Counseling in Greece

There is rapid growth in Greece's professional and research activity in counseling, despite the lack of a clear professional identity for the field. It is hoped this will be overcome through the newly started graduate programs. Opportunities, objectives, and strategies for counseling's advancement should be directed toward close and essential collaboration at a European and at an international level, which will blend elements of original and host cultures with academic knowledge and professional counseling experience.     

The effects of marriage education for army couples with a history of infidelity

While existing literature has begun to explore risk factors which may predict differential response to marriage education, a history of couple infidelity has not been examined to determine whether infidelity moderates the impacts of marriage education. The current study evaluated self-report marital satisfaction and communication skills in a sample of 662 married Army couples randomly assigned to marriage education (i.e., PREP) or a no-treatment control group and assessed prior to intervention, post intervention, and at 1 year after intervention. Of these, 23.4% couples reported a history of infidelity in their marriage. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated that having a history of infidelity significantly moderated the impact of PREP for marital satisfaction, with a trend for a similar effect on communication skills. However, couples with a history of infidelity assigned to PREP did not reach the same levels of marital satisfaction after intervention seen in the group of couples without infidelity assigned to PREP, although they did show comparable scores on communication skills after intervention. Implications of these findings for relationship education with couples with a history of infidelity are discussed.     

Comprehensive Trail Making Test performance in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury

The sensitivity of the Trail Making Test to brain damage has been well-established over many years, making it one of the most commonly used tests in clinical neuropsychological evaluations. The current study examined the validity of scores from a newer version of the Trail Making Test, the Comprehensive Trail Making Test (CTMT), in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Participants included 242 children and adolescents, 121 with sustained TBI and 121 normal control participants, who were matched to the individuals with TBI on age and sex. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that the CTMT composite index provided the best overall classification, with a correct classification rate of 79%. Differences between the TBI and control groups remained stable across age. These findings indicate that the CTMT is sensitive to TBI and overall demonstrates classification rates that are comparable with some other versions of the Trail Making Test. Whether the CTMT will exhibit similar classification accuracy in adults with TBI and for other neurological disorders awaits further investigation.     

Psychometric Properties of the European Portuguese Adaptation of the Insomnia Catastrophizing Scale (ICS)

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - The current study developed the first translation and adaptation of the ICS (Insomnia Catastrophizing Scale) into European Portuguese,...     

Recollecting positive and negative autobiographical memories disrupts working memory

The present article reports two experiments examining the impact of recollecting emotionally valenced autobiographical memories on subsequent working memory (WM) task performance. Experiment 1 found that negatively valenced recollection significantly disrupted performance on a supra-span spatial WM task. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these findings to a verbal WM task (digit recall), and found that both negative and positive autobiographical recollections had a detrimental effect on verbal WM. In addition, we observed that these disruptive effects were more apparent on early trials, immediately following autobiographical recollection. Overall, these findings show that both positive and negative affect can disrupt WM when the mood-eliciting context is based on autobiographical memories. Furthermore, these results indicate that the emotional disruption of WM can take place across different modalities of WM (verbal and visuo-spatial).     

Intentions vs. resemblance: Understanding pictures in typical development and autism

Research has debated whether children reflect on artists’ intentions when comprehending pictures, or instead derive meaning entirely from resemblance. We explore these hypotheses by comparing how typically developing toddlers and low-functioning children with autism (a population impaired in intentional reasoning) interpret abstract pictures. In Experiment 1, both groups mapped familiar object names onto abstract pictures, however, they related the same representations to different 3-D referents. Toddlers linked abstract pictures with intended referents they did not resemble, while children with autism mapped picture-referent relations based on resemblance. Experiment 2 showed that toddlers do not rely upon linguistic cues to determine intended referential relations. Experiment 3 confirmed that the responding of children with autism was not due to perseveration or associative word learning, and also provided independent evidence of their intention-reading difficulties. We argue that typically developing children derive meaning from the social-communicative intentions underlying pictures when resemblance is an inadequate cue to meaning. By contrast, children with autism do not reflect on artists’ intentions and simply relate pictures to whatever they happen to resemble.     

Rivers of milk and honey ‐ an exploration of nurturing the self in a Russian context

This paper is an exploration of the relationship between nurturing in all its contexts ‐ among them, the nursing couple and the therapeutic relationship ‐ and the evolution of an individual self. The ideas are illustrated by a case vignette of a Russian patient. An attempt is made to show that when the self as an integral unity of body and soul is addressed in the analytic setting, ‘nutritional dreams’ emerge as expressions of the self‐in‐action. Certain psycholinguistic features of the Russian cultural context are described which suggest a link of meaning between development of the self and secure parenting. This linguistic association may facilitate the process of self‐centering.     

Feasibility of a Community Intervention for the Prevention of Suicide and Alcohol Abuse with Yup’ik Alaska Native Youth: The Elluam Tungiinun and Yupiucimta Asvairtuumallerkaa Studies

The Elluam Tungiinun and Yupiucimta Asvairtuumallerkaa studies evaluated the feasibility of a community intervention to prevent suicide and alcohol abuse among rural Yup’ik Alaska Native youth in two remote communities. The intervention originated in an Indigenous model of protection, and its development used a community based participatory research process. Feasibility assessment aimed to assess the extent to which (1) the intervention could be implemented in rural Alaska Native communities, and (2) the intervention was capable of producing measurable effects. Scales maximally sensitive to change were derived from earlier measurement work, and the study contrasted implementation process and outcomes across the two communities. In one community, medium dose response effects (d = .30–.50), with dose defined as number of intervention activities attended, were observed in the growth of intermediate protective factors and ultimate variables. In the other community, medium dose effects were observed for one intermediate protective factor variable, and small dose effects were observed in ultimate variables. Differences across communities in resources supporting intervention explain these contrasting outcomes. Results suggest implementation in these rural Alaska settings is feasible when sufficient resources are available to sustain high levels of local commitment. In such cases, measureable effects are sufficient to warrant a prevention trial.     

Numerical acuity of fish is improved in the presence of moving targets,but only in the subitizing range

There is controversy in comparative psychology about whether on the one hand non-symbolic number estimation of small (≤4) and large numbers involves a single mechanism (an approximate number system), or whether on the other hand enumeration of the numbers 1–4 is accomplished by a separate mechanism, an object tracking system. To date, support for the latter hypothesis has come only from the different ratio-dependency of performance seen in the two numerical ranges, a reading that has been criticized on several grounds. In humans, the two-system hypothesis is supported by evidence showing that manipulation of the physical properties of the stimuli (e.g., the motion of the items) has dissimilar effects on small- and large-number discrimination. In this research, we studied this effect on guppies. Initially, fish were trained to simultaneously discriminate two numerical contrasts having the same easy ratio (0.50): one in the small-number (2 vs. 4) range and one in the large-number (6 vs. 12) range. Half of the fish were presented with moving items; the other half were shown the same stimuli without motion. Fish were then subjected to non-reinforced probe trials in the presence of a more difficult ratio (0.75: 3 vs. 4 and 9 vs. 12). Under both static and moving conditions, the fish significantly discriminated 6 versus 12, but not 9 versus 12 items. As regards small numbers, both groups learned to discriminate a 0.50 ratio, but only fish tested with moving stimuli also discriminated 3 and 4 items. This differential effect suggests that fish may possess two separate systems for small- and large-number discrimination.