The scholar’s best friend: research trends in dog cognitive and behavioral studies

Animal Cognition - In recent decades, cognitive and behavioral knowledge in dogs seems to have developed considerably, as deduced from the published peer-reviewed articles. However, to date, the...     

Religiosity/Spirituality and Mental Health and Quality of Life of Early Pregnant Women

Journal of Religion and Health - The present study aims to investigate how religious/spiritual (R/S) beliefs are associated with depressive, anxious and stress symptoms and quality of life (QOL) of...     

‘I still have difficulties feeling like a mother’: The transition to motherhood of preterm infants mothers

Objective: The premature birth of their infant can constitute a sudden interruption of the transition to motherhood that requires a reorganisation of the process. The present study aimed to analyse the experience of the transition to motherhood of preterm infants’ mothers, framing it within Stern’s transition to motherhood theory.

Method: A semi-structured interview was administered to 30 mothers during the recovery of the infant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The interview explored the experience of mothers related to pregnancy, the infant’s birth and recovery.

Results: Thematic Analyses evidenced four interrelated themes: disconnection from the child, perception of maternal inadequacy, loss of parental role and temporal suspension. The themes showed that the mothers’ experience of preterm birth not only concerns the traumatic delivery, but is also embedded in the entire process of becoming a mother within an institutional context.

Conclusions: Results were connected to Stern’s theory. Findings revealed difficulties for preterm mothers that could affect the development of the maternal constellation and thus their transition to motherhood. These difficulties may influence the construction of maternal identity, mother’s representation of their child and the bond with their child.     

The clinical overlap between the corticobasal degeneration syndrome and other diseases of the frontotemporal spectrum: three case reports

The corticobasal degeneration syndrome has been suggested to be part of a complex of conditions (including the different subtypes of frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy), which reflect a spectrum of pathological substrates. This concept is supported by the frequent clinical overlap that can be observed among patients diagnosed with these conditions. We report three clinical cases, characterized by the overlap of the clinical features of corticobasal degeneration syndrome with, respectively, nonfluent progressive aphasia, progressive supranuclear palsy and semantic dementia. Current diagnostic criteria emphasize differences in clinical presentation, which probably reflect the preferential location of pathology in the early stages of disease. However, with disease progression, a considerable clinical overlap can be expected among the different syndromes. This concept should be extended not only to the cognitive and behavioural features of the frontotemporal dementia subtypes, but also to the movement disorders of corticobasal degeneration and supranuclear palsy.     

South African International Migration and its Impact on Older Family Members

In this article, we explore the impact of South African families’ emigration on parents/grandparents who must renegotiate their lives in their loved ones’ physical absence. We adopted a transnational perspective in a bigger qualitative project to consider both sides of the migratory spectrum. Here we focus on elderly family members who remain behind—a group largely neglected in prior research. Our findings illustrate the complex emotions and relational changes experienced by elderly people whose families emigrate. New technologies bridge distances, allowing new ways to connect and take care of each other, and of re-imagining transnational relationships and what constitutes family life, but these bridges cannot negate the loss experienced by those remaining. People have to make sense of the emigration and forge new relational bonds with remaining family members. Our findings stress grandparents’ meaningful role in a family system and highlight some gendered and racial differences in families’ experiences.     

Noah’s Ark: technical and theoretical implications concerning the use of metaphor in the treatment of trauma1

In this paper, using my clinical work with a 3-year-old boy who lost his hearing when he was between 9 and 12 months old, and whose disability was only discovered when he was 22 months old, I will explore two issues of paramount technical importance when working with trauma. Firstly, it is crucial to create a boundary around the traumatic event, so that life before, during and after the trauma can be circumscribed and the traumatic event explored and hopefully understood and integrated. Secondly, it is of paramount importance to establish the level of developmental organization at the time of the trauma, especially in relation to the capacity to integrate bodily affects into mind. I will show how trauma and its vicissitudes are directly dependent on the person’s capacity to resolve the splitting that trauma creates in the mind, and also the key role played by the use of metaphors in the process whereby trauma becomes thinkable and can therefore be integrated into the self.     

Starting from scratch: Developing clinical psychology training and services in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper outlines the author's personal experience of contributing to the development of the first ever training in clinical psychology in Bangladesh. This was part of a link project between University College London and Dhaka University. It examines the challenges posed by such an enterprise through the author's experience of teaching and assessing patients in the local psychiatric wards. It questions the validity of exporting Western models of psychotherapy – psychoanalysis in particular – to a non-Western culture.     

Clinging,gripping, holding,containment: Reflections on a survival reflex and the development of a capacity to separate

This paper attempts to describe how, in the very first months of extra‐uterine life, personality structures are formed around notions of personal space, separateness, attachment and individuation. The contribution of a forgotten Hungarian analyst, Imre Hermann, who wrote about the ‘clinging reflex’, will be explored in relation to the origin of Bowlby's concept of attachment and Rey's theoretical understanding of personal space. Particular attention will be given to transitions, transitional experiences and the development of a sense of internal space. Vignettes from infant observations will be used to illustrate the theoretical frame of reference. Clinical material from the analysis of a child and an adult patient will be provided to postulate how a distorted perception of personal space and separateness in the first few months of life may affect the capacity to attach and to individuate.