Fehldiagnose Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit- und Hyperaktivit?tssyndrom?

Although it is assumed both by healthcare professionals as well as by public opinion that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is widely overdiagnosed, so far there is little empirical evidence to support this presumption. However, the presented study shows clear evidence for an overdiagnosis of ADHD. Furthermore, the data demonstrate that based on identical symptoms, boys more often receive a diagnosis for ADHD than girls. A false ADHD diagnosis also correlates with a recommendation for medical and psychotherapeutic treatment. One explanation for misdiagnosis is the fact that therapists in the course of diagnosis, as with other everyday decision-making processes, are influenced by heuristics. The most common heuristics that can lead to misdiagnosis are the representativeness heuristic and the availability heuristic. Such mistakes could be avoided by clearly following diagnostic criteria and the use of structural interviews.     

Linderung depressiver Symptomatik

Standard interventions, such as antidepressive medication or psychotherapy, show only medium effect sizes in the reduction of depressive symptomatology. In addition, medication has problematic and not well accepted side-effects therefore it seems reasonable to look for alternative, cost-effective, easily available treatments which show no side-effects. A large number of studies have demonstrated similar neurophysiological effects of sport as antidepressants or psychotherapies but the crucial question remains unanswered: does sport show antidepressive effects by alleviating depressive symptomatology? Some randomized, controlled studies and all available recent meta-analysis addressing this question are reviewed. This review concludes that randomized control trials including sport activities have similar positive effect sizes as psychotherapy or antidepressant studies. The pre-post effects are in the medium to high range. Such a conclusion is jeopardized by a limited number of methodolically sound studies. It is too early to make evidence-based recommendations about the antidepressive effect of sport. Currently, it can only be speculated about moderators and mechanisms mediating outcome.     

Psychotherapie, Globalisierung, Hartz?IV

The mental effects of globalization, the economic crisis and unemployment must not be underestimated. In general they have to be looked upon as a complex system of structural traumatization which is causing severe psychological mental disorders, such as depression. Not only that, a psychotherapist has to pay particular attention to this. More than in physical illnesses the psychotherapist has to be solidly united with the patient, which might also result in political action.     

Sexualit?t und Internet

On the discussion about sexual internet activities, the professional and public discourses have been strongly polarized for a long time. Currently the trend is that online sexuality is to be seen in a differentiated and empirical manner. Next to undesired (e.g. assault by internet platform) or indirect (e.g. due to excessive pornography use by partners) confrontations with online sexuality, there is a broad spectrum of self-initiated sexual use of the internet. These are, for example reception of information sites, exchange of experiences, utilization of online sexual consultation and romantic relationships. On the other hand clinically relevant problems could accompany sexual internet use, such as cybersex addiction. Because of the mediatization in society ambulant patients in the psychotherapeutic practice are more informed about sexual internet use. For psychotherapists it is important to know the internet-specific details and the potential risks and chances for sexual behavior in order to know how to deal with the situation and if necessary to integrate the internet into the spectrum of web-based sexual therapeutic options.     

Verkehrte Liebe

On the basis of Hanekes film The piano player (2001) from the novel by Elfriede Jelinek, the following questions will be examined: 1. Which forms of violence and sadism under the pretext of love can dominate the relationship between mother and daughter? What effects do these more or less visible violent acts have on the development of the adolescent daughter? 3. How can these experiences be repeated in her life as an adult woman and find expression in perverse reenactments?     

Strukturbezogene Psychotherapie

Structure-oriented psychotherapy is a variant method of the psychodynamic therapeutic procedure concerned with the therapeutic encouragement of insufficiently available structural abilities of patients, in contrast to realization of conflicts. This form of psychotherapy is based on the definitions of Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics (OPD) and the diagnostic and therapeutic studies carried out with this method in the comprehension of structural functions and levels. The therapeutic approach and the therapeutic attitude were formulated with respect to the developmental psychological aspects of early relationship disorders. The method is indicated where, for example in severe personality disorders the clinical picture is determined by the structural problems of self-regulation and relationship formation. In this case the patient should first be actively stabilized in order to then increasingly transfer responsibility for self-regulation and way of life and to work these out together. The individual stages of the therapeutic process and the special interventions against the background of a development promoting, parental-like therapeutic attitude will be described.     

Rats build and update topological representations through exploration

Although rats are able to build complex spatial representations of their surroundings during exploration, the nature of the encoded information is still a matter for debate. In particular, it is not well established if rats can process the topological structure of the environment in such a way that they are aware of the connections existing between remote places. Here, rats were first exposed for four 5-min trials to a complex environment divided into several sectors that were separated by doors allowing either unrestricted or restricted access to other sectors. In the fifth test trial, we measured the behavior of the animals while they explored the same environment in which, however, they faced changes that either altered or did not alter the topological structure of the environment. In experiment 1, closing previously opened doors prevented the rat from having direct access between corresponding sectors. In experiment 2, opening previously closed doors allowed direct access between sectors that had not been directly accessible. In each experiment, control doors allowed us to discard the mere influence of door manipulation. We compared the rats’ exploratory behavior in response to door manipulations that either strongly altered or did not alter the ability to commute between sectors and found evidence that the animals displayed differential reactions to the two types of door manipulations. This implies that during exploration rats build a precise map of the connectivity of space that can be flexibly updated and used for efficient navigation.