Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy nach Habib Davanloo

Essentially the seventies – keen on experimenting – have given birth to the audiovisually supported psychoanalytical system of IS-TDP,developed by Habib Davanloo,Montreal. His unusual active and systematic challenge to the patient's resistances voids the absorbing complications of a transferenceneurosis by initiating three psychodynamic changes: intensification and cristallization of the defenses,prominent rise of mixed transference feelings, revival of an unconscious therapeutic coalition.This leads to a highly compressed transference-dynamic that finally discharges into an unresisting breakthrough of deeply repressed feelings: components of primitive rage, tenderness and pain.The patient's intrapsychic process itself replaces the therapist by an important person of the past.Repeatedly working through the emerging guilt is the most determinant factor now and during the whole therapy.The initial-interview already creates valuable connections to the unconscious and designates the further process until the pathogenic core structure is melted.Thus shortness of therapy is a methodical result.     

Touchscreen-enhanced visual learning in rats.

The efficiency of traditional levers and of modern touchscreen technology for training rats on a computerized visual discrimination was studied in a series of observations. When compared with a lever-based discrimination procedure, the use of touchscreens supported the faster development of signal tracking behavior and acquisition of a two-stimulus simultaneous visual discrimination. It did not affect the final level of accuracy. Factors related to spatial proximity of the responses with the stimuli, sign-tracking, and increased ease of touchscreen motor responses were suggested as possible reasons for the touchscreen training advantage. This increased efficiency allows large numbers of animals to be tested quickly, a necessary requirement for studies involving genetic and physiological interventions.     

Moral responsibility and agents’ histories

To what extent should an analysis of an agent’s being morally responsible for an action that he performed—especially a compatibilist analysis of this—be sensitive to the agent’s history? In this article, I give the issue a clearer focus than it tends to have in the literature, I lay some groundwork for an attempt to answer the question, and I motivate a partial but detailed answer.     

Salaam Slumdog! Personal and cultural trauma and restitution in the Mumbai slums

The film “Slumdog Millionaire” when viewed together with the earlier “Salaam Bombay!” penetrates into the cultural psychology of urban India, revealing continuity with traditional Indian esthetic theories and commonality with psychoanalytic self psychologies. In films where plot is secondary and character is everything, we are led deep into the essence of the heroes’ feelings and learn to appreciate how being loyal to affect points the way to selfhood. Both films explore the psyches of boys struggling to hold on to fundamental “blueprints” of selfhood in the face of environments which seem to deny them any chance of fulfillment. While “Salaam Bombay!” presents a tragic and depressive response to the trauma and deprivation of slum life, “Slumdog Millionaire” appears grandiose and manic. Beneath the surface, both films sustain faith that these children can and will find the families they need to flourish. While hope is deferred in “Salaam!” it is ultimately achieved in “Slumdog.”     

Factors influencing therapist selection among gays,lesbians and bisexuals

For this study 609 gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals were surveyed with respect to openness about sexual orientation and preference for a therapist with a particular sexual orientation. Other factors considered important in selecting a therapist such as licensure, referral source, gender, cost and specialty were also examined. Data for this study was collected using two different methods. In the first method, data was collected from respondents subscribing to internet listervers serving gay, lesbian and bisexual subscribers. In the second, more traditional method, surveys were distributed by mail or hand delivered to various organizations serving gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities in two southwestern states. Findings suggest that significantly more lesbians than gay men and bisexuals in the e-mail sample prefer a therapist of the same sexual orientation. No significant relationships were found between degree of openness and importance of the therapist's sexual orientation. Other factors related to therapist preference were explored, and results are discussed.     

Predictors of Condom Use Among African American Males at High Risk for HIV1

This study compared the influence of HIV risk behaviors and condom use attitudes on condom use among heterosexual African American males. Three models were tested: (a) HIV risk, (b) condom use attitudes, and (c) a model combining the previous two. Brief street intercept interviews were administered to African American males in 2 matched pairs of census tracts. Results are based on 589 males reporting vaginal sex in the last 30 days. The General Linear Test (GLT) was used to test the ability of regression models to reduce error variance. The condom use, attitude model was sufficient to predict frequency of condom use regardless of partner type. The strongest predictors of condom use were condom use enjoyment, social norms, self-efficacy, and social influence.     

On the detection of stepwise changes in a constant signal level

A stepwise change in the frequency of a continuous pure tone is taken as an element signal. The detectability of a single step is compared with the detectability of a pattern composed of two such steps in order to determine the ways in which the steps interact and how these interactions depend upon the time interval between the steps. It is shown that two positive steps separated by D msec interact by summation (d’ for two steps being greater than d’ for a single step) and that this summation is 100% even when D=100 msec. The extent of summation decreases as D is increased beyond 100 msec, leveling off at about 40% when D is near 1,000 msec. A positive step followed by a negative step (an increment) presents a more complex picture. When D=0 msec, the pattern is the null signal, and, of course, the two steps subtract completely. As D is increased, the extent of subtraction decreases, becoming zero when D is about 400 msec. Increasing D beyond 400 msec results in summation, reaching about 40% when D=2,000 msec. For D less than about 1,000 msec, the sign of the second step in a two-step signal is important: two steps of like sign summate, and two steps of unlike sign subtract. However, when the two steps are separated by about 2,000 msec, the sign of the second step is irrelevant: summation occurs, and the extent, about 40%, is the same for two steps of like sign and two steps of unlike sign. A brief theoretical discussion stresses the extant need for an information-processing theory of signal detection.