Is hypnotic suggestibility a stable trait?

The present study examined the trait-like nature of hypnotic suggestibility by examining the stability of hypnotic responsiveness in a test-retest design in which the procedures were administered either live or by audiotape. Contrary to the idea that hypnotizability is a largely immutable, stable trait, scores on the scale of hypnotic responsiveness decreased significantly at the second session. Measures of subjective experiences and expectancies accounted for a sizable portion of the variance in hypnotic responding, both at initial test and at retest. Participants became disengaged with the hypnotic procedures at retest. Participants who received the hypnotic induction by audiotape did not differ from participants who received it live. The results are consistent with sociocognitive and altered state theories of hypnosis, and underline the important role of subjective experiences in hypnotic responding.     

Trauma and defences: their roots in relationship. An overview

In this paper the differing psychodynamic models of defences are outlined and compared with an attachment theory perspective in which affect regulation plays a central role. Behavioural and intrapsychic distance regulation (defensive exclusion) are seen as the main strategies for affect regulation and are the manifestations of the habitual pattern of emotional regulation in the relationship between the child and the primary caregiver. A new perspective on unconscious fantasy is offered, in which fantasies are seen to be actively created as defensive narratives to protect the development of healthy narcissism and to become integrated into a person's internal working models. Archetypal defences are explored from a developmental perspective and some neurobiological issues relevant to defences are highlighted.     

Sex, shame and the transcendent function: the function of fantasy in self development

This paper explores a developmental approach to the sense of self-agency and to its influence on conscious and unconscious fantasy. I suggest that the emerging sense of self-agency offers an over-arching framework for our understanding of the nature and function of fantasy. In this context, intrusive and compulsive sexual fantasies which a person experiences as perverted and shameful, can be seen to serve differing psychic purposes, depending on the level of self-agency which is predominant. The fantasies can serve both as warning signals of the dangers of relationship and as opportunities for the mind to reflect on its own processes. Differing psychodynamic theories of fantasy are examined in terms of the developmental sense of self-agency that they represent.     

Acquisition and extinction in autoshaping

C. R. Gallistel and J. Gibbon (2000) presented quantitative data on the speed with which animals acquire behavioral responses during autoshaping, together with a statistical model of learning intended to account for them. Although this model captures the form of the dependencies among critical variables, its detailed predictions are substantially at variance with the data. In the present article, further key data on the speed of acquisition are used to motivate an alternative model of learning, in which animals can be interpreted as paying different amounts of attention to stimuli according to estimates of their differential reliabilities as predictors.     

Behavior contracts in marriage counseling

Abstract

Followup data from 10 couples who used behavior contracts in marriage counseling are presented. Conclusions suggest that contracts are edfective in initiating positive marital behavior but not necesrary for continued marital satisfaction. Rationale and spacifics of contract construction are detailed.