Modality Effects Examined by Means of an Online Sentence-Picture Comparison Task

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Are oral sentences accompanied by pictures easier to understand than written sentences accompanied by the same pictures? This question—intensely...     

Impairment of Cognitive Function in Different Domains Early After Lung Transplantation

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - In this prospective observational pilot study patients with the diagnosis of end-stage lung disease and listed for lung transplantation...     

Teilstationäre Psychotherapie

Psychotherapeutic day clinics increasingly take over responsibility for the treatment of patients who cannot be cared for satisfactorily, respectively, at all in an inpatient setting. Psychotherapy in a day clinic setting is a treatment in its own right which has progressively established itself between inpatient and outpatient treatment. Empirically raised up to date data prove the efficacy and the efficiency of psychotherapeutic treatment in day clinics. Accordingly, the goal of the present study is to investigate the outcomes of psychotherapeutic treatment in a day clinic with a psychodynamic concept. Since 1996 the psychotherapeutic day clinic Basel empirically assesses the treatment course of all admitted patients. Patients and therapists fill in questionnaires upon admittance, two months into the course of treatment and upon discharge (SCL-90-R, PSKB-Se-R, OPD etc.) Our results indicate that significant improvements of symptoms as well as of socio-communicative competency can be achieved during treatment which remain stable even after discharge (first follow-up three months after discharge). Comparing outcome data of patients treated in full-time inpatient setting and of patients who undergo partial hospitalization we found that outcome was at least equivalent. Additionally we found that the diagnosis of a personality disorder influenced treatment results significantly in some symptom specific spheres.     

Why philosophy and history matter: A conversation with Ann Taves

The article picks up some ideas that Ann Taves presents in her book Religious Experience Reconsidered, and looks at possible conversations that are not fleshed out in detail in Taves’ book. In particular, it is argued that the disciplinary confrontation with philosophy and with historiography is of crucial importance if the disciplines of cognitive science and psychology of religion want to become in the future what they pretend to be now—a serious alternative and complement to the study of religion as we know it from other contexts, such as cultural studies and historiography.     

The efficacy of systemic therapy with adult patients: a meta-content analysis of 38 randomized controlled trials

Systemic therapy is a widely used psychotherapy approach. Yet there exist few systematic reviews on its efficacy. A meta-content analysis was performed to analyze the efficacy of systemic therapy for the treatment of mental disorders in adulthood. All randomized (or matched) controlled trials (RCT) evaluating systemic/systems oriented therapy in various settings (family, couple, individual, group, multifamily group therapy) with adult index patients suffering from mental disorders were identified by database searches and cross-references in other reviews. Inclusion criteria were: index patient diagnosed with a DSM or ICD listed mental disorder, trial published in any language up to the end of 2008. The RCTs were content analyzed according to their research methodology, interventions applied, and results. Thirty-eight trials published in English, German, Spanish, and Chinese were identified, 34 of them showing systemic therapy to be efficacious for the treatment of mood disorders, eating disorders, substance use disorders, mental and social factors related to medical conditions and physical disorders, and schizophrenia. Systemic therapy may also be efficacious for anxiety disorders. Results were stable across follow-up periods of up to 5 years. There is a sound evidence-base for the efficacy of systemic therapy for adult index patients with mental disorders in at least five diagnostic groups.     

An Internet-Based Compassion-Focused Intervention for Increased Self-Criticism: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Increased levels of self-criticism and a lack of self-compassion have been associated with the development and maintenance of a range of psychological disorders. In the current study, we tested the efficacy of an online version of a compassion-focused intervention, mindfulness-based compassionate living (MBCL), with guidance on request. A total of 122 self-referred participants with increased levels of self-criticism were randomly assigned to care as usual (CAU) or the intervention group (CAU + online intervention). Primary endpoints were self-reported depressive, anxiety and distress symptoms (DASS-21) and self-compassion (SCS) at 8 weeks. Secondary endpoints were self-criticism, mindfulness, satisfaction with life, fear of self-compassion, self-esteem, and existential shame. At posttreatment, the intervention group showed significant changes with medium to large effect sizes compared to the control group regarding primary outcomes (Cohen’s d: 0.79 [DASS] and -1.21 [SCS]) and secondary outcomes (Cohen’s ds: between 0.40 and 0.94 in favor of the intervention group). The effects in the intervention group were maintained at 6-months postrandomization. Adherence measures (number of completed modules, self-reported number of completed exercises per week) predicted postintervention scores for self-compassion but not for depressive, anxiety, and distress symptoms in the intervention group. The current study shows the efficacy of an online intervention with a transdiagnostic intervention target on a broad range of measures, including depressive and anxiety symptoms and self-compassion.     

The Peace Work and Witness of the Churches in the German Democratic Republic and the World Disorder of the 21st Century

This article is an edited translation of an address given in Erfurt, Germany, on 12 May 2019, to celebrate the 90th birthday of Heino Falcke, dean (provost) of Erfurt from 1973 until his retirement in 1994. Falcke, who was also a member of the working group on Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, played a central role in developing the theological and ethical response of Protestant churches in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to the threats to peace in a nuclear age. This was expressed in the “renunciation of the spirt, logic, and practice of deterrence.” This article seeks to set out the insights from the peace work and witness of the churches in the GDR against the background of the “world disorder of the 21st century.”     

Beyond Hume: Demea a rehabilitation with systematic intent

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Traditionally, Demea is considered to be the weakest character in Hume’s famous Dialogues concerning Natural Religion; the stage is...     

Integrating commons dilemma findings in a general dynamic model of cooperative behavior in resource crises

The research on commons dilemmas is characterized by innumerable published findings, each standing relatively isolated from the other. To date there is little integration of the findings under a unified concept. The present contribution aims to integrate already existing findings in a general dynamic model of cooperative behavior in resource crises by means of computer simulation. The model postulates that people base their decisions regarding resource use on both ecological and social information. Whether or not ecological or social information will dominate, however, depends on people's social values, attributions, and their perceptions of the state of the resource. The advantage of the simulation method used is that successful integration of the findings can be shown explicitly, as the simulation then replicates the experimental data. With the model presented here, it is also possible to let variables work together whose interaction has not yet been investigated in real experiments. For instance, the simulation model allows us to hypothesize that people, in dependency upon their resource uncertainty and in dependency upon their attributions, utilize a resource completely differently if the resource is in an optimal or sub‐optimal condition. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.