Recording therapy sessions: What do clients and therapists really think?

Aims: Recording therapy sessions has become part of routine practice amongst trainee psychotherapists. To date most research has focused on the benefits of recording sessions to support clinical supervision. There are few data about the benefits or risks for clients. This study aimed to explore the views of clients who had had their therapy sessions recorded and therapists who had recorded sessions. Design: Five clients and 25 therapists completed a qualitative survey, the results of which were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings: All clients and several therapists reported that the recording devices are soon forgotten. Both therapists and clients reported the benefits of recording as being purely for the therapist with none identified for clients. Conclusions: It was observed that clients perhaps did not always understand how recordings were used, suggesting the need for clearer practice guidance.     

Environmental anxiety: Assessing emotional distress and concerns after toxin exposure

Abstract

Anxiety in face of environmental risks is common, but few attempts have been made to assess individual differences psychometrically and to validate the measures in samples that have suffered from exposure to neurotoxic substances. The present study deals with this problem in two ways. First, levels of general anxiety were determined in two large independent samples of workers who were exposed to multiple organic solvents and in their nonexposed referents. In both samples, anxiety was substantially higher in exposed subjects than in their referents. Second, an Environmental Worry Scale (EWS) was developed and validated in three samples. This 17-item instrument and its 8-item subscale yielded satisfactory psychometric properties and also succeeded in discriminating solvent exposed from nonexposed subjects. Finally, the EWS was used in a structural equation model that was designed to predict the intention to avoid chemicals. The worry factor served as a mediator between exposure and intention, whereas exposure by itself did not influence intentions.     

Visitor Usage of Digital and Physical Artifacts in Two Museum Programs

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a study designed to explore how digital and physical reproductions of original artifacts could be incorporated into museum programs that teach visitors about mechanical motion. Museum visitors were introduced to 3 different types of models through 2 different programs: an engineering design challenge and an exhibit interpretation exploring mechanical motion in every-day objects. Research, based on visitor observation and interviews (n = 79), explored how user interaction with the digital and physical models compared with interactions with the original artifacts, assessed what effect the integration of digital and physical models had on learning, and examined what the learning experience looked like for learners using the mechanisms in the museum activities. Analysis of the learning conversations in additional in-depth case studies (n = 8) for both programs provides a detailed look at how visitors integrated the 3 different model types into their group's experience. Results showed that visitors' usage of, attitudes toward, and learning from the three different types of mechanical models varied based on the visitor or educators' perceived value of the particular model, which was impacted by the context in which the objects were presented.     

Family Climate of Adolescents with and Without Type 1 Diabetes: Longitudinal Associations with Psychosocial Adaptation

Family climate is theorized to influence psychosocial functioning of adolescents both with and without type 1 diabetes. Family system theory considers adolescent behavior as a function of the dynamic interactions between family members. In the present multi-informant longitudinal study, we used two-step cluster analysis to empirically derive family climates based on four family dimensions (i.e., cohesion, conflict, organization, and control) at baseline and we related these climates to longitudinal assessments of adolescent psychosocial functioning. Analyses were conducted on a total of 220 adolescents (102 with diabetes, 118 healthy controls), 217 mothers, and 168 fathers. Cluster analysis on the four FES subscales revealed the following four family climates: a cohesive (moderately high on cohesion and moderately low to low on the other dimensions), balanced (high on cohesion and organization, low on conflict), conflictual (high on conflict, low on organization and cohesion), and controlling (high on control, moderately high on conflict and organization, moderately low on cohesion) climate. Adolescents with diabetes were somewhat overrepresented in the balanced climate, and underrepresented in the cohesive and conflictual climate as compared to their healthy peers. Consistent with hypotheses, we found that adolescents raised in cohesive or balanced climates fared better in terms of internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and self-concept as compared to adolescents raised in conflictual or controlling climates. Additionally, family climate was not associated with differential changes in outcome variables over time. These finding were consistent across informants and across time. Finally, these associations were not moderated by having type 1 diabetes. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are discussed.     

Dating Violence Perpetration: The Predictive Roles of Maternally versus Paternally Perpetrated Childhood Abuse and Subsequent Dating Violence Attitudes and Behaviors

This study investigated both young men's and young women's perpetration of physical, sexual, and psychological forms of dating violence, examining predictors of violence including maternally or paternally perpetrated forms of various types of child maltreatment, as well as attitudes toward dating violence and dating violence victimization. Results of hierarchical linear regressions found that childhood experiences of maternal neglect predicted men's physical perpetration, and childhood sexual abuse predicted women's sexual perpetration and men's psychological perpetration. Further, positive attitudes toward dating violence predicted women's physical, psychological, and sexual perpetration, as well as men's sexual perpetration, and experiences of dating violence victimization were the strongest predictors of most forms of dating violence perpetration, particularly among women. Implications for future research and prevention initiatives are discussed.     

Top-down attentional modulation of spatial frequency processing in scene perception

Recent evidence suggests that spatial frequency (SF) processing of simple and complex visual patterns is flexible. The use of spatial scale in scene perception seems to be influenced by people's expectations. However as yet there is no direct evidence for top-down attentional effects on flexible scale use in scene perception. In two experiments we provide such evidence. We presented participants with low- and high-pass SF filtered scenes and cued their attention to the relevant scale. In Experiment 1 we subsequently presented them with hybrid scenes (both low- and high-pass scenes present). We observed that participants reported detecting the cued component of hybrids. To explore if this might be due to decision biases, in Experiment 2, we replaced hybrids with images containing meaningful scenes at uncued SFs and noise at the cued SFs (invalid cueing). We found that participants performed poorly on invalid cueing trials. These findings are consistent with top-down attentional modulation of early spatial frequency processing in scene perception.     

A review of: “interacting stories: Narratives,family beliefs,and therapy”

Rudi Dallos (1997) Interacting Stories: Narratives, Family Beliefs, and Therapy, London: Karnac Books, $18.95