Menopausal Symptoms: Is Spirituality Associated with the Severity of Symptoms?

The aim of this study was to explore whether spirituality was associated with menopausal symptoms. Menopausal symptoms, spirituality, health and menopausal status, and socio-demographic variables were assessed in a community sample of 710 peri- and postmenopausal women. A structural model was explored using structural equation modeling. The results evidence spirituality as a significant contributor regarding the severity of most menopausal symptoms. Among others, spirituality had a significant weight in depressive mood (β = ?.414; p < .001), anxiety (β = ?.308; p < .001), cognitive impairment (β = ?.287; p < .001), aches/pain (β = ?.148; p < .001), vasomotor (β = ?.125; p = .005) and sexual symptoms (β = ?.211; p < .001). Some socio-demographic variables, as well as perceived health, also predicted the menopausal symptoms’ severity. Therefore, spirituality can have a positive impact on the menopausal symptoms’ reporting.     

Effects of Metacontingencies on Cooperative Behavior: A Systematic Replication Using Innovative Procedures during Isolation

The Psychological Record - The study replicated research on metacontingencies that used a chessboard simulating a simplified chess game, in a completely online environment, with participants in...     

‘Do-It-Yourself’ Healthcare? Quality of Health and Healthcare Through Wearable Sensors

Wearable sensors are an integral part of the new telemedicine concept supporting the idea that Information Technologies will improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare. The use of sensors in diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients not only potentially changes medical practice but also one’s relationship with one’s body and mind, as well as the role and responsibilities of patients and healthcare professionals. In this paper, we focus on knowledge assessment of the online communities of Fitbit (a commercial wearable device) and the Quantified Self movement. Through their online forums, we investigate how users’ knowledge claims, shared experiences and imaginations about wearable sensors interrogate or confirm the narratives through which they are introduced to the publics. Citizen initiatives like the Quantified Self movement claim the right to ‘own’ the sensor generated data. But how these data can be used through traditional healthcare systems is an open question. More importantly, wearable sensors trigger a social function that is transformative of the current idea of care and healthcare, focused on sharing, socialising and collectively reflecting about individual problems. Whether this is aligned with current policy making about healthcare, whose central narrative is focused on efficiency and productivity, is to be seen.     

Memory and conceptual learning of relevant and non-relevant items in item-method directed forgetting

The present research investigates the fate of non-target information when people are trying to either intentionally memorise or forget target information. By using an object-based attentional manipulation within a directed forgetting paradigm (item-method), we show a directed forgetting effect (DFE, i.e., better memory for to-be-remembered (TBR) than for to-be-forgotten (TBF) items) for items that participants are explicitly instructed to attend but not for irrelevant items that happen to be part of the context. Alongside the classic DFE, we investigate how the category of the attended and unattended items are learned. The results obtained in three experiments, show that people can successfully learn only the category of the TBR attended items and that the DFE extends to new items that are related to the old TBR and TBF items (an effect that we call conceptual DFE). These results give us new insight about how TBR and TBF items are processed and conceptually learned.     

Eating Disorders: A Bond between Medicine,Culture and Psychoanalysis

Action in connection with the therapeutic process is often equated with acting out. The subtle behaviour that belongs to ?the complicated system of transmitting and receiving unconscious signals? (Sandler), with which the patient attempts to make the analyst behave as the object of transference or to fulfill an unconscious desire, is also described as acting out or micro-acting out (Treurniet). This fine-grained action, however, means nothing; it is not symbolic or communicative action. Its intention is, rather, to trigger effects and induce interactions. It occurs not only on the side of the analysand but also on that of the analyst, and is part of the unconscious communication in the therapeutic process. Presented here are some of the various interactive ways and means with which the analyst is prompted into unconscious action and certain, unnoticed, ways in that he turn ?treats? the patient. The analyst's action responses can bear the character of interpretations with which he may unintentionally reveal how he regards the behaviour of the patient.     

Family and Systems Therapy and Training in Portugal

The history of systemic family therapy in Portugal since its appearance until the present is discussed. Some data on systemic family therapists’ training is provided in the context of the Portuguese Society of Family Therapy and Academic Institutions. In Portugal, family therapy has been extended to various contexts, including medical and community services. Finally, future directions for family and systems therapy practice and training in Portugal are provided emphasizing the importance of family interventions as an important resource to empower families living with health chronic conditions. The Portuguese Family Therapy Society, every 2 years, organizes a scientific Iberian conference with Portuguese and Spanish speakers. This allows the exchange of clinical experience and research about family and systems theory.