Kommentare zu ?Ambivalenz weiterschreiben��

The authors comment on the results of the Zürich symposium with varied weighting. Ambivalence is brought into relation with a hypothetical genesis of human thinking and understood as a reflection of the fundamental dialogical structure, which owes itself to an exchange of symbolic messages. A further consideration describes that the ??valley of the uncanny??, whose connection to death Lilly Gast has shown, could also have a fundamental connection with sexuality bared of all bonds, which releases the same fears as death. A difficulty would lie in the inflationary use of the term: every ambiguousness or diversity would sometimes generally be subsumed under ambivalence and therefore all selectivity would become lost. Also discussed is the ambivalence of the term, or the question, whether the term has not lost significance. Finally its relevance in pediatric and adolescent-specific perspectives will be examined.     

Schmerz ist nicht gleich Schmerz

Not all types of pain are the same. For successful treatment of pain, acute pain must be distinguished from chronic and nociceptive must be distinguished from neuropathic pain. Selection of the right medication is based on the severity of the pain. Despite all efforts to standardize treatment, there is still no consensus on the optimal treatment method. The effective drug must be determined for each patient by taking into account the patient’s symptom profile, the pain intensity and duration as well as the side effects and contraindications. In chronic pain syndromes, only after 6–8 weeks with adequate dosage can the ineffectiveness of a drug be assessed. Single doses, intervals between administration and routes of administration must be selected depending on the pharmacokinetics and interaction profile and the age and needs of the patient.     

Autoimmun-Enzephalitiden – eine Erkrankungsgruppe mit vielen Gesichtern

During the last 10 years a number of syndromes with antibodies against neuronal surface antigens have been characterized. Adults as well as children can be affected. Patients may suffer from amnestic syndrome, other cognitive deficits, seizures, or psychiatric symptoms. Some patients develop generalized encephalopathy with altered levels of consciousness, hyperkinesias, and hypothalamic disorders. In some patients, ovarial teratoma, thymoma, or small cell lung cancer can be diagnosed. However, in most patients no tumor is found. These syndromes were previously called autoimmune channelopathies. In fact, most antigens are not part of an ion channel but proteins or part of protein complexes on the cell surface of neurons, axons, dendrites, or synaptic terminals. These proteins are expressed throughout the nervous system. Interestingly, in limbic encephalitis very circumscribed brain regions are affected. This may be due to an increased vulnerability or accessibility of the affected brain regions. Limbic encephalitis is a well-characterized form of autoimmune encephalitis, which can be associated with different antibodies. Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis is not restricted to the limbic system. Characterization of other syndromes and auto-antibodies are expected in the future. In this review, aspects of limbic encephalitis and anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis will be discussed.     

Die Hysterie im neuen Gewand und im Wandel der Zeit

Classical symptoms of hysteria – especially symptoms of hysterical neurosis (conversion type) – are not commonly seen any more. On the one hand, general knowledge about the function of hysterical has led to suppression of the underlying hidden conflicts, possibly up to resomatization. On the other hand, those affected may have rather subtle symptoms, e.g., vague pain, circulatory disorders, or fatigue. Overall, the hysterical phenomena have not become less common but have become “contemporary” and, therefore, more difficult to identify. Reliable epidemiological data, however, are difficult to obtain. Rough estimates indicate that 2–6?% of all people have dissociative disorders (ICD-10 definition). Histrionic personality disorder is estimated to occur with a frequency of 2–3?%. In 75?% of cases, the disease manifests relatively early, between the ages of 17 and 32 years and with a 3:1 female to male ratio. An average of 7 years elapses between first manifestation and the start of psychiatric–psychotherapeutic treatment.     

Lumbale Radikulopathie

Back pain is a common pain syndrome in the general population. The most common cause is lumbar disc disease and only rarely bony degenerative changes of the spine. Other causes of lumbar radiculopathy include local lesions. Inflammatory changes or meningeal carcinomatosis may also lead to lumbar nerve root damage. With pronounced clinical symptoms, motor deficits of the associated muscles can occur, including weakening of muscle reflexes. In addition to thorough education of the patient about the origin, likely duration, and treatment of the disease, a combination of physical therapy and pharmacotherapy is the basis for successful treatment of lumbar radiculopathy. In cases of severe paralysis, bladder and rectal paralysis, and corresponding compression of nerves, urgent spinal surgery is inevitable.     

Eine erfolgreiche Behandlunsgkette bei Zwangsstörung

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) belongs to a group of disorders with an estimated lifetime prevalence of 2?%, associated with a high socio-economic burden and the risk of chronification. In the latest version of the DSM-5, OCDs were detached from the chapter of anxiety disorders, similar to the ICD-10. Consequently, the fifth revision of the DSM highlights the fact that scientific results so far, like the overactivation of basal-ganglia thalamocortical circuits, basically support a common model for OCDs. Although in the past, OCDs have been ignored as a diagnostic entity, in the DSM-5, the concept of obsessive–compulsive spectrum disorders according to Hollander was partly realized. The present case report outlines an example of a successful therapeutic chain in the treatment of a severe case of OCD with a 90?% reduction of symptoms throughout a calendar-year, emphazising the importance of efficient treatment chains within psychiatric disorders.     

At the core of cyberaggression: A group-based explanation

In this study, prototypicality of the aggressor was tested as a group-level factor predicting social media users’ active participation in cyberaggression. Participants were exposed to a fictitious conversation, in which either a prototypical versus non-prototypical user posted an aggressive comment as a reply to a provocative comment. In line with self-categorization theory, we hypothesized that bystander participants would post an aggressive comment and rate the aggression as acceptable to a greater extent in the prototypical than in the non-prototypical condition. Furthermore, we predicted that perceived normativity of aggression would mediate the effect of prototypicality. Results supported these predictions and showed that prototypical members affect the extent to which collective aggressive behaviors in online interactions are approved and enacted. These findings highlight the importance of group-level factors in the study of cyberaggression and provide important information for understanding the psychological underpinnings of collective forms of online aggression.     

Divergent thinking in Italian elementary school children: the key role of probabilistic reasoning style

Cognitive Processing - Divergent thinking is widely recognised as an individual creative potential and an essential factor in fostering creativity since the early stages of life. Albeit previous...     

How children approach the false belief test: social development,pragmatics, and the assembly of Theory of Mind

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - Evidence from the knowledge access task and the diverse belief task suggests that, before age four, children may find it difficult to attribute false...     

A Twin Study of the Relationships among Inattention, Hyperactivity/Impulsivity and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Problems

We investigated the etiological relationships between the three ADHD dimensions of Inattentive Problems (INP), Hyperactivity-Impulsivity Problems (HIP) and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) as measured by the CBCL 6–18 questionnaire. Multivariate models were applied to 398 twin pairs (374 boys and 422 girls) aged 8 to 17 years (M?=?13.06, SD?=?2.59) belonging to the population-based Italian Twin Registry. The INP, HIP and SCT problem scores were moderately-to-substantially (range 0.29–0.47) intercorrelated. The best fitting model showed that these 3 dimensions are correlated both at the genetic (correlations’ range: 0.65–0.83) and the environmental (correlations: 0.29 and 0.44) levels, but they are also distinct. While SCT showed moderate heritability and large non-shared environmental influences, variance for both INP and HIP was substantially explained by genetic influences. We also found evidence of negative sibling interaction for INP, implying that a given behavior in one twin leads to an opposite behavior in the co-twin. Our results support at the etiological level the findings of previous psychometric and longitudinal studies of ADHD, which yielded evidence of the 3 distinct—albeit correlated—problem dimensions of inattentiveness, hyperactivity-impulsivity, and sluggish cognitive tempo.