Cortical spreading depression and involvement of the motor cortex,auditory cortex,and cerebellum in eyeblink classical conditioning of the rabbit

The interrelationships of cerebellar and cerebral neural circuits in the eyeblink paradigm were explored with the controlled application of cortical spreading depression (CSD) and lidocaine in the New Zealand albino rabbit. The initial research focus was directed toward the involvement of the motor cortex in the conditioned eyeblink response. However, CSD timing and triangulation results indicate that other areas in the cerebral cortex, particularly the auditory cortex (acoustic conditioned stimulus), appear to be critical for the CSD effect on the eyeblink response. In summary: (1) CSD can be elicited, monitored, and timed and its side effects controlled in 97% of awake rabbits in the right and/or left cerebral hemisphere(s) during eyeblink conditioning. (2) The motor cortex appears to play little or no part in classical conditioning of the eyeblink in the rabbit in the delay paradigm. (3) Inactivating the auditory cortex with CSD or lidocaine temporarily impairs the conditioned response during the first 5 to 15 days of training, but has little effect past that point.     

Animation and the location of beauty

This paper discusses the development of animation and imaginative activity in a case in which there has been previous severe deprivation. Clinical material from work with an 8-year-old boy will illustrate how omnipotent behaviour, which has the function of keeping fear and feeling from consciousness, can give way to imaginative interaction with the environment. I suggest that, when internal objects have been frozen, it may be safer for the child to see animation outside the room. This may be a necessary stage before a child can begin to play with the therapist inside the room. I am using the term 'animation' in the sense of new imaginative play that has been stimulated by an apprehension of beauty in nature. This is contrasted with driven manic defending against awareness of self and others.     

White Practitioners in Therapeutic Ally-Ance: An Intersectional Privilege Awareness Training Model

Among White¹When referring to individuals or a group of people, “White” is capitalized in accordance with APA style guidelines. However, references to concepts such as whiteness and white privilege, guilt, and identity are not capitalized. licensed psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and counselors, research has documented a severe lack of awareness of unconscious stereotyping, systemic racism, white privilege, and white racial identity. This article introduces a privilege awareness pedagogical model as a framework for White students in clinical training programs learning about white privilege, enhancing multicultural competencies, and developing as effective allies in the therapeutic relationship, or therapeutic ally-ance. The model emphasizes intersectional privilege studies to address white privilege along with a wide variety of oppressions often neglected in the curriculum, involves personal reflection on biases and assumptions to enhance multicultural competencies, and promotes student learning through social action to dismantle privilege. The pedagogical benefits of the following activities and assignments are described: 1) group analysis of therapeutic scenarios, 2) photo-voice identity assignment, 3) white privilege reflection paper, and 4) identities education project.     

A Meta-analysis of Wilderness Therapy Outcomes for Private Pay Clients

Wilderness therapy is becoming a more widely used intervention for adolescents, but there have not been any meta-analyses focused solely on its clinical effectiveness for private pay clients. This study’s objective was to conduct outcome-based meta-analyses of private-pay wilderness therapy programs, benchmark primary features of this approach, and educate the clinical community as to its effectiveness. The authors conducted a review of all available databases, as well as manual searches. Searches resulted in a meta-analysis based on 36 studies, totaling 2399 participants receiving wilderness therapy. Our meta-analyses found medium effect sizes for all six constructs assessed: self-esteem (g = 0.49), locus of control (g = 0.55), behavioral observations (g = 0.75), personal effectiveness (g = 0.46), clinical measures (g = 0.50) and interpersonal measures (g = 0.54). Subgroup analyses included age of participants, duration of program, open or closed model, presence of a mental health practitioner, and publication year.     

Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Community-Based Participatory Research to Enhance Mental Health Services

Historically, consumers of mental health services have not been given meaningful roles in research and change efforts related to the services they use. This is quickly changing as scholars and a growing number of funding bodies now call for greater consumer involvement in mental health services research and improvement. Amidst these calls, community‐based participatory research (CBPR) has emerged as an approach which holds unique promise for capitalizing on consumer involvement in mental health services research and change. Yet, there have been few discussions of the value added by this approach above and beyond that of traditional means of inquiry and enhancement in adult mental health services. The purpose of this paper is to add to this discussion an understanding of potential multilevel and multifaceted benefits associated with consumer‐involved CBPR. This is accomplished through presenting the first‐person accounts of four stakeholder groups who were part of a consumer‐involved CBPR project purposed to improve the services of a local community mental health center. We present these accounts with the hope that by illustrating the unique outcomes associated with CBPR, there will be invigorated interest in CBPR as a vehicle for consumer involvement in adult mental health services research and enhancement.     

Observing behavior in a computer game.

Contingencies studied in lever-pressing procedures were incorporated into a popular computer game, "Star Trek," played by college students. One putative reinforcer, the opportunity to destroy Klingon invaders, was scheduled independently of responding according to a variable-time schedule that alternated unpredictably with equal periods of Klingon unavailability (mixed variable time, extinction schedule of reinforcement). Two commands ("observing responses") each produced stimuli that were either correlated or uncorrelated with the two components. In several variations of the basic game, an S-, or bad news, was not as reinforcing as an S+, or good news. In addition, in other conditions for the same subjects observing responses were not maintained better by bad news than by an uninformative stimulus. In both choices, more observing tended to be maintained by an S- for response-independent Klingons when its information could be (and was) used to advantage with respect to other types of reinforcement in the situation (Parts 1 and 2) than when the information could not be so used (Part 3). The findings favor the conditioned reinforcement hypothesis of observing behavior over the uncertainty-reduction hypothesis. This extends research to a more natural setting and to multialternative concurrent schedules of events of seemingly intrinsic value.     

FROM ANGELS TO ALIENS: HUMANKIND'S ONGOING ENCOUNTERS WITH,AND EVOLVING INTERPRETATIONS OF, THE GENUINE CELESTIAL UNKNOWN

Throughout history, people have observed aerial events that appeared extraordinary and anomalous. In earlier eras, these were often interpreted through a lens that invoked special classes of divine beings, such as angels (who, compared with gods, are regarded as more likely to interact with humans). Today, in our ostensibly secular scientific age, there is a tendency to assume such observers were mistaken, and that with the benefit of modern knowledge, these events can be “debunked” and attributed to conventional naturalistic explanations. However, recent years have seen a burgeoning interest and even concern over the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena. Through the lens of our “space age,” these are sometimes interpreted using notions such as extraterrestrial agents. Ultimately though, this article suggests that both categories of explanation, from angels to aliens, may be the perennial human quest to render comprehensible, through the prism of prevailing beliefs and traditions, an ongoing encounter with celestial phenomena that remain genuinely unknown but deeply significant.