Kombination von Settings und Verfahren in der Psychotherapie

Literature research and own clinical experiences confirm the significance of a combined use of settings and methods in the area of inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy. For inpatient treatment, the combined use of methods, such as individual psychotherapy, group therapy, creative therapies, and sport, are an essential part of the treatment. In outpatient treatment, the regulations of the German insurance do not permit such combinations. Nevertheless, they occur and are often proactively initiated by the patients. The various combined use of psychotherapy and psychotropics is very well studied, but also the combination of settings, i.e. supplementary inpatient treatment, day treatment, and outpatient treatment have to be considered. While administering their therapies, psychotherapists should keep in mind possibly concurrently ongoing treatments as well as former therapies and their effects on the patients. With the exception of combinations with psychotropic treatment, there exist almost no empirical data in this important field.     

Psychometric evaluation of the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue scale for use with pregnant and postpartum women

Although fatigue is a common experience for pregnant women and new mothers, few measures of fatigue have been validated for use with this population. To address this gap, the authors assessed psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue (MAF) scale, which was used in 2 independent samples of pregnant women. Results indicated that the psychometric properties of the scale were very similar across samples and time points. The scale possesses a high level of internal consistency, has good convergent validity with measures of sleep quality and depression, and discriminates well from a measure of social support. Contrary to previous evaluations of the MAF, data strongly suggest that the scale represents a unidimensional construct best represented by a single factor. Results indicate that the MAF is a useful measure of fatigue among pregnant and postpartum women.     

The Crooked Path from Vagueness to Four-Dimensionalism

Philosophical Studies -     

Isolation and Non-Arbitrary Division: Frege's Two Criteria for Counting

In §54 of the Grundlagen, Frege advances an interesting proposal on how to distinguish among different sorts of concepts, only some of which he thinks can be associated with number. This paper is devoted to an analysis of the two criteria he offers, isolation and non-arbitrary division. Both criteria say something about the way in which a concept divides its extension; but they emphasize different aspects. Isolation ensures that a concept divides its extension into discrete units. I offer two construals of this: isolation as discreteness, i.e. absence of overlap, between the objects to be counted; and isolation as the drawing of conceptual boundaries. Non-arbitrary division concerns the internal structure of the units we count: it makes sure that we cannot go on dividing them arbitrarily and still find more units of the kind. Non-arbitrary division focuses not only on how long something can be divided into parts of the same kind; it also speaks to the way in which these divisions are made, arbitrarily or non-arbitrarily, as well as to the compositional structure of the objects divided.     

Involuntary Rotations of a Steering Device Induced by Voluntary Rotations of the Head and Maintained Eccentric Head Positions

In a series of 4 experiments, the authors examined involuntary rotations of a steering device (handlebar or wheel) that were associated with periodic head rotations and eccentric head positions. Periodic head rotations resulted in isodirectional involuntary rotations of a horizontally arranged steering device of very small amplitude. When the orientation of a steering wheel was changed to vertical and to a backward tilt, the involuntary rotations were in the opposite direction. That pattern of results is consistent with the assumption that small movements of the shoulder girdle, which are associated with head turns and which cannot be prevented by mechanical immobilization of the shoulder, are propagated to the wheel, but is not consistent with previous suggestions that involuntary rotations of a steering device can result from the action of the tonic neck reflex. Effects that correspond to the pattern of the tonic neck reflex were found only when a spring-centered handlebar was held in an eccentric position; maintenance of the eccentric position was facilitated when the participant's head was turned in the opposite direction. The findings strongly suggest that head movements can result in involuntary movements of a steering device via different mechanisms.     

Advance specification and programming interactions: A reply to Rosenbaum,Barnes, and Slotta (1988)

Summary Choice reaction time often depends on the relation between the responses from which subjects have to choose. Rosenbaum, Barnes, and Slotta (1988) criticized the interpretation of a particular set of such effects which can be observed when subjects have to choose between left-hand and right-hand responses that have same or different spatio-temporal patterns. This set of effects had been interpreted in terms of a programming interactions (PI) hypothesis rather than in terms of the more popular advance specification (AS) hypothesis which is the foundation of a major portion of motor-programming research. It is made clear that the controversy is not about whether the one or the other hypothesis is correct in general, but about whether there are exceptions which cannot be interpreted in terms of the AS hypothesis. Further it is argued that the particular set of effects represents such an exception. It is shown that Rosenbaum et al. claim that the data are consistent with the AS hypothesis and inconsistent with the PI hypothesis is untenable.Supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant He 1187/3-1)     

Intermanual interactions during programming of aimed movements: Converging evidence on common and specific parameters of control

Summary Reaction time for choice between left-hand and right-hand responses sometimes depends on whether the responses assigned to the two hands are the same or different, but sometimes it does not. It has been suggested that the result obtained indicates whether the variable on which the responses differ is determined by common or specific parameters of control. Common parameters apply to movements of both hands, but specific parameters can be set independently for left-hand and right-hand responses. The interpretation of choice RT in terms of intermanual interactions requires that the conclusions converge with conclusions that are based on studies of simultaneous movements, provided that interactions can indeed be attributed to common parameters. Results from the latter type of experiment suggest that duration of aimed movements is determined by common parameters, but amplitude is determined by specific parameters. In two experiments it is shown that the choice-task results are consistent with this conclusion: Choice RT increases when the choice is between aimed movements that differ in duration, but not if the choice is between movements of different amplitudes. Further, an assimilation of responses is found in the former case but not in the latter. These findings are taken as further support for the notion of intermanual interactions during motor programming.