Commentary on Stirling Moorey's and Janet Feigenbaum's papers

Our notions of what constitutes a good therapeutic relationship come from models developed for people with high levels of personal resources who actively choose therapy in preference to other ways of addressing their problems. The context is quite different for those with more severe and enduring mental health problems, when therapy can be one of many interventions being provided. Some of the dilemmas that arise within the therapeutic relationship in such cases can be understood in terms of the therapeutic relationship being conceived of within the dynamics of a dyad, when the actual situation is more akin to a triadic relationship comprising the client, the therapist and others involved in the client's care. Examples of threats to the therapeutic alliance, which I encounter quite frequently in my work, are explored from the perspective of the therapeutic couple within three-person space, as well as from the perspective of the differing, and sometimes conflicting, functions of mental health care. The implications of this for the provision of psychological therapy for people with severe mental health problems within the NHS are then considered.     

Derived transformation of children's pregambling game playing

Contemporary behavior-analytic perspectives on gambling emphasize the impact of verbal relations, or derived relational responding and the transformation of stimulus functions, on the initiation and maintenance of gambling. Approached in this way, it is possible to undertake experimental analysis of the role of verbal/mediational variables in gambling behavior. The present study therefore sought to demonstrate the ways new stimuli could come to have functions relevant to gambling without those functions being trained directly. Following a successful derived-equivalence-relations test, a simulated board game established high- and low-roll functions for two concurrently presented dice labelled with members of the derived relations. During the test for derived transformation, children were reexposed to the board game with dice labelled with indirectly related stimuli. All participants except 1 who passed the equivalence relations test selected the die that was indirectly related to the trained high-roll die more often than the die that was indirectly related to low-roll die, despite the absence of differential outcomes. All participants except 3 also gave the derived high-roll die higher liking ratings than the derived low-roll die. The implications of the findings for behavior-analytic research on gambling and the development of verbally-based interventions for disordered gambling are discussed.     

Comment on “four methods of locating the egocenter: A comparison of their predictive validities and reliabilities”

Barbeito and Ono (1979) recently reported a psychometric evaluation of four methods of measuring the egocenter. Evaluations of this kind can be extended, with a view to obtaining independent estimates of reliability and validity coefficients. In this way, the advantage(s) of one type of measure over another can be more clearly delineated.     

Assessment Tools for Executive Function and Adaptive Function Following Brain Pathology Among Children in Developing Country Contexts: a Scoping Review of Current Tools

Neuropsychology Review - Several tools have been developed to assess executive function (EFs) and adaptive functioning, although in mainly Western populations. Information on tools for...     

Mentalization-Based Treatment

The concept of mentalizing has captured the interest and imagination of an astonishing range of people—from psychoanalysts to neuroscientists, from child development researchers to geneticists, from existential philosophers to phenomenologists—all of whom seem to have found it useful. According to the Thompson Reuter maintained Web of Science, the use of the term in titles and abstracts of scientific papers increased from 10 to 2,750 between 1991 and 2011. Clinicians in particular have enthusiastically embraced the idea, and have put it to innovative use in their practices. Mentalization-based treatment (MBT)—making mentalizing a core focus of therapy—was initially developed for the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in routine clinical services delivered in group and individual modalities. Therapy with mentalizing as a central component is currently being developed for treatment of numerous groups, including people with antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse, eating disorders, and at-risk mothers with infants and children (A. Bateman & Fonagy, 2011). It is also being used with families and adolescents, in schools, and in managing social groups (Asen & Fonagy, 2011; Fonagy et al., 2009; Twemlow, Fonagy, & Sacco, 2005a Twemlow, S. W., Fonagy, P. and Sacco, F. C. 2005a. A developmental approach to mentalizing communities: I. A model for social change. Bull. Menninger Clin, 69(4): 265–281. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2005b). In this article, we focus on MBT in the treatment of BPD.     

Cognitive behavioral therapy reduces suicidal ideation in schizophrenia: results from a randomized controlled trial

Patients with schizophrenia are at high risk of suicide. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) has been shown to reduce symptoms in schizophrenia. This study examines whether CBT also changes the level of suicidal ideation in patients with schizophrenia compared to a control group. Ninety ambulatory patients with symptoms of schizophrenia resistant to conventional antipsychotic medication were randomized to CBT or befriending. They were assessed using the Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale, including a rating of suicidal ideation at baseline, post intervention, and after 9 months. Post-hoc analysis revealed that CBT provided significant reductions in suicidal ideation at the end of therapy, and sustained at the follow-up. Further research is required to substantiate these findings and determine the process and mechanisms through which this reduction is achieved.     

An examination of behavioral consistency using individual behaviors or groups of behaviors in serial homicide

Establishing behavioral consistency in serial homicide offending behavior is essential when linking homicides together and to a common offender. An examination of 35 serial homicide behaviors utilized by 90 offenders in 450 serial homicide cases was carried out to identify whether these offenders consistently performed the same behaviors across their series of homicides and whether it is more effective to examine individual behaviors or groupings of behaviors in order to identify behavioral consistency. This study provides the first empirically based evidence testing the use of using single behaviors as linking factors in linking homicide cases in a series, and shows that this method has inherent difficulties in accomplishing this, thus providing the first wave of empirical testing that questions current theories in the literature on serial homicide, which has suggested that signatures or specific key behaviors are important in understanding the consistency in an offender's behavior across the crimes. Recommendations for future studies on linking using signatures are suggested, including a more in-depth qualitative empirical evaluation of individual series.     

The Feminist Identity Development Model: Relevant for Young Women Today?

We explored whether the Downing and Roush model of feminist identity development is relevant for young women today. Two-hundred seventeen older and younger feminists and non-feminists were recruited on a college campus and online in the United States. They completed, online, the Feminist Identity Composite and reported whether they would have endorsed items for each stage more strongly in the past. Qualitative data was collected about prior stage experience. Older feminists scored higher in active commitment, and younger feminists scored higher in revelation. Feminist self-identification did not relate to synthesis scores, and young women high in synthesis did not report much prior stage experience. We postulate that synthesis is a starting point for young women, rather than an ending point.     

When Marcel Mauss’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Essai sur le Don</Emphasis> becomes <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Gift</Emphasis>: variations on the theme of solidarity

Since the early 1970s, Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le Don (1923), translated into English as The Gift in 1954, has been a standard reference in the social science and bioethical literature on the use of human body parts and substances for medical and research purposes. At that time, three social scientists—political scientist Richard Titmuss in the United Kingdom and sociologist Renée C. Fox working with historian Judith Swazey in the United States—had the idea of using this concept to highlight the fundamental structure of the biomedical practices they were studying, respectively, blood donation, and hemodialysis and organ transplantation. The fact that these first applications of Mauss’s essay should emerge in English- rather than in French-speaking countries raises the question of what the translation of the essay, and notably of the word don as gift, may have to do with this fact. Reading Mauss in translation undoubtedly inspired a seminal approach to interpreting medical and research practices based on bodily giving. This article posits that something may have also been lost: a much broader concept of giving with unquestionable links to the Durkheimian concept of solidarity, which Mauss conceptualizes not only as an obligation but also as a liberty to give.