The Treatment of Mental Contamination: A Case Series

The recommended treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) incorporating exposure and response prevention (ERP), which is effective for approximately 50% of patients. However, there has been little advance in treatment outcomes since the introduction of ERP in 1979. It has been suggested that some progress can be made in treating contamination obsessions and washing compulsions by addressing feelings of dirtiness and contamination that arise without physical contact with a tangible contaminant. To date, the treatment of these “mental contamination” fears in OCD has not been systematically explored. This paper reports on a case series of 12 participants with OCD who received 10 to 20 sessions of a CBT-based treatment for mental contamination. At the end of treatment, 7 participants no longer met the diagnostic criteria for OCD and mental contamination and these gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Do core self-evaluations and coping style influence the perception of job insecurity?

Over the last few decades, increased flexibility and lack of stability in employment has made job insecurity a work stressor that affects more and more employees. Since worrying about potential job loss (quantitative job insecurity) or possible loss of valued job features (qualitative job insecurity) constitutes a subjective perception, it has been claimed that personality factors may be decisive for job insecurity perceptions. Furthermore, the perception of a stressor, in this case job insecurity, could be argued to be dependent on appraisals of available coping resources. This study investigates whether core self-evaluations predict job insecurity perceptions, and whether coping mediates this relationship, in a two-wave data set from a Swedish sample of white-collar workers (N = 425). The results show that core self-evaluations had a negative total effect on both qualitative and quantitative job insecurity. Core self-evaluations were positively related to problem-focused coping but not to emotion-focused coping. However, there was no mediating effect of coping style on the association between core self-evaluations and job insecurity.     

No time for compromises: Age as a moderator of the relation between needs–supply fit and job satisfaction

In the light of the current demographic change, organizations need to be aware of factors influencing job satisfaction of older workers in order to maintain high motivation and commitment. The present study addresses this issue by examining the moderating effect of age on the relationship between needs–supply fit and job satisfaction. Based on the general assumption that older workers are more sensitive to circumstances that threaten their well-being (Carstensen, 2006 Carstensen, L. L. 2006. The influence of a sense of time on human development. Science, 312: 1913–1915. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), we hypothesize that older as compared to younger workers should react more negatively to a misfit between their needs and available job supplies. Hence, older as compared to younger workers should report lower levels of job satisfaction when experiencing a misfit between needs and supplies. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 471 employed workers from different occupational areas. Results confirmed our hypothesis for four out of five domains of needs–supply fit: Significant three-way interactions between needs, supply, and age were observed. The present result that older as compared to younger workers react more strongly to needs–supply misfits additionally underlines the benefits of considering age-related changes in work values and needs in age-sensitive human resource practices.     

A Psychological Means for the Control and Prevention of Industrial Stress in Computerized Working Places

Abstract

There are common traditions in investigations into industrial stress and other kinds of poor workers' states in Western and Russian/Soviet applied psychology. Based upon these traditions we attempt to overview the main domains of research and possibilities for their application in a practical sense. Proposed psychodiagnostic and psychoprophylactic approaches have to be developed according to different kinds of work situations and technological progress. But the intention of basing research on the analysis of structural mechanisms of activity regulation seems to us the most productive in all of these cases. It corresponds to the increasing demands on human internal resources and mental activities in modern technological systems.     

Remembering Numbers in Old Age: Mnemonic Training Versus Self-Generated Strategy Training

The effectiveness of two memory training programs designed to enhance four-digit number recall was examined in 90 healthy older adults. One group received instruction and training in the number-consonant mnemonic, whereas another group was instructed to adopt their own encoding and retrieval strategies to enhance number recall. Also, a control group receiving no training between testing occasions was included. The criterion task was administered according to the Buschke selective reminding procedure. Posttest performance was evaluated with and without cognitive support for remembering (i.e., verbal cues). Under unsupported conditions, the mnemonic group improved number recall following training and the self-generated strategy group showed a tendency in the same direction. When support was provided, group differences in favor of the two training groups increased. In addition, no training-related gains were observed in two verbal transfer tasks. The relatively similar patterns of gains in the two intervention groups were discussed in terms of advantages and disadvantages in the two training regimens balancing each other.     

Effects of a self-regulation intervention on exercise are moderated by depressive symptoms: A quasi-experimental study

This study investigated whether a computer-based self-regulation intervention increases physical exercise in individuals with or without depressive symptoms. A total of 361 individuals in orthopedic rehabilitation, 36 of them with depressive symptoms, were recruited in Germany. In a quasi-experimental study, individuals were allocated to either a computer-based self-regulation intervention or an online questionnaire. Exercise was measured at the beginning of rehabilitation and six weeks after rehabilitation. Depressive symptoms were assessed at the end of rehabilitation. An analysis of covariance was conducted, controlling for exercise baseline, sex, and phase of assessment. A main effect for depressive symptoms (p = .005) and intervention group (p = .011), as well as a marginal interaction of intervention x depressive symptoms were found (p = .076). Results indicate that the self-regulation exercise intervention in an orthopedic rehabilitation setting seem to be only effective in non-depressed individuals. Future research should examine how health behavior change programs can be designed more effectively for individuals with depressive symptoms.     

Textures shape the attentional focus: Evidence from exogenous and endogenous cueing

The spatial cueing paradigm (Posner Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 32:3–25, 1980) has often been used to investigate the time course of the deployment of visual attention in space. In a series of eight experiments we investigated whether spatial cues would not only enhance processing of stimuli presented at cued locations, but also enhance processing of the entire texture in which the stimuli were presented. Results showed highest accuracy for responses to stimuli presented at cued locations, a replication of the traditional cueing effect (Posner 1980). Additionally, stimuli presented at uncued locations were responded to with higher accuracy when they were presented inside the same texture as the cued location, as compared with stimuli presented outside the texture with the cued location. To investigate this texture advantage for both automatic and voluntary attention deployment, exogenous and endogenous cues were used. The texture advantage was observed for short interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 50 and 100 ms for exogenous cues and for a longer ISI of 200 ms for endogenous cues. These findings indicate that the arrangement of task-irrelevant visual stimuli also can have a large impact on the cueing effect. This suggests that visual spatial attention spreads texture-wise across the visual field. Control experiments revealed that the homogeneity within texture elements contributes most to the effect but that the texture advantage is a function of both orientation contrast at the texture border and homogeneity within texture elements.     

Correspondence

Response to Chess Denman's review of Green, André and Stern, Daniel's Clinical and Observational Psychoanalytical Research: Roots of a Controversy. ( JAP , 46, 3)     

The European Early Promotion Project: A new primary health care service to promote children's mental health

The number of children in Europe with significant psychologic and social problems is large and increasing. This article describes an innovative crosscultural method of working with families to promote the psychosocial well being of children and prevent the development of psychologic and social problems. A study designed to evaluate the effects of the service is also presented. Primary health care workers in five European countries have been trained to conduct promotional interviews with all prospective mothers in their area one month before and one month after birth. They have also been taught to work with mothers identified as in need of support as a parent by using a specific counselling model to try to prevent the onset of child mental health difficulties. Effects of the intervention on children's psychologic development and family adaptation are being evaluated at two years in comparison with matched groups not receiving the intervention. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Gender Differences in the Construct Validity of the Silencing the Self Scale

Gender differences in the construct validity of Jack's (1991) Silencing the Self Scale (STSS) were assessed using 187 female and 169 male undergraduates. Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed gender differences in the scale's latent structure and at best provided only limited support for the validity of the scale's four subscales for women. Among men, the studies exposed a weakness in the scale's construct validity and provided insights into possible alternative interpretations made by men when responding to the scale's items. Convergent and discriminant validity of the scale were assessed by correlating it with measures of neuroticism and attachment. Whereas the construct validity of the STSS for use with women was supported, evidence was weaker for men. For men, data suggest that the STSS, in part, taps a motive to avoid intimacy and relationship situations that limit one's sense of independence and autonomy, a construct incongruous with Jack's notion of self-silencing.