Relationships between Past Trauma Exposures and PTSD among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

This study examined child abuse and community violence exposure as potential risk factors in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms following exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV). In a community sample of 51 primarily low-income women who had experienced IPV, childhood exposure to child abuse made a unique contribution to PTSD symptom severity from subsequent IPV. Community violence also accounted for variance in PTSD symptom severity, but in the opposite direction, with individuals exposed to community violence reporting lower levels of PTSD symptoms from IPV. These findings suggest the need for further research to identify which factors related to community violence exposure might inoculate individuals against the development of PTSD following IPV exposure.     

Common ground on object use associates with caregivers’ gesturese

Caregivers modify their communication when interacting with infants, and these modifications have been related to children's language development. However, the factors influencing caregivers’ modification of gestures are understudied. This study examined whether infants’ object knowledge, considered as common ground shared with the caregiver, relates to caregivers’ gesturese. Six caregiver-infant dyads were videotaped every two months for 15 min in their homes, from child age 8-to-16 months, while they played with two separate objects (i.e. toys). Results indicated that the changes in infants’ object knowledge were paralleled by associated changes in caregivers’ gestures: parents increased both the amount and the complexity of their gestures.     

Anna Freud and Observation: Memoirs of Her Colleagues from the Hampstead War Nurseries

ABSTRACT

Initially, Anna Freud did not wish to carry out systematic observations; rather, she wanted to be in the field while maintaining an analytical attitude with a free-floating attention. Based on memories of her employees Manna Friedmann, Anneliese Schnurman, Hansi Kennedy, and Joyce Robertson, this article discusses the way in which Anna Freud taught them to observe the children. She also observed those very colleagues who were observing, in order to be able to convey to them, a psychoanalytic view of the children.     

Exercising Theory: A Perspective on its Practice

What is the task of educational theory or philosophy if it is not merely conceived as specification of philosophical doctrines in the realm of education? In my view it is the particular task of educational-philosophical theory to work critically on the historically developed cultural constructs that shape our (educational) experience. Thus, the activity that educational theorists are to perform is the critical reflection of the “limits of our world” by drawing on philosophical references and theories. In this text I describe this activity drawing from my own research practice with a particular focus on its relation to what is called thinking.     

Psychotherapie und Internet

The Internet plays an important role in healthcare. Approximately two thirds of Internet users search the medium for, e.g. personal questions of health, including aspects of mental health. In countless discussion forums or blogs mentally stressed people discuss their problems and search for contact to other affected individuals but also to professional helpers. In this article an attempt is made to systematize the interface between Internet and psychotherapy in the narrower and broader sense. In particular five topics and problem areas will be dealt with: (1) as information medium Internet delivers an immense number of resources on mental disorders, which raises the problem of quality assurance. (2) As a communication medium it can provide support for therapeutic interventions. Psychological online counseling has now been proven to be effective. (3) Internet alters the traditional therapeutic relationship in one way or another. In particular e-mail communications supplement a face-to-face treatment. (4) Use of the Internet also brings along clinically relevant problems and because of this patients visit psychotherapeutic practices increasingly more often. (5) Internet can be fruitful for psychotherapy research.     

Tinnitus und das Leiden am Tinnitus

Psychosomatic findings from 287 patients with tinnitus are presented in this article, who were seen by medical psychotherapists specialized in ENT for a period of 15 months. They were assigned to all of the therapeutic methods being offered. As relevant proved to be the neurootological professional competence, especially for recognizing and treating auditory limitations (in 41% of the patients) as well as noticing and treating the psychological comorbidity (in 45.3% of the patients). While neurophysiological and psychophysiological models interpret the subjective tinnitus stress as the failing of habituation, dysfunctional attention processes and assessments, from a psychodynamic view a symptom having pathological significance, such as the suffering from tinnitus (not the tinnitus itself) may develop if the defensive mechanisms are exhausted, a conflict cannot be resolved on the conscious level or traumatic experiences were made. It is recommended that an approach specifically matched with the disturbance is made taking into account both possible psychodynamic causes and sustaining factors in the cognitive behavioral sense, all on an audiologic background.     

Leben ohne Gewalt organisieren

Several runs of a cognitive-behavioral group-based training program for violent offenders in a youth detention center were evaluated. The training aims at reducing disposition towards violence, promoting responsibility and strengthening personal and social resources. The 49 participants were compared to 47 non-participating violent offenders. For the participants a reduction of several facets of aggression and an increase of responsibility for the offence was observed in a pre-post-comparison. However, treatment effects appear to decrease with longer observation time. Competencies such as empathy were not affected by the training. Furthermore, participants showed no difference to non-participants regarding officially recorded violent recidivism.     

Videotherapie bei postpartalen Störungen

Video recording is currently part of in- and out-patient therapy programs for parents with infants. The observation and analysis of video sequences allow the patient to gain an extraordinary insight with respect to its own experience and behaviour. Video Microanalytical Therapy (VMT) looks for the mother’s positive qualities in her relationship to the child and employs these qualities in order to support successful interactions. VMT is well-suited to the treatment of mothers with postpartal affective or psychotic disorders, because the typical cognitive distortions and reduced perception shown by these mothers can be avoided to a large extent through the use of pictures. In this study, a video microanalytical therapy concept will be presented, that was developed for the treatment of postpartally disordered mothers at the Psychiatric Centre Nordbaden in Wiesloch, Germany.     

Improving organizational newcomers’ creative job performance through creative process engagement: The moderating role of a synergy diversity climate

Despite the mounting research demonstrating that employee seniority positively relates to creative job performance, we predict that a synergy diversity climate eliminates the employee seniority–creative job performance relationship by unleashing the creative potential of organizational newcomers. Drawing upon the integration-and-learning perspective for managing diversity, Study 1 finds that a synergy diversity climate moderates the relationship between employee seniority and supervisor-rated creative job performance lending support to our hypothesis. Study 2 provides an extension by showing how creative process engagement mediates this moderating effect on self-rated creative performance. Finally, Study 3 replicates and extends Study 2 by demonstrating the mediating role of creative process engagement but utilizing supervisor-rated creative job performance, while again showing synergy diversity climate to be an important boundary condition. In sum, we find that synergy diversity climate, as opposed to fairness and discrimination diversity climate, interacts with employee seniority by facilitating greater creative process engagement for newcomers subsequently impacting creative job performance. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for how the individual-level creative job performance effects may represent a microfoundation to creative team dynamics that confer a sustainable competitive advantage.     

Attributions for physical activity in very old adults: predicting everyday physical activity and mortality risk

Objectives: Although physical activity is recognised as a health-promoting behaviour for older adults, notable barriers exist that may reduce physical activity in this age group. Limited research has explored causal beliefs (attributions) as a barrier to physical activity. Our study assessed associations between older adults’ attributions about physical activity and objective health outcomes. Methods: We examined the role of attributions as a predictor of everyday physical activity (EPA) and subsequent mortality risk over a 10-year period (2006–2016) in a sample of older adults (M_age?=?87, N?=?261). Results: OLS and Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed older adults who endorsed more internal and uncontrollable attributions for limited activity (physical incapacity) when feeling unwell had lower subsequent EPA (β?=??0.18), and higher 10-year mortality risk (HR?=?1.46). Other attributions with different dimensional properties (e.g. internal and controllable) were not associated with EPA or mortality. Discussion: Findings suggest that causal beliefs older adults have about their physical activity can influence their future behaviour and longevity. Psychological treatments designed to discourage maladaptive attributional thinking for older populations who face barriers to physical activity may be an important avenue for future research.