Relations of Tripartite Dimensions of Emotion to Childhood Anxiety and Mood Disorders

This study examined preliminary higher-order models relating tripartite dimensions of emotion to severity of anxiety and depressive disorders in 100 clinically referred children and adolescents. In light of the accumulating support for multifactor models of vulnerability and negative emotion in children, the present investigation was designed to establish preliminary estimates of the structure and magnitude of the relations of three emotion factors with dimensions of social anxiety, depression, panic, generalized anxiety, obsessions/compulsions, and separation anxiety. Results were consistent with structures that minimally specified two higher-order emotion factors, yet only some parameter estimates were consistent with theory regarding the tripartite model. Problems with the measurement of tripartite factors and possibilities for further research are outlined.     

心理学对和谐社会的贡献

心理学在现代社会中具有满足社会需求的任务。多数国家都有这种社会需求,使得心理学成为真正意义上的跨国界学科。心理学确实能够提供解决问题的一般方法,但在面对某个国家的具体国情时则需要特殊的处理方法。在不同体制国家里所做的研究并不一定完全适用于其他国家,这意味着对一个国家里提出的心理学问题,还必须在本国内做进一步的基础研究。每个国家都需要这种心理学的本土化过程。本文提供一些研究案例,其研究成果既是有意义的,但还需要进一步研究。如何为和谐社会做贡献,作者提出了一个研究框架     

Atypical depression: enhanced right hemispheric dominance for perceiving emotional chimeric faces

Two studies compared hemispatial bias for perceiving chimeric faces in patients having either atypical or typical depression and healthy controls. A total of 245 patients having major depressive disorder (MDD) or dysthymia (164 with atypical features) and 115 controls were tested on the Chimeric Faces Test. Atypical depression differed from typical depression and controls in showing abnormally large right hemisphere bias. This was present in patients having either MDD or dysthymia and was not related to anxiety, physical anhedonia, or vegetative symptoms. In contrast, patients having MDD with melancholia showed essentially no right hemisphere bias. This is further evidence that atypical depression is a biologically distinct subtype and underscores the importance of this diagnostic distinction for neurophysiologic studies.     

Two routes to remembering (and another to remembering not)

In this article, the author presents evidence about 2 mechanisms of remembering that occur when target stimuli are presented in meaningful contexts. One occurs when the context has been seen previously; the other occurs when the context is new in the test. Both appear to result from the construction of expectations and evaluation of outcomes, but the former appears to depend on the formation of definite expectations, whereas the latter appears to depend on indefinite expectations. These 2 routes to remembering are affected by different factors and cause dissociated patterns of remembering. They also have differential significance for claims of clear recall versus a feeling of familiarity. The results are discussed in terms of the SCAPE framework of memory.     

On Learned Helplessness

"Learned helplessness" and its Pavlovian analog, learned irrelevance, are phenomena thought integral to understanding depression, PTSD, psychosomatic vulnerability, and a variety of diseases and immune disorders. The origin and development of research on learned helplessness is briefly overviewed with attention to the reasons for the controversy that surrounds the study of learned helplessness and derived physiological, psychological, and behavioral phenomena. The need to remedy past focus on American research and English language journals in this area is noted. The heuristic value as well as the wide ranging empirical value of the research domain is lauded. The meretricious emerging social and legal barriers to this research are noted to be unrealistic and unfortunate.     

Primary care physicians attitude toward diagnosis and treatment of late-life depression

Underdiagnosis and undertreatment of late-life depression is common, especially in primary care settings. To help assess whether physicians attitude and confidence in diagnosing and managing depression serve as barriers to care, a total of 176 physicians employed in 18 primary care groups were administered surveys to assess attitudes towards diagnosis, treatment, and management of depression in elderly patients, (individuals over 65 years of age). Logistic regression was performed to assess the association of physician characteristics on attitudes. Nearly all of the physicians surveyed felt that depression in the elderly was a primary care problem, and 41% reported late-life depression as the most common problem seen in older patients. Physicians were confident in their ability to diagnose and manage depression, yet 45% had no medical education on depression in the previous three years. Physicians confidence in their ability to diagnose, treat, and manage depression, and their reported adequacy of training, do not appear to correspond to the amount of continuing medical education in depression, suggesting that physician overconfidence may potentially be serving as a barrier to care.     

Metapsychiatry and the Elusive Truth of Being

The legacy of the spiritual teachings of Dr. Thomas Hora (a training analyst at Blanton-Peale), known as Metapsychiatry, is introduced and its approach to and definition of a variety of spiritual terms and ideas is explained. The primacy of the distinction between reality and experience is presented, and the tools for discerning the difference, the two intelligent questions, are described. Brief clarifications of the nature of God, illusion, suffering, love, meditation, and enlightenment are offered, and the meaning of the elusiveness of the truth of being is identified.