Grief Counseling: An Investigation of Counselors' Training,Experience, and Competencies

Grief is prevalent in counseling, but little is known about the current status of counselors’ preparation and competencies to provide effective care. This exploratory study surveyed counselors (N= 369) on grief training, personal and professional experiences with grief, and grief counseling competence. Multiple regression analyses found training and experience were statistically significant predictors of competence. The strong relationship between variables suggests these concepts may be understood as synonymous. Implications for training, practice, and research are discussed.     

Studies of implicit prototype extraction in patients with mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease

Studies of incidental category learning support the hypothesis of an implicit prototype-extraction system that is distinct from explicit memory (Smith, 2008). In those studies, patients with explicit-memory impairments due to damage to the medial-temporal lobe performed normally in implicit categorization tasks (Bozoki, Grossman, & Smith, 2006; Knowlton & Squire, 1993). However, alternative interpretations are that (a) even people with impairments to a single memory system have sufficient resources to succeed on the particular categorization tasks that have been tested (Nosofsky & Zaki, 1998; Zaki & Nosofsky, 2001) and (b) working memory can be used at time of test to learn the categories (Palmeri & Flanery, 1999). In the present experiments, patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer's disease were tested in prototype-extraction tasks to examine these possibilities. In a categorization task involving discrete-feature stimuli, the majority of subjects relied on memories for exceedingly few features, even when the task structure strongly encouraged reliance on broad-based prototypes. In a dot-pattern categorization task, even the memory-impaired patients were able to use working memory at time of test to extract the category structure (at least for the stimulus set used in past work). We argue that the results weaken the past case made in favor of a separate system of implicit prototype extraction.     

Do low burnout and high work engagement always go hand in hand?: investigation of the energy and identification dimensions in longitudinal data

The aim of the present 2-year follow-up study among young managers (N=433) was to investigate the intraindividual developmental patterns of burnout and work engagement as well as their interconnections. More specifically, we examined the interconnectedness of the varying patterns (i.e., latent classes) of exhaustion and vigor (i.e., the energy dimension) and cynicism and dedication (i.e., the identification dimension) across time. The latent class solutions supported by the growth mixture modeling indicated four latent classes for exhaustion and five for vigor. In addition, four latent classes were found for cynicism and six for dedication. Cynicism and dedication represented opposites with a strong negative relationship, whereas exhaustion and vigor were not connected and seemed to be two independent constructs. Overall, the present findings confirmed the results of earlier studies relating to the energy and identification continua and underlined the importance of investigating the subdimensions of burnout and work engagement. Thus, our study showed that high cynicism goes hand in hand with low dedication, but high exhaustion and low vigor do not necessarily appear together.     

Confidence–accuracy relations for faces and scenes: Roles of features and familiarity

Using naturalistic scenes, we recently demonstrated that confidence?Caccuracy relations differ depending on whether recognition responses are based on memory for a specific feature or instead on general familiarity: When confidence is controlled for, accuracy is higher for familiarity-based than for feature-based responses. In the present experiment, we show that these results generalize to face recognition. Subjects studied photographs of scenes and faces presented for varying brief durations and received a recognition test on which they (1) indicated whether each picture was old or new, (2) rated their confidence in their response, and (3) indicated whether their response was based on memory for a feature or on general familiarity. For both stimulus types, subjects were more accurate and more confident for their feature-based than for their familiarity-based responses. However, when confidence was held constant, accuracy was higher for familiarity-based than for feature-based responses. These results demonstrate an important similarity between face and scene recognition and show that for both types of stimuli, confidence and accuracy are based on different information.     

The effect of the first glimpse at a scene on eye movements during search

Previewing scenes briefly makes finding target objects more efficient when viewing is through a gaze-contingent window (windowed viewing). In contrast, showing a preview of a randomly arranged search display does not benefit search efficiency when viewing during search is of the full display. Here, we tested whether a scene preview is beneficial when the scene is fully visible during search. Scene previews, when presented, were 250 ms in duration. During search, the scene was either fully visible or windowed. A preview always provided an advantage, in terms of decreasing the time to initially fixate and respond to targets and in terms of the total number of fixations. In windowed visibility, a preview reduced the distance of fixations from the target position until at least the fourth fixation. In full visibility, previewing reduced the distance of the second fixation but not of later fixations. The gist information derived from the initial glimpse of a scene allowed for placement of the first one or two fixations at information-rich locations, but when nonfoveal information was available, subsequent eye movements were only guided by online information.     

Conséquences d’une catastrophe naturelle touchant le lieu de travail sur l’épuisement professionnel : Le cas du personnel d’un hôpital gériatrique

The Hautmont tornado has occurred on august 03, 2008, in the North of France. It was caused major destructions in this town and particularly in this city hospital. A tornado is a major natural phenomenon that causes destructions and disasters. In the literature, natural disaster and their destructive consequences are associated with psycho-traumatic disorders, among which is posttraumatic stress. The purpose of this research was to study the psychological impact of this tornado on a particularly vulnerable population: employees of a hospital. Thirty eight employees were interviewed one year after the Tornado. The results of this study showed that this disaster had many psychological repercussions. Many cases of posttraumatic stress disorders and cases of burnout were present independently of job strain level.     

Subcultural Research on Organizational Commitment With the 15 OCQ Invariant Instrument

The 15 item organizational commitment scale (15 OCQ) has been developed, tested, and validated in the USA (Mowday et al. 1979). Its adaptability to other countries and other languages is necessary for subcultural and cross-cultural research in industrial settings. A French version of the OCQ instrument was developed and assessed. Exploratory and multi-group invariance testings were used to assess the instrument invariance with French and English Canadian salespeople. The comparable English and French versions should facilitate future research.     

The relationship between post-trauma problem reporting and carer quality of life after severe head injury

Abstract

Head injury is a significant cause of death and disability. This study examined the quality of life of carers of individuals following severe head injury from the acute neurosurgical care period to one year post discharge from hospital. The contribution of patterns of problem reporting by patients and their carers to quality of life was examined. Carer psychosocial adjustment and individual quality of life evaluations were significantly poorer than general population levels and did not change over a one year period. However, significant increases in the number of problems reported were noted over time. No significant differences were found between patients and carers in the numbers of problems identified at each of three assessments, although the level of agreement about problems identified was quite low. Female patients reported significantly more problems than male patients. Carer problem reporting was found to significantly predict carer quality of life and psychosocial functioning to a greater extent than patient problem reporting, a pattern which emerged after the patient had been discharged from hospital. The study demonstrates increasing problem profiles and differing perceptions of patients and carers over time. Combined with a lack of improvement in carer quality of life over a one year recovery period, this highlights the need for longer-term professional support and advice services aimed at both patients and carers.     

An Examination of Irigaray's Commitment to Transcendental Phenomenology in The Forgetting of Air and The Way of Love

Although sexual difference is widely regarded as the concept that lies at the center of Luce Irigaray's thought, its meaning and significance is highly contested. This dissensus, however, attests to more than merely the existence of a recalcitrant conceptual ambiguity. That is, Irigaray's discussion of sexual difference remains fraught not because she leaves this concept undefined but because the centrality of sexual difference in fact marks a complex and unstable nexus of phenomena that shift throughout her work. Consequently, if Irigaray is indeed the preeminent thinker of sexual difference, this is not in virtue of her recurrent appeal to a monolithic, readily digestible concept but rather somehow despite the absence of precisely this gesture. In this paper, I will attempt to elucidate the peculiar preeminence of sexual difference in Irigaray's work by identifying her persistent, though largely unexamined, commitment to transcendental phenomenology. Indeed, I attempt to show that the complex of phenomena of sexual difference emerges in L'oubli de l'air and The Way of Love as a modulation of Heidegger's own revision of transcendental phenomenology. In this sense, the peculiar preeminence of sexual difference does not mark the centrality of a concept but Irigaray's amplification of this Heideggerian gesture.     

Dichotic listening performances in the follow-up of Landau and Kleffner syndrome

Abstract

In the follow-up study of 4 children with acquired epileptic aphasia or Landau and Kleffner syndrome, dichotic listening studies evidenced a unilateral ear extinction. In the four cases, the dichotic extinction was contralateral to the temporal cortex involved in the generation of epileptic discharges during the active period of epilepsy. This pattern of dichotic performances persisted several years after the complete recovery from epilepsy and EEG normalization. The long-lasting dichotic extinction revealed a permanent dysfunction in the temporal auditory system that may be a consequence of the presence of an active epileptogenic focus during the critical period of functional differentiation of the temporal cortex.