Externalizing behavior challenges within primary care settings

Primary care providers encounter a substantial number of behavioral health concerns leading to the increasing provision of psychological interventions within medical settings. Externalizing disorders present a particular challenge to physicians and stand to benefit a great deal from early intervention. Providing behavioral health services in primary care can reduce barriers to treatment, stigma associated with mental health, and cost of service provision. Given these advantages, scholars have examined the provision of behavioral health interventions within primary care settings. This review provides a critical overview of the extant evidence base and offers suggestions for future efforts in this area.     

A phenomenological examination of dating attitudes in ultra-orthodox Jewish emerging adult women

The current study investigated the dating attitudes of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women using a qualitative analysis. Interviews were conducted with eight Ultra-Orthodox Jewish young women. Themes reflected pressures associated with the dating process and the importance of dating for marriage. Additionally, respondents expressed satisfaction with the dating system due to its single-minded focus on finding a marriage partner and due to perceptions of alternative more Western systems.     

The Embodied Self. Movement and psychoanalysis

Increasing numbers of patients presenting problems with internet pornography have led to changes in the culture and practice of group analytic therapy at the Portman Clinic. The addictive element of this new form of artificial, sexual stimulation has to be recognised as part of the harm it produces. Group members spontaneously develop some of the principles and practice of established methods of addiction treatment, especially the 12-step programme, by helping each other manage their compulsion. This self-help function of the group coexists alongside the psychodynamic perspective, in which the meaning of harmful sexual behaviour is explored and understood. Certain individuals are more vulnerable to excessive use of pornography because of early developmental problems and current difficulties in their sexual relationships, resulting from internal conflicts about their sexuality. The group provides intimacy without sexualisation, primarily through a sibling transference. The therapist embodies an ability to think about the complexity of the sexual abuse that the pornography portrays. He or she works towards a truer perception of reality for group members, in which the false solutions of compulsive sexual behaviour are seen to be what they are: impediments to healthy development.     

The Metaphysics of Meaning: Hopkins on Wittgenstein

Abstract

Jim Hopkins (2012 Hopkins, Jim (2012) ‘Rules, Privacy, and Physicalism’, in Jonathan Ellis and Daniel Guevara (eds) Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) defends a ‘straight’ (non-skeptical) response to Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations, a response he ascribes to Wittgenstein himself. According to this response, what makes it the case that A means that P is that it is possible for another to (correctly) interpret A as meaning that P. Hopkins thus advances a form of interpretivist judgment-dependence about meaning. I argue that this response, as well as a variant, does not succeed.     

Objective measures of executive functioning are highly discrepant with parent-report in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the relationship between parent-report and objective measures of executive function in children diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The participants were a clinical sample of 551 children who completed 597 evaluations, including initial and re-evaluations. Participants were 6–16 years old, with a mean age of 10. Pearson correlations were used to determine the relationship between performance-based measures and parent-report measures of executive functioning. Relationships among the same types of measures, that is, performance based or parent report, were also evaluated. The data largely demonstrate low nonsignificant correlations between performance-based measures and parental report of executive function. Parent-report measures were internally consistent as were objective measures. It is possible that a third variable, for example, parental frustration, significantly influences parent reports. It is also likely that objective measures, which are administered in a controlled environment, do not fully capture children’s day-to-day functioning. That is, a child may have the executive function abilities (i.e., good performance on objective measures) but may be unable to deploy the appropriate skills in their daily lives, as evidenced by parental report. Children with FASD who have executive function abilities but not implementation skills likely require different interventions than children who lack abilities and skills.     

Optimal spatial filtering for brain oscillatory activity using the Relevance Vector Machine

Over the past decade, various techniques have been proposed for localization of cerebral sources of oscillatory activity on the basis of magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography recordings. Beamformers in the frequency domain, in particular, have proved useful in this endeavor. However, the localization accuracy and efficacy of such spatial filters can be markedly limited by bias from correlation between cerebral sources and short duration of source activity, both essential issues in the localization of brain data. Here, we evaluate a method for frequency-domain localization of oscillatory neural activity based on the relevance vector machine (RVM). RVM is a Bayesian algorithm for learning sparse models from possibly overcomplete data sets. The performance of our frequency-domain RVM method (fdRVM) was compared with that of dynamic imaging of coherent sources (DICS), a frequency-domain spatial filter that employs a minimum variance adaptive beamformer (MVAB) approach. The methods were tested both on simulated and real data. Two types of simulated MEG data sets were generated, one with continuous source activity and the other with transiently active sources. The real data sets were from slow finger movements and resting state. Results from simulations show comparable performance for DICS and fdRVM at high signal-to-noise ratios and low correlation. At low SNR or in conditions of high correlation between sources, fdRVM performs markedly better. fdRVM was successful on real data as well, indicating salient focal activations in the sensorimotor area. The resulting high spatial resolution of fdRVM and its sensitivity to low-SNR transient signals could be particularly beneficial when mapping event-related changes of oscillatory activity.