The extent and nature of imagery during worry and positive thinking in generalized anxiety disorder

Clients in treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) were compared to a control group to assess the extent and nature of imagery during worry or while thinking about a personally relevant positive future event. Two methods were used to assess mentation and were completed in counter balanced order within the worry and positive conditions. One method assessed the occurrence of imagery by requiring participants to categorize their mentation as verbal thoughts or images every 10 s. The other method involved participants estimating the duration of any imagery that occurred in the previous 10 s. Imagery during worry occurred less often than while thinking about a positive event for both groups, but GAD clients had a more pronounced deficit of imagery during worry than the control group. Images that occurred were briefer during worry than while thinking about a positive future event and were briefer in the GAD than the control group for both worry and positive conditions. The results thus confirmed that imagery is less common during worry in clients with GAD but also demonstrated that the imagery that does occur in GAD is briefer.     

Development of children’s ability to detect kinship through facial resemblance

Facial features appear to be a prominent kinship cue for ascribing relatedness among human individuals. Although there is evidence that adults can detect kinship in unrelated and unfamiliar individual’s faces, it remains to be seen whether people already possess the ability when they are young. To further understand the development of this skill, we explored children’s ability to detect parent-offspring resemblance in unrelated and unfamiliar faces. To this end, we tested approximately 140 children, aged 5–11, in two photo-matching tasks. We used a procedure that asked them to match one neonate’s face to one of three adults’ faces (Task 1), or to match one adult’s face to one of three neonate’s faces (Task 2). Our findings reveal asymmetrical performance, depending on the tasks assigned (performance of Task 2 is stronger than for Task 1), and on the sex of individuals who made up the parent-offspring pair (male parents are better matched with neonates than female parents, and boys are better matched than girls). The picture that emerges from our study is, on one hand, that the ability to detect kinship is already present at the age of five but continues to improve as one gets older, and on the other, that perception of parent-offspring facial resemblance varies according to the appraisers’ characteristics.     

Going Deep,Going Wide

Contemporary theories of psychoanalytic action have for the most part shifted from an archeological model—analyst as objective scientist/detective in search of patients’ deeply repressed affective experience—to analyst as often unwitting co-participant in a relationship ultimately designed to broaden patients’ awareness and acceptance of their varied internalized self-other configurations. These sometimes dissociated configurations often emerge in the context mutual enactments between patient and analyst.     

The importance of feature distribution and correlation for simulating 3 to 4-month-old infants' visual categorization processes

Mareschal, French, and Quinn (2000) and Mareschal, Quinn, and French (2002) have proposed a connectionist model of visual categorization in 3- to 4-month-old infants that simulates and predicts previously unexplained behavioural effects such as the asymmetric categorization effect (French, Mareschal, Mermillod, & Quinn, 2004). In the current paper, we show that the model's ability to simulate the asymmetry depends on the correlational structure of the stimuli. These results are important given that adults (Anderson & Fincham, 1996) as well as infants (Younger & Cohen, 1986) are able to rely on correlation information to perform visual categorization. At a behavioural level, the current paper suggests that pure bottom-up processes, based on the correlational structure of the categories, could explain the disappearance of the asymmetry in older 10-month-old infants (Furrer & Younger, 2005). Moreover, our results also raise new challenges for visual categorization models that attempt to simulate the shift from asymmetric categorization in 3- to 4-month-old to symmetric categorization in 10-month-old infants (Shultz & Cohen, 2004; Westermann & Mareschal, 2004, 2012).     

REFLECTIONS ON THE FAILURE OF THE LOVERS OF ZION

This article considers the important role of archival photographs in the work of historians, artists and writers of the generation after the Holocaust. Powerful “points of memory” linking past and present, memory and postmemory, individual remembrance and cultural recall, photographs can offer evidence of past crimes and function as haunting specters that enable an affective visceral connection to the past. And yet, photographs may also be limited and flawed historical documents, promising more than they can actually reveal. The article argues that such ambiguous evidence may be a resource for historians seeking to grasp and transmit the past's emotional truth.     

Analysts' observing-participation with theory

The author summarizes some of the literature's critiques of psychoanalytic theory, which have noted its constrictive quality and failure to take into account the vicissitudes of treatment within each analytic dyad. Such postmodern reactions have given rise to a countertheoretical trend toward psychoanalytic pluralism, leading the author to suggest that a single, standard psychoanalytic technique no longer exists. The interpersonal tradition, which tends to prioritize praxis over theory, is discussed in the light of its emphasis on an intersubjective model of participant-observation, and two clinical vignettes are presented to illustrate the author's way of utilizing this model.     

Reasons for Leaving: Causes and Initial Triggers for Disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism

Investigating both the causes and initial triggers for disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism is an important part of understanding the complex lived experiences of exiters. This study documents an extensive number of causes for leaving Orthodox Judaism, as well as initial triggers, a less-often investigated, yet important component of disaffiliation. Using an online survey, over 700 open-ended responses were collected from 303 participants who self-identified as having grown up practicing Orthodox Judaism but had since stopped practicing. Content analysis was used to organize responses, resulting in distinct categories that fit into two themes: intellectual and social-emotional, the former more often reported by males and the latter by females. The most commonly reported causes and initial triggers, respectively, were issues with the community and lack of belief in Torah and Orthodoxy. Our results give voice to exiters by documenting nuanced accounts of the full disaffiliation journey, beginning with the initial trigger.     

Summer and school-term youth employment: ecological and longitudinal analyses.

The effects of summer versus school-year employment on self-esteem, peer relationships, and family social climate were investigated in a sample of 135 adolescents. Students were assessed the summer before entrance into high school and during the second semester of high school, using a longitudinal design. Cross-sectional findings indicated that, during the summer, 52 workers possessed higher self-esteem than 79 nonworkers. Longitudinal analysis indicated that 10 girls who worked only during the school term reported increases in both stress and activity with peers. At our final assessment, the families of 49 students who did not work at either time had become more conflicted and less cohesive than families of all other students. The developmental implications of these results are discussed.