Distinct conflict resolution deficits related to different facets of Schizophrenia

An important issue in understanding the nature of conflict processing is whether it is a unitary or multidimensional construct. One way to examine this is to study whether people with impaired conflict processing exhibit a general pattern of deficits or whether they exhibit impairments in distinct aspects of conflict processing. One group who might exhibit conflict deficits are people with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder, with one way to break down the heterogeneity of schizophrenia is to examine specific symptoms. Previous research has found that specific symptoms of schizophrenia are associated with specific deficits in conflict processing. In particular, disorganization is associated with increased response conflict, alogia is associated with increased retrieval conflict, and anhedonia is associated with increased emotional conflict. Moreover, there is evidence that different types of conflict processing are unassociated with each other. This evidence suggests that conflict processing is a multidimensional construct and that different aspects of schizophrenia are associated with impairments in processing different types of conflict.     

Homelessness and the problem of containment

Homelessness is a problem that is hardly spared to any society in our modern world. Usually discussed by people concerned with social policy, sociology, public health and politics, homelessness has only quite recently begun to command the attention of professionals concerned with psychological and psychotherapeutic processes. Following from the author's experience of working therapeutically with homeless people, as well as in discussions with homeless services, the paper follows a line of thinking around homelessness that is explicitly psychodynamic in orientation. The central argument here is that homelessness is an experience that is, so to speak, waiting to happen. Homelessness is portrayed as a natural extension of an underlying experience of the sister states of uncontainment and alienation. I argue that the homeless person not only experienced a lack of containment in his earliest interactions, but has grown through life with significant difficulties in this area. Homelessness then is an extreme response to a deeper psychological reality that projects into a part of the person's life the agonies associated with uncontainment. Homelessness is the realization of an internal situation –a shifting of a personal struggle into a new and more visible stage. This view of homelessness is designed to provide an amendment to current views that privilege the roles of poverty and social exclusion in the origins of homelessness rather than as an alternative account of the origins of homelessness.     

The transcoding processes in patients with agraphia to dictation

The main purpose of the present study is to prove that the mechanism of transcoding, that is, of transposition of certain units of a sign system into the corresponding ones of another sign system, is an independent mechanism. We attempted to demonstrate this thesis with reference to certain transcoding processes within the verbal function of writing to dictation, in particular, by examining the agraphic disturbances in aphasics on this form of writing. We found that this type of agraphia in patients with an intact input stage (i.e., intact auditory and visual word perception) but with a blocked shift from the phonetic to the graphemic level (even in cases with intact auditory and visual word perception), or in those with a blocked shift to the grapho-motor one (even in cases with intact copying), is due to disturbed mechanisms of transcoding. The fact that in patients with pure writing-to-dictation disability copied writing is not disturbed proves that the transcoding process is selectively blocked. Transcoding processes in copying and total agraphia are discussed by comparison.     

LIVING WITH THE WICKED PROBLEM OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Outlining the characteristics of “wicked” and “super‐wicked” problems, climate change is considered as a global super‐wicked problem that is primarily about the future. Being global‐ and future‐oriented makes climate change something we have to learn to live with but cannot expect to solve. Because the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) is a multidisciplinary society that yokes the natural and social sciences with values, it is in a position to explore strategies for living with climate change—exemplified by the articles in this section. Finally, asking “who/what is in charge,” it is suggested that in a dynamically interrelated and evolving world no one is. It is important to distinguish between good that is already created and the creative interactions that give rise to new good. In order to live with climate change, our primary orientation should be to live with the creativity that has created and continues to create our life on Planet Earth—since we are not able to know what the future holds.     

Theme-focused family therapy: the inner emotional world of the family

This paper is an account of a method of family work developed for social workers in social services departments which allows them to work with the emotional impact on children and adults of traumatic events in family life. Theme-focused family therapy has been designed to meet the needs of the families and also to enable social workers and their supervisors to develop both psychodynamic and systemic perspectives m their work with families. It is a staged approach, moving from individual work to a structured family interview through to a series of theme-focused family sessions. It is phased in this way both to facilitate the development of a therapeutic attachment between social worker and family and to take account of the crises that can interrupt planned work in social services departments. Theme-focused family therapy is carried out in partnership with families, and gives children a voice and a leading role in the therapeutic process. The approach is illustrated with a case example.     

Reinforcement magnitude and the inhibiting effect of reinforcement

In a two-key concurrent variable-interval schedule (using pigeons), if the reinforcement frequency for one response is held constant while that for the other is increased, the rate of response on the constant key decreases. The immediate reinforcement for key pecking can usually be conceptualized as the change from a condition in which the key light is on and the food hopper light is off to one in which the key light is off and the hopper light is on. The prechange condition is associated with a delay to food of one-half the average interreinforcement interval in effect during this condition. The postchange condition is associated with a delay to food of about .5 seconds. The programming of additional reinforcement results in a decrease in the delay to food associated with the prechange stimulus condition, and thus a decrease in the value of the improvement that results from the change. This would appear to be analogous to a decrease in the amount of reinforcement, and thus sufficient explanation for the decrease in the rate of the response.     

Global Spatial Organization by Individuals with Williams Syndrome

Williams syndrome is a genetically determined disorder with a characteristic cognitive profile. Overall IQ tends to be lower than in the normally developing population, performance on measures of linguistic ability is somewhat higher than would be expected given the levels of IQ typical for this group, and there is a particular weakness in visuospatial construction (e.g., block design tasks). A well-known hypothesis about the deficit in visuospatial construction is that people with Williams syndrome are strongly inclined to be local spatial processors. We report a test of this hypothesis that used a visual search task sensitive to spontaneous global spatial organization. A sample of adults with Williams syndrome produced a pattern of data demonstrating that they spontaneously organize spatial displays at a global level. Indeed, individuals with Williams syndrome found it more difficult to change from global to local processing than participants with normal intelligence. We suggest that the primary problem with visuospatial construction in people with Williams syndrome is not in the salience of single levels of organization but rather in the difficulty of changing between organizations.     

Dispositionality: Beyond The Biconditionals

I defend pretence hermeneutic fictionalism against the Autism Objection. The objection is this: since people with autism have no difficulty in engaging with mathematics even if they cannot pretend, it is not the case that engagement with mathematics involves pretence. I show that a previous response to the objection is inadequate as a defence of the kind of pretence hermeneutic fictionalism put forward as a semantic thesis about the discourse in question. I claim that a more general response to the Autism Objection is to deny the premise that people with autism cannot pretend. To motivate this response, I appeal to psychological studies suggesting that people with autism can understand pretence and they can pretend under certain conditions. Finally, I provide explanations for why it is the case that people with autism do not have a problem with engaging in mathematics whereas they have so much difficulty with other kinds of figurative language and pretence.     

From Detachment to Immersion: Wittgenstein and 'The Problem of Life'

Wittgenstein is widely recognised as a philosopher with a markedly ethical character to his thought. This paper seeks to highlight the dimension of selflessness and renunciation in this ethical character. It also seeks to show that there are distinct differences in Wittgenstein's implicit conception of what an ethical selflessness amounts to in the early and the later periods. The concept of absolute safety enables us to appreciate the connections between the early Wittgenstein and a particular type of nineteenth-century obsession with a selflessness that combines with a self-sufficient capacity to stand aloof from anxiety in the face of the human condition involving meaninglessness and death. In the early Wittgenstein that aloofness came close to a solipsistic and, in some ways, self-affirming apartness from everything other than the self. In contrast, the ethical spirit that permeates Wittgenstein's later thought is imbued with a sense of the immersion of the self ultimately and absolutely 'in the world'. The sense in which this latter phrase is used is defined further in the paper.     

Church-Based Social Support and a Sense of Belonging in a Congregation Among Older Mexican–Americans

Research suggests that people with a strong sense of belonging in a congregation tend to rate their health in a more favorable way. However, relatively little is known about how a sense of belonging arises in a congregation. The purpose of the current study is to see if five different dimensions of church-based social support are associated with a sense of belonging in a congregation. In the process, an effort is made to contribute to the literature in two potentially important ways. First, the relationship between church-based support and belonging is evaluated with data from a nationwide survey of older Mexican–Americans. Second, tests are conducted to see if there are gender differences in the relationship between church-based support and belonging. The findings suggest that for the sample as a whole, receiving more of each type of church-based social support is associated with a stronger sense of belonging. Moreover, the results reveal that the relationship between all five types of church-based support and belonging is stronger for older Mexican–American men than for older Mexican–American women.     

Characteristics,Properties and Ethical Issues of Carbon Nanotubes in Biomedical Applications

The field of nanotechnology and nanoscience is growing rapidly in many areas of research, from electronics to biomedicine to material science. Carbon nanotubes are receiving a lot of attention in the research due to their unique properties and many possible applications. This new material is a good example of how nanotechnology provides us with new opportunities, but at the same time leaves us a lot of unknowns to deal with. In order to deal with the unknowns we need to consider both the science and the ethics of the different applications of this novel material. Nanoethics is the study of the ethical issues in nanotechnology. It is a relatively new field of study and a lot of different methods have been suggested in this area. In this article a method is suggested combining an existing ethical theory with a practical approach in order to do a case study of the ethical considerations of using carbon nanotubes in biomedicine. For the case study to be of practical significance the scientific characteristics and properties of carbon nanotubes are reviewed to give the reader an overview of the research field.     

The theory of gender identity disorders

Experience with more than 500 patients over the last decade has led to the conclusion that the quest for sex reassignment is a symptomatic compromise formation serving defensive and expressive functions. The symptoms are the outgrowth of developmental trauma affecting body ego and archaic sense of self and caused by peculiar symbiotic and separation-individuation phase relationships. The child exists in the pathogenic (and reparative) maternal fantasy in order to repair her body image and to demonstrate the interconvertability of the sexes. Gender identity exists not as a primary phenomenon, but in a sense as a tertiary one. There is, no doubt, a tendency to gender-differentiate in a way concordant with biological endowment. Nevertheless, gender formation is seriously compromised by earlier psychological difficulty. Gender identity is a fundamental acquisition in the developing personality, but it is part of a hierarchical series beginning with archaic body ego, early body image, and primitive selfness, representing their extension into sexual and reproductive spheres. Gender identity consolidates during separation-individuation and gender pathology bears common features with other preoedipal syndromes. Transsexualism is closely linked to perversions, and the clinical syndromes may shade from one into another. However, what is kept at the symbolic level in the perversions must be made concrete in transsexualism. In this regard there is a close relation to psychosis. The clinical complaint of the transsexual is a condensation of remarkable proportions. When the transsexual says that he is a girl trapped in a man's body, he sincerely means what he says. As with other symptoms, however, it takes a long time before he begins to say what he means.     

HIV/Aids: an encounter with death or a journey into life?

This is an account of a panel discussion. It focuses on an encounter with the HIV/Aids virus. Such an encounter may result in a descent into despair, hopelessness and ultimately death, or it may offer the opportunity of possible transformation of consciousness to embrace a life lived productively and meaningfully with a chronic but manageable disease. A picture is provided of the dire situation that exists regarding the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa. The HI-virus is compared to a malevolent trickster type energy that uses ingenious means to gain access to the host. It is an impersonal agent seeking only its own survival but if left untreated will ultimately result in the death of the host. Reference is made to characters in the musical, The Lion King, to illustrate that it is the willingness to suffer the painful emotions evoked following a diagnosis of being HIV-positive more consciously that allows for a transformation from despair and hopelessness to a life lived productively and meaningfully. Two of the panelists who are HIV-positive share their experiences of this process. One recounts how, living with Aids, his connections with others and human relatedness helped to restore his dignity and self-worth. The other relates how his willingness to state his status publicly allowed him to overcome the stigma and shame that are evoked when diagnosed as HIV-positive. This has allowed him to seek appropriate treatment with ARV's. He now lives with a chronic but manageable infection and leads a creative and significant life. The difficulties encountered regarding the prevention of HIV/Aids when attempting to change potentially destructive sexual behaviours in teenagers are discussed. An inspiring account of work in treating those that live with HIV/Aids under difficult circumstances is also discussed.     

Poisoning the Well

In this paper it is shown is that although poisoning the well has generally been treated as a species of ad hominem fallacy, when you try to analyze the fallacy using ad hominem schemes, even by supplementing with related schemes like argument from position to know, the analysis ultimately fails. The main argument of the paper is taken up with proving this negative claim by applying these schemes to examples of arguments associated with the fallacy of poisoning the well. Although there is a positive finding in this quest, in that poisoning the well is shown to be based on and associated with these forms of argument in interesting ways, the paper in the end is led to the conclusion that the fallacy is irreducibly dialectical. Poisoning the well is thus analyzed as a tactic to silence an opponent violating her right to put forward arguments on an issue both parties have agreed to discuss at the confrontation stage of a critical discussion. It is concluded that it is a special form of strategic attack used by one party in the argumentation stage of a critical discussion to improperly shut down the capability of the other party for putting forward arguments of the kind needed to properly move the discussion forward.     

Are Nativists a Different Kind of Democrat? Democratic Values and “Outsiders” in Japan

This paper combines three elements: a discussion of democratic values and the status of outsiders in Japanese political culture, the development of new measures to examine sensitive issues of nativism and foreigner perception in Japan, and an empirical exploration of the relationship between democratic values and antipathy toward outsiders. Two forms of democratic orientation were investigated in a sample of about 1,000 university students in Japan: a defensive version, which adheres to the formalistic requirements of democracy but is exclusionary and illiberal, and a universalist version that is liberal and tolerant. A defensive orientation is associated with greater chauvinism, a greater sense of threat emanating from foreigners, and a heightened anxiety about economic competition. A universalist orientation is associated with low perceived threat and low chauvinism, a lack of fear of economic competition, and a positive view of the cultural contributions of outsiders. Nativism may indeed be compatible with democratic values, but only with the defensive, exclusionary form. In short, the defensive form is democracy for xenophobes. Such an orientation is not unique to Japan, but is likely to be found in developing democracies as well as in advanced democracies that feel threatened.     

Discrimination training, partial reinforcement, and increases in intertrial interval all reduce response speed in a continuously reinforced key-pecking task

Pigeons were trained in a discrete-trial task in which a response to the center key obtained illumination of a side key and a single response to the side key terminated a trial with either reinforcement or nonreinforcement. Center-key speeds (i.e., reciprocals of latencies) declined with increases in intertrial interval, and it is argued that this effect is related to a decreased likelihood as intertrial interval increases that birds will be near the key at trial onset. Side-key speeds on trials with reinforcement decreased both with increases in intertrial interval and with shifts from continuous reinforcement to either a discrimination or a partial-reinforcement condition. The effects on side-key speeds are compared with effects observed in alley-running tasks using rats, and an interpretation in terms of frustration theory is offered for the results obtained in both types of task.     

An Axiomatisation of a Pure Calculus of Names

A calculus of names is a logical theory describing relations between names. By a pure calculus of names we mean a quantifier-free formulation of such a theory, based on classical propositional calculus. An axiomatisation of a pure calculus of names is presented and its completeness is discussed. It is shown that the axiomatisation is complete in three different ways: with respect to a set theoretical model, with respect to Le?niewski??s Ontology and in a sense defined with the use of axiomatic rejection. The independence of axioms is proved. A decision procedure based on syntactic transformations and models defined in the domain of only two members is defined.     

Talking About Talking About Patients

Several years ago, I talked about a case in a clinical seminar. I presented the work in a style that is different from usual because I was experimenting with how to best evoke the experience of being with this patient for my listeners. This paper is a continuation of that presentation, now through written rather than spoken word. In writing it, I struggled with the same dilemma of how to evoke the ambience, the feel of being with this patient. I begin with a discussion of some of the dilemmas involved in writing up clinical work when the aim is to stay close to the experience rather than to illustrate theoretical or technical points. I present a few sample vignettes of my work with this patient and then an analysis of how my writing style, including use of sounds, grammar, and word placement, contributes to evoking experience. I continue with a brief discussion of my experiences in presenting the case in the seminar and use these experiences to highlight aspects of the case. I ask the reader to become personally involved in the experiment by paying attention to what is evoked when reading the material.