A Psychometric Evaluation of the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire Among Alcohol-Dependent Patients Attending Residential Treatment

Despite research suggesting that alcohol-dependent individuals have both craving and avoidant tendencies for alcohol, few studies have measured self-report tendencies using the Approach and Avoidance of Alcohol Questionnaire (AAAQ). The goal of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the AAAQ using a sample of adults receiving 12 step-based residential treatment for alcohol dependence. As part of a larger study, 100 adults receiving residential treatment completed the AAAQ and several other assessments shortly after treatment admission. Analyses of the AAAQ examined its factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and predictive validity. A maximum likelihood estimation factor analysis using oblique rotation produced 3 factors accounting for 69 % of the variance. A confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the 3-factor model was a moderate fit for data from a second sample of patients. Internal consistency was fairly high and convergent validity was demonstrated by relationships with another scale of alcohol craving, time since last drink, and quantity and frequency of pre-treatment alcohol use. Regarding predictive validity, the level of approach tendencies on the AAAQ was significantly related to abstinence status during the first 6 months following treatment. Avoidance level was not related to abstinence. The results largely replicated past studies utilizing outpatient samples and suggest that the AAAQ shows promise as a psychometrically sound, internally reliable self-report craving measure for individuals with alcohol dependence.     

Therapeutic outcomes in the Welsh Government's school‐based counselling strategy: An evaluation

Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of school‐based counselling, as delivered in the Welsh Government's School‐based Counselling Strategy, for reducing psychological distress in young people aged 11–18. Method: The study used a quantitative cohort design, comparing levels of distress on either the Young Person's CORE (YP‐CORE) or the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) from baseline to endpoint. Data were available on 3613 episodes of counselling, across 42 datasets. Meta‐analytical procedures were used to identify the mean effect size and predictors of outcomes. Results: Within each dataset, counselling was associated with significant reductions in psychological distress, with a mean effect size (d) of 0.93(95% CI = 0.89–0.97) using a fixed effects model and 1.09 (95% CI = 0.97–1.22) using a random effects model. Datasets using the YP‐CORE had larger effect sizes than those using the SDQ, and datasets with more complete response rates had lower outcomes than those with poorer response rates. Conclusion: The results confirm that school‐based counselling, as delivered in the UK, is associated with significant reductions in psychological distress, comparable to adult counselling and psychotherapy services.     

Conditioned suppression/avoidance as a procedure for testing hearing in birds: The domestic pigeon (Columba livia)

Although the domestic pigeon is commonly used in learning experiments, it is a notoriously difficult subject in auditory psychophysical experiments, even those in which it need only respond when it detects a sound. This is because pigeons tend to respond in the absence of sound—that is, they have a high false-positive rate—which makes it difficult to determine a pigeon’s audiogram. However, false positives are easily controlled in the method of conditioned suppression/avoidance, in which a pigeon is trained to peck a key to obtain food and to stop pecking whenever it detects a sound that signals impending electric shock. Here, we describe how to determine psychophysical thresholds in pigeons using a method of conditioned suppression in which avoidable shock is delivered through a bead chain wrapped around the base of a pigeon’s wings. The resulting audiogram spans the range from 2 to 8000 Hz; it falls approximately in the middle of the distribution of previous pigeon audiograms and supports the finding of Kreithen and Quine (Journal of Comparative Physiology 129:1–4, 1979) that pigeons hear infrasound.     

Perfectionism and athlete burnout in junior elite athletes: the mediating role of coping tendencies

Abstract

Recent research indicates that some dimensions of perfectionism are positively related to athlete burnout, whereas others are negatively related to athlete burnout. The divergent relationship between these dimensions of perfectionism and athlete burnout may be explained by different coping tendencies. The present investigation examined whether different coping tendencies mediate the relationship between self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and burnout. Two-hundred and six junior elite athletes (M age=15.15 years, SD=1.88 years, range=11–22 years) completed measures of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, coping tendencies, and athlete burnout. Structural equation modeling indicated that the relationship between dimensions of perfectionism and athlete burnout was mediated by different coping tendencies. Higher levels of socially prescribed perfectionism was related to higher levels of avoidant coping which, in turn, was related to higher levels of athlete burnout. In contrast, higher levels of self-oriented perfectionism was related to higher levels of problem-focused coping and lower levels of avoidant coping which, in turn, was related to lower levels of athlete burnout. The findings suggest that different coping tendencies may underpin the divergent relationship between self-oriented and socially prescribed dimensions of perfectionism and athlete burnout.     

The Relation of Parent and Child Gender to Parental Tolerance of Child Disruptive Behaviors

Parental tolerance has been defined as the degree to which a parent tends to be annoyed by his or her child’s disruptive behavior. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relation of both parent and child gender to parental tolerance of child disruptive behaviors. Participants were 150 parents with 3–6 year-old at-risk children (47.5 % girls) who sought help with parenting of their child’s oppositional defiant behaviors. Tolerance was measured by the difference between parent ratings of intensity on 36 disruptive behaviors and whether each behavior was identified as a problem (resulting in a score of either high, expected, or low tolerance). A 2 (child gender) by 2 (parent gender) analysis of variance was conducted on the tolerance score. A significant interaction between child and parent gender emerged: Mothers were equally tolerant of boys’ and girls’ oppositional defiant behavior but fathers were more tolerant of boys’ than girls’ oppositional behavior. Exploratory analyses suggested that this interaction may be qualified by clinical status of the child. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Searching through the hierarchy: How level of target categorization affects visual search

Does the same basic-level advantage commonly observed in the categorization literature also hold for targets in a search task? We answered this question by first conducting a category verification task to define a set of categories showing a standard basic-level advantage, which we then used as stimuli in a search experiment. Participants were cued with a picture preview of the target or its category name at either superordinate, basic, or subordinate levels, then shown a target-present/absent search display. Although search guidance and target verification was best using pictorial cues, the effectiveness of the categorical cues depended on the hierarchical level. Search guidance was best for the specific subordinate-level cues, whereas target verification showed a standard basic-level advantage. These findings demonstrate different hierarchical advantages for guidance and verification in categorical search. We interpret these results as evidence for a common target representation underlying categorical search guidance and verification.     

Remembering Numbers in Old Age: Mnemonic Training Versus Self-Generated Strategy Training

The effectiveness of two memory training programs designed to enhance four-digit number recall was examined in 90 healthy older adults. One group received instruction and training in the number-consonant mnemonic, whereas another group was instructed to adopt their own encoding and retrieval strategies to enhance number recall. Also, a control group receiving no training between testing occasions was included. The criterion task was administered according to the Buschke selective reminding procedure. Posttest performance was evaluated with and without cognitive support for remembering (i.e., verbal cues). Under unsupported conditions, the mnemonic group improved number recall following training and the self-generated strategy group showed a tendency in the same direction. When support was provided, group differences in favor of the two training groups increased. In addition, no training-related gains were observed in two verbal transfer tasks. The relatively similar patterns of gains in the two intervention groups were discussed in terms of advantages and disadvantages in the two training regimens balancing each other.     

Therapy for the Dead: Working Clinically with Jung's Black Books and The Red Book

With the 2020 publication of the facsimile edition of The Black Books, we have an opportunity to study the layers of C. G. Jung's creative writing process for the first time. In this paper, I explore Jung's practice of active imagination in relation to his fantasy dialogues with the dead during two specific episodes in 1914 and 1916. I discuss Jung's concept of the collective unconscious corresponding to the “mythic land of the dead” and I show how this idea develops in The Black Books and The Red Book, or Liber Novus, culminating in Septem Sermones ad Mortuos. I describe my work with a patient, who, in an early session, said she felt like the "living dead". I recount how the patient's experience of her own internal world began to change as we were able to wonder about the inner world of the patient's late mother and, together, to imagine her mother's lament. I consider the use of imagination when working with the concept of "therapy for the dead" (Hillman & Shamdasani, 2013, p. 164) in the context of intergenerational trauma.     

Executive dysfunction in autism

"Executive function" is an umbrella term for functions such as planning, working memory, impulse control, inhibition and mental flexibility, as well as for the initiation and monitoring of action. The primacy of executive dysfunction in autism is a topic of much debate, as are recent attempts to examine subtypes of executive function within autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders that are considered to implicate frontal lobe function. This article will review cognitive behavioural studies of planning, mental flexibility and inhibition in autism. It is concluded that more detailed research is needed to fractionate the executive system in autism by assessing a wide range of executive functions as well as their neuroanatomical correlates in the same individuals across the lifespan.