A few thoughts about the mind,the brain,and a child with early deprivation

Infant brain research is having an increasing impact on child psychotherapy and our understanding of the neurobiological effects of trauma and neglect. This paper outlines the 'experience-dependent' nature of brain development in infancy and the concept of critical periods in such development. The effects of deprivation on child development are illustrated and case material from a child who was institutionalized during his second year is used as a basis for posing questions about the nature of the mind and the brain. In spite of his deprivation, he was able to communicate imaginatively. Schore's proposal for the use of early interventions is put forward to counter discouragement that can be engendered by work with severely deprived children.     

Conceptual links between Byng-Hall's theory of parentification and the emotional security hypothesis

Guided by our emotional security hypothesis, this commentary expands on Byng-Hall's article by addressing the role interparental difficulties play in the development of parentification. The implications that recent methodological advances have for empirically testing family models of insecurity are discussed.     

Lexical and semantic age-of-acquisition effects on word naming in Spanish

We report a study of the factors that affect reading in Spanish, a language with a transparent orthography. Our focus was on the influence of lexical semantic knowledge in phonological coding. This effect would be predicted to be minimal in Spanish, according to some accounts of semantic effects in reading. We asked 25 healthy adults to name 2,764 mono- and multisyllabic words. As is typical for psycholinguistics, variables capturing critical word attributes were highly intercorrelated. Therefore, we used principal components analysis (PCA) to derive orthogonalized predictors from raw variables. The PCA distinguished components relating to (1) word frequency, age of acquisition (AoA), and familiarity; (2) word AoA, imageability, and familiarity; (3) word length and orthographic neighborhood size; and (4) bigram type and token frequency. Linear mixed-effects analyses indicated significant effects on reading due to each PCA component. Our observations confirm that oral reading in Spanish proceeds through spelling–sound mappings involving lexical and sublexical units. Importantly, our observations distinguish between the effect of lexical frequency (the impact of the component relating to frequency, AoA, and familiarity) and the effect of semantic knowledge (the impact of the component relating to AoA, imageability, and familiarity). Semantic knowledge influences word naming even when all the words being read have regular spelling–sound mappings.     

Selective Processing of Threat Cues in Subjects with Panic Attacks

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that patients with generalised anxiety disorder, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder show an attentional bias towards threat cues related to their respective disorders. Two studies are presented that used a modified Stroop colour naming task to assess attentional bias in subjects with panic attacks. In Study 1, 24 panic disorder patients and 24 normal controls were presented three cards containing threat words related to physical harm, separation, or social embarrassment. Colour naming times were compared between these cards and control cards containing matched non-threat words. Reaction time differences in the two groups were in opposite directions, patients tending to be slower in colour naming threat words, and controls, faster. In Study 2, 18 non-clinical panickers and 18 controls were presented cards containing physical threat words, neutral control words, or colour words, respectively. Panickers showed greater interference than controls in colour naming threat words but not in colour naming colour words. The results are consistent with an attentional bias for threat-related material in subjects with panic attacks. Implications for psychophysiological models of 'spontaneous' panic attacks are discussed.     

Self-ratings of positive and negative affect and retrieval of positive and negative affect memories

Abstract

Based on analysis of self-ratings of mood, positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) have been proposed as basic, orthogonal mood dimensions (Watson & Tellegen, 1985). The present study asked subjects (N = 61) to not only provide self-ratings of PA and NA terms but also to retrieve personal memories associated with those terms. Self-rated PA was associated with latency to retrieve PA- but not NA-related memories; self-rated NA was associated with latency to retrieve NA- but not PA-related memories. Self-ratings of PA and NA were not significantly correlated, nor were retrieval latencies for PA and NA memories. Individual item correlations also revealed a strong direct relationship between self-ratings and retrieval latency. The dissociations involving a non-self report measure strengthen the distinction between PA and NA, and the individual item correlations are interpreted as showing that self-ratings of affect are based upon the ease of retrieval of personal memories.     

Love Never Ends Well: Termination as the Fate of an Illusion: Commentary on Papers by Jill Salberg and Sue Grand

The following is a discussion of the papers by Jill Salberg and Sue Grand on the topic of psychoanalytic termination. The discussion focuses on the idiosyncratic nature of the psychoanalytic relationship and the particular nature of its ending, some similarities between the end of analytic love and the loss of love in every day life, problems with analyst initiated terminations, and the transgressive nature of termination and analytic creativity. There is a discussion of the cases presented by each of the authors.     

Private work in public places: Confidentiality and role tensions in a university counselling service

This paper aims to explore issues of confidentiality relating to working with undergraduate and postgraduate students in a university counselling service. The context of a counselling service within our institute of higher education has to be understood in its relationship to academic, administrative and managerial staff, to medical and psychiatric services personnel and to the wide range of other student support and welfare services in the organization whether run by university staff or the students' union. Some reflection will be given to the need for clarity in the range of roles counsellors have to play within the different functions of the university. The client-counselling relationship cannot be seen as a dyad but as a triad or an even more complex constellation of relationships when regarded in an institutional context. The central premise is based on understanding the conscious and unconscious dynamics in the institution and how these impinge on the relationship between client and counsellor in challenging or assuming the confidentiality held by the service. Such boundary issues are identified in consultation and referral, breaking confidentiality, referral of disruptive students, calls for help and holding confidentiality. The case material drawn on to illustrate these five areas is also described in terms of anxieties raised and how these are projected, introjected and contained.

Within the service client and counsellor contract to work together. It is made clear that counselling is a professional relationship with agreed boundaries and a commitment to confidentiality. This is crucial to the working relationship and is a means of providing the client with both safety and privacy. Any limitation on the degree of confidentiality offered may reduce the usefulness of counselling. Bound by his or her professional code of ethics the counsellor will reach an agreement with the client at the outset about the extent of confidentiality they are offering, take care not to disclose information given in confidence and, when possible, be able to negotiate any change in agreement with the client.

Exceptional circumstances which may occur and give rise to the counsellor's decision to break the confidentiality formerly agreed between him or herself and the client are those which give grounds for believing the client will cause serious harm to others or themselves or have harm caused to them. Reference will be made to the role of consultant supervision in such situations and how any breaking of confidentiality can best be minimized. Attention will be given to the relevant ethical codes to which counsellors adhere and the issues of confidentiality within the legal process as well as whether the requirements of providing counselling services for students in higher education impel us, logically and practically, towards certain policies in regard to boundaries.     

Commentaries on 'The symbolism of the story of Lot and his wife'

In this article, four child and adolescent psychotherapists discuss their responses, within a psychoanalytic framework, to the theoretical and technical questions raised by Monica Lanyado in her paper 'The symbolism of Lot and his wife'.     

Greater priming for previously distracting information in young than older adults when suppression is ruled out

The use of previously distracting information on memory tests with indirect instructions is usually age-equivalent, while young adults typically show greater explicit memory for such information. This could reflect qualitatively distinct initial processing (encoding) of distracting information by younger and older adults, but could also be caused by greater suppression of such information by younger adults on tasks with indirect instructions. In Experiment 1, young and older adults read stories containing distracting words, which they ignored, before studying a list of words containing previously distracting items for a free recall task. Half the participants were informed of the presence of previously distracting items in the study list prior to recall (direct instruction), and half were not (indirect instruction). Recall of previously distracting words was age-equivalent in the indirect condition, but young adults recalled more distracting words in the direct condition. In Experiment 2, participants performed the continuous identification with recognition task, which captures a measure of perceptual priming and recognition on each trial, and is immune to suppression. Priming and recognition of previously distracting words was greater in younger than older adults, suggesting that the young engage in more successful suppression of previously distracting information on tasks in which its relevance is not overtly signaled.