Prevention-centered science in mental health

Conclusion This special issue of AJCP is the first attempt to collectively publish some of the research generated by the PIRCs, an effort that we hope conveys the richness and sophistication of prevention research at its best. As seen in the papers, the work encompasses a broad multidisciplinary focus, including the domains of epidemiology, econometrics, sociology, community psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, and psychiatry. The rigor of the studies is sometimes astonishing given the complexities of implementing field-based research, and speaks to the creativity of the investigators at the PIRCs. The critical role they have carved out for prevention within the broader scientific enterprise should move the field toward greater acceptance by other scientists, and should hasten the achievement of its main goal and an important mission of the NIMH—the prevention of mental disorders and dysfunctions and the promotion of mental health. Editor's Note: This special issue of theAmerican Journal of Community Psychology was organized by Doreen Spilton Koretz, who introduces it with a commentary describing the National Institute of Mental Health program that supports the Preventive Intervention Research Centers. Editorial review was handled by Edward Seidman, Associate Editor, with the assistance of a special review board composed of people listed at the end of the issue.The opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the support or endorsement of the National Institute of Mental Health; the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration; or the Public Health Service.     

Children's judgments about their own self‐knowledge: The role of disclosure to other

Previous research has suggested that children of 5/6 years fail to understand that they are the authority on their own self‐knowledge. That is, when asked questions like, ‘Who knows best when you are feeling tired?’, they tend to cite their mother rather than themselves. Here we report a study that, rather than asking about generalities (‘Who knows best what you are thinking?’), presented 5‐, 7‐ 9‐ and 11‐year‐children with hypothetical vignettes about specific circumstances in which they were described as either disclosing or not disclosing a specified state to their mother. Children were subsequently asked to judge who would best know the state. Over all age groups children were significantly more likely to identify themselves as authorities on their own self‐knowledge when states had not been disclosed to mother than when they had. However, in the case of disclosed states, young children (though not older ones) asserted that, ‘mum knows best’. These findings are interpreted as suggesting not that young children entirely fail to understand first person authority, but instead that they make the relatively sophisticated assumption that mothers' interpretive competence is greater than their own.     

Creative Thinking

Life, and therefore evolution, is a creative process; creativity is not an attribute of a few gifted people. The way we think obscures this truth. Three ways of dealing with a problem are creativity, calculation, and choice. Creativity can occur when a single idea is held in two contradictory frames of reference. Thus to be creative we have to put aside our usual ways of thinking, which are based on either/or. When we put aside this way of thinking we will see that things do not change: they are change.     

Davidson on the Identity Theory

Abstract

… if we bear well in mind the scope of our senses and what it is exactly that reaches our faculty of thinking by way of them, we must admit that in no case are the ideas of things presented to us by the senses just as we form them in our thinking. So much so that there is nothing in our ideas which is not innate to the mind or the faculty of thinking, with the sole exception of those circumstances which relate to experience, such as the fact that we judge that this or that idea which we now have immediately before our mind refers to a certain thing situated outside us. We make such a judgment not because these things transmit the ideas to our mind through the sense organs, but because they transmit something which, at exactly that moment, gives the mind occasion to form these ideas by means of the faculty innate to it. Nothing reaches our mind from external objects through the sense organs except certain corporeal motions… in accordance with my own principles. But neither the motions themselves nor the figures arising from them are conceived by us exactly as they occur in the sense organs, as I have explained at length in my Optics. Hence it follows that the very ideas of the motions themselves and of the figures are innate in us. The ideas of pains, colors, sounds and the like must be all the more innate if, on the occasion of certain corporeal motions, our mind is to be capable of representing them to itself, for there is no similarity between these ideas and the corporeal motions.     

Temperament and Vulnerability to Psychopathology: Introduction to the Special Section

Several authors have highlighted associations with temperament as promising avenues for understanding vulnerability to psychopathology (e.g., Muris and Ollendick, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 8, 271–289, 2005; Nigg, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 47, 395–422, 2006). The successful integration of models of temperament and models of psychopathology will undoubtedly increase our understanding of both. The current special section intends to present important new ideas and evidence in this field and tries to formulate answers to a couple of emerging questions. To set the stage for the papers, we provide a brief state of the art of research on temperament—psychopathology associations. After that, we discuss emerging questions in the field, some of which are addressed in the papers of this special section. To conclude, we point out a couple of future research perspectives.     

TEXT COMPREHENSION RESEARCH TO CLASSROOM APPLICATION: DEVELOPING AN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUE

Abstract

Reading comprehension skills are routinely taught and they are often learned to a point of “mastery” on criterion referenced tests; but students relatively seldom apply them effectively when they read content‐area materials. In this paper we argue that the problem can best be solved not by abandoning skill‐centered teaching but by discovering ways to help students make effective use of the skills they acquire through skill‐centered instruction. Our approach is to develop procedures for glossing expository text; that is, we are using marginal and other intratext notations‐‐gloss‐‐to direct students’ attention while they read in order to help them internalize, direct, and apply specific skills and strategies. We describe the purpose and rationale for our developmental approach and show how we are attempting to bring research implications to bear on our work.     

Value Pluralism and Liberal Politics

Contemporary Neo-Berlinians contend that value pluralism is the best account of the moral universe we inhabit; they also contend that value pluralism provides a powerful case for liberalism. In this paper, I challenge both claims. Specifically, I will examine the arguments offered in support of value pluralism; finding them lacking, I will then offer some reasons for thinking that value pluralism is not an especially promising view of our moral universe.     

Why Are We Certain that We Exist?

Descartes was certain that he was thinking and he was accordingly certain that he existed. Like Descartes, we seem to be more certain of our thoughts and our existence than of anything else. What is less clear is the reason why we are thus certain. Philosophers throughout history have provided different interpretations of the cogito, disagreeing both on the kind of thoughts it characterizes and on the reasons for its cogency. According to what we may call the empiricist interpretation of the cogito, I can only claim to be certain of having experiences, and this certainty, as well as that of my own existence, stems from their phenomenal and subjective character. According to rationalist interpretations, on the other hand, I am certain of having some self‐reflexive propositional attitudes, and this certainty derives from their rational features. Psychiatric patients suffering from acute forms of depersonalization or of the Cotard syndrome often doubt that they think and exist, and might even believe that they don't. I argue that their study allows us to favor the empiricist interpretation of the cogito.     

Wishful thinking and the unconscious

Abstract

This paper gives a sketch for a reconstruction of the Freudian unconscious, and an argument for its existence. The strategy followed attempts to side-step the extended debates about the validity of Freud’s methods and conclusions, by basing itself on the desire/belief schema for understanding and explaining human behaviour - a schema neither folk psychology nor scientific psychology can do without. People are argued to have, as ideal types, two fundamental modes of fulfilling their desires: engaging with reality, and wishful thinking. The first mode tries to acknowledge the constraints reality imposes on the satisfaction of desires, while the second mode tries to ignore, deny or disguise these constraints, inasmuch as they threaten to make such satisfaction impossible or unfeasible. Crucially, wishful thinking can be used so as to ignore or deny any desire that is incompatible with other strong desires. Thus we end up unaware of the existence or nature of some of our desires, of the fact that they are influencing our thought and behaviour, and of the process our own mind has used to thwart awareness of them. Once we acknowledge this possibility, we are already seriously entertaining the possibility of the Freudian unconscious, or something fairly close to it. The more aware the subject is that her wishful thinking is just that, the less effective it becomes. Wishful thinking thus requires an unconscious; it is inimical to a clear, complete and unambiguous acknowledgement of its own status. Next, various aspects of my account (and Freud’s) that allow a conception of the unconscious in non-Cartesian terms are emphasised: the unconscious is largely constituted by semantic phenomena of a particular type: forms of representation which would conceal their meaning even if the full light of ‘attention’, Cartesian ‘consciousness’ or ‘introspection’ were cast upon them. If wishful thinking is an integral part of mental life, philosophers and others wishing to “educate humanity” will have to proceed differently from what would have been appropriate had rational thought and action been the only available option for satisfying desires.     

Should we presume moral turpitude in our children? – Small children and consent to medical research

When children are too young to make their ownautonomous decisions, decisions have to be madefor them. In certain contexts we allow parentsand others to make these decisions, and do notinterfere unless the decision clearly violatesthe best interest of the child. In othercontexts we put a priori limits on whatkind of decisions parents can make, and/or whatkinds of considerations they have to take intoaccount. Consent to medical research currentlyfalls into the second group mentioned here. Wewant to consider and ultimately reject one ofthe arguments put forward for putting medicalresearch into the second category. We willargue that some objections to children'sparticipation in research are either based onan implausibly restrictive conception of whatis in fact in the child's best interests orthat there is an implicit and false premisehidden in this argument; i.e., the premise thatour children have so deeply fallen into moralturpitude that we must assume that they wouldnot want to fulfill their moral obligations,or, that they will grow up to be morallydeficient and will then wish not to have actedwell while a child.     

The challenge of counselling and psychotherapy research

Aims: The purpose of this commentary is to argue that the value of counselling and psychotherapy research lies, not only in what it teaches us as therapists, but also in its ability to challenge us and our assumptions. Method: The paper identifies eight beliefs that may be prevalent in sections of the counselling and psychotherapy community, and presents evidence that challenges them. Findings: While many of our beliefs may hold true for some clients some of the time, the research evidence suggests that they are unlikely to be true for all clients all of the time. Discussion: By questioning and challenging therapists' a priori assumptions, research findings can help counsellors and psychotherapists to be less set in their beliefs; and more open to the unique experiences, characteristics and wants of each individual client.     

Maximalism and Moral Harmony

Maximalism is the view that an agent is permitted to perform a certain type of action (say, baking) if and only if she is permitted to perform some instance of this type (say, baking a pie), where φ‐ing is an instance of ψ‐ing if and only if φ‐ing entails ψ‐ing but not vice versa. Now, the aim of this paper is not to defend maximalism, but to defend a certain account of our options that when combined with maximalism results in a theory that accommodates the idea that a moral theory ought to be morally harmonious—that is, ought to be such that the agents who satisfy the theory, whoever and however numerous they may be, are guaranteed to produce the morally best world that they have the option of producing. I argue that, for something to count as an option for an agent, it must, in the relevant sense, be under her control. And I argue that the relevant sort of control is the sort that we exercise over our reasons‐responsive attitudes (e.g., our beliefs, desires, and intentions) by being both receptive and reactive to reasons. I call this sort of control rational control, and I call the view that φ‐ing is an option for a subject if and only if she has rational control over whether she φs rationalism. When we combine this view with maximalism, we get rationalist maximalism, which I argue is a promising moral theory.     

Epistemic Responsibility and Critical Thinking

Should we always engage in critical thinking about issues of public policy, such as health care, gun control, and LGBT rights? Michael Huemer (2005) has argued for the claim that in some cases it is not epistemically responsible to engage in critical thinking on these issues. His argument is based on a reliabilist conception of the value of critical thinking. This article analyzes Huemer's argument against the epistemic responsibility of critical thinking by engaging it critically. It presents an alternative account of the value of critical thinking that is tied to the notion of forming and deploying a critical identity. And it develops an account of our epistemic responsibility to engage in critical thinking that is not dependent on reliability considerations alone. The primary purpose of the article is to provide critical thinking students, or those that wish to reflect on the value of critical thinking, with an opportunity to think metacritically about critical thinking by examining an argument that engages the question of whether it is epistemically responsible for one to engage in critical thinking.     

Infinite Reasoning

Our relationship to the infinite is controversial. But it is widely agreed that our powers of reasoning are finite. I disagree with this consensus; I think that we can, and perhaps do, engage in infinite reasoning. Many think it is just obvious that we can't reason infinitely. This is mistaken. Infinite reasoning does not require constructing infinitely long proofs, nor would it gift us with non-recursive mental powers. To reason infinitely we only need an ability to perform infinite inferences. I argue that we have this ability. My argument looks to our best current theories of inference and considers examples of apparent infinite reasoning. My position is controversial, but if I'm right, our theories of truth, mathematics, and beyond could be transformed. And even if I'm wrong, a more careful consideration of infinite reasoning can only deepen our understanding of thinking and reasoning.     

Understanding causal conditionals: A study of individual differences

Previous studies have suggested that a minority of university students, of lower cognitive ability, are inclined to interpret abstract conditional statements, if p then q, as if they were conjunctions: p and q. In the present study we administered the conditional truth table task to a large sample of students (n = 160), but using realistic, everyday causal conditionals. We also measured their general intelligence. While individual differences were found, these were not consistent with some participants adopting a conjunctive interpretation of such statements. Rather, it appears that students of lower cognitive ability are rather likely to assume that a conditional implies its converse, so that it means also if q then p. The results are discussed with reference to the suppositional theory of conditionals and our more general account of hypothetical thinking.     

MORAL RELEVANCE AND CETERIS PARIBUS PRINCIPLES

My goal in this paper is twofold: to provide an account of what makes properties morally relevant, and to indicate the role such properties have in our moral thinking. I suppose that a property is morally relevant just in case it must, ceteris paribus, determine the moral status (the rightness or wrongness) of actions having it. The main part of the paper concerns the conditions under which the ceteris paribus caveat is satisfied, that is, when other things are equal. I argue that the caveat is satisfied when, with respect to a proposed set of morally relevant properties, an act differs from its alternatives at most in the degree to which it has one of those properties. Since other things are seldom equal, it is natural to wonder why what is true when they are equal should be important when they are not. That is, why is moral relevance, as I characterize it, a useful moral notion? I suggest that it is only by recognizing the moral relevance of properties that we are able to engage in useful moral thinking about the future.     

Can I use TA? Should I use TA? Should I not use TA? Comparing reflexive thematic analysis and other pattern‐based qualitative analytic approaches

Thematic analysis methods, including the reflexive approach we have developed, are widely used in counselling and psychotherapy research, as are other approaches that seek to develop ‘patterns’ (themes, categories) across cases. Without a thorough grounding in the conceptual foundations of a wide variety of across‐case analytic approaches, and qualitative research more broadly—something rarely offered in counselling training—it can be difficult to understand how these differ, where they overlap, and which might be appropriate for a particular research project. Our aim in this paper is to support researchers in counselling and psychotherapy to select an appropriate across‐case approach for their research, and to justify their choice, by discussing conceptual and procedural differences and similarities between reflexive thematic analysis (TA) and four other across‐case approaches. Three of these are also widely used in counselling and psychotherapy research—qualitative content analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis and grounded theory. The fourth—discourse analysis—is less widely used but importantly exemplifies the critical qualitative research tradition. We contextualise our comparative approach by highlighting the diversity within TA. TA is best thought of as a spectrum of methods—from types that prioritise coding accuracy and reliability to reflexive approaches like ours that emphasise the inescapable subjectivity of data interpretation. Although reflexive TA provides the point of comparison for our discussion of other across‐case approaches, our aim is not to promote reflexive TA as ‘best’. Rather, we encourage the knowing selection and use of analytic methods and methodologies in counselling and psychotherapy research.     

Relational Complexity and Ethical Responsibility

Richard Miller uses the concepts of alterity and intimacy as touchstones for analyzing neglected aspects of our interpersonal and social relationships. He argues that, as persons in relation, we oscillate between experiences of alterity and intimacy, and it is with a greater awareness of this oscillation that we do best to consider our ethical responsibilities. This paper affirms the value of thinking about—and potentially reimagining—how we conceive and relate to various others. It also makes explicit that, as persons, each of us is separate, not only from some, but from all other persons, even as we are also one with them. Moreover, each of us is different from all other persons, even as we are also like them. The aspects of persons and relationships on which we focus, in a given situation, matter because they partly determine the choices that we make in another’s regard.     

Are We Agents at All? Helen Steward's Agency Incompatibilism

In A Metaphysics for Freedom (Steward, Helen. A Metaphysics for Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) and related papers, Helen Steward advances a new argument for incompatibilism. Though she concedes that the luck objection is persuasive with regard to existing versions of libertarianism, she claims that agency itself is incompatible with determinism: we are only agents at all if we are able to settle matters concerning our movements, where settling something requires that prior to our settling it lacked sufficient conditions. She argues that genuine agents settle very fine-grained aspects of their movements: when and how they move, even when and how their neurons fire. In this paper, I advance two linked arguments against agency incompatibilism. I argue, first, that we do not exercise direct control over the fine-grained aspects of our movements. Rather, we control these movements indirectly, by intentionally engaging in broadly individuated action types (regarding which Steward concedes that the compatibilist has a plausible story to tell). Second, I argue that these aspects of our movements are lucky for us and, since this is true, they cannot play the role of grounding our agency.