Time-limited counselling

Abstract

This paper introduces a new synthesis of approaches to time-limited psychodynamic counselling, giving an account of some of its antecedents and of some of the values which underlie therapeutic effectiveness.

It offers a discussion of the impetus which may be obtained by facilitating the client in working towards a positive outcome which is clearly identifiable. Two time-limited counsellings are then described, in which the underlying conflicts, surrounding loss in the first and impaired trust in the second, are seen to emerge. Finally, some ethical issues are raised and the effects of the planned ending on the client's unconscious process are described.

Mental health, in the humanistic sense, is characterized by the ability to love and to create, by the emergence from the incestuous ties to family and to nature, by a sense of identity based on one's experience of self as the subject and agent of one's powers, by the grasp of reality inside and outside of ourselves, that is by the development of objectivity and reason.     

Autobiographical memory bias in social anxiety

In social anxiety the psychological self is closely related to the feared stimulus. Socially anxious individuals are, by definition, concerned about how the self is perceived and evaluated by others. As autobiographical memory is strongly related to views of the self it follows that biases in autobiographical memory play an important role in social anxiety. In the present study high (n = 19) and low (n = 29) socially anxious individuals were compared on autobiographical memory bias, current goals, and self-discrepancy. Individuals high in social anxiety showed a bias towards recalling more negative and more social anxiety-related autobiographical memories, reported more current goals related to overcoming social anxiety, and showed larger self-discrepancies. The pattern of results is largely in line with earlier research in individuals with PTSD and complicated grief. This suggests that the relation between autobiographical memory bias and the self is a potentially valuable trans-diagnostic factor.     

Couple Communication as a Mediator Between Work–Family Conflict and Marital Satisfaction

Using a sample of married individuals employed full-time (N = 1,117), this study examined the mediating effects of constructive and destructive communication between partners on the relationship between work–family conflict and marital satisfaction. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that work–family conflict was significantly and negatively related to marital satisfaction. This relationship became insignificant when constructive and destructive communication were added to the model, evidence for full mediation. This was confirmed with Sobel’s test for mediation. Results suggest that teaching communcation skills may be a potent point of intervention for couples who experience high levels of work–family conflict.     

The role of network centrality in the flow of consumer influence

The authors find that a consumer's position in a social network is related to both opinion leadership and susceptibility to influence. Using two field network studies, the authors show that people see themselves as opinion leaders when they perceive that they are popular (i.e., central) in the network. However, these self-assessments are sometimes at odds with the perceptions of the rest of the network. Counter-intuitively, the authors demonstrate that consumers who are central in networks are quite susceptible to others' influences. The findings extend the field's knowledge by demonstrating how network centrality is associated with consumer influence.     

The role of alternative hypotheses in the integration of evidence that disconfirms an acquired belief

Two experiments examined the role of alternative hypotheses in the recognition of belief-incongruent evidence and the consequent attribution of probative value to that evidence. Using a contingency judgement and prediction task, subjects monitored multiple predictor-outcome contingencies. In a subset of three of these contingencies the evidence strongly endorsed a positive contingency in a first phase but strongly endorsed a negative contingency in a second phase. In Experiment 1 the negative evidence was presented, in part, in terms of an alternative contingency involving a new predictor or a new outcome, or in terms of no alternatives. The presence of alternative hypotheses did not influence the recognition of the negative evidence but significantly reduced the subjects' persistence in predicting the outcome in the presence of the predictor. Using the same positive-negative contingencies, Experiment 2 replicated this effect but also demonstrated that error in the feedback during the negative phase strengthened the perseverance in outcome predictions even when subjects acknowledged the negative nature of the evidence. Results from these two experiments indicate that prior beliefs do not bias the recognition of belief-incongruent evidence but the integration of that evidence is determined by the nature of the alternative hypotheses available to the reasoner.     

Department of Psychology University of Maryland College Park,Maryland

The timed responses of normal and schizophrenic subjects have been observed in a context permitting independent measurement of lift reaction time, jump reaction time, and speed of traverse over the same distances used for jump reaction time, cued either by signals provided by the experimenter

or by the subject himself. Significant differences were found between the performance of normal and psychotic subject groups on all four measures: time to initiate response, time to initiate and to complete a thrust response, and time of traverse over the same distances—both to cues given by the experimenter or at the subject's own volition. Noticeably increased variation (interindividual and intraindividual) was also found to characterize all measures of response.     

Religiousness and College Student Alcohol Use: Examining the Role of Social Support

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of social support in the relationship between religiousness and alcohol use in a sample of college students. Two dimensions of religiousness: religious commitment and religious coping were examined as predictors of alcohol use. Participants were male and female college students (N = 221); the majority of the sample was Christian (73.8%). Emotional social support was tested as a mediator. Both religiousness dimensions and emotional social support were related to less frequent alcohol use; however, mediation was not supported. These findings indicate that religious commitment and dispositional religious coping are protective against alcohol use, yet social support does not account for this relationship.

Risk for mania and positive emotional responding: too much of a good thing?

Although positive emotion research has begun to flourish, the extremes of positive emotion remain understudied. The present research used a multimethod approach to examine positive emotional disturbance by comparing participants at high and low risk for episodes of mania, which involves elevations in positive emotionality. Ninety participants were recruited into a high or low mania risk group according to responses on the Hypomanic Personality Scale. Participants' subjective, expressive, and physiological emotional responses were gathered while they watched two positive, two negative, and one neutral film clip. Results suggested that participants at high risk for mania reported elevated positive emotion and irritability and also exhibited elevated cardiac vagal tone across positive, negative, and neutral films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for the diagnosis and prevention of bipolar disorder, as well as for the general study of positive emotion.