Description and First Steps Toward the Empirical Validation of the Plan Formulation Method for Couples

The aim of this paper is to empirically assess the reliability of the plan formulation method for couples, a procedure for formulating the case, planning, and monitoring the couple therapies according to control-mastery theory. We hypothesized that when couples are looking for couple therapy, they have an unconscious couple’s plan for the therapy, which includes the couple’s goals; the pathogenic beliefs that the partners want to disprove; the traumas from which these beliefs originated and that the partners want to master; the vicious relational circles that make the couple suffer and that the couple wants to break; the virtuous relational circles that are expressions of the couple’s resources and that the couple wants to fuel; and the relational insights that may help the couple get better. Our study involved 15 couples treated by four experienced therapists. Four raters independently formulated each couple’s plan based on the first three sessions following a standard procedure, and we calculated the intraclass correlation for pooled judges’ ratings. For a subsample of three couples—who before and after treatment had completed the dyadic adjustment scale (DAS) and the outcome questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45.2)—the compatibility of the therapists’ interventions with the couples’ and partners’ plans was assessed. The relationship between the ratings of compatibility, DAS and OQ-45.2, was assessed. The results showed excellent interjudge reliability for each couple’s plan formulation (average ICC?=?0.82), attesting to the validity of the procedure; and preliminary data on the therapeutic process suggested that therapists’ interventions compatible with couple’s plans could help partners achieve good outcomes.

     

Short-Term Inpatient DBT Combined with Metacognitive Interventions for Personality Disorders: A Pilot Acceptability and Effectiveness Study

This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of an intensive 1-month residential treatment course in an Italian psychiatric unit for patients meeting criteria for personality disorders (PD). This study involved 189 patients consecutively admitted to the unit and assessed at admission and discharge. The inpatient program was based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) combined with Metacognitive interventions. Primary outcome was a reduction of general symptom severity (as measured by SCL-90-R). Secondary outcomes were reduction in depression (BDI), interpersonal problems (IIP-47). Other outcomes were impulsivity (BIS-11), aggressiveness (AQ), and dissociation (DES). We found a significant reduction in symptom severity, as well as in depression, interpersonal problems, dissociation, impulsivity and aggressiveness. The size of this benefit was predicted mostly by number of criteria met at SCID-II and intake scores mostly for impulsiveness and dissociation. In conclusion, intensive 1-month residential DBT combined with metacognitive interventions can be effective in treating patients with any PD presenting with severe global suffering, prominent self-harm and suicidal risk.

     

Mental number line disruption in a right-neglect patient after a left-hemisphere stroke

A right-neglect patient with focal left-hemisphere damage to the posterior superior parietal lobe was assessed for numerical knowledge and tested on the bisection of numerical intervals and visual lines. The semantic and verbal knowledge of numbers was preserved, whereas the performance in numerical tasks that strongly emphasize the visuo-spatial layout of numbers (e.g. number bisection) was impaired. The behavioral pattern of error in the two bisection tasks mirrored the one previously described in left-neglect patients. In other words, our patient misplaced the subjective midpoint (numerical or visual) to the left as function of the interval size. These data, paired with the patient's lesion site are strictly consistent with the tripartite organization of number-related processes in the parietal lobes as proposed by Dehaene and colleagues. According to these authors, the posterior superior parietal lobe on both hemispheres underpins the attentional orientation on the putative mental number line, the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus is bilaterally related to the semantic of the numerical domain, whereas the left angular gyrus subserves the verbal knowledge of numbers. In summary, our results suggest that the processes involved in the navigation along the mental number line, which are related to the parietal mechanisms for spatial attention, and the processes involved in the semantic and verbal knowledge of numbers, are dissociable.     

Ways in which coherence is confirmation conducive

Recent works in epistemology show that the claim that coherence is truth conducive – in the sense that, given suitable ceteris paribus conditions, more coherent sets of statements are always more probable – is dubious and possibly false. From this, it does not follows that coherence is a useless notion in epistemology and philosophy of science. Dietrich and Moretti (Philosophy of science 72(3): 403–424, 2005) have proposed a formal of account of how coherence is confirmation conducive—that is, of how the coherence of a set of statements facilitates the confirmation of such statements. This account is grounded in two confirmation transmission properties that are satisfied by some of the measures of coherence recently proposed in the literature. These properties explicate everyday and scientific uses of coherence. In his paper, I review the main findings of Dietrich and Moretti (2005) and define two evidence-gathering properties that are satisfied by the same measures of coherence and constitute further ways in which coherence is confirmation conducive. At least one of these properties vindicates important applications of the notion of coherence in everyday life and in science.     

EFFECTS OF A VARIABLE-RATIO REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE WITH CHANGING CRITERIA ON EXERCISE IN OBESE AND NONOBESE BOYS

The effects of a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement on pedaling a stationary exercise bicycle were examined. Three obese and three nonobese 11-year-old boys were individually tested five times weekly for approximately 12 weeks. A changing-criterion design was used in which each successive criterion was increased over mean performance rate in the previous phase by approximately 15%. The contingencies of the successive criteria resulted in systematic increases in rate of exercise for all children. Final variable-ratio rates were higher than those under fixed ratios found in previous research, with rates for 2 of the 3 obese boys approximating those of the nonobese.     

Group identification and self-efficacy associated with quality of life in emergency medical services volunteers: A cross-sectional investigation

Volunteering in emergency medical services (EMS) plays a fundamental role in the improvement and maintenance of collective and community health. However, this work often requires rescuers to deal with very stressful situations with consequences in terms of decreased quality of life and psychological well-being. The aim of this work was to analyze the resources that can be positively associated with volunteers’ quality of life. In particular, based on social identity and social cure approaches, we tested the effect of self-efficacy and identification with a volunteer category on both positive and negative aspects of the volunteers’ professional quality of life. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 203 EMS volunteers (53.7% men) from a large nonprofit volunteer association. Results are mostly supportive of predictions from the social identity (and specifically the “social cure”) approach, and show that professional identification and self-efficacy were differently linked to the dimensions of the volunteers’ quality of life. More precisely, professional identification was negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with compassion satisfaction, and both effects were mediated by self-efficacy. On the contrary, self-efficacy and volunteer identification were not associated with secondary traumatic stress. Practical implications for volunteers’ wellbeing are discussed in the light of the policies of volunteer associations to improve collective resources.     

Political exile and the construction of identity: A life stories approach

This paper centres its attention on the impact political exile—a result of the 1973 military coup in Chile—had on the life of exiles, particularly on their identity, based on life stories. It examines the life experiences of four groups of exiles living in Belgium following two criteria: (1) whether they remained in the host country or returned to Chile once the political conditions permitted them to do so, and (2) whether they belonged to the first generation (the exiles themselves) or the second generation (the children of exiles). The results are organized into three main categories of analysis: the places of exile, that is the symbolic sites, the different meanings exile has acquired in the personal histories of the interviewees, showing that the main place is where the individual had to test him/herself, the place they seem to have been sent forever; the return, that is the role the prohibition to come back played and still plays today, which has been characterized as a myth, a possibility and an option; and, finally, the narration of exile, which examines special features of the narration of the exile experience viewed retrospectively and in relation to whether the events are still in vigour, thus giving birth to stories about exile after the exile. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.