To fail psychotherapy training: Students’ and supervisors’ perspectives on the supervisory relationship

Previous research showed that supervision during psychotherapy training sometimes includes negative alliance and harmful events. The aim of this study was to investigate how such events were related to failing psychotherapy training. Interviews were made with informants from two separate samples: psychotherapy students who had failed training (n = 6) and supervisors with experience from failing students (n = 6). The interviews were analyzed separately for the two samples with inductive thematic analysis and then compared. The core category for students (‘Paradoxical response’) indicated that they experienced their supervisors as either demanding too much or nothing at all. The core category for supervisors (‘Balancing contradictory demands’) indicated that they wanted to fail students who did not live up to expectations but were pressured by training institutes to let them pass. Both students and supervisors experienced distress but it seemed that they were not fully aware of each other’s vulnerability. The results suggest that a weak supervisory alliance and harmful events may contribute to student failures, independently of students’ actual suitability for psychotherapy.     

Domestic dogs conceal auditory but not visual information from others

A number of studies have shown that dogs are sensitive to a human’s perspective, but it remains unclear whether they use an egocentric strategy to assess what humans perceive. We investigated whether dogs know what a human can see and hear, even when the dogs themselves are unable to see the human. Dogs faced a task in which forbidden food was placed in a tunnel that they could retrieve by using their paw. Whereas the dogs could not see the experimenter during their food retrieval attempts, the experimenter could potentially see the dog’s paw. In the first experiment, dogs could choose between an opaque and a transparent side of the tunnel, and in the second experiment, they could choose between a silent and a noisy approach to the tunnel. The results showed that dogs preferred a silent approach to forbidden food but they did not hide their approach when they could not see a human present. We conclude that dogs probably rely on what they themselves can perceive when they assess what the human can see and hear.     

Influence of Religiosity on the Quality of Life and on Pain Intensity in Chronic Pancreatitis Patients After Neurolytic Celiac Plexus Block: Case-Controlled Study

The quality of life in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP) is reduced due to their suffering of high levels of pain. It has been presented that quality of life can also be linked to religiosity and/or spirituality. The aim of this study is to assess the influence of religious practices on the quality of life and on the subjective level of pain in CP patients. Ninety-two patients (37 women and 55 men) with chronic pancreatitis were treated invasively for pain with neurolytic celiac plexus block (NCPB). The religiosity of the patients was recorded and served as a dichotomizer. Group 1 was for patients who claimed to have no contact with the church or to have very sporadic contact (N = 35 patients). Group 2 was for patients who claimed to have deep faith and were regular participants at church activities (N = 57 patients). Visual analogue scale was used to assess pain, while the quality of life was measured by using QLQ C-30 questionnaire adapted for chronic pancreatitis patients in Polish population. The patients were assessed prior to the pain-relieving intervention and subsequently 2 and 8 weeks after it. The intensity of pain was reduced in both groups significantly after performing the NCPB. Patients who declared a deep faith reported higher level of pain on the VAS scale prior to intervention than non-religious patients. Quality of life in both groups of patients significantly improved after NCPB. Following NCPB, global quality of life in patients who declared higher religiosity/church attendance was significantly higher (79.88) than for those patients who have no contact or sporadic contact with the church (44.21, P < 0.05). NCPB resulted in significant reduction of pain and increase in quality of life in both groups of patients with CP. Nevertheless, in the group declaring higher religiosity/church attendance, reported pain was higher, but, despite that, quality of life better. It may be concluded that religious practices might serve as an additional factor improving quality of life and coping in patients suffering from chronic pancreatitis.     

Amphetamine and morphine produce a conditioned taste and place preference in the house musk shrew (Suncus murinus)

Rats have been shown to avoid consuming a flavor, but prefer a location, previously paired with amphetamine or morphine. A series of 4 experiments evaluated the hedonic properties of amphetamine and morphine in the house musk shrew (Suncus murinus), an insectivore that (unlike rats) is capable of vomiting when exposed to toxins. Unlike rats, amphetamine (20 mg/kg) and morphine (20 mg/kg) produced both a conditioned sucrose (0.3 M) and saccharin (0.1%) preference in shrews (administered intraperitoneally), when measured by both a 1- and a 2-bottle test. At the same dose, both drugs also produced a place preference in shrews. These results suggest that the potential of rewarding drugs to produce taste avoidance may vary on the basis of the ability of the species to vomit.     

Aging is associated with increased Weber ratios

To investigate whether age-associated changes in the human taste system are quality-specific, we compared young and elderly subjects’ suprathreshold discrimination abilities for caffeine and sucrose. The method of constant stimuli was used to obtain just noticeable differences and Weber ratios. The elderly generated larger Weber ratios than did the young for both the medium and high concentrations of caffeine, but not for the low concentration. For example, a 74% increase in .005 M caffeine was required to obtain a perceptible difference for the elderly, whereas a 34% increase produced a perceptible difference for the young. The Weber ratios for sucrose did not differ for the two age groups. The results of this study indicate that age-associated changes in the taste system are quality-specific.

     

Equivocations on knowledge systems theory: An actor-oriented critique

Knowledge systems theory, in our view, tends to obscure rather than illuminate an understanding of the fundamentals of knowledge processes in society. This tendency occurs primarily because both the theory, and the methodologies that are derived from it, fail to recognize that knowledge processes are social processes, and thereby that knowledge itself has to be envisaged as a social construction. As a result of this omission, knowledge systems theory and methodology can only deal poorly with issues of power and social conflict, and, at the same time, tend to make use of several inappropriate teleological and reifying notions. According to our view, the understanding of knowledge processes will benefit greatly from a more actor-oriented perspective. In such an approach, emphasis is accorded to human agency and the concept of multiple knowledge networks. Central purposes of actor-oriented methodologies then, are to clarify how actors attempt to create space for their own ‘projects’ and to determine which elements contribute to or impede the successful creation of such space for maneuver. Norman Long is a member of the Department of Rural Sociology of the Tropics and Subtropics at Wageningen Agricultural University, P.O. Box 8130, 6700 EW, Wageningen, The Netherlands. He is known for his work in the sociology of rural development. Magdalena Villarreal recently acquired her M.S. in “Management of Agricultural Knowledge Systems” at Wageningen Agricultural University. She is presently working on a Ph.D. proposal on issues of power, gender, and intervention.     

Attachment in Context: The Role of Demographic Factors Among Indonesians from Three Ethnic Groups

This study examined attachment in Indonesia, one of the fourth most populous countries in the world. We applied the Indonesian version of the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) on 1313 Indonesians from three ethnically diverse samples (404 Bataks, 430 Minangkabau, and 479 Javanese). We assessed demographic factors which consist of the roles of the living-with-family experience (M = 19.58 years), age (M = 24.34 years old), sex (man = 43.4 %), and ethnicity in attachment dimensions development. Pearson’s correlation analyses revealed negative correlations between the living-with-family experience as well as age and the two attachment dimensions, Need for approval and confirmation by others and Preoccupation with relationships. Group comparison analyses found significant differences for the five scales of ASQ among sex and ethnic groups. We also found a significant main effect of age and ethnicity on some of the ASQ scales.