Evaluating the Utility of MFT Models in the Treatment of Trauma: Implications for Affect Regulation

The purpose of this paper is to discuss polyvagal theory as a theoretical foundation for helping clinicians more effectively treat clients who have experienced major trauma. More specifically, we emphasize that through the use of both modern and post-modern models, marriage and family therapists may use emotion regulation strategies to assist clients in overcoming the negative repercussions of traumatic events. We suggest that the nature of emotional arousal which accompanies trauma alters the physical process by which the body regulates future affective stimuli in ways that are potentially detrimental to human relationships. We then offer a discussion of how a selection of MFT models contain strategies that promote reconnection to self and others that should be utilized with greater precision, ultimately to target the physiological symptoms of trauma-altered emotion regulation processes. Finally, we discuss the need for more specific, process-oriented research that integrates cross-disciplinary theory to contribute to a more intricate and useful understanding of the treatment of trauma in the relational context.     

Aspects of fear of personal death,levels of awareness,and religious commitment

This study used a multidimensional and multilevel approach to study the relation between fear of death and religious commitment. A multidimensional self-report measure of fear of personal death, four TAT cards known to elicit a relatively high frequency of death themes, and an index of Jewish religious commitment were administered to 178 young male Jewish Israelis. Unidimensional and multidimensional analysis of these measures suggested that Jewish religious commitment is related to a heightened specific sensitivity to death at different levels of awareness.     

SENSORY AND PREPARATORY FACTORS IN RESPONSE LATENCY

T hrane , V. C. Sensory and preparatory factors in response latency. V. Stimulus blanks as regulator of preparatory set. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 1–15.—When otherwise nearly replicating the preceding experiment, but excluding the final reaction signal in 14 per cent of the trials under all conditions, response latency was much less affected, if at all, by differential warning of stimulus strength. It is concluded that a constant proportion of stimulus blanks serves largely to equalize perceptual uncertainty on the part of the respondent as to presence of a stimulus, in spite of variations in the sensory adequacy of the expected stimulus, and hence may be used when necessary as an antecedent variable for generating more comparable preparatory sets in studies concerned with the sensory effects of stimulus variables.     

An Indirect Argument for the Access Theory of Privacy

Res Publica - In this paper, I offer an indirect argument for the Access Theory of privacy. First, I develop a new version of the rival Control Theory that is immune to all the classic objections...     

Measuring Theodicy: Individual Differences in the Perception of Divine Intervention

The attribution of control to God may have particularly interesting psychological properties. Theodicy refers to the perception of God controlling history—even the minutiae of daily events. The current study examines the psychometric properties of a new instrument, the Theodicy Scale. Results support the reliability of the brief scale when administered to college students, and some evidence is provided suggesting construct validation. Theodicy appears to represent a unitary construct and scores vary independent of social desirability bias. The absence of a relationship between Theodicy scores and simulated medical advice raises questions to be addressed in future research.     

Toward a Reasons-First View of Normative Background Conditions

Philosophia - Background conditions are thought to explain how objects can have value in virtue of certain features and how reasons can consist in certain facts. The following paper provides an...     

A General Framework for Probabilistic Measures of Coherence

Studia Logica - Coherence is a property of propositions hanging together or dovetailing with each other. About two decades ago, formal epistemologists started to engage in the project of...     

Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale: Psychometric Properties of the Self-Report Version in a Student Sample

The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of an Icelandic translation of the self-report version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS-SR). The Y-BOCS-SR was administered to a sample of 427 Icelandic university students along with another measure of OCD symptoms (OCI-R) and measures of general anxiety and worry (GAD-Q-IV and PSWQ). The internal consistency of the Y-BOCS-SR total severity score and its obsession and compulsion subscales was very good. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the original two- factor structure of the severity dimensions but a three-factor model with obsession, compulsion and resistance/control factors fitted the data equally well. Five factors described best the latent structure of the symptom dimensions. Support was found for the convergent and divergent validity of the Y-BOCS-SR. The results indicate that the Y-BOCS-SR is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the severity of obsessions and compulsions in a student population.     

The human parahippocampal cortex subserves egocentric spatial learning during navigation in a virtual maze

BackgroundPresent evidence suggests that the hippocampus (HC) and the parahippocampal cortex (PHC) are involved in allocentric (world-centered) spatial memory. However, the putative role of the PHC in egocentric (body-centered) spatial learning has received only limited systematic investigation.MethodsTo examine the role of the PHC in egocentric learning, 19 healthy volunteers learned to find their way in a virtual maze during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The virtual maze presented a first-person view, lacked any topographical landmarks and could be learned only using egocentric navigation strategies.ResultsDuring learning, increased medial temporal lobe activity was observed in the PHC bilaterally. Activity was also observed in cortical areas known to project to the PHC and proposed to contribute to egocentric spatial navigation and memory.ConclusionsOur results point to a role of the PHC for the representation and storage of egocentric information. It seems possible that the PHC contributes to egocentric memory by its feedback projections to the posterior parietal cortex. Moreover, access to allocentric and egocentric streams of spatial information may enable the PHC to construct a global and comprehensive representation of spatial environments and to promote the construction of stable cognitive maps by translating between egocentric and allocentric frames of memory.