Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Across the Stages of Psychosis: Prodromal, First Episode, and Chronic Schizophrenia

Since the early 1990s, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been increasingly used as an adjunctive treatment for psychotic disorders. This paper describes the CBT of three cases, each at a different stage of psychotic disorder: at-risk mental state, first-episode psychosis, and chronic psychotic disorder. For the at-risk mental state, treament focused on anxiety and social phobia, whereas the treatment of first-episode psychosis focused on the development of a shared formulation of the factors leading to and maintaining psychotic symptoms. For the chronic case, treatment emphasized the possibility of improving strategies to prevent symptoms from interfering with life goals. The potential contribution of CBT to improve outcomes in psychotic disorders beyond those obtained through traditional pharmacotherapy is discussed.     

The role of attention in the occurrence of the affordance effect

It has been demonstrated that visual objects activate responses spatially corresponding to the orientation (left or right) of their graspable parts. To investigate the role of attention orienting in the generation of this effect, which we will refer to as affordance effect, we ran three experiments in which the target stimulus could either correspond or not with a dynamic event capturing attention. Participants were required to press a left or right key according to the vertical orientation (upward or inverted) of objects presented with their handles oriented to the right or to the left. In Experiments 1 and 2, the objects were located above or below fixation, while in Experiment 3, to assess the contemporary presence of the affordance and Simon effects, the objects were located to the left or right of fixation. The results showed that while the affordance effect, when evident, was always relative to the target object, irrespective of its attentional capturing properties, the Simon effect occurred relative to the event capturing attention. These findings suggest that automatic and controlled processes of visual attention may play a differential role in the occurrence of the two effects.     

A challenging intervention with maternal anxiety: Babies requiring surgical correction of a congenital anomaly after missed prenatal diagnosis

The objective of this study is to assess the impact on maternal anxiety of a short‐term intervention in a particularly stressful situation, such as a surgical anomaly diagnosed only at birth after repeated negative prenatal ultrasounds. The patients were 30 mothers of babies requiring surgical correction of a congenital anomaly who were randomly assigned to an intervention (N = 16) or control (N = 14) group. The intervention group received standard care plus short‐term intervention that included weekly meetings with the psychologist and weekly team meetings. The control group received only standard care available on the Neonatal Surgery Unit. The main outcome measure was maternal anxiety levels, assessed at birth and on discharge with the Spielberger State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI–S). Statistical comparisons were made, and no significant differences were found at birth in the STAI–S scores of the two groups. At discharge, the intervention group exhibited a much lower STAI–S score than the group without short‐term intervention. The authors concluded that psychological counseling for parents of newborn babies has been shown to be helpful. However, the impact of such assistance was shown to be particularly beneficial for parents facing the emotional stress of their children requiring unexpected surgical corrections of congenital anomalies at birth. Therefore, the presence of a psychologist, as part of the standard care of newborns requiring surgical correction, is recommended. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

A political economy approach to understanding the economic incorporation of Chinese sub-ethnic groups

This paper outlines the economic experiences of Toronto’s Chinese, 80% of whom are immigrants mostly arriving in the last two decades. Based on the 1996 census data, labour market participation and economic performance of various. Chinese sub-groups were compared. The findings contribute to an understanding of how selective immigration policies and world geopolitical changes can account for differences in economic adaptation and integration of sub-ethnic groups.     

Sex differences in response to physical and nonphysical instigators

One hundred and twenty subjects competed in a reaction-time task similar to that of Taylor (1967). Subjects were randomly assigned to a white noise, fine, or control condition. In the fine and noise conditions programmed opponents administered increasing provocation to subjects over a series of 24 trials. Control subjects were not provoked. As predicted, males retaliated with higher levels of noise than did females, while there were no sex differences in the fine condition. Contrary to prediction, sex of opponent had no effect. Subjects in all conditions tended to view the task as competitive but to devalue their opponent only in the noise condition. The prevalent assumption of female passivity in the face of instigation was rejected. Instead a dichotomy was proposed that while females are less likely than males to reciprocate to physical provocation, they are just as likely to respond to provocation of a nonphysical nature.Parts of this article were presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, September 1975. Critical comments by Edward Donnerstein and Arnold Kahn on an earlier draft of this article are gratefully acknowledged.     

Accessing lexical ambiguity: Effects of context and dominance

Summary The paper examines the effects of sentential context and frequency of meaning (dominance) on the lexical access of ambiguous words. Two experiments were carried out using Swinney's (1979) cross-modal paradigm. The sentential contexts were constructed in such a way as to make salient the most characteristic features of either the dominant (Experiment 1) or the secondary (Experiment 2) meaning of the ambiguous word. The claim was that if context is sufficiently constraining selective access of the congruent meaning can be obtained. Consistent with this prediction, context biasing the dominant meaning facilitated lexical decision only on target words related to the dominant meaning. When context biased the secondary meaning, both context and dominance produced a facilitation effect.The research reported here was supported by grants from the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (fondi 40%) and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche     

The zone of potential development: implications for intelligence testing in the year 2000

The emphasis of this paper is the practice and interpretation of intelligence testing of educable retarded children. The current and future state of intelligence testing are in terms of three criteria: their predictive, diagnostic and remedial functions. In the first section we consider individual testing formats within a framework of Vygotsky's theory of potential development and the underlying assumptions of that theory concerning task analysis and transferring of training. In section two, we consider the social nature of the testing situation and the degree of contextual support provided for the learner. In the final section we consider Neisser's distinction between academic intelligence and everyday thinking with particular reference to the life adjustment of mildly retarded citizens