Psychoanalysis and evaluation: a stratified model focused on the uniqueness of the case

ABSTRACT

Objectives: This article addresses the methodological controversies surrounding the issue of how to evaluate the psychotherapies. It proposes to identify the principles of an integrative and stratified model in order to report the results of analytical therapy (its efficacy) based on the very effectiveness of its processes. Thus, the uniqueness of the case is put at the center of the evaluation setting.

Methods: Drawing on science studies, the authors engage in a reflexive exercise on the problem of psychoanalysis’ evaluation based on methodological questions raised in the field over time and current issues related to practice.

Results: First, the regularly asserted opposition between the norms of analytical practice and those governing standard evaluation procedures is reinterpreted as the effect of a lack of intermediate epistemic patterns.

Second, the fundamental principles of an integrative model are considered so as to translate and articulate a set of heterogeneous requirements into distinct strata.

Discussion: Since psychoanalysis is fundamentally a case-by-case practice characterized by inequivalence and unexpectedness, its utmost aim is to use a type of effectiveness based on the singularity of the case. However, this does not prevent it from being evaluable provided that the epistemic levels of the evaluation are clearly differentiated.     

Dépendance et exercice physique : une échelle de dépendance à l'exercice physique

The regular practice of physical exercises is generally considered from the point of view of the favorable consequences which can result from it. This prospect tends to leave aside negative aspects of this practice when it is very intense in particular. Some authors consider the negatives aspects of this practice and name this phenomenon: exercise dependence. There are divergences in the definition as well as in the operationnalisation of the concept of exercise dependence. The use of non-valid measuring instruments contributed to confusion in this field. Among the ten measuring instrument available, a scale held our attention, it acts of the scale of the physical exercise dependence, which has satisfactory psychometric qualities.     

Viewing exercise goal content through a person-oriented lens: A self-determination perspective

The present study examined profiles of exercise goal content and the associations with need satisfaction, motivation regulation and exercise behavior, combining variable-centered and person-centered analytical approaches. The participants were 1084 (279 men and 805 women) Swedish adults, aged between 18 and 78 years, that were all active members of an Internet-based exercise program. Latent profile analysis (LPA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data. In SEM analysis intrinsic goals were related to need satisfaction and autonomous motivation, whereas extrinsic goals were most strongly associated with controlled motivation. LPA revealed five unique latent classes of goal content. These five classes differed in need satisfaction, motivation regulation and exercise behavior, with classes being characterized by more intrinsic goal profiles reporting higher need satisfaction and autonomous motivation. The results are discussed from a self-determination theory perspective and the benefits of using both variable and person-centered analytical approaches are highlighted.     

Influence of Coaching on Integrity Test Performance and Unlikely Virtues Scale Scores

Little is known about how assessment center exercises might be designed to better elicit job-relevant behavior. This study uses trait activation theory as a theoretical lens for increasing the number of behaviors that can be observed in assessment centers. Two standardized exercise stimuli (specific exercise instructions and role-player prompts) are proposed, and their effects on the observability of candidate behavior are examined. Results showed a significant effect of role-player prompts in increasing both the general number of behavioral observations and the number of behavioral observations related to three out of four dimensions. Specific exercise instructions did not have effects on observability. Implications for trait activation theory and assessment center practice are discussed.     

基于微信平台的研究生积极心理干预

积极心理学提出三件好事(three good things,TGT)练习可有效减轻抑郁症状,提升幸福感和心理健康。为检验基于微信社交平台的“三件好事”练习(TGT-SN)能否提升幸福感,本研究招募北京某高校研究生232名,自愿加入三个被试组(TGT-SN组133人,TGT组53人,对照组46人),体验、评估40天TGT前后及干预后一个月幸福感、抑郁水平、人际关系以及干预效果。研究发现抑郁得分持续改善,其他问卷得分无显著差异,但被试自评干预效果评估确认练习有积极作用。TGT练习效果有限,涉及方法有效性、样本量、参与者动机以及外部影响因素等,未来可基于优秀传统文化开展进一步研究以提高被试依从性及主动健康行为。     

Exercise Stage of Change and Self-Efficacy in Primary Care: Implications for Intervention

Multiple chronic diseases are caused or complicated by a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, an important and challenging application of psychology in clinical settings is changing the behavior of sedentary primary care patients. This study focused on exercise stage of change and self-efficacy in a sample of adult family practice patients recruited while waiting for their scheduled physician appointment. Regarding exercise stage of change, 15% of respondents were in the Precontemplation stage, 26% in the Contemplation stage, 50% in the Preparation stage, 7% in the Action stage, and 13% in the Maintenance stage. Mean self-efficacy scores for exercise were significantly higher among respondents in the Action and Maintenance stages of change. These cross-sectional data are consistent with the hypothesis that movement through the exercise stages of change could be encouraged by clinical interventions that increase exercise self-efficacy. The identification of multiple personal opportunities for increasing exercise self-efficacy may be clinically useful in this context. Recommendations for psychologists in primary care settings in their work with physicians are offered.     

Cultural variations in pre-emptive effort downplaying

Pre-emptive effort downplaying (PED) occurs when people publicly downplay their effort expenditure on test preparation prior to taking a test for the sake of managing the social evaluation of the self in the face of a challenging performance task. Thirty Asian Americans and 29 European Americans had two opportunities to publicly report their effort expenditure on a practice exercise. They also completed measures of self-evaluations and concern for performance before working on the practice exercise, and the self-evaluation measure again at the completion of the actual test. Only European Americans showed PED. Additionally, concern for performance was positively associated with and mediated cultural variations in PED. The implications of these results are discussed.     

A taste of reflecting practice

This article describes a training exercise in which students who are new to systemic practice but have some experience in therapeutic work in other modalities were invited to experience reflecting practice. The students were asked to follow a role‐played therapy session by offering reflections on the connections felt to a ‘family’ member. The students stood beside the ‘family member’, reflected on the problems and accounted for the connections felt in terms of particular resonances felt. The students thus experienced a therapeutic use of self congruent with the reflecting team approach and the therapeutic position adopted in reflecting practice.     

Exercise and mood: A selective review and synthesis of research employing the profile of mood states

Abstract

This paper highlights the use of the Profile of Mood States (POMS) in physical activity research by reviewing and synthesizing literature generated in exercise settings. The results of many studies using the POMS have supported the relationships between exercise and acute mood changes in normal populations and between exercise and chronic mood changes in clinical populations. Based on the multitude of studies utilizing the POMS, Berger and colleagues developed a preliminary taxonomy containing enjoyment, mode, and practice guidelines to help maximize the mood benefits associated with exercise. The POMS also has been employed to identify underlying mechanisms that may promote mood alteration. Unfortunately, there is no conclusive evidence that identifies a single mechanism or group of mechanisms as consistently influencing the exercise-mood relationship. Although knowledge of the relationship between exercise and mood alteration is substantial, much remains to be studied. Promising avenues for future investigation of exercise include mood changes in specific populations, environmental influences on mood alteration, and personal characteristics impacting mood alteration.     

Close encounters of the third order kind

This article describes an exercise developed for assessing trainee family therapists' practice at the end of a placement year in a manner consistent with the third‐order positioning the trainees were endeavouring to adopt in their practice. Evaluation by the trainees confirmed that the exercise had provided them with a significant opportunity to co‐construct with the supervisors their practice learning and future learning goals.     

Moderate Aerobic Exercise, T'ai Chi, and Social Problem-Solving Ability in Relation to Psychological Stress

This study evaluated the importance of exercise mode, social problem-solving ability, gender, and age in relation to anxiety and perceived daily hassles. Adult participants were classified as moderate aerobic exercisers, T'ai Chi exercisers, or sedentary via completion of a questionnaire. Social problem-solving ability, state and trait anxiety, and frequency and severity of daily hassles were measured. As predicted, scores indicating effective social problem-solving ability were associated with fewer reported severe daily hassles and with lower scores on state and trait anxiety. For state and trait anxiety, a main effect of exercise mode emerged after age and gender were controlled. A 3-way interaction involving age, gender, and exercise mode suggested that age and gender moderate the effects of exercise on anxiety, that is, the stress-reducing efficacy of different exercise modes may be dependent on a person's age and/or gender. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

The Effect of Removing Superstitious Behavior and Introducing a Pre-Performance Routine on Basketball Free-Throw Performance

Abstract

A meta-analysis was conducted on 40 studies (76 effects) in order to examine exercise training as a method of stress-management treatment for adults. It offered evidence of a low-to-moderate positive effect in anxiety reduction. Exercise training studies that examined change from pre to post-treatment and studies that examined both change over time and between group differences were examined separately. The unbiased weighted average effect sizes were .45 and .36, respectively. Thus, exercise training improved anxiety levels an average of .36 standard deviations over alternative or control conditions. Adults who were more likely to have a stressful lifestyle benefited more from the exercise training than those who did not. Recommendations are made for both practice and research.     

Reflections of Authority in Psychotherapy

Abstract

This article examines how therapists' expressions of authority affect the psychotherapeutic relationship. The article is based on the proposition that the clinical practitioner is always in a position of authority, regardless of how the role of authority is conceptualized within treatment approaches. The article includes an investigation of power and authority differentials within and across therapeutic approaches that espouse both hierarchical and egalitarian authority relationships. Process material from these approaches is analyzed to identify therapists' exercise of authority within these two approaches. It is suggested that researchers and therapists might use a heuristic research design to study the conveyance of therapeutic authority to identify whether dimensions of authority are overtly or covertly expressed, and whether or how such expression might affect practice and a client's exercise of personal authority.     

Better Preparing Sports Psychologists for the Demands of Applied Practice: The Emotional Labor Training Gap

The aim of this article was to investigate the emotional educational–training–practice gap in the professional formation of sport and exercise psychologists in the United Kingdom through the theoretical lens of emotional labor. Twenty semistructured interviews were conducted with 4 participant groups: master’s students (n?=?5), trainees (n?=?5), neophytes (n?=?5), and experienced sport and exercise psychologists (n?=?5). Adopting an interpretive epistemology, an abductive thematic analysis was conducted in relation to the participant groups recruited. Several overarching themes were identified in each participant group: (a) master’s students (emotional labor as theory, practice), (b) trainees (emotional labor to survive, a professional development tool), (c) neophytes (emotional labor as a new professional, self-care), and (d) experienced sport and exercise psychologists (emotional labor as a professional resource, lifelong learning). A synthesized list of applied recommendations to improve the professional formation of sport and exercise psychologists was developed based on the analysis. The themes extend sport and exercise psychology professional development literature, and we make recommendations for educators, professional associations, and regulatory bodies with regard to (a) bridging the emotional labor and experiential gap when transitioning between development phases via collaborative and innovative educational provision, (b) supporting the development of skills relating to the enactment of emotional labor, and (c) considering support mechanisms for student/trainee/neophyte safeguarding and welfare issues as a result of the emotion-laden transactions in professional practice. The implications for future pedagogy, andragogy, and research are discussed.

Lay Summary

Sports psychologists need to manage their emotions when working with athletes and coaches, but this is not often taught during education or training. This study aimed to understand whether sports psychologists were aware of or prepared to manage their emotions and to identify activities that could develop education and training courses.     

Honouring our great grandparents: towards a rhetorical analysis of family therapy

This paper argues that family therapy is an inherently and inescapably rhetorical activity, although its connections with rhetoric have remained largely ignored and the implications for practice unexplored. An uncritical acceptance of a range of postmodern ideas has led many family therapists to ignore the power of their therapeutic rhetoric. The paper offers rhetorical analysis as a tool to help family therapists to reflect on the rhetorical power of their practice and thereby to exercise this power more responsibly.     

Family therapy training on a clinical psychology programme

The report describes the intake interviewing exercise in a family therapy training unit developed for postgraduates in clinical psychology. The teaching method includes pre‐class reading, video modelling, and simulated practice with live feedback. The academic material and other similar practice exercises are contained in the core textbook for this unit.     

AAASP: A vision for the 1990's

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to emphasize why social-psychological be practical for both theory and practice. As investigators attempt to which theories are most parsimonious, there is often encouragement to pit against each other rather than also examining their similarities and their mentary nature. The former strategy may lead to fragmentation of illustrate the benefit of the latter strategy, the theories of selfe5cacy, action, and planned behavior are discussed relative to practical good theories and their conceptual and measurement similarities. This is extended intojoint use considerations for planning practical signed to impact on health and exercise behavior. It is suggested that such ventions have more potential to induce health/exercise change than any theory. The appropriateness of using these practical theories to study adherence isdiscussed. Lewin's (195 1) point about there being nothing so as a good theory for applied research and intervention is the underlying of the article.     

The exercise pill: should we replace exercise with pharmaceutical means?

New physiological and pharmacological research points to the possibility of a pill that produces the complete physiological effects of exercise. Is replacement of exercise with a pill a good idea? And if so, under what circumstances? To explore answers, I have examined three approaches to the understanding exercise. From a dualist point of view, exercise is explained mechanistically in terms of physiological cause and effect relationships. From this perspective, and in particular for reluctant exercisers, there seems to be no strong argument against the use of a pill. From a phenomenological point of view, exercise is understood from a first person perspective focusing on experiential qualities. It is argued that a pill can never replace the embodied, experiential values of exercising and their potential ethical significance. In other words, the use of a pill is rejected. From a critical social constructivist point of view, exercise is understood as an expression of sociocultural values. Exercise can be a source of both bodily alienation and embodied self-realization and meaning. It is argued that in settings of alienating exercise malpractice, an exercise pill can be a temporary lesser evil approach. It is pointed out, however, that the long-term solution to malpractice is not a pill but a change of practice. In a final section, the possibility of the exercise pill is contextualized in the larger, bio-ethical debate on human enhancement.