The counselor perspective on the use of directives in counseling in China: Are directives different in China as in the United States?

Eight Chinese counselors were interviewed about their use of directives in counseling. They typically believed that directives can be beneficial in counseling Chinese clients. They used directives to extend the influence of counseling beyond sessions, meet client needs and expectations, and fit their own personality and orientation. In terms of conditions that need to be met for directives to be helpful, they identified client factors such as readiness, communication styles, past experience, and insight; the counselor factor of ability to communicate directives; and the therapeutic relationship. They emphasized the importance of clients acquiring a new perspective as a result of directives. Cultural factors in using directives are discussed.     

What’s it all about? A qualitative study of meaning in life for counseling psychology doctoral students

The interviews of 10 female counseling psychology doctoral students regarding their views about meaning in life (MIL) were analyzed using consensual qualitative research. The participants defined MIL as goals or purposes, were actively involved in searching for meaning, and believed that MIL had been stimulated by life-changing experiences and culture. On a personal level, they gained meaning from relationships, personal growth, and religion/spirituality. On a professional level, they gained meaning from providing therapy, conducting research, and teaching. As therapists, participants approached MIL indirectly by asking about client goals/motivations or by focusing on other clinical problems that if resolved would enhance MIL. Implications for doctoral training and for psychotherapy are offered.     

Feminist Philosophy,Pragmatism, and the “Turn to Affect”: A Genealogical Critique

Recent years have witnessed a focus on feeling as a topic of reinvigorated scholarly concern, described by theorists in a range of disciplines in terms of a “turn to affect.” Surprisingly little has been said about this most recent shift in critical theorizing by philosophers, including feminist philosophers, despite the fact that affect theorists situate their work within feminist and related, sometimes intersectional, political projects. In this article, I redress the seeming elision of the “turn to affect” in feminist philosophy, and develop a critique of some of the claims made by affect theorists that builds upon concerns regarding the “newness” of affect and emotion in feminist theory, and the risks of erasure this may entail. To support these concerns, I present a brief genealogy of feminist philosophical work on affect and emotion. Identifying a reductive tendency within affect theory to equate affect with bodily immanence, and to preclude cognition, culture, and representation, I argue that contemporary feminist theorists would do well to follow the more holistic models espoused by the canon of feminist work on emotion. Furthermore, I propose that prominent affect theorist Brian Massumi is right to return to pragmatism as a means of redressing philosophical dualisms, such as emotion/cognition and mind/body, but suggest that such a project is better served by John Dewey's philosophy of emotion than by William James's.     

Change in Symptoms and Personal Construct Structure in Anxiety Disorders: A Preliminary Study on the Effects of Constructivist Therapy

In recent years, constructivist psychotherapy has evolved as a plausible treatment for different disorders. The present study aimed to explore the effectiveness of this therapy in terms of symptom improvement and changes in the personal construct system. Forty-seven anxiety clients received brief integrative constructivist therapy. Scores on symptom and personal construct measures decreased after the treatment, but not all of them showed a statistically significant change. The percentage of clients with implicative dilemmas decreased after psychotherapy. The results provide preliminary support for the effectiveness of brief constructivist psychotherapy as a treatment for anxiety disorders in primary care services. Several limitations are acknowledged. Further controlled research is needed.     

Correction to: Can the Welfare State Justify Restrictive Asylum Policies? A Critical Approach

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-021-10185-5     

Assessing the Rising Emphasis on Muscularity for Women: Psychometric Properties of the Brazilian Version of the Female Muscularity Scale

The female appearance ideal has undergone considerable changes in recent years, resulting in increases in drive for muscularity among Brazilian women. The Female Muscularity Scale (FMS) was developed to assess muscularity concerns among U.S. women and was shown to be a promising measure of muscularity-related attitudes and behaviors. The present studies aimed to translate and culturally adapt the FMS to Brazilian Portuguese and to explore its factorial structure among Brazilian women (Study 1: n = 202, M_age = 24.40, SD = 5.03) and to confirm the factor structure as well as evaluate convergent and divergent validity and reliability of the FMS for young adult Brazilian women (Study 2: n = 382, M_age = 22.71, SD = 4.32). Exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure (Attitudes and Behaviors subscales), each comprising five items. Confirmatory factor analysis upheld the original two-factor structure with good fit indices. The full scale and its subscales presented convergent validity through associations with measures of body dissatisfaction, drive for muscularity, body-ideal internalization, body checking and avoidance behaviors, disordered eating, and exercise engagement. Evidence of divergent validity was obtained in relation to self-esteem and depressive symptoms. The Brazilian version of FMS also presented adequate values for internal consistency and 2-week test-retest reliability. These findings support the Brazilian version of the FMS as a useful tool for investigating muscularity-related aspects of body image and body change behaviors that are increasingly a source of concern for women.

     

Dissociation vs Repression: A New Neuropsychoanalytic Model for Psychopathology

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Recent research on trauma, attachment and neuroscience point at a clear divide in psychopathology between disorders based on repression, (as in Freud's...     

Automatically activated facets of ageism: Masked evaluative priming allows for a differentiation of age‐related prejudice

This study investigated the automatic activation of ageism by using a go/no‐go version of the masked evaluative priming task. Pictures of younger persons, of older persons in everyday contexts, and of older persons depicting age‐related conditions of decline were used as masked primes that preceded positive and negative target adjectives conveying either other‐relevant valence (e.g., just and mean) or possessor‐relevant valence (e.g., serene and lonely). The evaluative priming effect (denoting relative negativity of old‐everyday primes in comparison with younger primes) was significant, as hypothesized, only for possessor‐relevant targets. It was not moderated by explicit ageism. A second priming index (denoting relative negativity of old‐decline primes in comparison with old‐everyday primes) predicted, however, explicit ageism. Again, this result was, as expected, constrained to the index based on possessor‐relevant targets. This study provides further evidence that prejudice in terms of automatic evaluations of social stimuli can be more fine grained beyond a mere one‐dimensional positive–negative differentiation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parenting and the dysregulation profile predict executive functioning in children with acquired brain injury

Background: Children with acquired brain injury (ABI) present with high rates of psychological disorders commonly accompanied by deficits in hot and cold executive functions (EFs). Impairments in EFs have been reported to precede mental health problems. Moreover, children who are vulnerable to developing mental health problems in adulthood frequently present with a dysregulation profile in childhood, characterized by impairments in cognitive, behavioral and emotional regulation. Objective: To identify profiles of behaviors associated with impairment in hot and cold EFs and compare injury factors, environmental stressors and dysregulation profile between them. Methods: A latent profile analysis was conducted with 77 children with ABI aged between 6 and 12. Injury factors, child IQ, environmental stressors and the dysregulation profile were compared between these behavioral profiles. Logistic regressions were conducted to predict profile membership. Results: Two profiles were identified: Profile M, with mild deficits (1–2 SD above the mean) in working memory and social skills, and profile C, presenting clinically significant deficits (2–3 SD above the mean) in shift, initiate, working memory, planning and social skills and mild deficits in inhibit, emotional control and task monitor. Proximal environmental stressors (dysfunctional parenting practices, parental stress, parent’s executive dysfunction, anxiety-trait, and depressive symptoms) and dysregulation symptoms predicted profile membership, whereas injury factors, child IQ and distal environmental stressors did not. Conclusion: Following ABI, children with profile C are at risk of mental health problems and present with more proximal stressors. The dysregulation profile may be useful as a proxy for risk for later mental health problems in children with ABI.     

Stimulus-specific dynamics of learning in conjunction search tasks

We investigated the time course of learning in visual search for within-dimension conjunctions in homogeneous (inverted V in Vs) or heterogeneous distractors (L in 90° counterclockwise-rotated Ls and 180° rotated Ls), and for across-dimension conjunctions search (green\in green/s and red\s). Two learning sessions of 10 and 5 blocks each took place three months apart. In the first session, the reduction in mean search time was greater for within-dimension conjunctions with heterogeneous distractors. Learning endured from one session to the other for all stimuli, suggesting that learning can be long-term in search for feature conjunctions. However, when the positional regularity between elements was perturbed, the effect of prior learning was reduced for homogeneous within-dimension conjunctions. This suggests that, for these stimuli, learning facilitates grouping by positional regularity. Finally, the learning effect with homogeneous withindimension conjunctions disappeared when both target and distractors were rotated to modify the orientation of conjunction patterns. This suggests that learning improves a grouping mechanism selective for the relative orientations of combined form features.