Value Realism and the Internalism/Externalism Debate

Philosophical Studies -     

The Therapeutic Relationship as Viewed by Existential Psychotherapy: Re-Embracing the World

Existential psychotherapy places pivotal significance upon the interrelational aspects of human experience. By so doing, the therapeutic relationship itself becomes the principal means through which the client's presenting symptoms and disorders are disclosed as direct expressions and outcomes of the client's overall way of being rather than as isolated and disruptive impediments. This paper examines the therapeutic relationship as viewed from four primary interrelational dimensions. Further, it focuses upon psychotherapy's tendency to exclude the world from the therapeutic relationship and provides two novel and challenging alternatives whose principal aim is to bring the world back into the therapeutic relationship.     

Constructing the past: An existential-phenomenological analysis

Beginning with a critical overview of more typical therapeutic assumptions regarding linear causality and the fixedness and constancy of the past, this paper argues from a perspective that emphasises 1) the distinction between the past per se and the remembered past; and 2) the fluidity of the remembered past. the author then presents an alternative argument, derived from existential-phenomenological analysis, that the principal function of the remembered past is to both reflect and validate the currently maintained and future-directed self-construct. Some initial implications for psychotherapy and counselling raised by this hypothesis are discussed both generally and via a brief case vignette.     

Motivational enhancement treatment in outpatient addiction centers: A multisite randomized trial

Background/Objectives: Motivational Enhancement Treatment in Spanish (METS) is a brief intervention aimed at resolving patient ambivalence towards behavior change that has demonstrated efficacy in substance use disorder treatment to reduce use and increase treatment engagement in different populations. In order to have evidence for its implementation in Mexico, a multi-site, randomized, two-arm, controlled clinical trial was conducted at three outpatient addiction treatment centers in the country to compare the effect of METS with Counseling as Usual (CAU). Method: One hundred and twenty patients were randomized to receive three sessions of METS (n = 54) or CAU (n = 66) during the first four weeks of treatment and were assessed during the following 12 weeks. Primary outcome measures were self-reported days of substance use and of treatment services utilization, which were tested using Generalized Estimating Equations. Results: Results associated both conditions with significant changes in substance use over, whereas there were no differences between conditions in substance use or in service utilization. Conclusions: Findings do not support the hypothesis that METS is more effective than CAU, but suggest that brief interventions at treatment initiation may improve patient outcomes.     

Identification of the 1PL Model with Guessing Parameter: Parametric and Semi-parametric Results

In this paper, we study the identification of a particular case of the 3PL model, namely when the discrimination parameters are all constant and equal to 1. We term this model, 1PL-G model. The identification analysis is performed under three different specifications. The first specification considers the abilities as unknown parameters. It is proved that the item parameters and the abilities are identified if a difficulty parameter and a guessing parameter are fixed at zero. The second specification assumes that the abilities are mutually independent and identically distributed according to a distribution known up to the scale parameter. It is shown that the item parameters and the scale parameter are identified if a guessing parameter is fixed at zero. The third specification corresponds to a semi-parametric 1PL-G model, where the distribution G generating the abilities is a parameter of interest. It is not only shown that, after fixing a difficulty parameter and a guessing parameter at zero, the item parameters are identified, but also that under those restrictions the distribution G is not identified. It is finally shown that, after introducing two identification restrictions, either on the distribution G or on the item parameters, the distribution G and the item parameters are identified provided an infinite quantity of items is available.     

On the Bayesian Nonparametric Generalization of IRT-Type Models

We study the identification and consistency of Bayesian semiparametric IRT-type models, where the uncertainty on the abilities’ distribution is modeled using a prior distribution on the space of probability measures. We show that for the semiparametric Rasch Poisson counts model, simple restrictions ensure the identification of a general distribution generating the abilities, even for a finite number of probes. For the semiparametric Rasch model, only a finite number of properties of the general abilities’ distribution can be identified by a finite number of items, which are completely characterized. The full identification of the semiparametric Rasch model can be only achieved when an infinite number of items is available. The results are illustrated using simulated data.