Applying a traumatic stress approach to understanding PCS following pediatric mild TBI

Pediatric traumatic brain injury is a significant public health concern affecting hundreds of thousands of children each year. The majority of children who sustain traumatic brain injuries are classified as having a mild traumatic brain injury, and a subset of these children go on to experience persistent physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms. These symptoms, known as postconcussive symptoms, can endure for months and even years after injury. The outcomes of mild traumatic brain injury are variable and not well understood for a small percentage of children who experience persistent symptoms. The current article explores the potential influence of children’s posttraumatic stress symptoms on persistent postconcussive symptoms. Despite the high incidence of posttraumatic stress symptoms after pediatric accidental injury, they have not yet been identified as an important factor for consideration in the understanding of pediatric postconcussive outcomes. The article will review the literature on posttraumatic stress and postconcussive symptoms after pediatric injury and consider neurobiological and cognitive factors to propose a model explaining a pathway through which posttraumatic stress reactions may serve as the mechanism for the expression and maintenance of postconcussive symptoms after mild traumatic brain injury. The clinical implications for the proposed relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms and postconcussive symptoms are considered prior to the conclusion of the article, which acknowledges limitations in the current literature and provides suggestions for future research.     

Human Figure Drawings as Predictors of Admission to a Psychiatric Hospital

Blind predictions were made as to admission or non-admission as an overall rating and as to degree of pathology in eight areas of personality, based only on human figure drawings. These drawings were obtained from a sample of 105 individuals presenting for psychiatric hospital admission. The judgments were all in the predicted direction and significant for admission-non-admission, impulsivity, and severity of pathology. Cues utilized in the successful judgments were categorized as structural or content and scaled by degree of pathology. Structural cues predominated. We conclude that HFD's are a useful screening device for clinical judgment of degree of psychopathology. The basis of such judgments can be specified in terms of structural deviations rather than from symbolic content.     

Watching films with magical content facilitates creativity in children

Two experiments examined the possible link between magical thinking and creativity in preschool children. In Exp. 1, 4- and 6-yr.-old children were shown a film with either a magical or nonmagical theme. Results indicated that the mean scores of children shown the magical film was significantly higher than that of children watching the nonmagical film on the majority of subsequent creativity tests for both age groups. This trend was also found for 6-yr.-olds' drawings of impossible items. In Exp. 2, Exp. 1 was replicated successfully with 6- and 8-yr.-old children. Exposing children to a film with a magical theme did not affect their beliefs about magic. The results were interpreted to accentuate the role of magical thinking in children's cognitive development. Classroom implications of the results were also discussed.     

Mourning,Melancholia and Religious Studies: Is the “Lost Object” Really Lost?

This reflection on the book /Mourning and Religion/ (2008) offers a reading of Freud’s foundational text /Mourning and Melancholia/ in which the relationship between mourning and melancholia is theorized slightly differently from that in /Mourning and Religion./ Mourning and melancholia are here seen as clinically distinct responses to object loss: melancholia resulting from a more unconsciously ambivalent and complex relationship to the lost object. And drawing on the work of Hans Loewald, mourning is understood as more dialectical and less linear. Some implications of these models of mourning and melancholia for a psychoanalysis of the origin of the field of religious studies are mentioned.     

FALSIFIABILITY AND TRACTION IN THEORIES OF DIVINE ACTION

One of the most focused research programs in the science‐religion dialogue that has taken place up to the present is the series of volumes published jointly by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Originating with the encouragement of Pope John Paul II, this series has produced seven volumes focusing on how divine action can be understood in light of contemporary science. A retrospective volume published in 2008, Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action: Twenty Years of Challenge and Progress, contains articles reviewing the series as a whole. In this article I analyze the series as a whole as well as some of the pivotal problems discussed throughout the series, such as the zero‐sum game, scientific “traction,” falsifiability in theories of divine action, and locating special divine action in the physical world.     

The REBT Competency Scale for Clinical and Research Applications

This paper presents the REBT Competency Scale which can be used in the evaluation of adherence to an REBT treatment model in clinical and research applications. The scale has been developed to map closely onto the REBT treatment protocol developed by Dryden et al. (A primer on rational emotive behaviour therapy, Research Press, Champaign, 2003). Based on this treatment protocol 21 core steps (tasks) were identified for effective REBT practice. Each step is operationally defined, the rater is reminded of how the step relates to REBT theory and practice and scoring criteria are established that enable a rating of the therapists performance of the task. The potential uses for and application of the scale in clinical and research settings are considered.     

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.     

Psychological Health From the Teens to the 80s: Multiple Developmental Trajectories

Data from the long-term Intergenerational Studies are used to explore men’s and women’s psychological health trajectories from early adolescence to late adulthood, as elucidated by Nagin’s (Group-based modeling of development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005) finite mixture modeling method. Two separate measures of psychological health, one from the California Q-sort (CQS; Block in The Q-sort method in personality assessment and psychiatric research. Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1961) and one from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough and Bradley in CPI manual, 3rd edn. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, 1996) are used, with a maximum of six pooled points of data collection. Distinct subtypes of developmental trajectory are uncovered, including patterns of nearly life-long trajectories of stability, as well as trajectories of increasing psychological health. For both measures of psychological health, the most common path (53% for CQS data, and 46% for CPI data) is that of relatively high initial psychological health with a subsequent modest linear increase. Results from the two measures neither perfectly replicate nor completely contradict one another. Both indicate the existence of discrete subgroups of change, including stability of psychological health for some and significant increase for others.