Honoring Protective Responses: Reframing Resistance in Therapy Using Polyvagal Theory

Therapists often conceptualize resistance as client behaviors that impede progress; this perspective threatens the therapeutic alliance, especially in couple and family therapy where increased resistance and multiple alliances are present. Polyvagal theory reframes and normalizes resistant behaviors as preconscious, protective responses emerging from our autonomic nervous system. The theory also explains how humans reciprocate safety cues to connect with each other; therapists can use concepts of polyvagal theory to manage their own emotional regulation and foster safety and connection in therapy. Polyvagal concepts deepen our understanding of protective behaviors presenting in couple and family therapy; therapists can help couple and family clients to recognize protective behaviors in their own relationships and facilitate safer connection and engagement. Clinical implications are presented: psychoeducation can help clients normalize and understand their protective processes; therapist presence and immediacy acknowledges and normalizes protective behaviors as they arise; therapist and client self-regulation skills support connection; therapist genuineness is a precondition to client safety; and understanding of polyvagal theory enhances assessment of conflict and enactments in couple and family therapy.

     

Testing the Effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression—Revised: Changes in Depression,Anxiety, Dysfunctional Attitudes,and Mindfulness

We tested the effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression-Revised (BATD-R), and its impact on secondary outcomes: anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness. It was expected that individuals who completed BATD-R would exhibit decreased depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, as well as increased mindfulness. A sample of adults with depression (n?=?42) was recruited to complete the 10-week treatment. A healthy control group (n?=?38) was included for comparison. Outcomes (depression, anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness) were assessed at pre-treatment, post-treatment or 10 weeks for the healthy control group, and three-month follow-up. At pre-treatment, the clinical group reported greater depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, and less mindfulness than the healthy control group. At post-treatment, the clinical group reported decreased depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, and increased mindfulness, compared to pre-treatment. The control group did not exhibit changes across the 10 weeks. Clinical and healthy control group post-treatment scores did not differ. At three-month follow-up, the clinical group reported a slight increase in depressive symptoms from post-treatment, but still maintained lower depressive symptoms than pre-treatment. The clinical group maintained treatment gains in dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness. Results support the effectiveness of BATD-R and suggest BATD-R may influence dysfunctional attitudes and mindfulness.

     

Evidence-Based Treatments in Community Mental Health Settings: Use and Congruence With Children’s Primary Diagnosis and Comorbidity

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Many evidence-based treatments (EBTs) have been identified for specific child mental health disorders, but there is limited research on the use of...     

Paternal Positivity and Child Mental Health: A Meta-Analysis

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Children whose mothers display more positivity during interactions tend to have better mental health. Some studies investigating associations between...     

Emerging Adults’ Outlook on the Future in the Midst of COVID-19: The Role of Personality Profiles

Journal of Adult Development - Classic lifespan developmental theory describes emerging adulthood and the transition to adulthood as important periods for thinking about one’s future life...     

Trade Unions and Workers’ Life Satisfaction in South Korea

This study analyses the effects of trade unions’ presence in workplaces and union membership on workers’ overall life satisfaction. We estimate a correlated random effects panel ordered probit model using the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study. While the presence of unions increases the probability of reporting a higher level of overall life satisfaction, union membership has no effect. These effects exist only for healthy men who are employed on a permanent contract. Finally, we show that unions’ effects on life satisfaction have four mediating channels—job satisfaction, social security, real wage and fringe benefits.

     

Work,Leisure, and Life Satisfaction for Employees with Physical Disabilities in South Korea

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Empirical studies on work-life balance (WLB) among employees without disabilities are abundant; in contrast, insufficient research exists on WLB and quality of...     

Sometimes it does hurt to ask: The constructive role of articulating impressions

Decisions can sometimes have a constructive role, so that the act of, for example, choosing one option over another creates a preference for that option (e.g., , ,  and ). In this work we explore the constructive role of just articulating an impression, for a presented visual stimulus, as opposed to making a choice (specifically, the judgments we employ are affective evaluations). Using quantum probability theory, we outline a cognitive model formalizing such a constructive process. We predict a simple interaction, in relation to how a second image is evaluated, following the presentation of a first image, depending on whether there is a rating for the first image or not. The interaction predicted by the quantum model was confirmed across three experiments and a variety of control manipulations. The advantages of using quantum probability theory to model the present results, compared with existing models of sequence order effects in judgment (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992) or other theories of constructive processes when a choice is made (e.g.,  and ) are discussed.     

Making sense of surveys and censuses: Issues in religious self-identification

Abstract

Censuses and surveys shape decisions, discourse and debates about people and their lived environments. The outcomes, in the case of a census, inform governments about resource distribution but also shape people's self-understanding about who they are and where they may be going. How people self-identify on censuses and surveys produces certain types of knowledge. This introduction emphasises the impact of those instruments on knowledge production and how numbers can be employed, often anecdotally, to further interests and claims. The way academics use and interpret such instruments has ethical and normative dimensions: numbers are not neutral but shape and are shaped by perceptions and identities. This introduction to a thematic issue of Religion introduces the contributing authors' diverse – historical, qualitative and quantitative – approaches that work together to produce their own kind of multi-disciplinary, academically located knowledge.     

Pilgrims sailing the Titanic: Plausibility effects on memory for misinformation

People rely on information they read even when it is inaccurate (Marsh, Meade, & Roediger, Journal of Memory and Language 49:519–536, 2003), but how ubiquitous is this phenomenon? In two experiments, we investigated whether this tendency to encode and rely on inaccuracies from text might be influenced by the plausibility of misinformation. In Experiment 1, we presented stories containing inaccurate plausible statements (e.g., “The Pilgrims’ ship was the Godspeed”), inaccurate implausible statements (e.g., . . . the Titanic), or accurate statements (e.g., . . . the Mayflower). On a subsequent test of general knowledge, participants relied significantly less on implausible than on plausible inaccuracies from the texts but continued to rely on accurate information. In Experiment 2, we replicated these results with the addition of a think-aloud procedure to elicit information about readers’ noticing and evaluative processes for plausible and implausible misinformation. Participants indicated more skepticism and less acceptance of implausible than of plausible inaccuracies. In contrast, they often failed to notice, completely ignored, and at times even explicitly accepted the misinformation provided by plausible lures. These results offer insight into the conditions under which reliance on inaccurate information occurs and suggest potential mechanisms that may underlie reported misinformation effects.