BOOK REVIEWS

Crisis resolution and home treatment teams (CRHT) are integral to acute psychiatric services. This survey quantifies staff burnout using the MBI-HSS (Maslach Burnout Inventory) and notes sources of stress and satisfaction before (2012) and after (2013) service transformation of a CRHT in Leeds into a single point of access, with home treatment devolved to community teams. Moderate to high Burnout scores were observed over the study period, with a rise in the mean depersonalisation score from 5.8 to 7.2 over the study period. Contact with colleagues; work with patients and variety of work emerged as rewarding while themes of suicide and violence were most linked with stress, with clinicians reporting self-doubt in the face of difficult clinical decisions. Clinicians positively rated a weekly psychoanalytic reflective practice group. A pictorial representation of qualitative results uses psychoanalytic theory inconceptualising ‘skins’ around various aspects of the clinical setting, which then become semipermeable in response to a patient in crisis when clinicians feel poorly supported by the changing organisation.     

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.     

Degeneracy and cognitive anatomy

Cognitive models indicate that there are multiple ways of completing the same task. This implicit degeneracy cannot be revealed by functional imaging studies of normal subjects if more than one of the sufficient neural systems is activated. Nor can it be detected by neuropsychological studies of patients because their performance might not be impaired when only one degenerate system is damaged. We propose that degenerate sets of sufficient neural systems can only be identified by an iterative approach that integrates the lesion-deficit model and functional imaging studies of normal and neurologically damaged subjects.     

The courage to stay in the moment

In 1934, James Strachey wrote that the active ingredient of psychoanalysis was the mutative interpretation. Even at this early date, Strachey observed that a relatively small proportion of the analytic literature was concerned with the mechanisms for change implicit in the analytic model.

In this paper, the author proposes two modifications of Strachey's ideas. One is that it is a moment, an event, and not an interpretation as such that creates change. The author terms this the ‘mutative moment’. The other modification is the proposal of an unconscious internal group matrix as an image of the structure of self. This is a self that is at one and the same time, internal and external, individual and social.

Building upon Freud, the object relations theorists, Kohut and the work of group analysts, the author pinpoints where and how change occurs in both individuals and in groups. The active ingredient of change is the focus on the here-and-now, a perspective common to both therapists and counsellors. As an understanding of the meaning of this focus develops, it becomes apparent that it takes courage to stay in the moment.     

Sexism,rape myths and feminist identification explain gender differences in attitudes toward the #metoo social media campaign in two countries

ABSTRACT

On October 15, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano popularized the #metoo campaign, which sought to expose the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in public domains by encouraging victims to share their experiences on social media using the hashtag metoo. The online campaign rapidly grew to a global phenomenon, which was generally well supported. However, some criticized the campaign online as a battle of the sexes, which pits men against women. Our cross-cultural research investigated whether gender differences in attitudes and feelings toward #metoo are due to underlying differences in ideologies and experiences that only partly overlap with gender. We surveyed respondents in the United States, where the campaign began, and in Norway, a highly gender-egalitarian country. In both countries, men expressed less positivity toward #metoo than women and perceived it as substantially more harmful and less beneficial. These gender differences were largely accounted for by men being higher than women in hostile sexism, higher in rape myth acceptance, and lower in feminist identification. The results, hence, suggest that gender differences in attitudes to social media campaigns such as #metoo might be best characterized as dimensional ideological differences rather than fundamental group differences.     

Wishful thinking in the prediction of competitive outcomes

In each of two experiments, college students were assigned to two ad hoc groups (Team A and Team B) that competed in a dart-throwing contest. On each trial, one contestant from each team threw a single dart at a standard dart board, trying to come as close as possible to hitting the bull's-eye. Also on each trial, the other participants judged the likelihood that both the Team A contestant and the Team B contestant would come closer to hitting the bull's-eye. In both experiments (N=36 in Experiment 1; N=35 in Experiment 2), participants exhibited a strong wishful thinking effect. They judged the likelihood that their own team members would come closer to be greater than the likelihood that the opposing team members would come closer. Experiment 2 suggested that it was participants' desires, as opposed to some other variable associated with team membership, that influenced their predictions. Experiment 2 also showed that the size of the effect did not depend on whether participants believed that their predictions had been influenced by their team membership. These results help bridge the gap between previous experimental laboratory studies, which have produced inconsistent results, and correlational field studies of sports fans and voters, which have consistently produced large effects.     

Self-Regulated Learning in Younger and Older Adults: Does Aging Affect Metacognitive Control?

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined whether younger and older adults' self-regulated study (item selection and study time) conformed to the region of proximal learning (RPL) model when studying normatively easy, medium, and difficult vocabulary pairs. Experiment 2 manipulated the value of recalling different pairs and provided learning goals for words recalled and points earned. Younger and older adults in both experiments selected items for study in an easy-to-difficult order, indicating the RPL model applies to older adults' self-regulated study. Individuals allocated more time to difficult items, but prioritized easier items when given less time or point values favoring difficult items. Older adults studied more items for longer but realized lower recall than did younger adults. Older adults' lower memory self-efficacy and perceived control correlated with their greater item restudy and avoidance of difficult items with high point values. Results are discussed in terms of RPL and agenda-based regulation models.