A conceptual model of child psychopathology: implications for understanding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and treatment efficacy

Highlights the desirability of using a theoretical framework for guiding the design and evaluation of therapeutic interventions for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A general conceptual model is introduced and used to evaluate ADHD treatment outcome research. Treatments designed to target the substrate level (pharmacological interventions) result in broad, robust improvement in both core and peripheral areas of functioning. Those targeting hypothesized core features of the disorder (i.e., attention, impulsivity-hyperactivity) produce corresponding improvement in core and peripheral outcome measures with the exception of studies employing cognitive-behavior therapy. Those targeting peripheral features of the disorder effect change only in corresponding peripheral areas of functioning. Implications for clinical practice are discussed, and an alternative conceptual model of ADHD is introduced and compared with existing models.     

Knowledge level learning and the power law: A soar model of skill acquisition in scheduling

Zusammenfassung. Das hier vorgestellte Modell lernt graduell, Planungsaufgaben aus der Klasse der Maschinenbelegungsprobleme (job-shop-scheduling problems) zu lösen. Mit Hilfe des Chunking-Mechanismus von Soar wird episodisches Wissen über die Belegungsreihenfolge von Aufträgen auf Maschinen memoriert. Bei der Entwicklung des Modells wurden zahlreiche qualitative (z. B. Transfereffekte) und quantitative Befunde (z. B. Bearbeitungszeiten) aus einer früheren empirischen Untersuchung berücksichtigt. In einer Validierungsstudie wurden dieselben Aufgaben von 14 Probanden und dem Modell bearbeitet. Die Passung von Simulationsdaten und empirischen Ergebnissen fiel insgesamt gut aus. Allerdings löst das Modell die Aufgaben schneller und zeigt auch einen etwas besseren Lernverlauf als die Probanden. Das Modell liefert eine Erklärung für das Rauschen, das typischerweise bei Bearbeitungszeiten zu beobachten ist: es handelt sich um erworbenes Wissen, das mehr oder weniger gut und auch unterschiedlich häufig auf neue Situationen übertragen wird. Der Lernverlauf der Probanden entspricht nur für aggregierte Daten einer Potenzfunktion (power law). Der vorgestellte Mechanismus zeigt, wie ein symbolisches Modell der Informationsverarbeitung graduelle Verhaltensänderungen generiert und wie der offensichtliche Erwerb allgemeiner Prozeduren ohne explizites Lernen von deklarativen Regeln erfolgen kann. Es wird nahegelegt, daß es sich hier um die Modellierung einer Form impliziten Lernens handelt. Summary. The model presented here gradually learns how to perform a job-shop scheduling task. It uses Soar's chunking mechanism to acquire episodic memories about the order to schedule jobs. The model was based on many qualitative (e.g., transfer effects) and quantitative (e.g., solution time) regularities found in previously collected data. The model was tested with new data where scheduling tasks were given to the model and to 14 subjects. The model generally fit these data with the restrictions that the model performs the task (in simulated time) faster than the subjects, and its performance improves somewhat more quickly than the subjects' performance. The model provides an explanation of the noise typically found in problem solving times - it is the result of learning actual pieces of knowledge that transfer more or less to new situations but rarely by an average amount. Only when the data are averaged (i.e., over subjects) does the smooth power law appear. This mechanism demonstrates how symbolic models can exhibit a gradual change in behavior and how the apparent acquisition of general procedures can be performed without resorting to explicit declarative rule generation. We suggest that this may represent a type of implicit learning.     

The puzzle of language evolution

Linguistics must again concentrate on the evolutionary nature of language, so that language models are more realistic with respect to human natural languages and have a greater explanatory force. Multi-agent systems are proposed as a possible route to develop such evolutionary models and an example is given of a concrete experiment in the origins and evolution of word-meaning based on a multi-agent approach.     

Toward a New Paradigm for Multicultural Counseling

Wisdom is introduced as a fundamental quality of the effective multicultural counselor. Wisdom is defined, discussed, and differentiated from intelligence. The authors propose that to be an effective multicultural counselor requires more than textbook knowledge. Wisdom, as a transcultural concept, is considered in relation to culture, context, dialectical thinking, awareness, metacognition, deep interpersonal insight, and advanced empathy. Implications for counselor education and professional practice are discussed. Wisdom is an ancient subject that may provide a “new” paradigm with the potential to bring the field to a higher plateau of effectiveness in practice and training.     

Criterion-related validity of sit-and-reach tests in university men in Hong Kong

To examine the criterion-related validity of traditional, modified, and YMCA sit-and-reach tests and the relationships of these with abdominal muscular strength and endurance measured by the sit-up test, 52 university men of mean age 20.7 yr. were administered two trials of six measurements in counterbalanced order, including traditional, modified, and YMCA sit-and-reach tests, passive straight-leg raise, low-back flexibility evaluation, and 1-min. sit-up test. Pearson product-moment correlations were significant (p < .05) for traditional and modified sit-and-reach tests with hamstrings' flexibility (rs = .71 and .77, respectively). Also, the YMCA sit-and-reach test was significantly associated with hamstrings' flexibility (r = .64) and low-back flexibility (r = .47). Stepwise multiple regression indicated hamstrings' flexibility was the only significant predictor of traditional and modified sit-and-reach tests, explaining the variances of 59.1% and 49.8%, respectively. However, both hamstring and low-back flexibility were significant predictors for the YMCA sit-and-reach test, which in total accounted for 52.2% of explained variance. Traditional and modified sit-and-reach tests are valid in assessing hamstrings' flexibility only, whereas the YMCA sit-and-reach test is valid for measuring both the hamstring and low-back flexibility.     

Authority,Psychotherapy and the Authority of the Therapist in the Religious Haredi Community

This article considers the meaning and significance of authority, and its relevance to the transference process, within the framework of psychotherapy in the orthodox Jewish (Haredi) community in Israel. In this community, deeply-rooted habits of obedience to the commandments of the Torah and the authority of the Rabbi are integral to maintaining an orthodox way of life. Clinical vignettes with Haredi patients are presented to illustrate the complexities that arise when both patient and therapist belong to the orthodox community, and highlight the authority-related issues that are central to the therapy. This combination of factors requires a sensitive and finely-tuned approach which will enable the therapist to maintain the treatment framework while still accommodating the orthodox way of life.     

Melancholic Response to War Destruction and the Emergence of a Group Assumption of Post-Ness

What psychological response does war and forced displacement evoke in victims? How do survivors of war communicate their experiences to their children? Finally, what culture does the psychological response to loss shape? Using data collected through interviews, psychological consultations, and children’s drawings from two sources—the ongoing Syrian civil war and the Bosnian war of 1992–1995, this paper suggests that the experience of the war generation becomes the organizing axis of their identity and that of their children. It seeks to demonstrate that survivor parents communicate their experience of loss through gesture, act, and object rather than through a coherent narrative. Whereas survivor children use metaphoric and metonymic readings of their parents’ everyday performance in order to construct meaning and form their identities as descendants of a given family. This paper argues that such an identity is characterized by ambivalence towards the self and towards others, melancholic longing for an idealized pre-war past, and the impossibility of letting it go.     

The Psychic Life of Fragments: Splitting from Ferenczi to Klein*

The present paper starts from the reflection that there is a curious “phenomenological gap” in psychoanalysis when it comes to processes of splitting and to describing the “life” of psychic fragments resulting from processes of splitting. In simpler terms, we are often in a position to lack a precise understanding of what is being split and how the splitting occurs. I argue that although Melanie Klein’s work is often engaged when talking of splitting (particularly through discussions on identification, projection and projective identification), there are some important phenomenological opacities in her construction. I show that by orchestrating a dialogue between Melanie Klein and Sándor Ferenczi, we arrive at a fuller and more substantive conception of psychic splitting and of the psychic life of fragments which are the result of splitting. This is even more meaningful because there are some unacknowledged genealogical connections between Ferenczian concepts and Kleinian concepts, which I here explore. While with Klein we remain in the domain of “good” and “bad” objects—polarised objects which are constantly split and projected—with Ferenczi we are able to also give an account of complicated forms of imitation producing psychic fragments and with a “dark” side of identification, which he calls “identification with the aggressor”. While attempting to take steps toward imagining a dialogue between Klein and Ferenczi, I note a certain silent “Ferenczian turn” in a late text by Melanie Klein, “On the Development of Mental Functioning”, written in 1958. In particular, I reflect on her reference to some “terrifying figures” of the psyche, which cannot be accounted for simply as the persecutory parts of the super-ego but are instead more adequately read as more enigmatic and more primitive psychic fragments, resulting from processes of splitting.