Ethnicity, expressed emotion, attributions, and course of schizophrenia: family warmth matters

The authors examined the role of family factors and the course of schizophrenia by carrying out additional assessments and analyses in 2 previously published studies of Mexican American and Anglo American patients and families. The authors found partial support for an attributional model of relapse for families who are low in emotional overinvolvement. Attributions of control, criticism, and warmth together marginally predicted relapse. The data also indicated that for Mexican Americans, family warmth is a significant protective factor, whereas for Anglo Americans, family criticism is a significant risk factor. These findings suggest that the sociocultural context shapes the pathways by which family processes are related to the course of illness. Moreover, the warmth findings suggest that families may contribute to preventing relapse.     

Do college students drink more than their non-college-attending peers? Evidence from a population-based longitudinal female twin study

The association of college attendance with alcohol use and alcohol use disorders was examined in a population-based young adult female twin sample identified from a systematic search of birth records. College-attending women consumed a larger overall volume of alcohol than did their non-college-attending peers, but they were not more likely to be diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. Significant associations between college attendance and alcohol involvement were probed using 3 different complementary research designs: multivariate cross-sectional analyses, longitudinal analyses of the precollege and college years, and cotwin-control analyses of twin pairs discordant for attending college. Although demographic and lifestyle characteristics accounted for most or all of the association between college attendance and alcohol involvement, there was 1 aspect of drinking behavior, occasionally consuming large quantities of alcohol, that remained significantly associated with college attendance even after controlling for these characteristics or for genetic and family background factors. These results are consistent with the conclusion that some aspect of the college experience may be an important environmental risk factor for this pattern of drinking among young adults.     

Memory accessibility, mood regulation, and dysphoria: difficulties in repairing sad mood with happy memories?

Recent studies have suggested that mood-incongruency effects are due to mood-regulatory processes, in which people retrieve positive memories to repair negative moods. In Study 1, the authors investigated whether dysphoria influences the accessibility of autobiographical memories following a positive or a negative mood induction combined with subsequent rumination or distraction. The results showed a mood-repair effect for nondysphoric but not for dysphoric participants following rumination. In Study 2, participants were asked to either distract themselves or to recall positive autobiographical memories after a negative mood induction. Whereas nondysphoric participants' mood improved under both conditions, dysphoric participants' mood improved only after distraction. These results suggest that dysphoria is associated with a reduced ability to use mood-incongruent recall to repair sad moods.     

Identity, narcissism and the emotional core

This paper describes the course of an analysis which demonstrates how borderline and narcissistic functioning can be understood in terms of a struggle with issues of identity. It shows how such functioning can come to exert a profound hold on the individual and why it seems, at times, a matter of life and death to the patient to avoid states of separation from the analyst. The paper suggests that these complex phenomena can be understood, perhaps surprisingly, in the simple terms of the nature of affect itself. The concept of the emotional core is introduced to embody and highlight that which lies beneath both Jungian and Freudian models (offering a potential bridge between the two models)--namely the psyche's essentially affective nature. It is suggested that the emotional core can serve as an organ of perception giving the individual both their primary relation to reality and an emotional attachment to others. This emotional core is understood to function in a narcissistic manner to preference experiences of sameness and in aversion to experiences of difference--a view consonant with Stern's understanding of infant development where the infant is able to distinguish self from other from the beginning of life (as Fordham also held); taking up Stern's terminology, it gives the individual a 'core' sense of being. There is, however, no stable, on-going sense of 'I' associated with this form of functioning as the individual is immersed in the latest affect to enter consciousness (as in the borderline state of mind) and consequently the individual comes to rely intensely on the other to determine their sense of being (the other becomes a self-regulating other in Stern's terms). The development of ego-functioning gives a more stable and on-going sense of 'I' to the individual, giving contact with the broader personality, allowing the individual to be less reliant on the other and orientating them to reality in a way more fitting to their overall needs. The paper describes how consciousness, which is not seen as identical with the ego, moves between the mode of functioning of the ego and that of the emotional core, i.e., shifting in and out of states where projective identification predominates. It elaborates the range of self-experience encompassing spiritual experience and states of disintegration (which are understood to have a similar structure) on one side, to ego-based experience (which can itself be defensive and rigid at times) on the other. It explores the consequences of such a view for analytic technique and relates it to the Jungian view of the self and the Freudian unconscious.     

Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Carl Gustav Jung and Wolfgang Pauli

While exploring the phenomena of synchronicity, Carl Gustav Jung became acquainted with the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli and eventually began a collaboration with him. During that collaboration Jung's study of synchronistic phenomena underwent a considerable change; prior to the collaboration, Jung had stressed mainly the phenomenological and empirical features of synchronistic phenomena, while in association with Pauli, he focused his attention upon their ontological, archetypal character. Pauli, on the other hand, became increasingly sensitive to the philosophical aspects concerning the unconscious. Jung and Pauli's common reflections went far beyond psychology and physics, entering into the realm where the two areas meet in the philosophy of nature. In fact, as a consequence of their collaboration, synchronicity was transformed from an empirical concept into a fundamental explanatory-interpretative principle, which together with causality could possibly lead to a more complete worldview. Exploring the problematic character of the synchronicity concept has a heuristic value because it leads to the reconsideration of the philosophical issues that drove Jung and Pauli to clear up the conceptual background of their thoughts. Within the philosophical worldview arising from Jung and Pauli's discussions about synchronicity, there are many symbolic aspects that go against mainstream science and that represent a sort of criticism to some of the commonly held views of present day science.     

Middle East and north Africa regional conference of psychology, dubai, United arab emirates

The first Middle East and North Africa Regional Conference of Psychology (MENA RCP) was held in Dubai. United Arab Emirates, December 13–18, 2003, under the auspices of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), and the International Association for Cross–Cultural Psychology (IACCP). It was organized by a local Conference Committee and by the Yemen Psychological Association (YPA), in collaboration with the Egyptian Association for Psychological Studies (EAPS). High attendance, with participation from 35 countries, including 17 from the neighbouring Middle East and North Africa region, was a major achievement of the conference. Conference participants, many of them leaders of their national psychology associations, who also attended the concomitant National Capacity Building Workshop organized by the IUPsyS, signed an official Declaration to create a Regional Council of Arab Psychological Associations during the coming year and to follow this first MENA Conference with a second conference to be held in Amman. Jordan, in 2005.     

Young children's change in strategies of size comparison: Effects of task repetition and strategy evaluation

This study examined how young children change their strategies for size comparison. Twenty-two 5 and 6-year-old children were asked to compare the sizes of geometric figures and their strategies were observed once a week over three weeks. Half of the children were also asked to evaluate presented strategies for comparing geometric figures. It was found that over three weeks not only children who evaluated the strategies but also children who did not increased correct responses, the strategy of placing one figure on another, and the strategy of adjusting two figures by two dimensions. Although more children became aware of the effectiveness of those strategies, there was no relationship between the evaluation and use of strategies.     

Systematic application and removal of protective equipment in the assessment of multiple topographies of self-injury

We evaluated the effects of systematic application and removal of protective equipment on three topographies of self-injurious behavior (SIB) exhibited by a girl who had been diagnosed with autism. Results showed that when protective equipment was applied, SIB decreased to near-zero levels. In addition, withdrawal of protective equipment for specific topographies of SIB (by removing only the corresponding padding) increased rates of SIB only for that topography of SIB. Next, a functional analysis of hand SIB showed that protective equipment suppressed this behavior in all conditions and that the behavior was maintained by automatic reinforcement when padding was removed. Results are discussed in terms of sensory extinction as a possible mechanism responsible for response suppression.