Working with and ‘seeing through’ the sexual transference in the psychotherapy of an adolescent boy

This paper explores the challenges and developmental opportunities of working with the sexual transference in psychotherapy with adolescents. Psychoanalytic contributions investigating the nature of adolescent sexuality and the developmental move from a narcissistic organisation to a capacity to form intimate relationships are reviewed, and the question of what happens when there is a lack of containment in infancy is addressed. The way in which unintegrated sexual impulses and phantasies can invade the therapeutic relationship is further discussed through the account of the weekly psychotherapy of a 16-year-old boy who formed a powerful sexual transference to his female therapist. The paper highlights how working through the sexual transference enabled this young man to face his developmental paralysis and begin to use the therapy as an opportunity for psychic growth.     

Emotionally enhanced memory for negatively arousing words: storage or retrieval advantage?

People typically remember emotionally negative words better than neutral words. Two experiments are reported that investigate whether emotionally enhanced memory (EEM) for negatively arousing words is based on a storage or retrieval advantage. Participants studied non-word–word pairs that either involved negatively arousing or neutral target words. Memory for these target words was tested by means of a recognition test and a cued-recall test. Data were analysed with a multinomial model that allows the disentanglement of storage and retrieval processes in the present recognition-then-cued-recall paradigm. In both experiments the multinomial analyses revealed no storage differences between negatively arousing and neutral words but a clear retrieval advantage for negatively arousing words in the cued-recall test. These findings suggest that EEM for negatively arousing words is driven by associative processes.     

A longitudinal investigation of older adults’ physical activity: Testing an integrated dual-process model

Objective: To assess the effects of conscious and non-conscious processes for prediction of older adults’ physical activity (PA), we tested a dual-process model that integrated motivational (behavioural intention) and volitional (action planning and coping planning) processes with non-conscious, automatic processes (habit).

Method: Participants (N = 215) comprised community-dwelling older adults (M = 73.8 years). A longitudinal design was adopted to investigate direct and indirect effects of intentions, habit strength (Time 1), and action planning and coping planning (Time 2) on PA behaviour (Time 3). Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model.

Results: The model provided a good fit to the data, accounting for 44% of the variance in PA behaviour at Time 3. PA was predicted by intentions, action planning, and habit strength, with action planning mediating the intention-behaviour relationship. An effect of sex was also found where males used fewer planning strategies and engaged in more PA than females.

Conclusions: By investigating an integration of conscious and non-conscious processes, this study provides a novel understanding of older adults’ PA. Interventions aiming to promote PA behaviour of older adults should target the combination of psychological processes.     

Perceived Conflict Styles of Adult Children and their Parents: What Is the Connection?

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential genesis of conflict styles for couples by evaluating the association between parents’ conflict styles and those of their adult children and their adult children’s partners. Using Social Learning Theory as a theoretical foundation, the four conflict typologies from Gottman’s work (avoidant, validating, volatile, and hostile) were applied to study the participants’ conflict styles. Multinomial logistic regression was then conducted on a sample of 25,511 participants, testing the relationships between the conflict styles of parents, their adult children’s conflict styles, and their adult children’s partners’ conflict styles. All of the perceived parental conflict styles were linked to the same conflict styles in adult children. However, for adult children and their partners, the patterns were mixed. Whereas having validating parents predicted having validating partners, having avoidant or hostile parents predicted having hostile partners. The results suggest the possibility of the intergenerational transmission of conflict styles between parents and their adult children as well as contributing to the established research on assortative mating in that individuals may be more likely to select partners who are similar to them in terms of their approaches to conflict. The results of this study have important implications for intervening early in families with less functional conflict styles.     

The analyst's reluctance to begin a new analysis

Given the decline in the average psychoanalytic practice, it is crucial to examine the variables affecting the individual analyst's practice. One such variable is the analyst's reluctance to begin a new analysis. Literature exploring its origins, possible manifestations, and effects on the analyst's thinking and practicing is reviewed. The analyst's reluctance is considered (1) as a defense against powerful affects, (2) as a co-created resistance, and (3) as a manifestation of the analyst's conflicts. Two clinical examples illustrate how this reluctance and its subsequent recognition influence the analyst's work. It is suggested that the present reality of a socioeconomic climate adverse to psychoanalysis, with fewer patients willing to engage in analysis from the outset, might be used to rationalize the analyst's reluctance to begin. It is also suggested that the analyst's reluctance to begin a new analysis is much more pervasive and influential than is presently recognized.     

Teachers' knowledge about adolescents: an interview study

This paper presents the results of an interview study of twelve high school teachers to ascertain their general knowledge about adolescents, as well as their knowledge of issues important to adolescents. The results were as follows: (a) teachers lacked knowledge about what adolescents in previous studies have referred to as important issues in their lives; (b) teachers' general knowledge about adolescents was mainly based on experiential, as opposed to theoretical, knowledge; and (c) teachers were not interested in theoretical knowledge about normal adolescent development. These results are discussed in relationship to the Swedish school system, as well as their relationship to teacher training, which traditionally has focused on the what and how aspects of teaching, not on the aspect of whom one is teaching.     

Lesion-symptom mapping of language impairments in people with brain tumours: The influence of linguistic stimuli

People with tumours in specific brain sites might face difficulties in tasks with different linguistic material. Previous lesion-symptom mapping studies (VLSM) demonstrated that people with tumours in posterior temporal regions have more severe linguistic impairments. However, to the best of our knowledge, preoperative performance and lesion location on tasks with different linguistic stimuli have not been examined. In the present study, we performed VLSM on 52 people with left gliomas to examine whether tumour distribution differs depending on the tasks of the Aachen Aphasia Test. The VLSM analysis revealed that single-word production (e.g. object naming) was associated with the inferior parietal lobe and that compound and sentence production were additionally associated with posterior temporal gyri. Word repetition was affected in people with tumours in inferior parietal areas, whereas sentence repetition was the only task to be associated with frontal regions. Subcortically, word and sentence production were found to be affected in people with tumours reaching the arcuate fasciculus, and compound production was primarily associated with tumours affecting the inferior longitudinal and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Our work shows that tasks with linguistic stimuli other than single-word naming (e.g. compound and sentence production) relate to additional cortical and subcortical brain areas. At a clinical level, we show that tasks that target the same processes (e.g. repetition) can have different neural correlates depending on the linguistic stimuli used. Also, we highlight the importance of left temporoparietal areas.     

Twenty Years Post‐genocide: The Creation of Mental Health Competence among Rwandan Survivors Through Community‐based Healing Workshops

Twenty years after the genocide, many Rwandans still suffer from the psychological wounds of the past. The country's mental health agenda is based on individualised and psychiatric approaches that help some but cannot be provided on a large scale. Further, many reconciliation initiatives have been based on public testimonies, which have been shown to be potentially re‐traumatising, leading to calls for small‐scale community‐based approaches to healing, which constitute a middle way between individualised and public approaches. Drawing on the concept of ‘mental health competence’ (Campbell and Burgess, 2012), this study evaluates one such approach: the Life Wounds Healing workshops offered by the African Institute for Integral Psychology. Twenty‐one semi‐structured interviews were conducted with former workshop participants, staff members and the institute's founder to investigate their views on how these workshops can help genocide survivors. The results suggest that the workshops succeed in creating mental health competence by establishing a safe social space for people to open up, increasing people's critical understandings of the processes of pain — and potential for healing — that informs behaviour change, generating bonding social capital and offering participants' income‐generating possibilities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generalisierte Angststörung

The core features of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are excessive worry about various topics which are perceived as uncontrollable and mostly last for at least 6 months. Worrying is accompanied by a number of symptoms (e.g. muscle tension and irritability). Various etiological models suggest that avoidance of internal processes (e.g. cognitive, emotional, and physical) by worrying is central to the development and maintenance of GAD. Empirically well supported cognitive-behavioral interventions are worry exposure, applied relaxation, treating metacognitions, intolerance of uncertainty and negative problem orientation. Initial studies indicate the efficacy of mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches as well as psychodynamic approaches to treat GAD. The present article reports central diagnostic procedures, important differential diagnoses and illustrates actual (psycho) therapeutic treatment options.     

Social determinants of subjective well-being among young adults living in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

We investigated the relationships between certain social determinants (age, gender, marital status, education, income, and employment) and subjective well-being (SWB) in a young adult population in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. The participants consisted of 977 persons aged 18 to 40 years living in the historically deprived Eastern Cape, South Africa (females = 48%; age range = 18 to 40; rural dwellers = 15%). We measured their SWB utilising the World Health Organization (Ten) Well-Being Scale. Results following analysis of variance showed that age, education, and income were predictors of SWB. Higher SWB was associated with being older, having a higher level of formal education, and having a higher level of income. However, employment status did not have a significant relationship with SWB, suggesting the relative importance of other social indicators of social functioning in this population.