Childhood Cruelty to Animals: Psychiatric and Demographic Correlates

This retrospective study compared frequencies of aggressive behaviors and abuse histories noted during a psychiatric intake assessment for children where animal cruelty was endorsed and a control sample of youth for whom animal cruelty was not endorsed to determine if rates of concerning behaviors differed significantly. Relative to the control group, the cruelty group was significantly more likely to have had problems with peers, perpetrated bullying, experienced sexual abuse, and have a history of sexually acting out. Recommendations for childhood animal cruelty screening in mental health settings are discussed.     

Meeting Survivors Where They Are: The Vital Role of Trauma-Informed and Competent Clinicians in Primary Care

For adult survivors of adverse childhood experiences, primary care is the entryway to treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is estimated 25% of adult primary care patients have PTSD, and they present to their provider more often with pain and non-specific physical symptoms rather than mental health issues. Physicians, even those somewhat knowledgeable about trauma and PTSD, are unlikely to assess for it in order to avoid issues they may not have the time and/or skills to sufficiently address. This is due to PTSD treatment not being a core training competency in graduate-level education and professional training being timely and expensive. Usual care for PTSD consists of medication to manage symptoms and a referral to a mental health clinician. However, substantial disparities and patient, provider, and delivery system-level barriers means survivors are unlikely to follow-through with referrals nor receive adequate treatment when they do. In this theoretical article, we review the trials and tribulations experienced by research teams and argue what is lacking is trauma-informed care. None of the trials reviewed mentioned trauma-informed care as a component of their intervention nor as a recommendation for future studies. We also outline a host of recommendations for best practice protocols that benefit patients and the collaborative care teams meeting them where they are. Trauma-informed care deepens the focus on relational, physiological, and physical safety. Attention to soothing physiological arousal through the physician-patient-clinician triad creates more positive associations toward moving forward in treatment for survivors and providers.     

Assessing mindfulness in children and adolescents: development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM)

This article presents 4 studies (N = 1,413) describing the development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM). In Study 1 (n = 428), the authors determined procedures for item development and examined comprehensibility of the initial 25 items. In Study 2 (n = 334), they reduced the initial item pool from 25 to 10 items through exploratory factor analysis. Study 3 (n = 332) evaluated the final 10-item measure in a cross-validation sample, and Study 4 (n = 319) determined validity coefficients for the CAMM using bivariate and partial correlations with relevant variables. Results suggest that the CAMM is a developmentally appropriate measure with adequate internal consistency. As expected, CAMM scores were positively correlated with quality of life, academic competence, and social skills and negatively correlated with somatic complaints, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing behavior problems. Correlations were reduced but generally still significant after controlling for the effects of 2 overlapping processes (thought suppression and psychological inflexibility). Overall, results suggest that the CAMM may be a useful measure of mindfulness skills for school-aged children and adolescents.     

Light and shadow in the life and work of Louise Nevelson

The life and work of the artist Louise Nevelson are examined through the lens of her ideas about light and shadow. Nevelson developed several ways of dealing with a basic fault established in childhood. Some ideas of Christopher Bollas are used in understanding the artist's relationships with art dealers who served her as transformational objects. The artist became the grandmother of environmental sculpture in America and saw her work as a bridge between the third and the fourth dimension--an idealized realm and a popular concept in twentieth-century art that she related directly to light and shadow. Colette Roberts, a dealer with whom she worked, allowed Nevelson to arrive at a signature style. Arne Glimcher, who represented her for twenty-four years, provided the material and psychological comfort that allowed Nevelson to explore new materials and new styles and to arrive at aesthetic solutions of remarkable power and sophistication through her eighty-ninth year. From the time she met Roberts in 1953 until the end of her life thirty-five years later, Nevelson's ideas about light and shadow expressed not only her thoughts about visual perception but her experience of her mother as her original transformational object and unthought known.     

The evolution of intergroup bias: perceptions and attitudes in rhesus macaques

Social psychologists have learned a great deal about the nature of intergroup conflict and the attitudinal and cognitive processes that enable it. Less is known about where these processes come from in the first place. In particular, do our strategies for dealing with other groups emerge in the absence of human-specific experiences? One profitable way to answer this question has involved administering tests that are conceptual equivalents of those used with adult humans in other species, thereby exploring the continuity or discontinuity of psychological processes. We examined intergroup preferences in a nonhuman species, the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta). We found the first evidence that a nonhuman species automatically distinguishes the faces of members of its own social group from those in other groups and displays greater vigilance toward outgroup members (Experiments 1-3). In addition, we observed that macaques spontaneously associate novel objects with specific social groups and display greater vigilance to objects associated with outgroup members (Experiments 4-5). Finally, we developed a looking time procedure-the Looking Time Implicit Association Test, which resembles the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995)-and we discovered that macaques, like humans, automatically evaluate ingroup members positively and outgroup members negatively (Experiments 6-7). These field studies represent the first controlled experiments to examine the presence of intergroup attitudes in a nonhuman species. As such, these studies suggest that the architecture of the mind that enables the formation of these biases may be rooted in phylogenetically ancient mechanisms.     

Physical punishment and childhood aggression: the role of gender and gene-environment interplay

A large body of research has linked spanking with a range of adverse outcomes in children, including aggression, psychopathology, and criminal involvement. Despite evidence concerning the association of spanking with antisocial behavior, not all children who are spanked develop antisocial traits. Given the heterogeneous effects of spanking on behavior, it is possible that a third variable may condition the influence of corporal punishment on child development. We test this possibility using data drawn from a nationally representative dataset of twin siblings. Our findings suggest that genetic risk factors condition the effects of spanking on antisocial behavior. Moreover, our results provide evidence that the interaction between genetic risk factors and corporal punishment may be particularly salient for males.     

Impact of Stress Reduction Interventions on Hostility and Ambulatory Systolic Blood Pressure in African American Adolescents

This study examined the impact of breathing awareness meditation (BAM), life skills (LS) training, and health education (HE) interventions on self-reported hostility and 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in 121 African American (AA) ninth graders at increased risk for development of essential hypertension. They were randomly assigned to BAM, LS, or HE and engaged in intervention sessions during health class for 3 months. Before, after, and 3 months following intervention cessation, self-reported hostility and 24-hour ABP were measured. Results indicated that between pre- and postintervention, BAM participants displayed significant reductions in self-reported hostility and 24-hour systolic ABP. Reductions in hostility were significantly related to reductions in 24-hour systolic ABP. Between postintervention and follow-up, participants receiving LS showed a significant reduction in hostility but not in 24-hour ABP. Significant changes were not found for the HE group in 24-hour ABP or self-reported hostility, but these change scores were significantly correlated. The implications of the findings are discussed with regard to behavioral stress reduction programs for the physical and emotional health of AAs.     

Shedding light on photosensitive behaviour in brown planaria (Dugesia Tigrina)

The planarian flatworm is one of the simplest animals to develop two eyecups that enable them to detect the presence and direction of light, which they typically avoid. In this study we assessed responses of planaria to different intensities of light. We found that they exhibited a graded, sigmoidal, photonegative response to light intensity. A two-octave increase in luminance (on the upward slope of the sigmoid) corresponded to a 9% increase in the speed planaria travelled to avoid light.     

Snacking while watching TV impairs food recall and promotes food intake on a later TV free test meal

Eating while viewing TV may impair memory of food intake and promote over‐consumption on a later meal. In Experiment 1, females ate a similar amount of snack–food either with or without TV. Later, participants who had snacked with TV ate more food on a TV‐free lunch and were less accurate in recalling their earlier snack–food intake. Experiment 2 explored whether the nature of the TV content might alter these effects. Using a similar design, females watched boring, sad or funny TV, or no‐TV at all. Relative to the no‐TV control, all TV while snacking conditions ate a similarly greater amount on the later TV‐free test lunch. Recall accuracy for the snack phase was also similarly poorer in all TV conditions. These findings suggest that eating with TV per se impacts on later food intake, and a mnemonic‐based explanation seems to be the best account for these findings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How do therapists ally with adolescents in family therapy? An examination of relational control communication in early sessions

Sequential analyses examined associations between the working alliance and therapist-adolescent communication patterns in 10 Spanish cases of brief conjoint family therapy. Early sessions with strong versus problematic alliances, rated by observers, were selected for coding of relational control communication patterns. No differences were found in the frequency of exchanges, but competitive responding by the therapists (reflecting an interpersonal struggle for control) was significantly more likely in problematic alliance sessions than in strong alliance sessions. Cases in which the adolescent's alliance with the therapist remained positive from Session 1 as compared with Session 3 showed a decrease in the likelihood of competitive symmetry. Notably, when the quality of the alliance deteriorated over time, the therapists were increasingly more likely to respond to the adolescents' domineering messages in a competitive manner. Results underscore the need to avoid competitive responding in order to ally with adolescents in conjoint family treatment.