Promoting Attachment and Mentalization for Parents and Young Children in the Foster Care System: Implementing a New Training and Treatment Approach in an Agency

The Building Blocks Program is an innovative psychodynamic treatment approach that was designed to fit within a social service agency structure. It is based on concepts of attachment, attunement, and mentalization and builds on the research of Beatrice Beebe (2003), Peter Fonagy and colleagues (2002), Arietta Slade (2005), Howard and Miriam Steele (2008), and Dan Stern (1985). The Building Blocks Program targets birth mothers and their young children under age 5 who have been or are in danger of being removed from their families. In the beginning of the program, the Building Blocks therapists faced many challenges. As noted (Remez, this issue), many of the therapists were unfamiliar with a Reflective Supervision model of learning. They were accustomed to a more traditional pedagogical approach that emphasized critiquing their work, with a focus on their clients’ pathology. The Building Blocks model focuses on therapist and client safety and support, prompting a paradigm shift in the therapists’ thinking about supervision and how to conduct therapy.     

Explicit vs. implicit emotional processing: The interaction between processing type and executive control

The current study examined whether the interaction between emotion and executive control (EC) is modulated by the processing type of the emotional information. Namely, whether the emotional information is explicitly processed, implicitly processed or passively viewed. In each trial, a negative or neutral picture preceded an arrow-flanker stimulus that was congruent or incongruent. Incongruent stimuli are known to recruit EC. Explicit processing of the pictures (Experiment 1a), which required responding to their emotional content, resulted in emotional interference for congruent but not for incongruent stimuli. Similar effects were shown for the passive viewing condition (Experiment 2). In contrast, implicit processing (Experiment 1b), which required responding to non-emotional content, resulted in emotional interference for both congruent and incongruent stimuli. Thus, our findings indicate that implicit emotional processing affects performance independently of EC recruitment. In contrast, explicit emotional processing and passive viewing of emotional pictures lead to reduced emotional interference when EC is recruited.     

Distress Tolerance and Social Support in Adolescence: Predicting Risk for Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Following a Natural Disaster

The purpose of the multi-measure, multi-wave, longitudinal study was to examine the interactive relation between behavioral distress tolerance (DT) and perceived social support (PSS) in 352 tornado-exposed adolescents aged 12–17 years (M = 14.44; SD = 1.74). At baseline, adolescents completed a computer-based task for DT, and self-report measures of PSS, depressed mood, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use, and interpersonal conflict. Symptoms also were assessed 4 and 12 months after baseline. Findings showed that lower levels of DT together with lower levels of PSS conferred risk for elevated symptoms of prospective depression (t(262) = ?2.04, p = .04; r_{effect size} = 0.13) and PTSD (t(195) = ?2.08, p = .04; r_{effect size} = 0.15) following a tornado. However, only PSS was significant in substance use t(139) = 2.20, p = .03; r_{effect size=}0.18) and conflict (t(138) = ?4.05, p < .0001; r_{effect size=}0.33) in our sample. Implications regarding adolescent DT, the transdiagnostic nature of PSS, and the clinical applications of our findings in the aftermath of a natural disaster are discussed.     

Manipulation and Deception

This paper introduces the category of ‘non-deceptive manipulation that causes false beliefs’, analyzes how it narrows the traditional scope of ‘deception’, and draws moral implications.     

Directional bias of limb tremor prior to voluntary movement

Taking a cue from recent discoveries of directional bias in microsaccades during visual fixation, we investigated directional bias in tremor during manual pointing. Subjects memorized and then performed patterns of alternating postures and voluntary movements. The directions of the tiny movements occurring during periods of intended stillness were predictive of subsequent target-directed movements such that in the horizontal axis, relative to baseline, the frequency of tremor decreased and the amplitude of tremor increased before horizontal movements, but not before vertical movements. This effect was less pronounced in the finger than in the arm, forearm, and hand. Possible explanations of the effect are based on eye-limb coupling, decreasing stiffness in the axis of forthcoming movement, and release of inhibition. The discovery of directionally specific preparatory activity suggests that the simple task of holding still before moving may provide a new window into the processes that allow for the translation of intentions into actions.     

Six-week postpartum maternal self-criticism and dependency and 4-month mother-infant self- and interactive contingencies

Associations of 6-week postpartum maternal self-criticism and dependency with 4-month mother-infant self- and interactive contingencies during face-to-face play were investigated in 126 dyads. Infant and mother face, gaze, touch, and vocal quality were coded second by second from split-screen videotape. Self- and interactive contingencies were defined as auto- and lagged cross-correlation, respectively, using multilevel time-series models. Statistical significance was defined as p<.05. Regarding self-contingency, (a) more self-critical mothers showed primarily lowered self-contingency, whereas their infants showed both lowered and heightened, and (b) infants of more dependent mothers showed primarily lowered self-contingency, whereas findings were absent in mothers. Regarding interactive contingency, (a) more self-critical mothers showed lowered attention and emotion contingencies but heightened contingent touch coordination with infant touch, and (b) more dependent mothers and their infants showed heightened facial/vocal interactive contingencies. Thus, maternal self-criticism and dependency have different effects on mother-infant communication.     

Color,Variation, and the Appeal to Essences: Impasse and Resolution

Many philosophers have been attracted by the view that colors are mind-independent properties of object surfaces. While this view has come in for a fair bit of criticism for failing to do justice to the facts about perceptual variation, Byrne and Hilbert have recently argued that perceptual variation involving color is no more problematic for physicalism about color than representational variation involving temperature is for physicalism about temperature. Unfortunately, the analogy on which this response rests is no less controversial than the disputed view about color, and so the response leads to a standoff rather than a resolution of the debate. However, we can appeal to facts about our inferential treatment of color and other properties as a way of resolving this impasse; doing so gives us defeasible reason for rejecting the Byrne and Hilbert response, and so for rejecting their mind-independent conception of color.     

The effect of constant threat of terror on Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents

The effect on Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents of living under constant threat of terrorist attacks was assessed in a sample of 346 adolescents. The study probed their direct and indirect exposure to terrorist attacks, avoidance of public centers, sharing feelings with significant others, and stress reaction symptoms. The adolescents showed mild to low levels of stress symptoms in reaction to terrorist attacks in Israel, with no significant differences between Jews and Arabs. The Jewish adolescents reported knowing more people involved in terror attacks and being more informed by their parents about them. Demographic and exposure variables explained 39% of the variance of stress reaction symptoms. Being female, knowing someone injured, having parents who discuss terrorist attacks or forbid going out, and more sharing of feelings were significantly related to higher stress symptoms. For Jewish adolescents, greater levels of sharing of feelings were related to higher distress. Jewish and Arab adolescents proved to be similarly affected by the threat of terror but were also resilient even in highly unusual circumstances.