The Infant mental health specialist in newborn pediatric rounds: A systems approach

This article describes a special program wherein infant mental health specialists participate in hospital rounds with pediatric residents. The purpose of the program is described in terms of medical awareness of psycho-social needs of the family and improved clinical services. Examples are given of the way in which “rounding” contributes to the meeting of infants' and families' medical and psychological needs. Note is made of the multilevel impact of this collaboration.     

A systemic belief approach to epileptic seizures: A case of being spellbound

A systemic treatment approach, namely systemic belief therapy, has been found to be useful when dealing with families constraining beliefs when experiencing physical health problems. Two interventions which facilitate the altering of constraining beliefs are the externalization of physical symptoms and therapeutic letters. Epileptic seizures are examined in the context of the interaction between families and health care professionals. A case example is presented which highlights the use of this systemic approach to assist a young couple in challenging their beliefs about their ability to control and monitor epileptic seizures.     

Auditory list memory and interference processes in monkeys.

Memory of 2 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) was tested in a serial probe recognition task with lists of 4 natural or environmental sounds, different retention intervals, and different manipulations of interference. At short retention intervals, increasing the separation of list items reduced the primacy effect and produced a recency effect. Similar results were shown by increasing interference across lists through item repetitions or making the first 2 list items high-interference items. These results indicated that decreasing first-item performance reduced proactive interference on memory of the last list items. At long (20 s) retention intervals, making the last list items of high interference reduced the recency effect, reduced retroactive interference, and produced a primacy effect. Taken together, interference plays a role in determining the primacy and recency effects of the serial-position function.     

Coping and job performance

An organizational field study comprising 42 subjects examined the relationship between growth-oriented coping and subsequent job performance. Growth orientation was measured using the 7-item growth scale obtained from the Lazarus Ways of Coping Checklist. The hypothesized relationship between growth orientation and job performance was confirmed. Individuals obtaining high evaluations of managerial performance emphasized growth-oriented strategies in their behaviors. Further research directions are introduced.