Assessing adolescents who threaten homicide in schools

Psychoanalytic and psychiatric perspectives on children who threaten to kill others are reviewed in the context of the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the problem. Converging technologies derived from a psychoanalytically informed social systems model are compared to law enforcement approaches, psychoanalytic understanding of the individual dynamics of the child, and empirical research on conduct disordered adolescents. The interdisciplinary orientation of a broadly trained community psychoanalyst allows a unique contribution when trying to distinguish adolescents who make a threat from those who pose a threat. Case vignettes are used to illustrate the hypotheses.     

The role of attack and defense semantics in skilled players’ memory for chess positions

There is much evidence that chess skill is based on chunks in memory that represent parts of positions from previously encountered games. However, the content of these chunks is a matter for debate. According to one view, (1) the closer two pieces are to each other on a board (proximity), the more likely they are to be in the same chunk, and (2) skilled players encode the precise locations of pieces. An alternative view is that what information is encoded in a chess chunk is determined more by processing of the attack/defense relations during evaluation. In three experiments, participants evaluated positions and completed recognition tests. Experiment 1 supported the view that expert players make more use of attack/defense relations than of locations of pieces in a recognition test. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that, for both long and short presentation times, expert players' recognition for a piece within a position was primed more by a piece related by attack or defense than by a piece merely proximal. These findings challenge theories of expertise for chess that assume a primary role for proximity and location in determining which pieces are grouped together in memory.     

The emergence of a new paradigm in ape language research

In recent years we have seen a dramatic shift, in several different areas of communication studies, from an information-theoretic to a dynamic systems paradigm. In an information processing system, communication, whether between cells, mammals, apes, or humans, is said to occur when one organism encodes information into a signal that is transmitted to another organism that decodes the signal. In a dynamic system, all of the elements are continuously interacting with and changing in respect to one another, and an aggregate pattern emerges from this mutual co-action. Whereas the information-processing paradigm looks at communication as a linear, binary sequence of events, the dynamic systems paradigm looks at the relation between behaviors and how the whole configuration changes over time. One of the most dramatic examples of the significance of shifting from an information processing to a dynamic systems paradigm can be found in the debate over the interpretation of recent advances in ape language research (ALR). To some extent, many of the early ALR studies reinforced the stereotype that animal communication is functional and stimulus bound, precisely because they were based on an information-processing paradigm that promoted a static model of communicative development. But Savage-Rumbaugh's recent results with bonobos has introduced an entirely new dimension into this debate. Shifting the terms of the discussion from an information-processing to a dynamic systems paradigm not only highlights the striking differences between Savage-Rumbaugh's research and earlier ALR studies, but further, it sheds illuminating light on the factors that underpin the development of communication skills in great apes and humans, and the relationship between communicative development and the development of language.     

Serious delinquent behavior,sensation seeking,and electrodermal arousal

Low tonic skin conductance level (SCL) has been related, inconsistently, to both delinquency and sensation-seeking. This study tests the hypothesis that there is an interaction such that high sensation seeking delinquents, in particular, have low SCLs. Participants consisted of 335 boys from the Pittsburgh Youth Study classified as serious delinquents or controls based upon 10 years of prospectively collected self-report delinquency data. Participants' skin conductance was evaluated at age 16 along with several personality and neuropsychological measures. Both delinquency and sensation seeking were characterized by low SCL. However, there was no evidence to suggest that the presence of both of these factors together lead to especially low skin conductance levels. This finding is not explained by differences between the groups on measures of negative emotionality, IQ, socioeconomic status, or impulsivity.     

The defense of extreme emotional disturbance in New York County: pleas and outcomes

A number of studies have investigated the use of the insanity defense; however, there are few reports on the use of other types of psychiatric defenses. This study explored the use of the affirmative psychiatric defense of extreme emotional disturbance (EED) in New York County (one of the five counties which comprise New York City). The results of the study indicate that, as in the case of the insanity defense, EED is rarely proffered by criminal defendants (plea rate 0.84%). The defense only prevailed on one occasion at a jury trial. While the EED defense was successful 39% of the time that it was entered, this was usually only when the prosecutor accepted the argument that was offered by the defense.     

Client perceptions of hindering experiences in counselling

The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of what clients perceive as hindering experiences in counselling. In‐depth interviews combined with concept mapping were used to gather, organize, and understand clients' perceptions of hindering aspects of therapy. In the initial data gathering stage, 8 adult client participants, aged 18 or older (average of 14.1 sessions) were asked to respond to the following open‐ended questions:

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The Penn Psychoanalytic Treatment Collection: a set of complete and recorded psychoanalyses as a research resource

From a set of seventeen complete and tape-recorded psychoanalyses, a sample of findings is presented: (a) the level of agreement of two clinical judges on the psychological health of these patients is adequate for the late sessions, but not for the early sessions; (b) the amount of change during psychoanalysis appears to be similar to that in the Menninger Foundation Psychotherapy Research Project; (c) psychiatric severity measures from the early sessions can yield a significant level of prediction of the later benefits from psychoanalysis. Finally, further research uses of this collection of psychoanalyses are suggested.     

“We may be pirates,but we are not protesters”: Identity in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Radical activist organizations face the complex task of managing their identity so as to draw political attention but also to appear legitimate and thus gain public support. In this article we develop a picture of the identities of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) members, a group mostly known for their direct action against whaling, via a thematic analysis of material from the SSCS website and interviews with SSCS members. In online commentary, founder Captain Paul Watson establishes several deliberately paradoxical notions of who the Sea Shepherds are. We relate these identity statements to interviews with core activists to examine how they manage the identity conflicts resulting from the group identity, such as being seen as “pirates” and “hard lined vegans.” We found that SSCS positions themselves as a diverse and unstructured organization, yet distinctively passionate and willing to take action where others will not. The implications of this research are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the constraints and conflicts around political activist identities.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Treatise on Nature and Grace by Nicolas Malebranche, translated with an introduction and notes by Patrick Riley Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. xviii + 226. £30.00. ISBN 0–19–824832–6

Queen Christina of Sweden and Her Circle. The Transformation of a Seventeenth‐century Philosophical Libertine by Susanna Akerman, Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 21 Leiden, E. J. Brill 1991, Pp. xv + 339. $82.86

John Locke: A Letter Concerning Toleration in Focus edited by John Horton and Susan Mendus, London: Routledge, 1991. Pp. viii + 196. Cloth £35.00 ISBN 0 415 02205 3. Paperback £10.99 ISBN 0 415 06082 6

The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and its Enemies, 1660–1730 J. A. I. Champion Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History, Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. 268. £35.00 ISBN 0–521–40536 X.

Philosophy, Religion and Science in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries edited by John W. Yolton, Rochester, New York: Rochester University Press, 1990. Pp. xx + 539. ISBN 1–878822–02–2.

Philosophy, Science and Religion in England 1640–1700 Edited by Richard Kroll, Richard Ashcraft and Perez Zagorin Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xv + 287. £37.50 ISBN 0–521–41095–9.

Opinion and Reform in Hume's Political Philosophy by John B. Stewart Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. ISBN 0–691–08626–5.

The Enlightenment by Roy Porter (Studies in European History) London: Macmillan, 1990. Pp. xi + 95.

Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism by Patricia H. Werhane New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xiv + 219. £27.50.

D'Artagnan und die Urteilstafel: über ein Ordnungsprinzip der Europäischen Kulturgeschichte (1, 2, 3/4) by Reinhard Brandt Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991. ISBN 3–515–05905–0

Frege Philosophy of Mathematics by Michael Dummett London: Duckworth, 1991. Pp. xiii + 331. Price £35. ISBN 0 7156 0886 X.

Pierre Duhem: Philosophy and History in the Work of a Believing Physicist By R. N.’D. Martin La Salle: Open Court, 1991. ISBN 0–8126–9160–1. (Paper) $19.95. ISBN 0–8126–9159–8. (Cloth) $44.95.     

Affective forecasting and self-rated symptoms of depression,anxiety, and hypomania: Evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias

Emerging research has examined individual differences in affective forecasting; however, we are aware of no published study to date linking psychopathology symptoms to affective forecasting problems. Pitting cognitive theory against depressive realism theory, we examined whether dysphoria was associated with negatively biased affective forecasts or greater accuracy. Participants (n=325) supplied predicted and actual emotional reactions for three days surrounding an emotionally evocative relational event, Valentine's Day. Predictions were made a month prior to the holiday. Consistent with cognitive theory, we found evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias—the tendency of individuals in dysphoric states to overpredict negative emotional reactions to future events. The dysphoric forecasting bias was robust across ratings of positive and negative affect, forecasts for pleasant and unpleasant scenarios, continuous and categorical operationalisations of dysphoria, and three time points of observation. Similar biases were not observed in analyses examining the independent effects of anxiety and hypomania. Findings provide empirical evidence for the long-assumed influence of depressive symptoms on future expectations. The present investigation has implications for affective forecasting studies examining information-processing constructs, decision making, and broader domains of psychopathology.