The Effect of Concurrent Depression on PTSD Outcomes in Trauma-Focused Psychotherapy: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

The co-occurrence of depression with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common and associated with greater severity and impairment than PTSD alone, but the effects on PTSD treatment outcomes are unclear. This study investigated the impact of baseline depression on PTSD symptom change and dropout in a meta-analysis of 44 randomized controlled trials (N = 4,866) of trauma-focused psychotherapies for PTSD. Analyses included 107 active (k = 71) and control (k = 36) conditions. Baseline depression was indexed within samples as (a) continuous symptom severity (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory), standardized across depression measures and (b) proportion of patients with comorbid depressive disorder diagnosis. Among active conditions reporting continuous depression scores (k = 62), greater depression severity predicted smaller PTSD treatment effect sizes (ß = -.36, p = .002), but not dropout (ß = .25, p = .18). Categorical depressive diagnosis rates (k = 29)—reported less frequently—were not associated with treatment effects or dropout in active conditions. Greater depression severity may reflect a risk factor for attenuated response in PTSD psychotherapies, potentially demanding complementary strategies within trauma-focused interventions. Variability between trials in baseline depression symptoms may suggest the need to consider this sample characteristic when comparing treatment outcomes across studies.     

Discussions with Bocheński concerning Soviet Marxism–Leninism, 1952–1986

Boche??ski??s lucid, unpartisan, and judiciously critical discussion of Soviet Marxism?CLeninism in his book Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (1950) filled a major gap in our understanding of that influential movement. Prior to its publication there had been only two works on the subject in English, John Somerville??s Soviet Philosophy (1946) and the Handbook of Philosophy (1949), edited and adapted by Howard Selsam from the Kratkij filosofskij slovar?? (2nd ed. 1940). Both are marked by strong partisanship and ideological bias. Somerville is uncritically pro-Soviet and abjectly Stalinist. Selsam, although he tones down the adulation of Marx, Stalin et al. of the KFS, retains that work??s abuse of such ??reactionary?? and ??idealist?? thinkers as Plato and such ??reactionary?? and ??bourgeois?? thinkers as Hegel. The benign influence of Boche??ski??s work increased with the publication of the English translation, Soviet Russian Dialectical Materialism, in 1963.     

Situational Variability in Personal Construing and Social Cognitive Development

Abstract

This study assesses whether contextually based shifts in repertory grid ratings represent an interpretabte individual difference in social cognitive functioning. A group of 117 subjects rated role figures in both general and specific behavioral contexts. Subjects also completed measures of conceptual system abstractness and construct system organization. Results showed significant shifts in grid ratings when role figures are judged in specified as opposed to unspecified contexts. Also, subjects with greater shifts in grid ratings possessed more abstract conceptual systems and formed more highly organized impressions than subjects with fewer shifts in grid ratings     

The Validity of Gottheil's Oral Trait Scale in Great Britain

The Gottheil oral scale was administered to a large sample of British students and subjected to item analysis. This revealed that only 16 of the 40 items were forming a common scale. Furthermore, examination of the content of the successful items suggested that these were measuring social extraversion. It was concluded that, in British samples at least, the validity of the Gottheil oral scale was in serious doubt and that previous results with this scale would have to be treated with extreme caution.     

Organizational Structure,Context, and Climate: Their Relationships to Job Satisfaction at Three Managerial Levels

Managers from 120 organizations (183 men and 27 women) from four major Canadian urban centers were surveyed about their job satisfaction. Seven aspects of job satisfaction were evaluated: satisfaction with the firm, pay, promotional opportunities, the job itself, other managers at the same level, immediate supervisor, and subordinates. Overall, managers at the highest level reported the most job satisfaction. For presidents, satisfaction was related to the organization's structure and context, as well as to its climate, whereas for middle managers and vice presidents, job satisfaction was related more frequently to the organization's climate and less frequently to its structure and context.     

A construct validation of the Objective-Analytic Test Battery (OATB)

The scales of Cattell's Objective–Analytic Test Battery (OATB) and the factors derived from the factor analysis of the subtests of the OATB were located with respect to a wide range of ability and personality variables, including the 16PF and Cattell's Comprehensive Ability Battery. The expected relationships between the OATB scales and the personality measures did not emerge. However, it was found that many of the OATB scales were highly correlated with ability factors. It is concluded that in Britain, and in its present form, the OATB is not a viable instrument for measuring personality traits.     

Pregenital fixation and perceptual distortions to conflict-laden material.

Three standard questionnaire measures of oral and anal fixation were administered to 142 students. On the basis of their scores 26 students were selected and shown tachistoscopic exposures of pictures designed to activate oral or anal conflicts. Five subjects in each group had extremely high scores on the corresponding measure of fixation, five had extremely low scores, and 16 had intermediate scores. It was hypothesised that individuals who were fixated at one or other of the psychosexual stages would show stereotyped perceptual distortions to repeated dim exposures of the corresponding picture. Highly fixated subjects showed significantly more deviant responses than did subjects who showed low levels of fixation at the same stage. A form of Q-factor analysis indicated that subjects who were fixated at the oral sadistic or anal stages showed different patterns of perceptual distortions to the anal picture than those who were not fixated. These results were interpreted as supporting the link between defenses against anal eroticism and the anal character.     

José María Ferrater-Mora (1912–1991)

Sans résumé     

An item and radial parcel factor analysis of the 16PF questionnaire

An extensive series of analyses were carried out on a sample of data from 491 undergraduate university students who completed Form A of Cattell's 16PF questionnaire. The data was item analysed, factored using both principal component and image analyses, and radial parcelled. However, even though five different factor solutions were rotated to a maximum simple structure, the 16 factors did not emerge as expected. Radial parcelling also yielded equivocal results. Using only psychometric criteria to guide the analysis, three new factor scales were generated that satisfied the test of high factor validity and high coefficient alpha simultaneously for each scale. The overall solution yielded seven factored scales. Additionally, results were reported of a scale factoring of the 16 scales yielding a replicable 4-factor solution. An alternative 7-factor solution was not replicable among subsamples taken from the total data set.