Predictors of the Peer Acceptance of Children with Diabetes: Social Behavior and Disease Severity

Objective. Investigated illness severity (medical control, disease impact, obviousness) and social behavior style as predictors of the peer acceptance of children with diabetes. Method. Sixty-five children (10–12.5 years old) with diabetes and their parents, teachers, and physicians participated. Physician ratings and laboratory tests indicated medical control. Parents and children reported disease impact and teachers rated disease obviousness. Children and teachers rated social behavior. Teachers reported peer acceptance. Results. Consistent with hypotheses, favorable social behavior positively predicted acceptance and disease impact negatively predicted acceptance; medical control did not relate to acceptance. Disease obviousness and social behavior interacted to predict acceptance. Children with more obvious disease were not stigmatized by unfavorable social behavior. Conclusions. Aspects of disease severity and social behavior influence peer acceptance and may be appropriate predictors and targets for remediation of peer problems.     

Substance Use Research with Indigenous Communities: Exploring and Extending Foundational Principles of Community Psychology

Many Indigenous communities are concerned with substance use (SU) problems and eager to advance effective solutions for their prevention and treatment. Yet these communities also are concerned about the perpetuation of colonizing, disorder‐focused, stigmatizing approaches to mental health, and social narratives related to SU problems. Foundational principles of community psychology—ecological perspectives, empowerment, sociocultural competence, community inclusion and partnership, and reflective practice—provide useful frameworks for informing ethical community‐based research pertaining to SU problems conducted with and by Indigenous communities. These principles are explored and extended for Indigenous community contexts through themes generated from seven collaborative studies focused on understanding, preventing, and treating SU problems. These studies are generated from research teams working with Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada—inclusive of urban, rural, and reservation/reserve populations as well as adult and youth participants. Shared themes indicate that Indigenous SU research reflects community psychology principles, as an outgrowth of research agendas and processes that are increasingly guided by Indigenous communities. At the same time, this research challenges these principles in important ways pertaining to Indigenous–settler relations and Indigenous‐specific considerations. We discuss these challenges and recommend greater synergy between community psychology and Indigenous research.     

Internalization of the therapeutic process: differences between borderline and neurotic patients

Intersession process in psychotherapy refers to the thoughts, memories, and feelings about each other and about their therapy sessions that participants experience during the intervals between sessions. This study compared the intersession process experienced by patients who had been diagnosed with severe borderline personality disorders (BPD) with others who had not. A total of 76 patients with neurotic disturbances and 20 patients with BPD were treated in a therapeutic day clinic and completed the Intersession Experience Questionnaire (IEQ) before sessions of individual psychotherapy and the Session Questionnaire (Stundenbogen) after those sessions. Comparison of the two groups on these measures of intersession process and postsession outcome showed markedly different patterns in patients' evaluations and internalizations of in-session therapeutic experiences: most prominently, that BPD patients internalize therapy sessions with much more negative and contradictory emotions.     

The limits of psychoanalytic insight

Psychoanalysis has the intellectual power to decipher the inner structure of subjectivity, thus distinguishing itself from neighbouring human sciences. In doing so psychoanalysis is able to show the damages a society does to its individuals. Present-day psychoanalytic practice and thinking however runs counter to these inherent possibilities. The interaction of unresolvable neurotic phenomena and ideological bias in individual psychoanalysts reflect the increasing subsumption of psychoanalysis under the dominating interests of society--a dependency, which characterizes the actual psychoanalytic practice and theories in our time as basically affirmative.     

The association between dispositional self-control and longitudinal changes in eating behaviors,diet quality,and BMI

In a random sample from the general population (N = 2781, 46% males), a longitudinal survey was conducted. The association between dispositional self-control and changes in eating behaviours and diet quality was analysed between the first wave (2010) and the last wave (2014). Results show that the higher the dispositional self-control, the lower the increase in overeating behaviours (emotional eating, external eating, ambivalence towards palatable food and overeating), and BMI and the larger the improvement in healthy diet over time. Self-control was not associated with changes in dietary restraint. This is one of the first studies suggesting that dispositional self-control is associated with changes in eating behaviours and healthy food intake over time.     

Interrupted time-series analysis and its application to behavioral data

This paper uses a question-and-answer format to present the technical aspects of interrupted time-series analysis (ITSA). Topics include the potential relevance of ITSA to behavioral researchers, serial dependency, time-series models, tests of significance, and sources of ITSA information.