This study examined the process of loss and mourning associated with immigration. Three broadcast interviews from Al-Jazeera network, an Arabic satellite channel, revealed different responses of Arab immigrants to losing their native culture. Theoretically, clinging to the lost culture may lead to isolation and ethnocentric withdrawal. A healthier response to loss is to mourn it. According to the Continuing Bonds model of mourning, immigrants incorporate elements of their native culture such as their families, friends, identity, language, values and traditions, into their new life structure. Instead of abandoning their emotional attachments to these cultural elements, immigrants may use them as resources that may help them adjust to their new countries and solve many problems they may face. The Assimilation Model, which has been used to assess psychotherapeutic progress, provides a language for describing a sequence through which elements of lost culture are assimilated into the immigrant's new life structure. This study revealed that a continuing bond with the lost culture is a part of the full assimilation and mourning of this culture.
The present study examined predictions derived from self-efficacy theory in comparing the effects of exposure and cognitive interventions with simple phobics. Twenty-two phobics with fears of either heights, elevators, or darkness were assigned to either guided exposure (GE) or cognitive restructuring (CR) treatments. GE was found significantly superior to CR in enhancing approach behavior, increasing level and strength of self-effficacy, reducing subjective fear, and decreasing physiological reactivity to imagined phobic scenes. High correlations were found between approach behavior and self-efficacy ratings for both groups. GE produced marked improvements in subjects' ability to cope with phobic situations in daily life. CR induced reported improvements in social functioning. At a 1-month follow-up the results remained much the same. Five additional sessions of GE were then offered to subjects in the CR condition, producing results comparable to those of the original GE group. At a 6-month follow-up all gains were maintained with further reductions in subjective fear for all GE subjects.Recent evidence has established the effectiveness of in vivo behavioral practice in helping people to overcome disabling fears and anxieties (Marks, 1978). At the same time there is increasing interest in cognitive methods in the treatment of fear and anxiety (Beck & Emery, 1979;Goldfried, 1979;Meichenbaum, 1977). Only two studies have evaluated the relative effectiveness of exposure in vivo and cognitive methods in the treatment of phobic disorders. Emmelkamp, Kuipers, and Eggeraat (1978) found exposure in vivo to be superior to cognitive retructuring in the treatment of agoraphobics both on the behavioral measures and on the phobic anxiety and avoidance scales. In the Williams and Rappoport (Note 1) study, agoraphobics with severe fear of driving received either therapist-guided practice at This research is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation at Rutgers-The State University.We are especially grateful to Robert Edelberg, Paul M. Lehrer, and Alan R. Wiesenfeld for their contributions to the research. Acknowledgements are also extended to Fernando Augusto, Pat Dubbert, and Lisa Fisher for their participation as therapists in this study.
This article reports preliminary development of the Perceived Parental Acculturation Behaviors Scale (PPABS) based on a sample of 44 college students whose parents immigrated to America from Arab countries. The PPABS proposes two independent scales, whose contents characterize the respondents' perceptions of how much their parents evidence (a) openness to the American culture and (b) preservation of Arab culture.
Three case studies of immigrants to the US from China, Iraq, and Mexico were used to build a theory of acculturation in immigrants by integrating the continuing bonds model, which describes mourning in bereavement with the assimilation model, which describes psychological change in psychotherapy. Participants were interviewed about the loss of their native culture and their life in the US. One participant had not fully assimilated the loss of her native culture, but used her continuing bonds with her culture as a source of solace. Another participant used his continuing bonds with his culture as a source of solace, but these bonds had become a source of conflict with the host culture. The third participant had largely assimilated the loss of his native culture such that the voices of this culture were linked via meaning bridges with the voices of the host culture, and the continuing bonds were resources that helped him in his land of immigration.
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