Demands for Privacy Among Adolescents in Multimodal Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Treatment

Adolescent clients' perceptions of the limits of confidentiality, as well as their privacy demands within the counseling relationship, were assessed. A total of 30 adolescents involved in individual, group, and family counseling for alcohol and other drug abuse served as participants. Participants were asked to respond to vignettes of confidentiality issues in terms of what they believed the counselor should do and what they would prefer the counselor to do. Results suggested that adolescents generally want higher levels of confidentiality than they expect to receive. This group of adolescent clients, however, made clear distinctions in their privacy expectations and demands according to specific situations.     

Latent Profiles of Comorbid Depression as Predictors of PTSD Treatment Outcome

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently co-occurs with major depressive disorder, and empirically supported PTSD treatments consistently improve depression. However, both diagnoses are heterogeneous and specific patterns of symptom overlap may be related to worse treatment outcome. Two hundred individuals with chronic PTSD participated in a doubly randomized preference trial comparing prolonged exposure and sertraline. Latent Profile Analysis was used to identify classes based on PTSD and depression symptoms prior to starting treatment. A three-class model best fit the data, with a high depression and PTSD severity class (distressed), a moderate depression and low PTSD avoidance class (depressive), and a low depression and high PTSD avoidance class (avoidant). The avoidant class showed the lowest rates of major depressive disorder diagnosis and transdiagnostic vulnerabilities to depression. Patients in the distressed class experienced more robust PTSD treatment response, with no differences between prolonged exposure and sertraline. These findings highlight the role of avoidance in nondepressed PTSD presentations while also demonstrating that co-occurring depression is not contraindicated in evidence-based PTSD treatment.     

Rejection sensitivity and disruption of attention by social threat cues

Two studies tested the hypothesis that Rejection Sensitivity (RS) increases vulnerability to disruption of attention by social threat cues, as would be consistent with prior evidence that it motivates individuals to prioritize detecting and managing potential rejection at a cost to other personal and interpersonal goals. In Study 1, RS predicted disruption of ongoing goal-directed attention by social threat but not negative words in an Emotional Stroop task. In Study 2, RS predicted attentional avoidance of threatening but not pleasant faces in a Visual Probe task. Threat-avoidant attention was also associated with features of borderline personality disorder. This research extends understanding of processes by which RS contributes to a self-perpetuating cycle of interpersonal problems and distress.     

The role of color in human face detection

Significant advances have been made in understanding human face recognition . However, a fundamental aspect of this process, how faces are located in our visual environment, is poorly understood and little studied. Here we examine the role of color in human face detection. We demonstrate that detection performance declines when color information is removed from faces, regardless of whether the surrounding scene context is rendered in color. Furthermore, faces rendered in unnatural colors are hard to detect, suggesting a role beyond simple segmentation. When faces are presented such that half the surface is colored appropriately, and half unnaturally, performance declines. This suggests that observers are not simply using the presence of skin color "patches" to detect faces. Rather, our data suggest that detection operates via a face template combining diagnostic color and face-shape information. These findings are consistent with color-template approaches used in some computer-based face detection systems.     

Separation-Individuation Issues and Castration Anxiety: Their Curious Influence on the Epigenesis of Myopia

This author suggests that myopia is related to psychogenic factors involving an unconscious representation of, and defense against tension. Further, the argument is made that such tension directly causes the extra-ocular muscles of the eyeball to tighten, ultimately creating the errors of refraction, which define the condition known as myopia. The author makes the case that the specific nature of the tension has to do with an interruption in the separation–individuation process that has occurred, in which the myopic individual experiences separation anxiety, and is now “required” to stay close to the mother for fear of abandonment. Apparently, the only way myopes are then able to achieve some sort of psychological distance is through the development of high-level abstract conceptualization abilities. In addition to separation fears, this author notes that myopes exhibit significantly higher levels of castration anxiety as compared with normal-sighted individuals, matched in IQ. Tables showing empirical findings supporting the above psychoanalytic interpretations are provided for the readers review.     

From parent education to collective action: ‘Childrearing with love’ in post‐war Guatemala

The paper discusses the implementation and effect of group‐based parenting workshops oriented by the principles of liberation psychology in a low‐income, hispanicized community in Guatemala City. The objective of this initiative was not only to improve outcomes in the parent–child relationship, but to galvanize the formation of community‐based support groups that could have multiple ends. The theoretical foundations of the project are introduced, before illustrating their practical application. Sixteen months post‐intervention, largely positive effects were being sustained in parent child relations. The project was also successful in generating social action through the formation of grass‐roots women's organizations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-Term Neuropsychological Outcomes of Childhood Onset Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM): a Meta-Analysis

The long-term neurocognitive prognosis of childhood onset acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is unclear. This review and quantitative synthesis of the available literature examined whether there are long-term impacts of childhood ADEM on neurocognitive functioning. A search of online databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBSCO CINAHL, PsycINFO and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews) from their inception to October 2015 and reference lists identified 13 papers eligible for inclusion in the systematic review; seven of these were eligible for inclusion in meta-analyses. The systematic review indicated that, at a group level there is a positive long-term neuropsychological outcome from childhood onset ADEM. However, despite the apparent absence of long-term negative impacts of ADEM at a group level, at an individual level impairments in the areas of IQ, attention, executive functioning, processing speed, learning and memory, visuospatial skills and internalising symptoms were found in up to 43% of patients when aggregated across the studies. No significant negative effect of ADEM for any of the neuropsychological domains examined was found in meta-analyses. However, the effects for Processing Speed (r _mean = ?0.296 (CI 95% = ?0.605-0.013)) and Internalising symptoms (r _mean = 0.242 (CI 95% = ?0.014-0.564)) approached significance (p = 0.06), suggesting a trend towards ADEM leading to long-term reduced processing speed and elevated internalising symptoms. Together, our findings suggest that despite a generally positive neurocognitive outcome post childhood ADEM there are a subset of individuals who can suffer from ongoing specific cognitive impairments. Clinical implications and research priorities are discussed.     

Does a rat release a soaked conspecific due to empathy?

In Experiment 1, rats choosing in an E maze preferred to release a rat standing in a pool of water to dry ground over a rat already standing on dry ground. Five additional experiments showed that the choosing rat’s preference for releasing the wet rat was maintained by two separable outcomes: (1) the social contact offered by the released rat and (2) the reinforcing value of proximity to a pool of water. These results call into question Sato et al.’s (Anim Cogn 18:1039–1047, 2015) claim to have demonstrated that a rat’s releasing of a wet rat to dry ground is empathically motivated.     

The shared and unique genetic relationship between mental well-being,depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in healthy twins

Alterations to cognitive function are often reported with depression and anxiety symptoms, yet few studies have examined the same associations with mental well-being. This study examined the association between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in 1502 healthy adult monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, and the shared/unique contribution of genetic (G) and environmental (E) variance. Using linear mixed models, mental well-being was positively associated (p?β?=?0.127), inhibition (β?=?0.096), cognitive flexibility (β?=?0.149), motor coordination (β?=?0.114) and working memory (β?=?0.156), whereas depression and anxiety symptoms were associated (p?β?=??0.134), inhibition (β?=??0.139), cognitive flexibility (β?=??0.116) and executive function (β?=??0.139). Bivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small environmental correlation with motor coordination and a small genetic correlation with working memory. Trivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small genetic correlation with inhibition, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms shared a small environmental correlation with inhibition. The remaining variance was mostly driven by unique G and/or E variance. Overall, well-being and depression and anxiety symptoms show both independent and shared relationships with cognitive functions but this is largely attributable to unique G or E variance and small shared G/E variance between pairs of variables.     

Associative independence revisited: competition between conflicting associations can be resolved or even reversed in one trial

In one type of association-memory paradigm, after studying pairs of the form AB, AC, participants must recall both B and C in response to A. Counterintuitively, yet often replicated, recall probabilities of B and C are typically uncorrelated (“associative independence”). This face-value independence is now understood to reflect a negative correlation due to AB and AC competing, approximately offset by a positive correlation produced by subject- and item-variability. The outcome might vary with stimulus material; for noun-pairs, and with a single study trial per pair, AB and AC have been found to be positively correlated. We replicated the positive correlation between AB and AC for noun-pairs, but this did not differ from the correlation expected for independent memory tests, suggesting that for noun pairs, AB and AC are independent on average. In Experiment 2, participants instructed to form separate images for AB and AC again produced an independence pattern, but participants instructed to combine AB and AC into an integrative image produced a facilitation pattern. Thus, the relationship between AB and AC varies, and can be influenced by study strategy. Association-memory models may need to accommodate a diverse range of AB–AC relationships, and studies that build on AB/AC learning may need to consider whether AB/AC start out with a competitive, facilitatory or independent relationship.