Gender bias in mothers' expectations about infant crawling

Although boys outshine girls in a range of motor skills, there are no reported gender differences in motor performance during infancy. This study examined gender bias in mothers' expectations about their infants' motor development. Mothers of 11-month-old infants estimated their babies' crawling ability, crawling attempts, and motor decisions in a novel locomotor task-crawling down steep and shallow slopes. Mothers of girls underestimated their performance and mothers of boys overestimated their performance. Mothers' gender bias had no basis in fact. When we tested the infants in the same slope task moments after mothers' provided their ratings, girls and boys showed identical levels of motor performance.     

The infant and preschool psychiatry clinic: A model of evaluation and treatment

The Infant and Preschool Psychiatry Clinic is an outpatient, subspecialty clinic that serves young children with significant emotional and behavioral problems, in addition to disorders of learning and language. The clinic provides for the psychiatric needs of young children, birth to 5 years of age, and their families. The mission of the clinic is to (1) provide comprehensive diagnostic evaluation, treatment, and advocacy services by an interdisciplinary team; (2) use systematic data collection for empirical research; and (3) provide training in infant psychiatry. The clinic's evaluation process and wide-ranging treatment services are described in detail, along with two clinical case examples that help to illustrate the integration of varied services. Additionally, a critique of the clinic's strengths and weaknesses is presented. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Gender differences in the incentive salience of adult and infant faces

Facial appearance can motivate behaviour and elicit activation of brain circuits putatively involved in reward. Gender differences have been observed for motivation to view beauty in adult faces—heterosexual women are motivated by beauty in general, while heterosexual men are motivated to view opposite-sex beauty alone. Although gender differences have been observed in sensitivity to infant cuteness, infant faces appear to hold equal incentive salience among men and women. In the present study, we investigated the incentive salience of attractiveness and cuteness in adult and infant faces, respectively. We predicted that, given alternative viewing options, gender differences would emerge for motivation to view infant faces. Heterosexual participants completed a “pay-per-view” key-press task, which allowed them to control stimulus duration. Gender differences were found such that infants held greater incentive salience among women, although both sexes differentiated infant faces based on cuteness. Among adult faces, men exerted more effort than women to view opposite-sex faces. These findings suggest that, contrary to previous reports, gender differences do exist in the incentive salience of infant faces as well as opposite-sex faces.     

The changing practices of an infant psychiatry program: The McGill experience

The present paper describes the development of a university-based infant psychiatry program. The paper initially highlights the organizational structure of the program that involves some 20 professionals, then reports on 57 infants who presented with disruptive behavior disorders and ends by describing an innovative treatment program for fathers and an attempt to help teenage mothers in caring for their infants. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Gender label and perceived infant emotionality: a partial replication of a classic study

In a study often referred to as "classic," Condry and Condry (1976) showed a videotaped infant to participants, telling half of them the infant was a boy and half it was a girl. Participants who thought they were viewing a boy rated the infant's reaction to a jack-in-the-box as anger; those who thought they were viewing a girl rated the reaction as fear. Participants in the present partial replication of the Condrys' study did not rate the infant differently based on the infant's gender label, although there was evidence that participants' own sex affects their perception of an infant's emotionality. Results were discussed in light of inconsistent results among other gender-labeling studies and relevant methodological, historical, and theoretical issues.     

Saints and psychiatry

Summary The Irish Saint Dympna, a distant and misty figure, with her martyrdom inspired a millenary tradition of family and community care for the mentally ill at Geel, in Belgium. She is the Catholic patron of the mentally afflicted.The French Saint Vincent de Paul, a powerful leader, took care of the insane and the poor in gentle ways; worked for reforms in hospitals, education, delinquency, and penology; founded religious orders dedicated to the sick; and set in motion the hospitals of La Salpêtrière and Le Bicêtre.The portuguese-Spaniard Saint John of God, a humble shepherd, a marginal soldier, an ignorant construction worker, and a modest salesman of books, has had more relevance to psychiatry than has Dympna, the martyr, or Vincent de Paul, the social reformer. No other saint has had more practical and sustained influence on hospital psychiatry than he, and it is a mystery of sorts that his name still awaits the distinguished place of honor it so richly deserves.     

Critical phenomenology and psychiatry

Continental Philosophy Review - Whereas classical Critical Theory has tended to view phenomenology as inherently uncritical, the recent upsurge of what has become known as critical phenomenology...     

Prophylactic psychiatry

The great contributions of Gantt to the problems of prophylactic psychiatry are pointed out. The author reviews his experiences with a 30-year follow-up of a population of 1800 persons. Over the 30 years, there appeared to be a 50% increase of neuroses, which raises great problems for mental health services. The Berlevåg population was offered optimal psychiatric services. Behavior therapy of neuroses and drug treatment of depression may possibly have lowered the prevalence of mental disorders. Psychophysiologic tests were used in the project. It is hoped that such tests may be utilized for early detection and treatment of mental disorders.     

Computational psychiatry

Computational ideas pervade many areas of science and have an integrative explanatory role in neuroscience and cognitive science. However, computational depictions of cognitive function have had surprisingly little impact on the way we assess mental illness because diseases of the mind have not been systematically conceptualized in computational terms. Here, we outline goals and nascent efforts in the new field of computational psychiatry, which seeks to characterize mental dysfunction in terms of aberrant computations over multiple scales. We highlight early efforts in this area that employ reinforcement learning and game theoretic frameworks to elucidate decision-making in health and disease. Looking forwards, we emphasize a need for theory development and large-scale computational phenotyping in human subjects.     

Pastoral psychology and preventive psychiatry

Pastoral Psychology -     

Psychogeriatric management and sectorized psychiatry

Together with a general assessment of gerontopsychiatric care in the Federal Republic of Germany, the paper presents a model in hospitalised gerontopsychiatric treatment that has been tested at Hanover College of Medical Studies (Medizinische Hochschule Hanover). Results presented cover a wide range of divergent disorders, and appear to justify the employment of the model elsewhere.