‘A baptism of fire’: A qualitative investigation of a trainee counsellor's experience at the start of training

Background: Belief in the effectiveness of professional counselling and psychotherapy training is widespread and generally unquestioned. Few studies have attempted to understand the changes experienced by trainees, or identified which aspects of professional training programmes assist them in the process of becoming therapists. Aims: to investigate how a trainee counsellor changes at the start of training, and to identify which aspects of a professional counsellor training programme were helpful in instigating and supporting change. Method: the experience of one trainee counsellor, Margaret, was captured through three semi-structured interviews conducted at the beginning, middle and end of her first term. The data were subjected to systematic qualitative analysis. Findings: Margaret experienced significant change during her first term. Each interview revealed a different phase of her development. The core categories were: becoming something new (week 3); growth in therapeutic confidence (week 6); surviving ‘stressful involvement’ through supervision (week 11). Experiential learning, in particular group supervision, was helpful throughout. The presence of real clients was identified as the main driver for change. Conclusion: The findings were found to be consistent with a number of other studies, which suggest that training is potentially painful because of the emotional demands it places on trainees, particularly at the start of practice. Consequently trainees require opportunities for experiential learning, peer support and supportive supervision to assist them in their development, but most importantly, given that supportive supervision can only minimise the harm of stressful involvement (Orlinsky & Ronnestad, 2005), they need early positive experiences with clients.     

Perceptual load modulates the processing of distractors presented at task-irrelevant locations during the attentional blink

The distribution of attention in both space and time is critical for processing our dynamic environment. Studies of spatial attention suggest that the distribution of attention is decreased when the perceptual load of a task increases, resulting in decreased processing of task-irrelevant distractors. Studies of the attentional blink (AB) suggest that the temporal distribution of attention also influences distractor processing, such that distractor processing increases during the AB relative to outside the AB (Jiang & Chun, 2001). Two experiments are reported in which the extent to which the difficulty of the first target task (T1) modulates the processing of task-irrelevant distractors during the AB was tested. To investigate this issue, both the first and second target tasks (T1 and T2) required identifying a central stimulus that was flanked by low-load or high-load distractors. Consistent with previous studies of the AB, there was evidence of more distractor processing during the AB than outside the AB. Critically, however, the interference caused by distractors presented simultaneously with T2 during the AB was reduced when T1 perceptual load was high relative to when it was low. These results suggest that increasing T1 perceptual load decreases distractor processing during the AB and that perceptual processes influence both the temporal and spatial distribution of attention.     

Intergenerational effects of cocaine on maternal aggressive behavior and brain oxytocin in rat dams

Gestational cocaine treatment results in significantly increased maternal aggression towards an intruder by postpartum day six, while acute postpartum treatment dose dependently decreases maternal aggressive (MA) behavior. Both increased and decreased aggression in the cocaine-treated dams are correlated with either decreased or increased levels of oxytocin in the amygdala, respectively. The current study was an effort to determine whether the effect of gestational cocaine on maternal aggression is transient or would continue into the postpartum period; whether an intermittent cocaine treatment regimen, which incorporates gestational and postpartum intermittent cocaine treatment, would differ from chronic daily gestational treatment; and finally, whether next generation female offspring of cocaine-treated or control dams would have altered MA behavior and oxytocin system changes attributable to either prenatal drug exposure, rearing condition or both. We now report no increase in maternal aggression following chronic gestational treatment and significantly lower levels of aggression in intermittently treated dams on postpartum day eight, with no significant effects in either group on postpartum day 12. Young adult female offspring of the cocaine-treated and control dams, who reared their own natural litters and were tested on postpartum day eight for maternal aggression, had higher levels of maternal aggression towards an intruder attributable to both prenatal cocaine exposure and rearing condition. Higher aggression in cocaine-reared next generation dams was associated with lower levels of oxytocin in the amygdala. Intergenerational effects of cocaine were apparent with respect to aggression and oxytocin system changes.     

Intra-amygdala anxiogenic drug infusion prior to retrieval biases rats towards the use of habit memory

In a dual-solution plus-maze task that can be acquired using either hippocampus-dependent "cognitive/place" learning or dorsal striatal-dependent "habit/response" learning, pre-acquisition peripheral or intra-basolateral amygdala (BLA) injections of anxiogenic drugs result in the predominant use of response learning. The present experiments examined the effect of anxiogenic drug treatment on the relative use of multiple memory systems when administered prior to memory retrieval. Adult male Long-Evans rats were trained for two days (6 trials/day, 30s ITI) in a dual-solution plus-maze task to swim from the same start point (south) to an escape platform that was located in a consistent goal arm (west). On day three, prior to a memory retrieval probe trial from a novel start point (north), rats received a peripheral (0.03, 0.1 or 0.3 mg/kg), or intra-BLA (0.1 microg/0.5 microl) injection of the anxiogenic alpha(2)-adrenoreceptor antagonist RS 79948-197, or saline. Relative to saline controls, rats receiving either peripheral or intra-BLA infusions of RS 79948-197 predominantly displayed response learning on the probe trial. In an additional experiment peripheral (0.1 mg/kg) or intra-BLA (0.1 microg) drug injections administered prior to both acquisition and retrieval also resulted in the predominant use of response learning. The findings indicate that (1) similar to acquisition, peripheral injection of an anxiogenic drug prior to memory retrieval biases rats towards the use of habit/response memory, (2) intra-BLA infusions of an anxiogenic drug is sufficient to produce this modulatory effect of emotional state on memory retrieval, and (3) state-dependency does not appear to play a role in the effects of anxiogenic drug treatment on multiple memory system use. The findings may have implications for understanding the interaction between brain function, emotion, and the relative use of multiple memory systems in human psychopathology.     

Memory outcome after pediatric epilepsy surgery: objective and subjective perspectives.

Memory was investigated in 27 children and adolescents in a longitudinal study before and at one and two years after epilepsy surgery. A comparison group with intractable epilepsy (n = 15), matched in age, sex, age of seizure onset, and IQ, was studied at comparable points in time. Methods included administration of standardized measures of story recall and face recognition, and qualitative interviews to probe the participants' perceptions of their memory function over time. There was no significant change over time in either group on the standardized measures. Site and laterality of excision, age at surgery, and seizure outcome were not predictive of change within the surgical group. The narratives revealed facets of memory that were problematic in daily life. The objective and subjective results showed low concordance regarding change, possibly due to limitations in the objective measures for capturing semantic and autobiographical memory.     

Online control of discrete action following visual perturbation

We examined the spatial and temporal limitations of the visual corrective process in goal-directed aiming, as well as gender differences in online control. An initial experiment was conducted to test the utility of a monocular switch procedure as a method of rapidly introducing a visual perturbation. The results revealed minimal effect of the monocular switch on movement time and the endpoint error. Following this control experiment, prismatic displacement was introduced at the initiation of and during the movement. In the third experiment, the prism was presented prior to movement initiation, and then removed at the beginning of or during the movement. Movement trajectories were most influenced by the early presentation and removal of the prism, and female performance was significantly more affected by both perturbations than male performance.     

Church Attendance and Marital Commitment Beliefs of Undergraduate Women

Marital commitment between spouses has been found to be an important predictor of successful marriages. Beliefs about marital commitment among never-married young adults are of interest because of their probable influence on subsequent marital behaviors. The current study examined social-cognitive processes; specifically, religiousness, locus-of-control beliefs, and gender role attitudes, in the prediction of marital commitment beliefs among 294 undergraduate never-married women. We found that higher religiousness and lower chance locus of control were significantly correlated with stronger marital commitment beliefs. Multiple regression analyses revealed that religiousness was the best predictor of marital commitment beliefs in this sample. Social learning processes are implicated in the development of marital commitment beliefs. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Oscillatory priming and form complexity

Detection of a target grouping is expedited when the target display is preceded by presentation of an oscillating premask that includes priming elements presented intraphasically and below detection threshold at the display locations subsequently occupied by the target. Five experiments were performed to investigate how priming is affected by both the complexity and the geometry of prime/target forms. Experiment 1 showed that the subjective complexity of different polygons was coded in accord with an objective measure of form complexity. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed oscillatory priming to increase as a function of the subjective complexity of prime/target forms when those forms were regular and predictable. However, Experiments 4 and 5 showed that this relation did not hold when the prime/target forms were irregular and unpredictable. Taken together, it is argued that both subjective complexity and the Pr?gnanz quality of the prime/target forms come to determine the magnitude of priming. These results are discussed with reference to current physiological hypotheses regarding perceptual organization.     

Resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled personality prototypes among persons with spinal cord injury

A sample of 199 persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) were assessed on Big Five personality dimensions using the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992) at admission to an inpatient medical rehabilitation program. A cluster analysis of the baseline NEO-FFI yielded 3 cluster prototypes that resemble resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled prototypes identified in many previous studies of children and adult community samples. Compared with normative samples, this sample had significantly fewer resilient prototypes and significantly more overcontrolled and undercontrolled prototypes. Undercontrolled individuals were the modal prototype. The resilient and undercontrolled types were better adjusted than the overcontrolled types, showing lower levels of depression at admission and higher acceptance of disability at discharge. The resilient type at admission predicted the most effective reports of social problem-solving abilities at discharge and the overcontrolled type the least. We discuss the implications of these results for assessment and interventions in rehabilitation settings.