Psychological responses to blood vengeance among Arab adolescents

Religious meaning-making among Muslim parents bereaved by homicide: Struggling to accept 'God's will' and yearning for 'Qayama' day

Objective

Parental bereavement by homicide is considered an extremely difficult grief experience; hence it may significantly undermine one's meaning structures. Although bereaved parents' meaning-making process has been extensively researched, less is known about meaning reconstruction among Muslim parents bereaved by homicide - an understudied population. The study's goal was to gain an in-depth understanding of bereaved Muslim parents' meaning-making process in light of their religious background using Park's religious meaning-making model.

Methods

Employing a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were held with 12 Muslim parents bereaved by homicide. The data were analyzed using both categorical-content and categorical-form analyses.

Results

The findings indicated that Muslim parents' meaning-making process involves silencing, which is grounded in their religious background. This process is characterized by a difficulty to accept this loss as God's will, as expected from them by religion, given that it was caused by an intentional act of human violence. Consequently, their global belief meanings are undermined. They, then, yearn for "Qayama" day-the day of judgment.

Conclusions

The findings are discussed in light of Park's religious meaning-making model, highlighting that bereaved Muslim parents' coping process includes an additional challenge related to their religious background. This underscores the need for culturally-sensitive inquiry and spiritually-informed therapy.

Issues in the Treatment of Children Who Have Lost a Family Member to Murder in the Arab Community in Israel

Losing a loved one as a result of murder is a profoundly traumatic experience. This is even more precise with regard to children who have lost an immediate family member, such as a parent or a sibling. This experience may severely impact the children's social and emotional lives, their functioning, adaptability, and psychological and physical development. In the last few years, public and therapeutic awareness in Israel has been raised with regard to the effect of murder cases on the families of the victims. In 2009, the Israeli government approved an assistance program for families bereaved by homicide in Israel. This article focuses on the treatment of grieving children in the Arab community, which touches upon the violent nature of the murder, requires awareness, and broadens the knowledge of children's grieving processes, as well as religious, cultural, and social perceptions regarding death and treatment-seeking.

Cultural appropriateness of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) in the case of ethnic Armenian adolescents in Lebanon

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this study is to report on the cultural appropriateness of the 60-item Armenian version of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) among ethnic Armenian adolescents in the ethnically and religiously pluralist Lebanon.

METHOD

A total of 558 Armenian adolescents in Grades 10, 11 and 12 completed the Armenian FAD scale and the Self-Family Closeness (SFC) scale in a randomized order. The internal consistencies and intercorrelations of the Armenian FAD domains were examined, as were their correlations with the SFC ratings.

RESULTS

The Armenian FAD and its General Functioning subscale showed excellent internal consistencies (alpha = 0.89 and alpha = 0.80, respectively), whereas the reliabilities were satisfactory for the family domains of Communication and Role functioning but less than satisfactory for the Affective Responsiveness , Problem Solving, Affective Involvement and Behaviour Control domains. The Armenian FAD scale and its subscales correlated with each other and with SFC ratings (r = -0.55 for Armenian FAD scale; r = -0.57 for General Functioning), and showed sensitivity to gender differences, females reporting better family functioning than males.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the findings support the cultural appropriateness of the 12-item Armenian FAD General Functioning subscale and its advantage over the 60-item scale. The findings also suggest the need to rethink the items of the four Armenian FAD domains with low internal consistencies for their increased cultural relevance in the case of Armenian adolescents in Lebanon.

Iraqi adolescents: Self-regard, self-derogation, and perceived threat in war

A year into the 2003 US-Iraq war, how were adolescents in Baghdad faring? Conflict-related events typically lower psychological well-being; in contrast, investment in and protection of threatened identities should lead to self-esteem striving and, presumably, better well-being. How threatened do Iraqi adolescents feel? Is their self-esteem related to their sense of threat? Do age, religion, ethnicity, and gender alter the link between perceived threat and self-esteem? We use data from 1000 randomly selected adolescents living in Baghdad during July 2004. Iraqi adolescents reported high levels of threat; those feeling more threatened reported higher levels of self-esteem. Social background correlates with both self-esteem and perceived threat, but controlling for social background does not eliminate the relationship between self-esteem and perceived threat. We interpret our results in light of theory and research concerning social identity, mortality threats, and war trauma.

Family Functioning, Cultural Orientation, and Psychological Well-Being Among University Students in Lebanon

The author examined the relationship between perceived family functioning, the cultural orientations of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, and psychological well-being in a group of 182 university students in Lebanon. Factor analysis of the present data from the 12-item General Functioning Scale of the Family Assessment Device (GF-FAD) resulted in the extraction of one general factor, accounting for 43% of the variance. On the basis of North American cutoff values, the author found that 60.5% of the university students perceived their family as healthy and that 39.5% perceived their family as unhealthy. Male students perceived their families as somewhat more dysfunctional than did female students. Muslim students perceived their families as more dysfunctional than did Christian students. As the author expected, family functioning was associated with the culture-related personality dimension of horizontal collectivism and with perceived psychological well-being. Overall, the findings supported the structure and usefulness of the GF-FAD in the Lebanese context and the importance of viewing family functioning from the perspective of individual cultural orientation.

Maltreatment and coping strategies among male adolescents living in the Gaza Strip

OBJECTIVE

To establish the nature and extent of maltreatment experiences, coping strategies, and behavioral/emotional problems, and their relationships, in a sample of Palestinian adolescents.

METHOD

A study of 97 male adolescents aged 15-19 years, and attending a vocational training center based in the Gaza Strip. Adolescents completed the Child Maltreatment Schedule and the Ways of Coping Scale (WAYS). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was completed by adolescents and by their teachers.

RESULTS

Findings revealed high rates of emotional and physical maltreatment. Reliance on emotion-focused or avoidant coping strategies was associated with exposure to maltreatment. Use of maladaptive coping also predicted emotional difficulties in the respondents.

CONCLUSIONS

Coping strategies are an important indicator of psychosocial functioning in adolescents who have experienced maltreatment. Identification of coping styles can augment the assessment of at-risk adolescents. Emotion-focused strategies, in particular, appear to be widely used by young people from non-Western cultural backgrounds.