In spite of the increase in stress-coping research, little is known about how stress is actually perceived by children in the family setting. This is due in part to the real difficulties involved in collecting data on children's subjective experiences. In addition, what we currently know about children's stress and coping has traditionally derived from adult reporters, rather than from the children themselves. Filling a gap in the literature, this volume explores theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of children and families in general, and to stress-coping phenomena from the child's perspective in particular. The book challenges traditional deference to adult assessment of stress and coping among children by drawing data from both parents and children, revealing significant contrasts between the two. Through open-ended, qualitative measures of children's diaries and drawings, the book offers a glimpse into the inner world of the child and gives scholarly expression to the fact that children can, and readily will, articulate needs and perceptions if given an appropriate vehicle. The book's well-documented chapters discuss traditional approaches to stress and coping, implications for current child and family study, specific needs related to the study of children within the family, and implications for theory and methods. Taxonomies of children's stressors, coping responses, and coping resources are drawn from the data and examined in detail. The book concludes with suggestions for future research and clinical practice. Providing fascinating insight into children's actual experience of stress and coping, this volume lays the groundwork for ongoing research, scholarship, and therapeutic practice. Academicians, practitioners, and graduate students in family studies, child development, psychology, and nursing will find this book invaluable in shedding light on the often overlooked culture of children.

This is the first comprehensive Handbook to examine the various models of stress, coping, and health and their relevance to nursing and related health fields. No other volume provides a compendium of key issues in stress and coping for the nursing and allied health professions. In this new edition, the authors assembles a team of expert practitioners and scholars in the field to present the broad range of issues that relate to stress and health such as response-oriented stress, stimulus-oriented stress, stress, coping, .

Concern with stress and coping has a long history in biomedical, psychological and sociological research. The inadequacy of simplistic models linking stressful life events and adverse physical and psychological outcomes was pointed out in the early 1980s in a series of seminal papers and books. The issues and theoretical models discussed in this work shaped much of the subsequent research on this topic and are reflected in the papers in this volume. The shift has been away from identifying associations between risks and outcomes to a focus on factors and processes that contribute to diversity in response to risks. Based on the Family Research Consortium's fifth summer institute, this volume focuses on stress and adaptability in families and family members. The papers explore not only how a variety of stresses influence family functioning but also how family process moderates and mediates the contribution of individual and environmental risk and protective factors to personal adjustment. They reveal the complexity of current theoretical models, research strategies and analytic approaches to the study of risk, resiliency and vulnerability along with the central role risk, family process and adaptability play in both normal development and childhood psychopathology.

How do people cope with stressful experiences? What makes a coping strategy effective for a particular individual? This volume comprehensively examines the nature of psychosocial stress and the implications of different coping strategies for adaptation and health across the lifespan. Carolyn M. Aldwin synthesizes a vast body of knowledge within a conceptual framework that emphasizes the transactions between mind and body and between persons and environments. She analyzes different kinds of stressors and their psychological and physiological effects, both negative and positive. Ways in which coping is influenced by personality, relationships, situational factors, and culture are explored. The book also provides a methodological primer for stress and coping research, critically reviewing available measures and data analysis techniques.

Unique and comprehensive, this volume integrates the most updated theory and research relating to adolescent coping and its determinants. This book is the result of the author's long interest in, and study of, stress, coping, and relationships in adolescence. It begins with an overview of research conducted during the past three decades and contrasts research trends in adolescent coping in the United States and Europe over time. Grounded on a developmental model for adolescent coping, the conceptual issues and major questions are outlined. Supporting research ties together the types of stressors, the ways of coping with normative and non-normative stressors, and the function that close relationships fulfill in this context. More than 3,000 adolescents from different countries participated in seven studies that are built programmatically on one another and focus on properties that make events stressful, on coping processes and coping styles, on internal and social resources, and on stress-buffering and adaptation. A variety of assessment procedures for measuring stress and coping are presented, including semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and content analysis. This multimethod-multivariate approach is characterized by assessing the same construct via different methods, replicating the measures in different studies including cross-cultural samples, using several informants, and combining standardized instruments with very open data gathering. The results offer a rich picture of the nature of stressors requiring adolescent coping and highlight the importance of relationship stressors. Age and gender differences in stress appraisal and coping style are also presented. Mid-adolescence emerges as a turning point in the use of certain coping strategies and social resources. Strong gender differences in stress appraisal and coping style suggest that females are more at risk for developing psychopathology. The book demonstrates how adolescents make use of assistance provided by social support systems and points to the changing influence of parents and peers. It addresses controversial issues such as benefits and costs of close relationships or the beneficial or maladaptive effects of avoidant coping. Its clear style, innovative ideas, and instruments make it an excellent textbook for both introductory and advanced courses. Without question, it may serve as a guide for future research in this field. This book will be of value to researchers, practitioners, and students in various fields such as child clinical and developmental psychology and psychopathology.

Stress, Coping, and Depression is the latest volume based on the Annual Stress and Coping Conference held at the University of Miami. In this timely collection, leading researchers offer a variety of new perspectives on depression. They review the social, biological, and psychological processes that put adults and their children at risk and discuss innovative treatments grounded in empirical studies. Research findings are integrated across domains to construct more effective models of etiology and intervention. The contributors' thought-provoking ideas will provide inspiration for the ongoing efforts addressing the problems associated with this devastating disorder. Content highlights include: * novel information processing approaches to depression; * an overview of the neural pathways guiding moods; * empirical approaches for the treatment of bipolar disorders; * integrated models of biological and environmental influences on the transmission of depression to children; and * new perspectives on the relationship between personality and stress.

I am very pleased to have been asked to do abrief foreword to this second CRISP volume, The Social Context o[ Coping. I know most of the participants and their work, and respect them as first-rate and influen tial research scholars whose research is at the cusp of current concerns in the field of stress and coping. Psychological stress is central to human adaptation. It is difficult to visualize the study of adaptation, health, illness, personal soundness, and psychopathology without recognizing their dependence on how weil people cope with the stresses of living. Since the editor, John Eckenrode, has portrayed the themes of each of the chapters in his introduction, I can limit myself to a few general comments about stress and coping. Stress research began, as unexplored fields often do, with very sim ple-should I say simplistic?-ideas about how to define the concept. Early approaches were unidimensional and input-output in outlook, modeled implicitly on Hooke's late-17th-century engineering analysis in which external load was an environmental stressor, stress was the area over wh ich the load acted, and strain was the deformation of the struc tu re such as a bridge or building.

Highlighting the interplay between basic research and intervention, this volume focuses on common stressful life experiences that present significant challenges to children's healthy development. Fifteen stressors are discussed with regard to both short-and long-term effects. The authors identify factors that explain variability in children's adjustment to these stressors and evaluate preventive interventions designed to facilitate coping. Notable chapters include a discussion of the many uncontrollable stressors to which inner-city youth are exposed and a thorough treatment of children's adaptation to divorce. Each chapter follows a common outline, allowing comparison among stressors.