Synchronicity and the capacity to think: a clinical exploration

Synchronicity blurs the boundaries of psyche and physis. This invisible dance of mind and matter suggested to Jung an interconnection between physical and mental events reflecting a unified 'psychophysical space-time continuum'. His idea of exteriorization put forth the notion that unconscious thoughts can manifest themselves in the external world. I have related this to Bion's theory of thinking, where thoughts, which should be a prelude to action, become actions in themselves, projections of unthought thoughts. Through detailed clinical work with dreams I will explore the effects of early trauma on the development of the capacity to think, and the way in which synchronistic events relate to projections of early traumatic experiences which have not been 'mentalized'.     

Pitch Cues for the Recognition of Yes-No Questions in French

Linguistic studies of the intonation of Yes–No questions in French show that, in questions containing more than two stress groups, interrogative intonation is characterized by a sequence of lowered pitches or downstepped tones which precede the final rise. The gating paradigm was used here to determine whether subjects listening to French NP utterances containing three stress groups could indicate whether the utterance was an statement or a question before the final rise was heard. Although the task was difficult, findings indicate that listeners can in fact to a certain extent, recognize with mid confidence ratings, the intonational device of a question while they were hearing the downstepped tones preceding the final rise.     

Self-Esteem, Teasing and Quality of Life: African American Adolescent Girls Participating in a Family-Based Pediatric Overweight Intervention

Two studies investigated overweight in African American girls. First, African American adolescent girls (BMI was ≥ 85th percentile) and their mothers participated in focus groups addressing weight and eating. Although mothers and daughters shared some similar views on these issues, there were important discrepancies, with mothers expressing greater doubt about the potential success of a healthy weight program. The second study evaluated baseline data from 39 African American girls participating in a weight management program; mothers' reports were also analyzed. In both studies, adolescents reported significant teasing, and in the second study, teasing was inversely associated with social quality of life (β=.55, t=3.01, p=.007). Motivation to participate was positively associated with teasing (r=.50, p < .01). Self-esteem was inversely related to positive health habits (all p < .05). Mothers who viewed their daughters as having higher self-esteem were less concerned about their daughters' weight. Differences in mothers' and daughters' perceptions highlight the importance of a family approach in pediatric overweight interventions. Results provide evidence that overweight African American girls face significant weight stigmatization and suggest areas to target regarding intervention implementation.

Sequential combinations of drug and cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic insomnia: an exploratory study

This study explores the efficacy of sequential treatments involving medication and cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) for primary insomnia. Seventeen participants took part in a multiple baseline design and were assigned to: (a) medication for 5 weeks, followed by combined medication plus CBT for 5 weeks; (b) combined treatment for 5 weeks, followed by CBT alone; or (c) CBT alone. Each treatment sequence produced significant sleep improvements, but at different points in time. For the first sequence, most of the sleep improvement was obtained after the introduction of CBT, while for the other sequence and CBT alone, improvement appeared during the first weeks. These results suggest that sleep improvement seems affected by the way treatments are combined. Also, a sequence beginning with a combined treatment followed by CBT alone seems to produce the best outcome. Additional research should be conducted with larger samples to determine the most effective sequence.     

Attachment state of mind, learning dispositions, and academic performance during the college transition

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation among attachment state of mind, students' learning dispositions, and academic performance during the college transition. Sixty-two students were involved in a short-term longitudinal study and were interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview. Students' learning dispositions were assessed at the end of high school (Time 1) and halfway through their 1st semester in college (Time 2). Academic records were collected at Time 1 as well as at the end of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd college semesters. Autonomous students showed better learning dispositions throughout the transition and were less likely than dismissing and preoccupied students to experience a decrease in these dispositions between Time 1 and Time 2. In addition, dismissing students obtained the lowest average of grades in college, and this association was mediated by changes in quality of attention during the transition.     

The effects of aging on time reproduction in delayed free-recall

The experiments presented here demonstrate that normal aging amplifies differences in time production occurring in delayed free-recall testing. Experiment 1 compared the time production ability of two healthy aged groups as well as college-aged participants. During the test session, which followed a 24-h delay and omitted all feedback and examples of the two target intervals, the two groups of aged participants' over-produced a 6s interval. This effect is similar in form to errors shown by young participants, but twice the magnitude. Productions of a 17 s interval were generally accurate overall. However, further analysis indicated that the majority of aged participants over-produced the 17 s interval while a minority greatly under-produced the 17 s interval. Furthermore, aged participants showed violations of the scalar property of timing variability in the training session, while in the test session, only those who under-produced the 17 s interval showed this tendency. In contrast, training session performance was good for all participants. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the ability of the participants in Experiment 1 to reproduce the length of a line from memory, under conditions analogous to those of the time production experiments. These experiments provided tests of the specificity of the errors observed in Experiment 1. Performance in the older participants was accurate, if more variable, compared to the young participants, in contrast to the time production results, indicating that production inaccuracy in free-recall is specific to interval timing in the current context.     

The self-organizing consciousness

We propose that the isomorphism generally observed between the representations composing our momentary phenomenal experience and the structure of the world is the end-product of a progressive organization that emerges thanks to elementary associative processes that take our conscious representations themselves as the stuff on which they operate, a thesis that we summarize in the concept of Self-Organizing Consciousness (SOC).     

Spatial task performance,sex differences,and motion sickness susceptibility

There are substantial individual differences in susceptibility to motion sickness, yet little is known about what mediates these differences. Spatial ability and sex have been suggested as possible factors in this relationship. 89 participants (57 women) were administered a Motion Sickness Questionnaire that assesses motion sickness susceptibility, a Water-level Task that gauges sensitivity to gravitational upright, and a Mental Rotation Task that tests an individual's awareness of how objects typically move in space. Significant sex differences were observed in performance of both the Water-level Task (p<.01), and the Mental Rotation Task (p<.005), with women performing less accurately than men. Women also had significantly higher scores on the Motion Sickness Questionnaire (p<.005). Among men, but not women, significant negative relationships were observed between Water-level Task performance and Motion Sickness Questionnaire score (p<.001) and between Mental Rotation Task performance and Motion Sickness Questionnaire score (p<.005). In conclusion, women performed significantly more poorly than men did on the spatial ability tasks and reported significantly more bouts of motion sickness. In addition, men showed a significant negative relationship between spatial ability and motion sickness susceptibility.     

Factor analyses of the DIB-R in adolescents

The goal of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines (DIB-R; Zanarini, Gunderson, Franckenburg, & Chauncey, 1989) in a nonpatient sample of 118 adolescents. A principal components factor analysis with a Varimax rotation extracted three factors. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that this three-factor model provided an adequate fit. The first factor, which included depression, anxiety, helplessness/hopelessness, loneliness/emptiness, and also encompassed odd thinking/unusual perceptive experiences and quasi-psychotic experiences, appeared to be centered on painful feelings and dissociative defense. The second factor, labeled "impulsivity," consisted of impulse action patterns, counterdependency, and stormy relationships. This factor seemed to be centered on defensive acting-out. The third factor, called "aggressiveness," consisted of anger, hypomania, devaluation/manipulation/sadism, and demand/entitlement, and might express manic/narcissistic defenses. These analyses suggest that there may be homogeneous components of borderline symptomatology in adolescents that may reflect affective disturbances and defensive mechanisms.