Reply to Roggero and Minolli’s Commentary: Restoring the Working Alliance,or Crisis and Developmental Opportunity? Mismatching and Reparation in Multiple Different Meanings

The commentary by Maria Pia Roggero and Michele Minolli offers interesting points that enrich and clarify the discussion: the application of theoretical tenets to clinical practice and research, and different viewpoints on the concept of mismatching. We argue that miscommunication, misunderstanding, and loss of coordination cause mismatching exchanges and rupture the emotional connection between caregiver and infant as well as between analyst and patient (Tronick, 2007). We think that the process of mismatching and reparation is actually a developmental opportunity to dyadically expand the consciousness of infant and patient, as well as parent and therapist (Minolli, 2015).     

Advice seeking and loaning of money related to relapse in recovery homes

Recovery homes help individuals who have completed substance use treatment programs re‐integrate back into the community. However, it is unclear what factors determine who will succeed in these settings and how these factors may be reinforced or undermined by the social interactions and social networks between residents living in the Oxford House recovery homes. In an effort to better understand these factors, the current study evaluated (a) the extent to which the density of social networks (i.e., friendship, willingness to loan money, and advice‐seeking relationships) is associated with social capital (i.e., sense of community, quality of life, hopefulness, self‐efficacy), and (b) whether the density of social networks predicts relapse over time. Among the findings, willingness to loan money was positively associated with all four individual‐level social capital variables, suggesting that availability of instrumental resources may be important to ongoing recovery. To test whether these house‐level social network factors then support recovery, a survival analysis was conducted, finding associations between relapse risk and the network densities over a 28‐month span. In particular, more dense advice‐seeking networks were associated with higher rates of relapse, suggesting that the advice‐seeking might represent a sign of organisational house problems, with many residents unsure of issues related to their recovery. In contrast, more dense loaning networks were associated with less relapse, so willingness to lend money could be measuring a willingness to help those in need. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Spiritual Suffering from Medieval German Mysticism to Mother Teresa: A Psycholinguistic Analysis

Two computer programs, SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count) and LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count), were used in combination to analyze the texts of 3 religious writers—one true mystic (Johannes Tauler), one false mystic (Thomas Müntzer) from medieval German Christianity, and one modern “saint,” Mother Teresa (Warren, 2010 Warren , R. ( 2010 , Aug. 31 ). Introduction . In D. Van Biema & R. Lacayo (Eds.), Mother Teresa at 100/The life and works of a modern saint (pp. 6 – 7 ). New York , NY : TIME Books .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 7). Results suggest that reflections on spiritual suffering that loom large in both medieval German mysticism and Mother Teresa constitute an adaptive approach to negative emotions, so far unexplored. Implications for research on negative religious coping, and adaptive versus maladaptive reflections on negative emotions will be discussed.     

Family hypnotherapy

Abstract

A therapeutic model to help families activate experiential and right hemispheric functioning through hypnosis is presented in detail, together with a clinical illustration. Different situations in which this model is effective are mentioned and one such set of circumstances is described.     

Book reviews

Abstract

Marriage Counseling in Groups, by M. M. Ohlsen. Champaign, IL: Research Press Co., 1979, paperback, 200 pages, $6.95.

Common Sense in Therapy, by Yoosuf A. Haveliwala, Albert E. Scheflen and Norman Ashcraft. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1979, 199 pages, $13.50.

Handbook of Suicidology: Principles, Problems and Practice, by Louis Wekstein. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1979, 303 pages, $17.50.

Making It as a Stepparent: New Roles, New Rules, by Claire Berman. New York: Doubleday, 1980, 202 pages, $8.95.

Invitation to a Dialogue: Union and Separation in Family Life, by Otto Pollak and Ellen S. Wise. New York: Spectrum, 1979, $9.95.     

Effects of contextual questions on experimentally induced dysphoria

In a replication and extension of Watkins, Teasdale, and Williams (2003), a scrambled sentences paradigm was used to test whether prompting contextual processing of negative cognitive primes would limit the activation of dysphoric mood. Participants were divided into two groups and, after a dysphoric mood induction procedure, were asked to unscramble sentences that either did or did not emphasise the contextual aspects of moods. Consistent with Watkins et al., participants’ despondency decreased significantly more in the contextual group than in the neutral group. This effect could not be accounted for by variations in the way sentences were unscrambled.     

Can the LTSI Predict Transfer Performance? Testing intent to transfer as a proximal transfer of training outcome

Law enforcement personnel (n = 235) were administered the Learning Transfer Systems Inventory (LTSI) and a transfer measure after completing leadership development training. Although most studies using the LTSI have focused on validation efforts in different linguistic settings, this study is one of the few to examine the relationship between the LTSI factors and a proximal transfer outcome score (as measured by intent to transfer). Motivation to transfer, transfer design, and transfer performance expectations had the strongest relationship with intent to transfer, and the motivation subscales (motivation to transfer, performance expectations, and outcome expectations) accounted for the largest amount of unique variance in intent to transfer.     

Christian Leadership and Religiosity Reexamined: The Evidence from College Student Leaders

This article assesses the impact of religiosity on Christian leadership orientations. The theoretical model is taken from the study of Shee, Ji, and Boyatt (2002), which presupposes that quest religiosity is inversely related to the structured, human resource, political, and symbolic leadership frames, while intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity are positively tied with them. The analysis is based on the 116 college student leaders in 12 Protestant colleges and universities. According to the data, the patterns of linkage between religious orientations and leadership frames lend partial support for the hypothesis. Intrinsic religiosity tends to foster structural and symbolic leadership, but quest religiosity promotes political leadership. The human resource leadership has turned out to be independent from religiosity, and extrinsic religiosity is found to have little to do with Christian leadership orientations.     

Dissociating object-based and space-based affordances

In what we term the orientation effect, faster spatial responses are made to the corresponding task irrelevant orientation of an object. We ask how this effect relates to object affordances, how attention may be involved, and how the effect relates to the better understood Simon effect. Two separate stimulus-response compatibility effects (an orientation effect and a Simon effect) were observed when spatial responses were made to photographs of objects whose orientation and location had been simultaneously manipulated. When attentional demands were high these separate effects were found using hand responses and foot responses, suggesting an abstract rather than specific coding of object affordances. However, when attentional demands were low only the Simon effect was observed, suggesting that, in order to obtain the orientation effect, objects must be represented at the level of an object.     

Risk and resilience: The moderating role of social coping for maternal mental health in a setting of political conflict

Violence can threaten individual wellbeing and tear at the social fabric of communities. At the same time, suffering can mobilize social coping and mutual support. Thus, the backdrop of political violence increases risk factors and stimulates resilience. The current study examined the moderating role of social coping as reflective of risk and resiliency in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted conflict. Specifically, structural equation modeling was used to investigate whether social coping protects from or exacerbates the negative impact of sectarian crime and nonsectarian crime on maternal mental health (N = 631). Nonsectarian crime predicted greater psychological distress for mothers in Belfast. Mixed support was found for the buffering and depletion moderation hypotheses; social coping functioned differently for nonsectarian crime and sectarian crime. Greater social coping buffered mothers’ psychological distress from the negative effects of nonsectarian crime, but exacerbated maternal mental health problems when facing sectarian crime. Results suggest that social coping is a complex phenomenon, particularly in settings of protracted political violence. Implications for interventions aimed at alleviating psychological distress by enhancing mothers’ social coping in contexts of intergroup conflict are discussed.