The Efficacy of Toddler-Parent Psychotherapy for Fostering Cognitive Development in Offspring of Depressed Mothers

The efficacy of Toddler-Parent Psychotherapy (TPP) as a preventive intervention for fostering cognitive development in the offspring of depressed mothers was evaluated. Mothers with major depressive disorder and their toddlers were randomly assigned to TPP (n = 43) or to a nonintervention group (n = 54) and compared to a control group (n = 61) of women with no current or past mental disorder. At baseline (age 20 months), the groups did not differ on the Bayley Mental Development Index. At post-intervention follow-up (age 3 years), a relative decline in IQ was found in the depressed nonintervention group, whereas the depressed intervention and the normal control groups continued to be equivalent, with higher WPPSI-R Full Scale and Verbal IQs. The worst outcome was found among nonintervention children whose mothers had subsequent depressive episodes. The results confirm the developmental risks faced by offspring of depressed mothers and support the efficacy of the preventive intervention in safeguarding successful cognitive development in at-risk youngsters.     

Effects of spatial and symbolic precues on localization performance

One of the fundamental properties of spatial vision is the ability to localize objects in space. According to a recent proposal, accurate localization performance involves the operation of two systems: the attention system and the eye movement system. Upon stimulus presentation, attention is shifted to the target area: this provides coarse location information. Subsequently, a saccadic eye movement is executed: this provides fine location information. In this study we tested predictions derived from this model concerning the effects of precue information on localization performance. In a series of five experiments we manipulated duration of precue (71, 400, and 1,000 ms) and type of precue (spatial versus symbolic). Results showed that very short duration (i.e., 71 ms) spatial precues improved localization performance whereas very short duration symbolic precues did not. In contrast, the 1,000 ms duration precue condition showed similar amounts of precuing benefit for the spatial and symbolic precues. This pattern of differential precuing effects corroborated the two-process model of localization performance. Received: 24 June 1999 / Accepted: 28 January 2000     

How can we know what we need to know? Reflections on clinical judgment formation

What distinguishes a psychoanalyst from any other psychologically minded, empathic human being? This seemingly simple question goes to the heart of our profession, the way we see ourselves as competent clinicians. To understand a patient's material beyond ordinary empathy--that is, to come to a clinical judgment--we need to step out of the dyadic, countertransference situation and reflect what we've experienced in reference to our clinical theories. An analytic vignette shows how a theoretical background can be used to understand and interpret to a patient in a way that is deeply meaningful.     

One form of self-analysis

Beginning with Freud, psychoanalysts have discovered media through which they may achieve a self-analytic experience (for example, by use of dreams, fantasies, reveries, memories, and even visual images). Each of these media is a kind of "fiction" created by the analyst that provides an imaginative space where he or she may gain access to unconscious life. The author demonstrates how a generative self-analytic experience may be accomplished through the medium of psychoanalytic writing: a fictional autobiographical form of writing through which a self-analytic experience is created that has much in common with the analytic experience created by the analyst and analysand.     

Family Protection and Prevention of Alcohol Use Among Hispanic Youth at High Risk

Research regarding prevention strategies for Hispanic youth stress the importance of family interventions because of the particular importance of family as a protective factor within the Hispanic community. Starting in 1995, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention conducted the National Cross-Site Evaluation of High Risk Youth Programs, a 5-year drug and alcohol prevention study with a sample of approximately 10,500 youth, including nearly 3,000 Hispanic youth. Youth were surveyed regarding their alcohol use patterns and risk and protective factors, with several measures of family relationships, including family connectedness, family supervision, and parental attitudes toward their child's alcohol use. Analyses indicate that family factors are highly linked to alcohol use among Hispanics, particularly among Hispanic females. Longitudinal growth curve analyses indicate that improving the connections that young Hispanic females have to their parents can have positive long-term effects on delaying or reducing their alcohol use. This evaluation was conducted under the direction of Dr. Soledad Sambrano, Ph.D. of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention under contract #2777-95-5002 with EMT Associates, Inc. and ORC Macro. The views expressed herein represent the opinions and analyses of the individual authors and may not necessarily reflect the opinions, official policy, or position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, or the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.     

Public and private heart rate feedback in social phobia: a manipulation of anxiety visibility

According to cognitive behavioural models of social phobia, bodily symptoms are the main source of information concerning social evaluation for social phobics. Experience and perception of bodily symptoms therefore play an important role in social anxiety. In this study we evaluated the effects of anxiety visibility on patients and controls using feedback of veridical heart sounds. A total of 32 social phobics and 32 controls were asked twice to sit in a chair and appear relaxed while being evaluated. Half of the participants heard their heart sounds first via headphones and then via loudspeakers which were also audible to observers. The presentation order of the heart sound was reversed for the other half of the subjects. Social phobics reported substantially more anxiety than controls. Both groups showed habituation in heart rate from the first to the second presentation, and both groups reported perception of a higher heart rate, but only social phobics reported significantly more anxiety and were more worried about their heart rates in the public than in the private condition. These effects were in excess of actual heart rate differences. In conclusion, social phobics worried about the broadcast of a bodily anxiety symptom, whereas controls did not. Information about arousal made public has a strong potential to increase anxiety levels in social phobics.     

Predictors of resilience in maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children

To date, few studies have sought to investigate the effects of child maltreatment and processes influencing maladaptation and resilience in Latino children. In the current investigation, multiple aspects of functioning, personal resources, and relationship features were examined in school-age maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children. Maltreated Latino children were found to have fewer areas of resilient functioning. Ego-resiliency and ego-control, as personal resources, and the ability to form a positive relationship with an adult figure outside of the immediate family predicted resilience. However, certain aspects of interpersonal functioning were differentially related to resilience for maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children. These findings have implications for understanding how resilience can be promoted in maltreated and nonmaltreated Latino children.     

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: doctoral students' experiences of family therapy research training through alternative forms of data representation

In this study, we interviewed 14 doctoral students from 10 COAMFTE-accredited doctoral programs to learn more about how they experienced their research training and what they might suggest to strengthen the research culture in their training programs. We solicited somewhat unconventional data--metaphors, poetry, free associations, critical experiences--to (a) tap into our participants' underlying thought processes, (b) capture the multifaceted nature of their doctoral research training, and (c) represent the richness of our participants' subjective experiences. The themes we identified reflect both positive and negative research training experiences and suggest several ways that family therapy program faculty might improve their programs' research training and culture.     

Receiving instrumental support at work: when help is not welcome

Although the role of social support in promoting employees' health and well-being has been studied extensively, the evidence is inconsistent, sometimes even suggesting that social support might have negative effects. The authors examined some psychological processes that might explain such effects. On the basis of the threat-to-self-esteem model, the authors tested the hypothesis that receiving imposed support elicits negative reactions, which are moderated by someone's need for support. The authors distinguished 3 different reactions: (a) self-related, (b) interaction-related, and (c) physiological. The results of an experiment with 48 temporary administrative workers generally confirmed the hypothesis. Imposed support elicited negative reactions, except when there was an unsolvable problem, but even then the effect of imposed support was not positive but neutral.