SUICIDALITY IN MEN IN PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY

Based on the evidence of empirical gender differences in attempted suicide and suicide, this paper develops psychodynamic hypotheses on gender‐specific biographic, intra‐psychic and treatment aspects of suicidality among men. ‘Forming Types by Understanding’ is a qualitative method, based on a systematic analysis of similarity and differential reference points to develop ideal types of suicidal men. A random sample of 20 suicidal men who were receiving out‐patient psychodynamic psychotherapy was studied.

Four ideal types of suicidal men were identified: (1) ideal type ‘disconnected’: a predominance of disconnected feelings that is associated with rejection experiences; (2) ideal type ‘hurt’: aggressive conflicts and the realization of disillusioned life reality combined with experiences of real loss and real trauma; (3) ideal type ‘stormy’: an attached‐symbiotic transference offer mobilizes unrealistic wishes to help against a background of unresolved dependency conflicts; and (4) ideal type ‘object dependent’: concrete facts are important in relationships; in case of separation, real repossession of the woman must occur, a lack of emotional experience is compensated. The danger of suicidality, especially in the early stage of psychotherapy, is particularly acute for patients who cannot reach their therapists emotionally and vice versa. Disturbance of the early experience of inseparability from the mother, gender‐specific conflicts in the development of separation and individuation, and failed triangulation are of central psychodynamic importance.     

Priming the trait category “hostility”: The moderating role of trait anxiety

Recent studies on affective priming with the naming task have revealed an influence of trait anxiety on the direction of affective priming effects (e.g., Berner & Maier, 2004 Berner, M. P. and Maier, M. A. 2004. The direction of affective priming as a function of trait anxiety when naming target words with regular and irregular pronunciation. Experimental Psychology, 51: 180–190. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This moderating role of trait anxiety was further investigated in a study employing a conceptual priming task. After masked presentation of either hostile or neutral primes, participants performed a person judgment task. As expected, the direction of the hostility rating difference score, defined as the difference between hostility ratings of a target person in the hostility priming condition and in the neutral priming condition, changed from positive to negative with increasing levels of self-reported trait anxiety. The findings are interpreted in terms of salience-dependent overcorrection processes (Glaser & Banaji, 1999 Glaser, J. and Banaji, M. R. 1999. When fair is foul and foul is fair: Reverse priming in automatic evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77: 669–687. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Implications for our understanding of the cognitive functioning in high trait anxiety are discussed.     

Associations between type of treatment and illness-specific locus of control in type 1 diabetes patients

Abstract

This study examined differences in diabetes-specific locus of control beliefs of 82 insulin-treated Type I diabetes patients undergoing either conventional therapy (CT), intensified conventional therapy (ICT) or continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII). Compared to CT with its adherence to a strict regimen, ICT and CSII allow a much greater flexibility in timing of meals and daily activities. On the other hand, such flexibility requires a much more active role of the patient. The hypotheses of higher internality and lower powerful others locus of control beliefs in ICT and CSII patients than in CT patients could be supported for powerful others locus of control only. A one-year follow-up replicated this finding. Furthermore, high powerful others locus of control was associated with low diabetes-related knowledge and poor glycaemic control. The relevance of the patients' experience with the respective treatment is examined in view of the results and implications for studies on the feasibility of diabetes regimens are discussed.     

Flexible cortical gamma-band correlations suggest neural principles of visual processing

We summarize recent studies of our group from the primary visual cortex V1 of behaving monkeys referring to the hypothesis of spatial feature binding by γ-synchronization (30-90 Hz). In agreement with this hypothesis the data demonstrates decoupling of γ-activities among neural groups representing figure and ground. As γ-synchronization in V1 is restricted to cortical ranges of few millimeters, feature binding may equivalently be restricted in visual space. Closer inspection shows that the restriction in synchrony is due to far-reaching travelling γ-waves with changing phase coupling. Based on this observation we extend the initial binding-by-synchronization hypothesis and suggest object continuity to be coded by phase continuity. It is further argued that the spatial phase changes of the V1 γ-waves in general will also limit lateral phase coupling to higher levels of processing. Instead of phase-locked γ-coupling, corticocortical cooperation among γ-processes may be mediated by mutual amplitude modulations that are more reliable than phase synchrony over larger distances. The relevance of this concept of corticocortical binding is demonstrated with subdural recordings from human subjects performing cognitive tasks. The experimental results are discussed on the basis of network models with spiking neurons.     

Neural Mechanisms of Visual Feature Binding Investigated with Microelectrodes and Models

A single object generally activates neurones in many visual cortical areas corresponding to a distributed representation of its features. Itis still under debate how the distributed representation of an objectis bound intoa coherent whole and how unrelated features are separated. Synchronization of neural signals has been proposed to code spatial feature binding, supported by the discovery of synchronized assemblies in visual cortex. Synchronizations are either fast oscillatory (30–90 Hz) cortically generated events, or non-rhythmical stimulus-locked responses, depending on the visual stimulation. The cortical range over which synchronizations occur, transformed to visual space, is generally several times larger than the classical receptive fields (CRF) of neurones in lower visual cortex areas. However, the cortical regions synchronized by fastoscillations do notspan the representational range of larger objects but only parts of it. To relate such restricted segments to perceptual processes the concept of the association field (AF) of local neural assemblies was introduced in accordance with CRFs of single neurones. Here an AF is composed of the aggregate of CRFs of an assembly engaged in a common synchronized state. Itis argued thatspatial continuity of an object is coded by a continuum of overlapping AFs, that is, by overlapping regions of phase coupled neurones. Hence, object continuity would be represented by phase continuity. Besides feature binding, feature separation is necessary for scene segmentation. Separation may be coded by functional decoupling causing uncorrelated activities or by mutual inhibition leading to alternating activations in assemblies of separate representations. A third temporal coding aspect is temporal segmentation by the shortactivation-inhibition cycles of fast oscillations orshorttransientstimulus-locked responses, which may preventperceptual “smearing” by interrupting the flow of visual information into precisely defined frames. The presentpaperalso aims atrelating signals of stimulus dependentsynchronization and desynchronization with basic neural mechanisms and circuits. Finally, the synchronization hypothesis is critically discussed with respect to contradictory psychophysical work and supportive new recording results, including evidence for perception-related synchronizations.     

It's not what you are,it's what you know: experience,beliefs, and the detection of deception in employment interviews

This study investigated the ability of more or less experienced employment interviewers and laypersons to detect deception in employment interviews. Although correct beliefs about indicators of deception led to higher deception detection accuracy, more experienced employment interviewers did not show more accurate beliefs about indicators of deception and did not perform better at detecting deception than less experienced interviewers and laypersons. Furthermore, more experienced interviewers showed a less‐pronounced tendency of judging messages as true irrespective of their actual truthfulness (truth bias) than less experienced interviewers and laypersons. It is suggested that experience in employment interviewing does not automatically lead to higher deception detection abilities in employment interviews, but that correcting people's beliefs about indicators of deception can do so.     

Set representations of orders and a structural equivalent of saturation

Set representations are useful in the theory of knowledge spaces. A set representation of an order is an isomorphic mapping of its base set into the power set of some set ordered by set inclusion. Such a representation is basic if the union of the representing sets of the predecessors of an element contains strictly less elements than the representing set of this element, and it is parsimonious if the difference is exactly one element. This paper investigates the properties of the minimal number of elements which must be used in a parsimonious representation. This value is studied for several order operations. Moreover, orders which allow essentially only one parsimonious set representation are structurally characterized. These orders are called saturated. Finally, the way to apply these results to knowledge spaces are outlined.     

Religious identity and educational attainment among recent immigrants to Canada: Gender, age, and 2nd generation

Using data from Canadian decennial censuses, this article explores the relationship of religious identity and educational attainment among post-1970 immigrants to Canada and their Canadian-born offspring. Immigrants have higher levels of educational attainment than the Canadian average, but in the first generation men have higher levels than women in each religious category, and Sikhs and Buddhists are on average significantly less well educated. These differences diminish in the younger immigrants and disappear in the second generation. Here women are consistently better educated than men, and no religion stands out. Yet the high educational levels among immigrants do not correspond to income levels. Muslims are particularly disadvantaged in this regard.