مطالب

Families develop shared worldviews called family paradigms, an ordered set of beliefs about the social world that are sensibly connected to the ways families actually respond to and interact with their social world and which help or hinder their problem solving abilities. Evidence suggests that these paradigms are generally built in and endure and regulate transactions with the family's social environment. Under stress, however, a family may alter its paradigm as a result of transactions with the environment. Using a family system paradigm, this presentation will examine the theoretical literature in search of a better way of understanding stress and its management in families. Multiple causes and multifaceted coping strategies, and the advantages and disadvantages of management strategies in families will be highlighted.

The phenomenon of stress and its role in sickness and health is overt. Furthermore, various studies have confirmed the role of emotions in psychological well-being; but the relation between stress and emotions is one of the important issues about which there are different theories. The aim of the present study is to compare the effect of three interventions including: emotional expression, meditation and compound method on perceived stress. <br />The design used in the present study is quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest with control group and a two-month follow-up stage. Forty men who voluntarily had referred to Tavan Afza Clinic were chosen using hand-to-hand sampling method and were randomly assigned to four groups. The Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale was used in the pretest, posttest and follow-up stages and the intervention lasted for eight sessions within one month. The data were analyzed by covariance and T-test independent group test. The statistical data indicated that the difference between the compound treatment group and control group by the significance level of 5% and the confidence level of 95% was significant; but the difference between the other groups was not significant. The results indicated that the compound method can be effective in reducing perceived stress of the youth. Therefore, this method can be used as an effective way to reduce stress in the stressed-out people and to improve psychological well-being in the youth.