No abstract

Examined the relationship between marital intimacy and self‐disclosure from a multidimensional framework within a sample of 10 clinical and 10 nonclinical married couples. The linear combination of various parameters of self‐disclosing behavior was able to account for 71.7% (R = 0.853) of the variance in intimacy ratings derived from a structured interview. Results are discussed in terms of both the role that self‐disclosure plays in the development of marital intimacy and its therapeutic benefits and limitations in marital therapy.

High and low self-monitors, who either anticipated or did not anticipate further mteraction with a same-sex confederate, alternated with that person m disclosing personal information on three very pnvate topics The confederate spoke first on each topic, presenting either highly intimate or nonintimate information m response to all three issues Content analyses of subjects' disclosures revealed that both high and low self-monitors reciprocated the intimacy and (to a lesser extent) the emotionality of a partner with whom future interaction was not anticipated, but that only the high self-monitors reciprocated the partner's self-disclosures when future interaction with that person was anticipated Supplementary measures suggested that the anticipation of future interaction increased the agentic concems of all participants, thereby inducing high self-monitors to become even more attentive to situational cues when deciding how or what to disclose, while prompting low self-monitors to rely even less on situational cues and more on personal thoughts and feelings as the basis for thenself-presentations Taken together, the results indicate that the prospect of future interaction is an important situational moderator of the self-disclosing tendencies of both high and low self-monitors, and they provide little if any support for recent "instrumental hedonism" interpretations of self-momtonng activities

In the third part of this homebirth supplement women described the impact of the birth in terms of their perception of themselves as a woman, their reinterpretation of past negative events such as previous births, and their understanding of subsequent experiences such as relationships with others and future decisions about birth.

Twenty five women who had had a routine hospital birth between 3-5 years ago were interviewed about their experiences of deciding to have a hospital birth and the birth itself. Some women described their decision to have their baby in hospital in terms of issues of risk and safety. However, in the main the decision making process involved choosing between hospitals; homebirths were not seen as an option. The actual birth experience was described in terms of their surroundings and issues of privacy, ‘hi-tech’ equipment and comfort. Further, it was described in terms of the role of others who were described as being either supportive or insensitive, in terms of communication which involved information which was either clearly given, insufficient, given in a callous way or not given at all, and the experiences of pain. In addition, the women described the central role of interventions. In particular, the construct of control permeated all aspects of their experience with the women describing control in complex and at times contradictory ways. The results provide insights into the experience of having a baby in hospital and illustrate that this commonplace event was experienced In uncommon ways.