Brief psychotherapy using dream interpretation

I believe it to be true that dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them. Montaigne (Essays III)     

Job Stress and Organizational Learning Climate

Job stress may depend on the organizational learning climate, the organizational factors that affect learning how to cope with the rapid external and internal changes in working life. The relationship between individual job stress and the individual perception of learning climate was studied among 383 employees in the Norwegian Postal Service and in various community health care institutions. Mismatch between individual perceptions of learning climate and the averaged evaluation of learning climate in the rest of the working group, was found to be an important source of stress. Individuals who perceived the learning climate as good and who were working in a group that agreed with this position, had a low job-stress level. This may be ascribed to their feeling of control over the work situation and reduced demands due to the social support from the group, producing a low job stress level.     

Synaptic plasticity and the organization of behaviour after early and late brain injury.

Hebb proposed that synaptic change underlies behavioural and cognitive plasticity. When applied to recovery from brain injury, the general hypothesis is that if there is recovery following brain injury, then there ought to be a correlated synaptic change, which is presumed to be responsible for recovery. In contrast, if recovery fails to occur, or expected recovery is blocked in some manner, then the synaptic change will likely not be present. Systematic study of functional recovery and synaptic change following brain injury at different ages supports these predictions. Good recovery is always correlated with enhanced connectivity whereas poor recovery is always correlated with an absence of reorganized connectivity. Furthermore, factors that stimulate recovery, such as neurotrophins or experience, stimulate synaptic change and functional recovery. Factors that retard recovery, such as depletion of neuromodulators, also block synaptic change. These results thus support Hebb's general idea that synaptic plasticity is related to behavioural change.     

Therapieabbrüche in der stationären Psychotherapie

This article focuses on the patients’ view of the causes and consequences of premature therapy termination in inpatient psychosomatic setting. In this study, drop-out patients and non-drop-out patients were questioned in semi-structured phone interviews (n=62). The causes of early termination are seen in this study to be connected with an internal, somatic concept of disease, discontent with treatment, and social interaction problems in the hospital. In 80% of the examined cases more than two causes were reported. Consequently, early termination of treatment can be considered as an outcome of multifactorial influences. Furthermore, a group of “inner drop-outs” has been identified within the non-drop-out patients. Despite high discontent, these patients remained in treatment because they often feared possible negative consequences of early treatment termination. Both drop-outs and inner drop-outs scored lower in outcome analysis than the remaining patients. This study points to problem areas that can help identify potential drop-out patients.     

A longitudinal panel study on antecedents and outcomes of work-home interference

Theoretical models of the antecedents and outcomes of work-home interference (WHI) suggest that work characteristics (e.g., job stressors, working hours) increase the probability that an individual experiences work-home interference. Since work-home interference is considered as a role stressor, these experiences should be detrimental for long-term well-being. In this 2-wave panel study, the authors compared this suggested pathway with competing models that propose reverse causation and reciprocal effects in a sample of 365 employees (N at T2 = 130) from the German workforce using structural equation modeling. In particular, a model with two proposed antecedents (job stressors, working hours) of WHI and two proposed consequences (depression, turnover motivation) was analyzed in alternative configurations. The results support a cyclical model with a job stressors → depression → WHI → job stressors pathway. Furthermore, working hours affected WHI, and turnover motivation emerged as an outcome of WHI.     

„Was ist Wissenschaft? Darstellung und Bestandsaufnahme der deutschen Wissenschaftsphilosophie“; Wissenschaftszentrum Bonn, 17–19. März 2008

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

ALTSim: A MATLAB simulator for current associative learning theories

ALTSim is a MATLAB-based simulator of several associative learning models, including Pearce’s configural model, the extended configural model, the Rescorla-Wagner model, the unique cue hypothesis, the modified unique cue hypothesis, the replaced elements model, and Harris’s elemental model. It allows for specifying all relevant parameters, as well as exact stimulus sequences by graphical user interfaces. It is an easy-to-use tool that facilitates evaluating and comparing the featured associative learning models. ALTSim is available free of charge from www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~lachnit/ALTSim/.