Methods of identifying adult children of alcoholics are described and their psychometric properties are reviewed. These methods include self-report single questions and questionnaires and interview schedules. The CASTS, a shortened version of the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test, is compared with a variety of these methods. The CAST-6 is confirmed as a useful brief screening measure. It was shown to be internally reliable, have good retest reliability and to agree well with other measures. Using a face to face interview as the comparison standard, however, a number of single questions performed equally as well as the CAST-6 and other more complex methods.

Methods of identifying adult children of alcoholics are described and their psychometric properties are reviewed. These methods include self-report single questions and questionnaires and interview schedules. The CAST-6, a shortened version of the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test, is compared with a variety of these methods. The CAST-6 is confirmed as a useful brief screening measure. It was shown to be internally reliable, have good retest reliability and to agree well with other measures. Using a face to face interview as the comparison standard, however, a number of single questions performed equally as well as the CAST-6 and other more complex methods.

This article presents an integrative, affectively focused therapy for the effects of childhood abuse. Emotion-focused therapy for adult survivors (EFT-AS) is an empirically supported, brief but comprehensive treatment that addresses symptomatology, and interpersonal and self-related disturbances. EFT-AS integrates the principles of exposure with construction of new meaning, and emphasizes both the role of adaptive emotion and the therapeutic relationship in psychotherapeutic change. The three posited mechanisms of change are:(1) accessing and modifying maladaptive emotional meaning related to experiences of fear/anxiety and shame; (2) accessing previously inhibited adaptive emotion, such as anger and sadness, so that adaptive information can be integrated into current meaning systems; and (3) provision of a corrective interpersonal experience with the therapist. Data and descriptive material from a case of EFT-AS for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stemming from child physical abuse illustrate the structure of therapy, intervention principles, and mechanisms and indices of change.