Freud's Little Oedipus: Hans as exception to the oedipal rule

Freud's "The Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy" is regarded by Freud and by analytic readers and commentators as a prototype of his conception of the oedipus complex. A literary methodology is used to show that the interpretation of the oedipus complex at work in Freud's text in fact differs from Freud's standard view of it. While studying the paper as text, not as case report, may obscure or distort some clinical matters, it is valuable in that it makes legible a sort of theoretical unconscious in the text. In contrast to Freud's typically tragic view of the oedipus complex (in the tradition of ancient Greek tragedy), the Hans study evokes a comic vision (in the tradition of Greek New Comedy). This comic vision allows Hans a happy imaginative ending to the oedipal dilemma, challenges certain epistemic pretensions, and emphasizes the oedipus complex as a set of abiding existential questions. Given the deep link between Freud"s oedipus concept and a tragic view of human life, this departure in the Hans paper is a fascinating anomaly.     

Effects of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate and progesterone on spatial learning and memory in young and aged mice

Young (2-4 months) and aged (14-16 months) male Swiss-Webster albino mice (n = 7 per group) were subcutaneously injected with 20 mg/kg/day dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), progesterone (P), DHEAS + P, or vehicle control and trained over a 5-day period in a Morris water maze. The subjects were tested 48 hr after training for memory recall as measured by latencies to locate the hidden platform, and trunk blood was collected immediately thereafter. As expected, latency to platform decreased for all groups over the 6 testing days, with aged mice taking longer to reach platform than did young mice. However, results did not support the hypotheses that DHEAS-treated mice would exhibit shorter latencies and that P-treated mice would show longer latencies to platform in comparison with age-matched controls. These results raise doubts about the effectiveness of commercially available supplements claiming to promote enhanced memory in humans.     

Development of a telephone-based intervention for support persons to help smokers quit

This study represents the first step toward systematic behavioral treatment development and pilot testing of a novel approach to smoking cessation that utilizes adults interested in helping someone to stop smoking (i.e., support persons) as the agent of change. The counselor manual for a telephone-based intervention for support persons was developed based on a previous clinic-based intervention. Social cognitive theory served as the conceptual basis for the intervention. Ten adult non-smoking females completed the treatment protocol, consisting of six 20 - 30-min sessions and written materials. The support person was the sole recipient of the professional intervention. Feedback was obtained from 8 of the 10 participants and all 4 telephone counselors 1 week post-treatment (week 10). Results indicate that the telephone-based intervention was feasible and acceptable to participants. The intervention was refined based on participant and counselor feedback and will be subsequently tested in a randomized pilot trial.     

‘Repentant’ artists in Egypt: debating gender, performing arts and religion

This article explores the emergent public sphere in Egypt in the early 1990s by analysing the debates about the ‘repentant’ artists. Many artists, mostly women but also a few men, stepped down from art for religious reasons. Some of them even started to preach against art because they considered their former profession haram. The ‘repentance’ of so many famous performers led to fierce contestations in the media. Art became an issue par excellence for debating notions of the ‘common good’ and the ‘good Muslim.’ Media were intensively used by secularists, conservative Muslims, Islamists, the regime and repentant artists to publicise their version of Islam. The different voices in the debate are analysed to investigate whether they constitute a counterpublic.

Theory‐Based Determinants of Youth Smoking: A Multiple Influence Approach1

This study tested a broad array of determinants of smoking grounded in general social psychological theories, as well as personality and social development theories. Using data from 2,004 middle school students, all proximal and distal determinants significantly predicted smoking in the hypothesized direction. Further, hierarchical logistic regressions showed that intention to smoke, positive and negative attitudes toward smoking, impediments to smoking, self‐efficacy to resist smoking, parent norms, and academic success most strongly predicted current smoking. Hierarchical linear regressions suggested that parental relatedness, maladaptive coping strategies, depression, and low academic aspirations most strongly predicted susceptibility to smoking for those who had not yet smoked a cigarette. Global expectancies were the strongest predictor of susceptibility in low socioeconomic status students. These findings may guide the development of future theory‐based interventions that produce the greatest reductions in youth smoking.     

Health‐relevant personality is associated with sensitivity to sound (hyperacusis)

Hyperacusis, over‐sensitivity to sounds, causes distress and disability and the etiology is not fully understood. The study aims to explore possible associations between health‐relevant personality traits and hyperacusis. Hyperacusis was assessed using the Hyperacusis Questionnaire (HQ), and clinical uncomfortable loudness levels (ULL). Personality was measured with the Health‐relevant Personality (HP5i) Inventory. The study sample was 348 (140 men and 208 women; age 23–71 years). Moderate correlations were found between the personality trait negative affectivity (NA; a facet of neuroticism) and dimensions of the HQ and weak correlations were found with the ULLs. Hedonic capacity (a facet of extraversion) was significantly correlated with the HQ but not with the ULLs. Impulsivity (a facet of conscientiousness) was correlated with the HQ and the ULLs. A significant difference in mean values was found in all hyperacusis measures and different levels of NA – those with higher levels displayed more severe signs of hyperacusis. A multiple logistic regression analysis showed that higher levels of NA increases the odds of having hyperacusis on average 4.6 times for men and 2.4 times for women. These findings imply that health‐relevant personality traits should be considered in the diagnosis and treatment of hyperacusis.     

Diminished ability to identify facial emotional expressions in children with disorganized attachment representations

The development of children's ability to identify facial emotional expressions has long been suggested to be experience dependent, with parental caregiving as an important influencing factor. This study attempts to further this knowledge by examining disorganization of the attachment system as a potential psychological mechanism behind aberrant caregiving experiences and deviations in the ability to identify facial emotional expressions. Typically developing children (N = 105, 49.5% boys) aged 6–7 years (M = 6 years 8 months, SD = 1.8 months) completed an attachment representation task and an emotion identification task, and parents rated children's negative emotionality. The results showed a generally diminished ability in disorganized children to identify facial emotional expressions, but no response biases. Disorganized attachment was also related to higher levels of negative emotionality, but discrimination of emotional expressions did not moderate or mediate this relation. Our novel findings relate disorganized attachment to deviations in emotion identification, and therefore suggest that disorganization of the attachment system may constitute a psychological mechanism linking aberrant caregiving experiences to deviations in children's ability to identify facial emotional expressions. Our findings further suggest that deviations in emotion identification in disorganized children, in the absence of maltreatment, may manifest in a generally diminished ability to identify emotional expressions, rather than in specific response biases.     

Subitizing and counting in typical and atypical development

Enumeration performance in standard dot counting paradigms was investigated for different age groups with typical and atypically poor development of arithmetic skills. Experiment 1 showed a high correspondence between response times and saccadic frequencies for four age groups with typical development. Age differences were more marked for the counting than the subitizing range. In Experiment 2 we found a discontinuity between subitizing and counting for dyscalculic children; however, their subitizing slopes were steeper than those of typically developing control groups, indicating a dysfunctional subitizing mechanism. Across both experiments a number of factors could be identified that affect enumeration in the subitizing and the counting range differentially. These differential patterns further support the assumption of two qualitatively different enumeration processes.     

Which preventive interventions effectively enhance depressed mothers' sensitivity? A meta‐analysis

Improving depressed mothers' sensitivity is assumed to be a key element in preventing adverse outcomes for children of such mothers. This meta‐analysis examines the short‐term effectiveness of preventive interventions in terms of enhancing depressed mothers' sensitivity toward their child and investigates what type of intervention is most effective. Thirteen interventions, reported in 10 controlled outcome studies, met the inclusion criteria (N = 918). Meta‐analytic results showed a small to medium, significant mean effect size (g = 0.32) with large variation in individual effect sizes (?0.56–1.76). Interventions including baby massage were highly effective in improving maternal sensitivity (g = 0.85). In contrast, individual therapy for the mother proved ineffective in terms of improving maternal sensitivity (g = ?0.00). Two other significant predictors of greater effect sizes were the inclusion of a support group and the use of a higher number of intervention methods; however, the significance of these results was largely accounted for by one single study. Our meta‐analysis confirms that depressed mothers' sensitivity can be improved by preventive intervention and suggests that baby massage may be an effective intervention method to evoke short‐term changes in maternal sensitivity. It is unclear whether these changes are maintained over time.