Development of the appearance-reality distinction

Young children can express conceptual difficulties with the appearance-reality distinction in two different ways: (1) by incorrectly reporting appearance when asked to report reality (“phenomenism”); (2) by incorrectly reporting reality when asked to report appearance (“intellectual realism”). Although both phenomenism errors and intellectual realism errors have been observed in previous studies of young children's cognition, the two have not been seen as conceptually related and only the former errors have been taken as a symptom of difficulties with the appearance-reality distinction. Three experiments investigated 3- to 5-year-old children's ability to distinguish between and correctly identify real versus apparent object properties (color, size, and shape), object identities, object presence-absence, and action identities. Even the 3-year-olds appeared to have some ability to make correct appearance-reality discriminations and this ability increased with age. Errors were frequent, however, and almost all children who erred made both kinds. Phenomenism errors predominated on tasks where the appearance versus reality of the three object properties were in question; intellectual realism errors predominated on the other three types of tasks. Possible reasons for this curious error pattern were advanced. It was also suggested that young children's problems with the appearance-reality distinction may be partly due to a specific metacognitive limitation, namely, a difficulty in analyzing the nature and source of their own mental representations.     

Life experiences of people who stutter, and the perceived impact of stuttering on quality of life: personal accounts of South African individuals

The purpose of the study was to investigate the life experiences of a group of South African adults who stutter and the impact of stuttering on their quality of life. Participants were 16 adults with a mean age of 28.9 and ranging from 20 to 59 years. Methods involved individual interviews designed to explore the life domains of education; social life; employment; speech therapy; family and marital life; and identity, beliefs and emotional issues. Main findings of the study indicated that the majority of participants perceived their stuttering to have impacted on their academic performance at school, and relationships with teachers and classmates. Although their stuttering was not perceived to adversely influence their ability to establish friendships, people generally reacted negatively to their stuttering. Many felt that their stuttering did not have an adverse effect on their choice of occupation, ability to obtain work, and relationships with managers and co-workers, although it was perceived to influence their work performance and hamper their chances for promotion. Although the majority viewed their speech therapy experiences as being negative; more than half the sample believed that speech therapy had, nevertheless exerted a positive effect on their quality of life. Overall, stuttering did not appear to have influenced participants’ family and marital life. Most participants felt that stuttering had affected their self-esteem and self-image, and had evoked strong emotions within them. Findings are taken to suggest the need to incorporate subjective feelings about stuttering into the clinical practice of speech-language therapy; to provide information and coping strategies for teachers and employers; and for further research.

Educational objectives: After completing this activity, the reader will be able to: (1) describe and explain the perceived impact of stuttering on quality of life in terms of education; social life; employment; speech therapy; family and marital life; and identity, beliefs and emotional issues; (2) to interpret and utilize the subjective meanings that individuals attach to their stuttering to improve stuttering treatment, counseling and research.     

Organizing and maintaining peer supervision groups

Peer supervision groups (PSGs) are attractive to psychotherapists for many reasons, including ongoing consultation and support, networking, and combating professional isolation. These leaderless groups offer opportunities for interpersonal learning from peers, and the parallel process within PSGs can be an important consultative tool. Unfortunately, many PSGs fail. PSGs benefit from careful attention to contract, task, gatekeeping, and group process, including resistances and dynamics of competition, and shame.     

The relations between contextual risk, earned income, and the school adjustment of children from economically disadvantaged families

This longitudinal study examined the relations between multiple risk indexes representing contextual adversity, income-to-needs ratios, and the elementary school adjustment of children from economically disadvantaged families. The results provide evidence for volatility in family circumstances over 2-year intervals from preschool to 5th grade, for relations between the contextual risk indexes and change in externalizing behavior, and for relations between the income-to-needs ratios and change in academic competence. The results also show differences in the timing of the effects. Little evidence was found for persistence effects. Theoretical implications concern conceptualizations of the diverse and dynamic nature of the family circumstances experienced by disadvantaged children.     

Understanding Social Anxiety Disorder in Adolescents and Improving Treatment Outcomes: Applying the Cognitive Model of Clark and Wells (1995)

Social anxiety disorder is a condition characterised by a marked and persistent fear of being humiliated or scrutinised by others. Age-of-onset data point to adolescence as a developmentally sensitive period for the emergence of the condition, at a time when the peer group becomes increasingly important. Social anxiety in adolescence is associated with considerable impairment that persists through to adulthood. There are clear potential benefits to delivering effective interventions during adolescence. However, there is limited evidence on the specific efficacy of available therapies. This is in contrast to adults, for whom we have interventions with very specific treatment effects. One such treatment is individual cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is based on the cognitive model of social anxiety proposed by Clark and Wells (in: Heimberg, Leibowitz, Hope, Scheiber (eds) Social phobia: diagnosis, assessment and treatment, The Guilford Press, New York, 1995). The present review examines the potential application of this adult cognitive model to the understanding of adolescent social anxiety and considers additional adolescent-specific factors that need to be accommodated. It is suggested that a developmentally sensitive adoption of the cognitive model of social anxiety disorder (Clark and Wells 1995) for adolescents may lead to better treatment outcomes.     

Examining Current Conceptualizations of Psychopathology With the MMPI–2/MMPI–2–RF Restructured Clinical Scales: Preliminary Findings From a Cross-Cultural Study

Watson (2005 Watson, D. (2005). Rethinking the mood and anxiety disorders: A quantitative hierarchical model for DSM–V. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 522–536.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) proposed a hierarchical reorganization of the underlying structure of emotional disorders. This study cross-culturally evaluated Watson's (2005) structure of mood and anxiety disorders, using mainly dichotomous criteria, and explored the placement of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) in this model. It also tested Sellbom, Ben-Porath, and Bagby's (2008) proposed elaboration of the 2-factor model (positive and negative activation) that incorporates a higher order dimension of demoralization. One hundred men and 133 women from psychiatric settings in Israel completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (Butcher et al., 2001 Butcher, J. N., Graham, J. R., Ben-Porath, Y. S., Tellegen, A., Dahlstrom, W. G., &; Kaemmer, B. (2001). Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2): Manual for administration, scoring and interpretation (Rev. ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and the Maudsley Obsessional–Compulsive Inventory (Hodgson &; Rachman, 1977 Hodgson, R. J., &; Rachman, S. (1977). Obsessive–compulsive complaints. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 15, 389–395.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). They were interviewed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (Sheehan et al., 1998 Sheehan, D. V., Lecrubier, Y., Sheehan, K. H., Amorim, P., Janavs, J., &; Weiller, E. (1998). The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.): The development and validation of a structured diagnostic psychiatric interview for DSM–IV and ICD–10. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 59, 22–33.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Confirmatory factor analyses replicated Watson's structure for women but not for men. Mixed results were obtained regarding OCD's location in the model. Findings among women support the applicability of Watson's (2005) model across a variety of assessment modalities, as well as in a different language and for diversified cultural backgrounds. This conclusion, however, should be tempered in consideration of the results among men. Findings also provide evidence of the importance of demoralization in mood and anxiety disorders.