Intimate Partner Violence Assessment in an Historical Context: Divergent Approaches and Opportunities for Progress

This paper provides a brief history of the assessment of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the United States. We examine strengths and weaknesses of the original IPV assessment approaches and describe the modifications and extensions that have been employed to improve our understanding of the multifaceted nature of IPV. We next discuss more recent movements in IPV assessment, including the assessment of non-heterosexual relationships, the examination of various (and often intersecting) forms of IPV, and the identification of qualitatively different types of IPV. We provide an analogy between the assessment of IPV and the assessment of other problems such as depression, and compare the differences between an assessment of symptoms and an assessment of impairment or harm. We conclude by highlighting the need for multi-method assessment approaches that can account for both the frequency and intensity of aggressive acts, as well as the context, motivations, and impacts of such acts, in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of violence in intimate relationships.     

Racial Enactments in Dynamic Treatment

The aim of this paper is to discuss racial enactments for what they might contribute to our understanding of the intersubjectivity of race and racial experience. “Racial enactments” designate interactive sequences embodying the actualization in the clinical situation of cultural attitudes toward race and racial difference. I present examples of racial enactments in several social contexts, as well as in an extended clinical vignette. I consider racial enactments in the light of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and suggest that collaborative methods facilitate the effective analysis of racial material.     

Reappraisal and mindfulness: A comparison of subjective effects and cognitive costs

The present study investigated the relative effects of mindfulness and reappraisal in reducing sad mood and whether trait mindfulness and habitual reappraisal moderated the effects. The study also compared the extent to which implementation of these strategies incurred cognitive resources. A total of 129 participants were randomly assigned to receiving training in mindfulness, reappraisal, or no training prior to undergoing an autobiographical sad mood induction. Results showed that mindfulness and reappraisal were superior to no training, and equivalent in their effects in lowering sad mood. Compared to mindfulness, reappraisal resulted in significantly higher interference scores on a subsequent Stroop test, reflecting greater depletion of cognitive resources. Higher trait mindfulness, but not habitual reappraisal, predicted greater reductions in sadness across conditions. The study suggests that although mindfulness and reappraisal are equally effective in down-regulating sad mood, they incur different levels of cognitive costs.     

Geschichte und Perspektiven der Psychotherapie-Richtlinie

This article gives an historical review of the 48 years of development of the psychotherapy guidelines for outpatient treatment by the statutory health insurance (GKV). Furthermore, some plans for further developments of psychotherapy are discussed.     

The Lazy Person's Approach to Depiction

It has been argued (for example, by Nelson Goodman and John Hyman) that ‘depicts’ and similar terms such as ‘is a picture of’ and ‘represents’ are semantically ambiguous: sometimes they are two‐place predicates expressing a relation, and sometimes they are not. This article takes issue with this claim and develops an alternative theory according to which the ambiguity in question is pragmatic rather than semantic.     

Discussion of Kris Yi’s Paper “From No Name Woman to Birth of Integrated Identity: Trauma-Based Cultural Dissociation in Immigrant Women and Creative Integration”

Using a clinical vignette describing her work with a Korean patient, Kris Yi draws attention to the ways in which ethnic minority cultures are not monolithic. Yi offers the theoretical construct of a “cultural dissociation.” When sexual violence or discrimination is infused with cultural practices, people may seek relief by dissociating themselves from the culture that is fused with emotional pain. In this discussion, using examples that range from Sigmund Freud to Henry Louis Gates, I link Yi’s formulation to one I have developed, namely, that race in America constitutes an adaptive problem. When clinicians take into account the adaptive nature of the problem that race and ethnicity constitute in contemporary American culture, practitioners should expect dislocations. I conclude with a call for our profession open ourselves to the different stories differently situated others have to tell in their own voices and on their own terms.     

Differential predictability of four dimensions of affect intensity

Individual differences in affect intensity are typically assessed with the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM). Previous factor analyses suggest that the AIM is comprised of four weakly correlated factors: Positive Affectivity, Negative Reactivity, Negative Intensity and Positive Intensity or Serenity. However, little data exist to show whether its four factors relate to other measures differently enough to preclude use of the total scale score. The present study replicated the four-factor solution and found that subscales derived from the four factors correlated differently with criterion variables that assess personality domains, affective dispositions, and cognitive patterns that are associated with emotional reactions. The results show that use of the total AIM score can obscure relationships between specific features of affect intensity and other variables and suggest that researchers should examine the individual AIM subscales.     

Iona College Community Centered Family Health History Project: Lessons Learned from Student Focus Groups

The Community Centered Family Health History project was initiated to create accessible family health history tools produced by and for the community. The project goal was to promote increased community engagement in health education by encouraging conversations among family members that would translate knowledge of family health history into healthy lifestyle choices. As one of seven community partners, Iona College participated in customizing and beta-testing the Does It Run in the Family? toolkit. Twenty-nine college students were engaged to recruit three relatives related by blood to provide feedback on the utility of the toolkit. The toolkit consists of two booklets—“A Guide to Family Health History” and “A Guide to Understanding Genetics and Health”—explaining the importance of knowing and talking about health within the family as well as basics about how conditions are passed down through generations. Twenty-two of the twenty-nine students participated in focus groups to discuss their reactions to participation in the project. Students in the focus group reported that the study participants—students and their family members—found the toolkit to be user friendly and the experience a valuable one that prompted many to take positive steps toward good health.     

The Linguistic Territoriality Principle — A Critique

In this essay, I develop a critique of the linguistic territoriality principle, which states that, for reasons related to the value of language identity, language groups should be territorially accommodated. While I acknowledge the desirability of implementing a linguistic territoriality principle in some specific cases, I claim that this principle is in general inappropriate for the ‘post‐Westphalian’ linguistic world in which we live. I identify, analyze and reject two distinct justifications for the linguistic territoriality principle: the Linguistic Context justification and the Language Survival justification. Finally, I argue for different means of giving political recognition to the fact that most people value their language as an importance source of identity. This alternative theory sets out to officially recognize multiple languages in a given territory.