The Role of Maturity in the Cognitions that Govern Love Relationships and Sexual Satisfaction

This article discusses the Stage Climbing model, a cognitive behavioral therapy based system designed to identify the beliefs and attitudes typical of different developmental life stages that may explain or identify obstacles to resolving present day relationship issues. We suggest that self-defeating beliefs and behaviors characteristic of dysfunctional couples give evidence of one or both partners operating from a stage of development or level of maturity in that aspect of the relationship that is different from what would be optimal given their presenting issues and therapeutic goals.     

Failures,Fathers, and Fetal Fortunes: Reply to Commentaries by Avgi Saketopoulou and Jeanne Wolff Bernstein

This reply focuses on three themes highlighted in discussions by Avgi Saketopoulou and Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: “failure” in working with severely disturbed individuals, the structural fragility born of the ablation of the paternal, and Nina Farhi's notion of “annealed identifications.”     

The Confluence of Psychiatric Symptoms and Neurodegenerative Disease: Impact on Genetic Counseling

Hereditary neurodegenerative diseases can present with a psychiatric prodrome that overlaps with psychiatric symptoms that are not primary to these diseases. When individuals present for predictive testing while experiencing such symptoms, clinicians including genetic counselors, must proceed with caution and evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis. Legitimate reasons may exist for moving forward with testing. Additionally predicting the consequences of testing is unrealistic so that the clinicians must do their best to prepare patients for both positive and negative results. A multidisciplinary team following the Huntington disease protocol remains the gold standard care for predictive testing for such patients. We discuss 3 case histories that demonstrate the complex nature of genetic counseling and testing in the presence of psychiatric symptoms, whether emanating from the disease itself or the results of living in an affected family.     

An antinomy of political judgment: Kant,Arendt, and the role of purposiveness in reflective judgment

This article builds on Arendt’s development of a Kantian politics from out of the conception of reflective judgment in the Critique of Judgment. Arendt looks to Kant’s analysis of the beautiful to explain how political thought can be conceived. And yet Arendt describes such Kantian reflection as an empirical undertaking that justifies itself only in relation to the abstract principle of the moral law. The problem for such an account is that the autonomy of the moral law appears to be at odds with the social cohesion of Kantian political life. The ensuing contradiction can be deemed the antinomy of political judgment. Kant’s conception of reflective judgment offers such an inquiry considerably more to work with than Arendt uncovers. In particular, the regulative principle of the purposiveness of nature that is shown to direct all reflection can be seen to offer the solution to this antinomy.     

大学生特质焦虑与网络成瘾的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

通过对530名大学生的问卷调查,考察特质焦虑、压力知觉、未来时间洞察力和网络成瘾之间的关系。结果发现：（1）压力知觉在特质焦虑和网络成瘾之间起部分中介作用,特质焦虑既对网络成瘾产生直接影响,也通过压力知觉产生间接影响;（2）未来时间洞察力对压力知觉的中介作用起调节作用,压力知觉对网络成瘾的影响随着个体未来时间洞察力的增加而减少。大学生特质焦虑、压力知觉、未来时间洞察力和网络成瘾共同构成一个有调节的中介模型。     

Communication Differences Between Physicians and Their Patients in an Oncology Setting

The physician-patient relationship has critical importance in the quality of medical care, especially in the oncology setting. Of particular interest over the past two decades has been the communication between physicians and their patients. It is understood that communication is related to patient and physician satisfaction as well as other medical outcomes. However, despite this interest and attention, investigators have only recently begun to assess the communication between physicians and patients from the patient's point of view. Additionally, previous investigations have primarily relied upon retrospective reports of the interaction from patients or physicians. The current investigation assessed physician–patient communication in an oncology setting, both as it was occurring and following the interaction. The units of analysis included participant ratings as well as those of trained observers. Findings revealed that physicians and patients disagree as to the valence of the messages which transpired. Additionally, results suggest that it is the patients who distort the messages in the positive direction. Research and clinical implications of this disagreement and positivity bias are discussed.