On the need for structurally competent counselling and psychotherapy: Neoliberal ideology,disability and the psy disciplines

This article highlights and problematises the psy disciplines' articulations with neoliberalism, with a particular focus upon disability and upon counselling and psychotherapy. Recent years have witnessed burgeoning scholarly interest in the potential complicities of the psy professions in a neoliberal agenda of individualisation, pathologisation and responsibilisation of human suffering. Such complicities are, in state therapy settings, driven by a growing need for these professions to offer cost-effective, evidence-based interventions to secure funding in an increasingly competitive market. Whilst the entwining of neoliberal ideology with therapy practices may be innocuous for some, it is contended that disabled people may be at particular risk of harm. A case is then made for training and practice to foreground structural competency, an awareness of how therapy encounters and client concerns are shaped by socio-structural factors, including, but not limited to, politics and political ideology. This would require not only an appreciation of the sociopolitical context in which therapy unfolds and its indubitable shaping of subjectivities, but also greater recognition of disability as a source of social inequity and oppression, as opposed to an individual phenomenon. Moreover, structural competency would require theoretical and demographic diversity in training and practice, which, in turn, would necessitate identifying and addressing barriers to inclusion for disabled people. Points raised are deemed of particular importance given the emergence of long COVID.     

Assessing attitudes toward gay marriage among selected Christian groups using the lost-letter technique

100 each envelopes were distributed to Christian church parking lots and general public parking lots. Letters were addressed to either the "Gay Marriage Foundation" or to a neutral organization. Significantly more neutral letters (n = 75) were returned than "Gay Marriage Foundation" letters (n = 36) from both types of locations, but no differences were found for return rates. Gay marriage may be a controversial topic for people in this area of California. The limitations of the lost-letter technique prohibit fine distinctions; however, one may infer attitudes toward gay marriage may not be more negative among Christian church attendees than in the general public.     

Higher cortisol is associated with poorer executive functioning in preschool children: The role of parenting stress,parent coping and quality of daycare

Child executive functions (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, working memory) are key to success in school. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, is known to affect cognition; however, there is limited information about how child cortisol levels, parenting factors and child care context relate to executive functions in young children. The aim of this study was to examine relationships between child cortisol, parenting stress, parent coping, and daycare quality in relation to executive functions in children aged 3–5 years. We hypothesized that (1) poorer executive functioning would be related to higher child cortisol and higher parenting stress, and (2) positive daycare quality and positive parent coping style would buffer the effects of child cortisol and parenting stress on executive functions. A total of 101 children (53 girls, 48 boys, mean age 4.24 years ±0.74) with complete data on all measures were included. Three saliva samples to measure cortisol were collected at the child’s daycare/preschool in one morning. Parents completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Preschool Version (BRIEF-P), Parenting Stress Index (PSI), and Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ). The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale – Revised (ECERS-R) was used to measure the quality of daycare. It was found that children with poorer executive functioning had higher levels of salivary cortisol, and their parents reported higher parenting stress. However, parent coping style and quality of daycare did not modulate these relationships. Identifying ways to promote child executive functioning is an important direction for improving school readiness.     

Preadolescents' borderline personality features in a non‐Western urban context: Concurrent and longitudinal associations with physical and relational aggression,friendship exclusivity and peer victimization

The present study examined children's borderline personality features and their association with developmentally appropriate factors, including friendship exclusivity, forms of aggression and peer maltreatment with a non‐Western urban sample. The participants consisted of 234 Japanese preadolescents who were in the fourth and fifth grade (50% girls; ages: 9–11). Results of correlational analyses show that borderline personality features were stable during a six‐month period (r = 0.55). Moreover, results of mixed linear models indicate that friendship exclusivity was associated with elevated borderline personality features concurrently and longitudinally, after controlling for the effects of physical and relational aggression. Physical aggression (not relational aggression) and physical victimization (not relational victimization) also predicted relative increases in borderline personality features. These findings are discussed from a cultural‐developmental perspective.     

The effects of co-witness discussion on confidence and precision in eyewitness memory reports

We examined the influence of co-witness discussion on the metacognitive regulation of memory reports. Participants (N?=?92) watched a crime video. Later, a confederate confidently agreed with (gave confirming feedback), disagreed with (gave disconfirming feedback), or gave no feedback (control) regarding participants’ answers to questions about the video. Participants who received disconfirming feedback reported fewer fine-grain details than participants in the confirming and control conditions on a subsequent, individual recall test for a different question set. Unexpectedly, this decrease in fine-grain reporting was not accompanied by a decrease in participants’ confidence in the accuracy of their fine-grain responses. These results indicate that receiving social comparative feedback about one’s memory performance can affect rememberers’ metamemorial control decisions, and potentially decrease the level of detail they volunteer in later memory reports. Further research is needed to assess whether these results replicate under different experimental conditions, and to explore the effects of social influences on metamemory.     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Structure of Adult ADHD Symptoms

Previous research has examined the factor structure of ADHD symptoms in adults using confirmatory factor analysis and there is mixed support for two-factor, three-factor, or more complex bifactor models. The current study re-examines these factor structures on the basis of not only overall model fit, but also criteria such as chi-square difference tests, invariance, reliability, and validity. Three datasets were pooled to form a total sample of 430 adults (50% female). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their ADHD symptoms, education, psychopathology, and parenting (the latter as validity variables). Although the bifactor models demonstrated the best fit, the reliability and construct replicability of specific factors in these models was poor. The three-factor model had good fit and demonstrated good reliability, validity, construct replicability, and some invariance across gender and dataset. Our results replicate previous studies that find superior fit for bifactor models. However, the superior statistical fit may reflect only the increased complexity of these models. The more parsimonious three-factor model may demonstrate stronger validity and clinical utility.