The relevance of infant observation to clinical training and practice: An interpretation

In this paper, I discuss the effects of infant observation on the observer and the implications for mental health professionals. Similarities and differences between two Infant Observation Seminar groups of students are presented. Students performed in-home observations once a week over a 2-year period. Initially, there were motivational differences between the groups of students. One group had members committed to an intensive training program in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children (Training Group), and the other group was a service delivery front-line worker group whose members voluntarily attended a weekly in-service training seminar (Work Group). In addition to infant observation, the Training Group had ongoing didactic seminars in psychoanalytic theory, 3 hours weekly for 4 years. The Work Group had a didactic seminar on some aspect of relevant infancy literature or psychoanalytic theory for 1 hour per week for the duration of the seminar, which was 2 years. The findings suggest that mental health workers can enhance their clinical skills through infant observation, that they can obtain a working knowledge of infant development, that prior training did not affect observation, and that all observers had difficulty observing mother-infant relationships due to counter-transference difficulties that involved unresolved conflicts from the past.     

Intensive Gestalt Group Therapy with Schizophrenics

Abstract

Teaching group therapy is an essential aspect of graduate studies within the helping professions. Existing models discuss four basic elements required for such training: experience, observation, supervised practice, and theory. The present paper offers a model for a group therapy seminar based on these four elements and organized along developmental concepts. Clinical observations of 120 psychology students who participated in the seminar were gathered over a five-year period. Teaching techniques included supervised observation, fish-bowl, one-way mirror, and a final paper integrating theory and practice. The seminar enabled students to practice and to theorize about group processes, both as participants and as co-leaders. Seminar outcomes and conclusions are discussed.     

Fundamental axioms for preference relations

Summary The basic theory of preference relations contains a trivial part reflected by axioms A1 and A2, which say that preference relations are preorders. The next step is to find other axims which carry the theory beyond the level of the trivial. This paper is to a great part a critical survey of such suggested axioms. The results are much in the negative — many proposed axioms imply too strange theorems to be acceptable as axioms in a general theory of preference. This does not exclude, of course, that they may well be reasonable axioms for special calculi of preference. I believe that many axioms which are rejected here may be plausible if their range of application is restricted by conditions which are possible to formulate only in a language richer than that of the propositional calculus, e.g. in one containing modal operators or probabilistic concepts.     

Continuing education in genetics for Adoption workers in Wisconsin

In response to 1982 legislation and 1984 changes in the Wisconsin Adoption Records Laws requiring the collection of a medical-genetic history at the time of termination of parental rights, a continuing education program in genetics was conducted for adoption workers in 1984 and 1985. The education program provided 14 workshops in five locations throughout the state and consisted of a variety of formats and levels of training. In all, 164 participants were trained at least at the introductory level with approximately 40 of these individuals taking part in the advanced levels of training. Evaluations of the training by participants and by a sample of the agency supervisors of trainees ranked the program very highly. A review of genetic history forms completed in post-training sessions verified the expectation that training was beneficial. Trained workers completing the medical-genetic history forms scored somewhat higher than untrained workers and much higher than parents who completed the forms without professional guidance. Medical-genetic history forms completed by birth fathers as part of step-parent adoptions contained little to no useful information about the birth father's genetic background.     

Timing is everything: Developmental psychopathology from a dynamic systems perspective

This article begins by comparing general systems views that have already been appropriated by developmental psychopathologists to the dynamic systems (DS) approach and the advantages of the latter perspective are detailed. It is argued that the DS framework provides a more rigorous set of principles that can be applied to the diverse disciplines and multiple levels of analyses that are so well-represented in developmental psychopathology. The ways in which DS principles can address five overarching goals that have previously been identified for the field of developmental psychopathology are discussed. In addition, the DS approach offers a wide array of methodological tools that can move the field from abstractions to concrete research designs and analytic strategies. Several of the most relevant DS concepts are explained and recent empirical studies that have applied these concepts fruitfully are reviewed.     

USING MINIAUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATION IN APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY TO PERSONALIZE COURSE CONTENT AND IMPROVE CONCEPTUAL APPLICATION

­In the present investigation, I implemented a series of brief, written, autobiographical assignments, each associated with material from one of 12 different chapters covered throughout an introductory course in applied psychology. In completing each assignment, students described and applied psychological principles to their past and present life experiences. Students completing the autobiographical writing assignments demonstrated greater comprehension and application of course concepts than students exposed to traditional didactics alone. Students' anecdotal comments combined with narrative excerpts from selected assignments in offering additional evidence of the effectiveness of miniautobiographical narration as a constructivist pedagogical tool.     

A lifetime of caring: Dimensions and dynamics in late‐life close relationships

This review of research on close relationships in old age is informed by principles of life span developmental psychology and life course theory in sociology. It begins with an elaboration of life span and life course concepts as applied to relationships and an analysis of the multiple forms that caring can take. The discussion continues with presentation of research on the effects of sociohistorical contexts on relationships in old age and studies of the effects of personal development and life events on relationships as well. A section examining problems in late‐life close relationships is followed by examples of new directions for research on the intersections of personal development and close relationships.     

Self-Defeating Behavior Workshops: Systems Approach for Hard-to-Serve Veterans

For the past two and one-half years, the self-defeating behavior (SDB) theory has been applied to a population of veterans who had a history of problems in job training, vocational placement, and academic settings. A group-therapy structure meeting eight times during a four-week period is the basic approach of the SDB seminar. In conjunction with the SDB seminar, a variety of support people and agencies have combined efforts to develop a systems approach to helping the veterans eliminate behaviors that are self-defeating. Results from the systems approach have been excellent.     

Mindless Bodies–Bodyless Minds

Possibilities opened up by scientific–technical developments of the last century have led to the breaking up of our basic concepts regarding elementary aspects of human life. Boundaries are more easily crossed (also among genders); the reality of functions and the functions of reality are becoming interchangeable. The audio-visual galaxy, which has evolved over the course of the 20th century, with its two dimensionality has resulted in generations growing up in the past decades who have learnt that the “other” can be a virtual body: the sensual is no longer an essential part of human relations. The somato-affective aspects of the experience get split off—relationships emerge between bodyless minds. This fragmentation also means that the body is seen increasingly as mindless: the linkages between body and mind are profoundly undermined. Reality and fantasy melt into one another. Reality control and thinking becomes insecure effected by a view of the world that has lost its keystones of orientation. When body boundaries get confused in such a manner how do ego boundaries develop? How will primary relationships alter among such conditions? What will the internal images of the objects be like? The deconstruction of our basic concepts about space, time, dimensions, body- and ego boundaries made differentiation and the processes of symbolization extremely difficult. Postmodern ideas, questioning the validity of facts have contributed greatly to transforming our image of reality also on a theoretical level. How do these massive changes effect our daily clinical work and our theory of the mind? My paper tries to explore some experiences and ideas related to these questions through clinical cases and narratives of our present times.     

Predication in Conceptual Realism

Conceptual realism begins with a conceptualist theory of the nexus of predication in our speech and mental acts, a theory that explains the unity of those acts in terms of their referential and predicable aspects. This theory also contains as an integral part an intensional realism based on predicate nominalization and a reflexive abstraction in which the intensional contents of our concepts are “object”-ified, and by which an analysis of predication with intensional verbs can be given. Through a second nominalization of the common names that are part of conceptual realism’s theory of reference (via quantifier phrases), the theory also accounts for both plural reference and predication and mass noun reference and predication. Finally, a separate nexus of predication based on natural kinds and the natural properties and relations nomologically related to those natural kinds, is also an integral part of the framework of conceptual realism.     

A comparison of two college classroom testing procedures: required remediation versus no remediation

Forty one subjects from a 10-week introductory course in Educational Psychology were randomly divided into two experimental groups. All students took weekly quizzes over content material. Members of one group received little or no academic credit if they performed at less than 90% on a weekly quiz, but could earn additional credit by taking a weekly remedial quiz. Members of the second group also took the initial weekly quizzes, but retained their raw scores and were not permitted to take the weekly remedial quizzes. Performance on a 100-item multiple-choice comprehensive final revealed a statistically significant and educationally important difference between the two groups, the required-remediation group scoring an average of one-half letter grade higher.     

The dynamics of empirically derived factors in the therapeutic relationship

The therapeutic relationship is the source of major concepts in psychoanalytic clinical theory. Such concepts as resistance, transference, countertransference, and the alliance are fundamental, even though there may be shifts in meaning between theoretical schools and clinical contexts. In the clinical psychoanalytic literature, disagreement exists over the nature of the alliance and its essential components. Empirical studies using reliable patient, therapist, and observer scales to assess the alliance demonstrate a correlation with psychotherapeutic gains. In the study reported here, thirteen patients were followed for 6 to 33 months of psychodynamic psychotherapy, during which time their views of the therapeutic relationship were assessed, and several experiential measures taken, all on a weekly basis. Statistical analyses reveal that the therapeutic relationship, as reflected in the patients' weekly responses to the St. Louis Therapeutic Relationship Rating Scale, has four distinct components: therapeutic alliance, resistance, transference love, and negative transference. On a week-by-week basis, the therapeutic alliance was the strongest predictor of improvement in patient-reported general adjustment, as reflected in such areas as self-esteem, positive affect, social relations, work productivity, satisfaction, and optimism. Time plots of the variables show the typical time course for the components of the therapeutic relationship, as well as for improvement on the experiential variables. Results indicate that the therapeutic alliance, transference, and resistance are central components of the psychotherapeutic relationship, which in turn predict the ongoing life experience of the patient.     

Evaluation of a Web-based introductory psychology course: I. Learning and satisfaction in on-line versus lecture courses

We offered introductory psychology on the World-Wide Web (WWW) and evaluated the on-line format relative to the traditional lecture-test format, using a pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design. Multiple sections of the introductory course were offered each semester; on-line and lecture sections were taught by the same instructor, the same textbook was used, and the same in-class examinations were taken. For on-line sections, mastery quizzes, interactive individual exercises, and weekly laboratory meetings replaced lectures. Increased content knowledge was greater for the students in the Web sections, as was in-class examination performance. Use of the WWW and computers for academic purposes increased more in the on-line sections, and the on-line students showed a greater decrease in computer anxiety. The students in the on-line sections expressed appreciation for course components and the convenience of the course, but the lecture sections received higher ratings on course evaluations than did the on-line sections. Learning and course satisfaction were dissociated in the two course formats.     

Organizational context and face-to-face interaction: Influences on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors in computer-mediated groups

Using adaptive structuration theory as a framework [DeSanctis, G., & Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5(2), 121–147], we examined the influence of organizational context (competitive versus cooperative) and introductory meeting communication medium (face-to-face versus electronic) on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors of dyads communicating electronically. Based on a sample of 208 senior business students operating in computer-mediated (CM) dyads while performing a strategic decision-making simulation, we found that context, introductory communication medium, and time interacted to influence trust and collaborative behaviors. The pattern of development of trust and collaborative behaviors differed for the same introductory communication medium in different context conditions. Further, the level of trust and collaboration for dyad members in the competitive/electronic introductory meeting condition lagged significantly behind those in the other conditions. The findings suggest that introductory face-to-face interaction plays a more important role in facilitating the development of trust and collaboration in a CM environment when the context is competitive.     

An Application of the Rorschach INK Blot Test to Three Clinical Types of Dementia Praecox

At the beginning of an introductory course in psychology, 227 students were asked to define ordinary everyday English words and to guess the technical psychological concepts represented. In the final examination for the course, questions were inserted that required the students to understand the concepts and to know the terminology. From a comparison of responses at the beginning and end of the term it seems that negative transfer was not involved or, if present, was well overcome.     

Can there be a science of the symbolic?

Science means not just 'knowing', but knowing verified by replicability. Science is particularly hard to bring to depth psychology because the individual uniquenesses that can't be repeated are what make people most deeply themselves. Everyone, including the analytic investigator, however, has a science, in the sense of a world-view that is replicated by experience. Jung offered hermeneutics as an alternative mode to science for getting to know the psychological subject. But as Heidegger emphasized, hermeneutics always begins with the projection of a world-view, i.e., the science of the would-be interpreter. In the analytic situation, dialogue is available to test the world-view and enlarge its horizon, in accord with Gadamer's expansion of hermeneutics, 'the classical discipline concerned with the art of understanding texts', into a method of inquiry open to the possibilities of otherness. An example is given from an analytic training seminar, in which the author began by projecting his version of the theory of psychological types onto the dream material a candidate offered in response to the seminar. A dialogue with the candidate ensued which enabled the teacher to correct his original, somewhat rigid, application of his scientific viewpoint. In such a dialogue, psyche emerges as the final interpreter of what is, generating hypotheses that can fruitfully be applied to the understanding of other cases.     

Dissonance theory,self-perception and the bogus pipeline

Studied attitude change following counter-attitudinal advocacy where there was little incentive for subject compliance in an attempt to compare dissonance and self-perception theory predictions. The extent of attitude change was determined either by self-report or by having subjects predict their own true attitudes purportedly monitored by the experimenter using a ‘bogus pipeline’. Forty-eight male and female subjects, students from an introductory Psychology course, were invited to take part in a study of Current Campus Issues. They wrote a short statement that argued against an issue for which they had previously held a positive attitude. Results indicate that there was a significant attitude change in both conditions (p < .003). Attitude change under these circumstances is more successfully explained by the self-perception theory than dissonance theory.     

Reference in Conceptual Realism

A conceptual theory of the referential and predicable concepts used in basic speech and mental acts is described in which singular and general, complex and simple, and pronominal and nonpronominal, referential concepts are given a uniform account. The theory includes an intensional realism in which the intensional contents of predicable and referential concepts are represented through nominalized forms of the predicate and quantifier phrases that stand for those concepts. A central part of the theory distinguishes between active and deactivated referential concepts, where the latter are represented by nominalized quantifier phrases that occur as parts of complex predicates. Peter Geach's arguments against theories of general reference in Reference and Generality are used as a foil to test the adequacy of the theory. Geach's arguments are shown to either beg the question of general as opposed to singular reference or to be inapplicable because of the distinction between active and deactivated referential concepts.     

Teaching Introductory Upper‐Level Religion and Theology Classes

The undergraduate study of religion is predominantly undertaken by non‐majors who are meeting a general education requirement. This means that, while curricular discussions make important distinctions between the work of lower‐ and upper‐division courses, many religion and theology faculty are teaching hybrid courses that we call “introductory upper‐level courses.” These play an introductory role in general education while also serving the study of religion in a more advanced way. Attention to how these courses fit into multiple curricular goals will be important for the scholarship of teaching and learning in religious studies and theology. This essay draws on scholarship about introductory teaching and a survey of faculty about introductory upper‐level courses to argue that the content of such courses should be understood as serving the study of religion at an advanced level, the context should be understood as introducing general education goals, and the goals for intellectual growth must strike a challenging balance between the two.