The impact of dialectical behaviour therapy training on therapists in Singapore: A mixed-methods study

Background

While dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) has much empirical support for treating borderline personality disorder (BPD) and other conditions, little research has examined the dissemination of DBT in Southeast Asia.

Aims

This study evaluated training outcomes following a 5-day intensive DBT training programme in a group of psychologists in Singapore, who were in the process of implementing DBT as part of the training's objectives.

Methodology

A mixed-methods design was employed. Fourteen psychologists from a public psychiatric hospital in Singapore were recruited. Seven self-selected into DBT training, and the remaining were matched controls who were not attending the training programme. The latter served as a nonrandomised control group. Prior to and 3 months after training, all participants completed measures of stigma towards BPD patients, burnout and therapeutic alliance. DBT training participants additionally attended a focus group discussion assessing their experiences and challenges implementing DBT in Singapore's context.

Findings

Quantitative analyses using mixed ANOVA showed that, compared with controls, DBT-trained participants demonstrated significantly greater increases in acceptance towards BPD patients. No between-group differences were found on changes in burnout or therapy alliance with patients. Analyses of qualitative data using thematic analysis revealed that DBT training impacted the way participants conceptualised and delivered therapy for BPD patients, and highlighted several challenges in implementing DBT in the local hospital context.

Conclusion

The findings demonstrate the potential of DBT training in improving clinicians' attitudes towards BPD patients and support a need for policymakers to prepare organisations for DBT implementation to ensure programme sustainability.     

Interpersonal consequences of joint food consumption for connection and conflict

For centuries, the preparation and eating of a meal has brought people together, making food consumption an inherently social process. Yet the way in which people connect over food is changing. Rising health concerns, due in part to the increase in food allergies and obesity, have shifted attention away from the social aspects of food to food's nutritional aspects. Recognizing the social context in which food consumption takes place, this article reviews research highlighting the interpersonal consequences of joint food consumption. We first examine research on how sharing food connects people together, both via the type of food consumed (e.g., incidental food similarity) and the manner in which people serve and eat food (e.g., from shared vs. separate plates). We then turn to research that addresses the opposite side of the coin, discussing how the inability to share in a meal can be isolating, as well as how people navigate conflicting preferences when making food decisions with others. We conclude with a discussion of promising future directions for research on joint food consumption.     

Judgemental adjustment of initial forecasts: Its effectiveness and biases

Managers are often required to integrate their own forecasts with statistical forecasts. The studies reported in this paper examine the efficacy of allowing people to adjust their own forecasts in the light of statistical forecasts that are provided to them. Three experimental studies varied the reliability of the statistical forecasts and examined the performance of people over time. Issues of the form of the feedback and the use of decision support were also examined. The results unequivocally suggest that the effectiveness of judgemental adjustment depended on the statistical model's reliability and seasonally of time series. However, people had considerable difficulty placing less weight on their own forecasts (compared to the statistical forecasts) and this behaviour became more pronounced over time. Even provision of decision support did not improve performance at the task.     

Providing Choice Making Opportunities Within and Between Daily School Routines

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of providing choice making opportunities, embedded within and between daily school routine activities, on the frequency of protests and task initiations exhibited by a student with a severe intellectual disability. An ABABC single-subject design was used to evaluate the effects of choice making opportunities embedded within and between three daily routine activities. During phase A, the classroom staff directed the student's participation without providing choice making opportunities within the activities. In phase B, staff provided choice making opportunities embedded within steps of each activity. Phase C extended choice making opportunities by providing the participant with a choice between activities as well as within the steps of the activities after it was noted that the first step of beginning the activities occasioned more protests than the other steps. The results of this study replicate earlier research showing that embedded choice making opportunities within routines reduced protests and increased task initiations. The addition of choice making opportunities between activities during phase C further reduced the incidents of protests.     

Design and efficacy of a head-coil bite bar for reducing movement-related artifacts during functional MRI scanning

This article describes the design, construction, application, and effectiveness of a simple bite bar for use with an MRI whole-head coil to reduce head-movement-related artifacts during functional brain imaging. The device is comfortable to use and allows considerable flexibility in positioning the subject’s head. Eleven subjects were scanned while performing a motor-sequencing experiment with and without the bite bar. The bite bar was generally effective in reducing maximum head movement to less than 0.5 mm (translation) and 0.5° (rotation).     

Influence of extended practice on programming time, movement time, and transfer in simple target-striking responses

Two experiments describe the effects of extended practice on the development of motor control programs for simple target-striking responses. In Experiment 1,400 right-hand trials of simple one-target and two-target striking tasks were performed. In Experiment 2,600 practice trials were given. Overall reaction time (RT) was faster for the one-target condition in both experiments, supporting a response complexity effect. Movement time (MT) for both conditions improved linearly with practice, suggesting that development of the motor control programs was still occurring. Subjects then transferred to a three-target condition for 50 trials, performing the transfer task with the right hand in Experiment 1, and with right and left hands in Experiment 2. Transfer to the three-target conditions produced execution errors in the form of failure to contact the second target and repetitive tapping on the third target. These results suggest that extensive practice may serve to firmly entrench a response sequence, making it difficult to implement a similar, but unique, motor control program. An interpretation in terms of automaticity and enhanced priming of behavioral and neural pathways is offered to account for these results.     

Perceived job image among police officers in Singapore: factorial dimensions and differential effects

The authors examined the perceived job image of police officers in Singapore and its differential effects on their work-related attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to quit). The authors obtained data from questionnaire surveys and focus-group interviews. Perceived job image consisted of 4 dimensions: (a) prestige, (b) integrity, (c) competence, and (d) nonroutine job nature. Results of hierarchical regression analyses suggested that the first 2 dimensions of the perceived job image construct were salient in affecting the police officers' work-related attitudes.     

COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION AND FOLK THEISTIC BELIEF

Cognitive scientists of religion promise to lay bare the cognitive mechanisms that generate religious beliefs in human beings. Defenders of the debunking argument believe that the cognitive mechanisms studied in this field pose a threat to folk theism. A number of influential responses to the debunking argument rely on making two sets of distinctions: (1) proximate/ultimate explanations and (2) specific/general religious beliefs. I argue, however, that such responses have drawbacks and do not make room for folk theism. I suggest that a detour through the literature in the philosophy of mind regarding the problem of mental causation regarding nonreductive physicalism can provide a way for preserving folk theism without doing violence to the way cognitive science of religion is being practiced today. More specifically, I believe there is a way of responding to the debunking argument that does not require a rejection of the causal premise.     

Contribution of self‐compassion to positive mental health among Korean university students

Although evidence suggests self‐compassion can serve as an important predictor of positive mental health, few studies have examined the contribution of self‐compassion to mental health. This study examined the relations between six components of self‐compassion and three dimensions of positive mental health (Psychological, Emotional and Social Well‐being) in young Korean adults. A sample of 689 Korean college students were administered the Self‐Compassion Scale (SCS) and the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC‐SF) to evaluate self‐compassion and positive mental health. A multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) analysis revealed that Self‐Kindness significantly predicted all dimensions of positive mental health. Additionally, Over‐Identification significantly contributed to Emotional Well‐being, Common Humanity to Social Well‐being and Isolation to Psychological Well‐being. These results suggest Self‐Kindness is a key predictor of positive mental health and that specific components of self‐compassion are strongly related to specific dimensions of mental health in Koreans.     

Are We Essentially Animals?

Animalism is the view that we human individuals are animals. And standard animalists claim that if we are animals, we are animals essentially. This is because they believe that if we are animals, we are essentially members of the human kind (e.g., human animal, Homo sapiens), and as a result, we have the criterion of identity by virtue of that kind. The goal of this paper is to reject the claim that our being animals implies our essentially being animals. I begin by reformulating the standard animalist's argument for the claim that we are essentially biological entities of some sort. I then argue that the very same argumentative strategy can be applied against standard animalism. Specifically, the standard animalist's reasoning for the claim that we are contingently psychological beings faces a dilemma that undermines the claim that we are animals essentially. In the remainder of the paper, I reply to various objections to my argument and consider a strategy that animalists can pursue in attempting to block the dilemma.