatal hospitalization show that virtually all the mothers described their delivery both as a traumatic event, and as a nonevent in which they felt that they barely participated. Most of them blamed themselves for not carrying full term, some blamed others, and some believed the premature delivery saved their baby's life.

Shared traumatic reality in communal disasters: toward a conceptualization.

The phenomenon variously termed "shared reality," "shared trauma," or "shared traumatic reality" refers to situations in which helper and helpee, psychotherapist and client, are exposed to the same communal disaster. This article has two aims. One, pursued in the first part of the article, is to trace the development of the concept; analyze the conditions under which it was acknowledged, articulated, and labeled; and review the changes in the term over time.

Postdivorce paternal disengagement: failed mourning and role fusion.

In this article, I suggest that postdivorce paternal disengagement may be rooted in the father's tendency to link his children and ex-wife as a single entity in consequence of his failure to adequately mourn the loss of his ex-wife and to redefine his paternal role and identity in distinction from his spousal role and identity. I also suggest that the ex-spousal conflict that disengaged fathers often blame for their disengagement is the product of these failures and shows the progress from conflict through disengagement. These claims are developed on the basis of findings of other authors and illustrated though a case analysis of an absent father.

On helping divorced men to mourn their losses.

The paper argues that (1) full recognition of men's losses in divorce is an essential prerequisite to offering divorced men the emotional help they may need and (2) that since men mourn the losses of divorce differently from women, counselors should take their unique way of mourning into consideration in their treatment of divorced men. The article then offers practical suggestions for when and how to reach out with offers of help to divorced men, ways of facilitating the mourning process of divorced men in therapy, and issues to consider when terminating treatment with divorced men.

Coping with "absence-presence": noncustodial fathers' parenting behaviors.

This article is based on the view that the nature of the divorced father's involvement with his children is affected by psychological processes that enable him to separate his parental from his spousal role and identity. It argues that the ability to cope with the simultaneous absence of the spousal role and identity and presence of the paternal role and identity is a key factor in shaping the divorced father's behavior toward his children. The article illustrates the claim in 3 case studies showing (a) parental functioning marred by ongoing conflict with the children's mother, (b) disengagement, and (c) stable and consistent parental functioning within the inevitable limitations of noncustodial fatherhood.

Divorce process variables and the co-parental relationship and parental role fulfillment of divorced parents.

This study examines the association between two sets of divorce process variables, a) initiation of and responsibility for the divorce and b) difficulty and duration of the legal procedure, and divorced spouses' co-parental relationship and parental functioning. In a random sample of 50 former couples, in Israel, findings showed that the longer and more conflictual the legal proceedings, the worse the coparental relationship in the view of both parents. They also showed that mothers' parental functioning was not significantly associated with any of the divorce variables, but fathers' were.