The W.R. Bion Tradition: Lines of Development,Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades,edited by Howard B. Levine and Giuseppe Civitarese,Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2018. 514pp.

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Baseline reinforcement rate and resurgence of destructive behavior

Concepts from behavioral momentum theory, along with some empirical findings, suggest that the rate of baseline reinforcement may contribute to the relapse of severe destructive behavior. With seven children who engaged in destructive behavior, we tested this hypothesis in the context of functional communication training by comparing the effects of different baseline reinforcement rates on resurgence during a treatment challenge (i.e., extinction). We observed convincing resurgence of destructive behavior in four of seven participants, and we observed more resurgence in the condition associated with high‐rate baseline reinforcement (i.e., variable‐interval 2 s in Experiment 1 or fixed‐ratio 1 in Experiment 2) compared to a low‐rate baseline reinforcement condition. We discuss the implications of these results relative to schedules of reinforcement in the treatment of destructive behavior and strategies to mitigate resurgence in clinical settings.     

Assessing the quality of child investigative interviewing in the Netherlands

Using evidence‐based guidelines to interview children is an important means to obtain complete and accurate accounts. In the current study, we examined the quality of child investigative interviewing in the Netherlands. To examine this, we compared the Dutch Scenario Model with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol and interviews from countries that did not follow a specific protocol. Our principal result was that Dutch child interviewers rarely asked recommended open prompts that are known to elicit detailed and accurate testimonies from children. Furthermore, we found that the scenario model contained the highest number of directive questions compared with interviews from other countries. Our findings show that the Dutch Scenario Model is not well aligned with current research‐based recommendations for interviewing children.     

The Effectiveness of the MMPI-2-RF in Detecting Feigned Mental Disorders and Cognitive Deficits: a Meta-Analysis

A cornerstone of forensic assessments involves the assessment of response styles, including feigning and malingering. As a forensic relevant instrument (FRI), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) contains embedded overreporting scales that cover the three major domains: feigned mental disorders (i.e., F-r and Fp-r), feigned cognitive impairment (RBS and FBS-r), and feigned medical complaints (Fs). This meta-analytic review of 30 studies examined the effectiveness of various detection strategies and cut scores for the MMPI-2-RF. As an important clinical concern, several feigning scales (F-r, FBS-r, and RBS) exhibited marked elevations (Ms > 80 T) for genuine responders diagnosed with major depressive or somatoform disorders. However, the Fp-r—a true rare-symptoms detection strategy—proved highly effective for discriminating feigned from genuine psychopathology (ds > .90). For feigned cognitive impairment, the FBS-r produced very large effect sizes with feigned TBI (M d = 1.41); however, its cut scores were more indicative of general feigning than feigned cognitive impairment. Finally, Fs yielded a large effect size (d = 1.23) for feigned medical complaints, but its cut scores were more likely to identify examinees feigning mental disorders (M sensitivity = .74) than medical complaints (M sensitivity = .43). These findings are discussed within the context of clinical forensic evaluations.     

The ease of lying

Brain imaging studies suggest that truth telling constitutes the default of the human brain and that lying involves intentional suppression of the predominant truth response. By manipulating the truth proportion in the Sheffield lie test, we investigated whether the dominance of the truth response is malleable. Results showed that frequent truth telling made lying more difficult, and that frequent lying made lying easier. These results implicate that (1) the accuracy of lie detection tests may be improved by increasing the dominance of the truth response and that (2) habitual lying makes the lie response more dominant.