Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment and Counseling: Recommendations of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

These cancer genetic counseling recommendations describe the medical, psychosocial, and ethical ramifications of identifying at-risk individuals through cancer risk assessment with or without genetic testing. They were developed by members of the Practice Issues Subcommittee of the National Society of Genetic Counselors Cancer Genetic Counseling Special Interest Group. The information contained in this document is derived from extensive review of the current literature on cancer genetic risk assessment and counseling as well as the personal expertise of genetic counselors specializing in cancer genetics. The recommendations are intended to provide information about the process of genetic counseling and risk assessment for hereditary cancer disorders rather than specific information about individual syndromes. Key components include the intake (medical and family histories), psychosocial assessment (assessment of risk perception), cancer risk assessment (determination and communication of risk), molecular testing for hereditary cancer syndromes (regulations, informed consent, and counseling process), and follow-up considerations. These recommendations should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of management, nor does use of such recommendations guarantee a particular outcome. These recommendations do not displace a health care provider's professional judgment based on the clinical circumstances of a client.     

Predicting traumatic stress using emotional intelligence

The study investigated whether emotional intelligence (EI) can predict how individuals respond to traumatic experiences. A random sample of 414 participants (181 male, 233 female) were administered a measure of EI along with the Impact of Event Scale--revised [IES-R; Weiss, D. S. & Marmar, C. R. (1997). The Impact of Events Scale--revised. In J.P. Wilson & T.M. Keane (Eds.), Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD (pp. 399-411). New York: Guilford Press], and the monitoring and blunting questionnaire [MBQ, Anxiety Stress Coping 7 (1994) 53]. The results showed that participants with higher NEIS scores report fewer psychological symptoms relating to their traumatic experiences, that monitors are more likely to have higher NEIS scores than blunters. Traumatic events had a greater impact on females than males, and males had higher EI than females. The implications of these findings for using EI as a predictor for individuals who may experience traumatic stress are discussed.     

Development of a measure of the experience of being bullied in youth

The Personal Experiences Checklist (PECK) was developed to provide a multidimensional assessment of a young person's personal experience of being bullied that covered the full range of bullying behaviors, including covert relational forms of bullying and cyber bullying. A sample of 647 school children were used to develop the scale, and a 2nd sample of 218 children completed the PECK and a battery of measures of bullying (including peer nomination), anxiety, depression, and self-esteem, to provide validity evidence. Test-retest reliability was assessed in a further sample of 78 students. Four factors emerged from a principal axis factoring consistent with the domains of relational-verbal bullying, cyber bullying, physical bullying, and bullying based on culture and were confirmed with confirmatory factor analysis. The data also supported a higher order bullying factor with direct effects on these 4 factors. All PECK scales showed good to excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α range = .78-.91) and adequate test-retest reliability (range r = .61-.86). Most, but not all, expected relations were found with alternative methods of assessing bullying and measures of psychopathology. Taken together, the PECK provides a promising comprehensive and behaviorally focused dimensional measure of bullying.     

Emotion suppression and reappraisal associated with bullying involvement and other social outcomes in young adults

The ability to regulate emotions appropriately and effectively is important in maintaining positive social interactions and outcomes. The current study investigated the association between the habitual use of suppression and reappraisal, and involvement in bullying in high school. Other social outcomes, such as current social satisfaction and support, were also considered. Two hundred and nine first-year psychology university students (mean age 19.13 years, SD?=?1.523) completed online questionnaires. Results demonstrated that suppression was associated with greater retrospective reports of victimisation during high school and lower current social satisfaction and support, even when controlling for general affect. Reappraisal was mostly found to be unrelated to bullying and social outcomes, with only one association existing between higher reappraisal use and better social satisfaction, which was no longer significant when controlling for affect. The findings extend on previous research by demonstrating a negative association between suppression and involvement in bullying.     

Creativity,Schizotypicality, and Mystical Experience: An Empirical Study

This study examined the commonalities and the differences between creativity and the schizophrenia spectrum. The variables measured were creativity, schizotypy, absorption, mystical experiences, spatial ability, balance, positive and negative presence, and neuroticism. Three community groups were recruited: 31 artists, 10 people with schizophrenia, and 31 comparisons matched for gender and age with the artists. A larger student group, consisting of 102 students, was also recruited to examine the correlations among the same variables within a larger, more normative, group. The largest commonality between the artist and the schizophrenic groups was the propensity to mystical experiences. The greatest differences between them were that the artists were higher in creativity, had better spatial ability, had better balance, had more positive states of presence, and were lower in neuroticism. In the student group, creativity was positively correlated with positive schizotypy, impulsive nonconformity, spatial ability, positive presence, absorption, and mystical experiences, although in the student group, the relation between creativity and mystical experiences was completely mediated by absorption.     

Overall Freedom and Constraint

McDowell's contributions to epistemology and philosophy of mind turn centrally on his defense of the Aristotelian concept of a “rational animal”. I argue here that a clarification of how McDowell uses this concept can make more explicit his distance from Davidson regarding the nature of the minds of non-rational animals. Close examination of his responses to Davidson and to Dennett shows that McDowell is implicitly committed to avoiding the following “false trichotomy”: that animals are not bearers of semantic content at all, that they are bearers of content in the same sense we are, and that they are bearer of “as if” content. Avoiding the false trichotomy requires that we understand non-rational animals as having concepts but not as making judgments. Furthermore, we need to supplement McDowell's distinction between the logical spaces of reasons and of the realm of law with what Finkelstein calls “the logical space of animate life”. Though McDowell has taken some recent steps to embrace a view like this, I urge a more demanding conception than what McDowell has thus far suggested.