The association between personality,attachment, psychological distress,church denomination and the god concept among a non-clinical sample

The association between personality, attachment, psychological distress, church denomination and the God concept was studied among a sample of 208 subjects from the normal population. Subjects were Christians, members of an Orthodox reformed church or the Pentecostal church. Negative feelings towards God were associated with a high level of harm avoidance, insecure attachment and a high level of psychological distress. Psychological distress mediated the association between personality and attachment variables and negative feelings towards God. Psychological distress and church denomination were the only two independent predictors of negative feelings towards God. Moreover, results showed that the Orthodox reformed church members hold a more negative concept of God than the Pentecostal church members do. Orthodox reformed church members see God in particular as a punitive judge, independent of personality, attachment and psychological distress, suggesting a large influence of religious culture on this particular type of God concept. Results are discussed from a psychotherapeutic point of view. Finally, several ethical issues regarding psychotherapy with religious clients are addressed.     

Counseling in Australia: Past,Present, and Future

The author describes the evolution of the counseling profession in Australia within the broader historic and sociocultural context. The process of professionalization is outlined, particularly over the past 15 years, and data on the demographic, professional, and practice characteristics of counselors are reviewed. Future professional directions and challenges are explored.     

Selective deficit in spatial location memory in extremely low birth weight children at age six: The PETIT Study

Spatial location memory has rarely been assessed in young children due to a scarcity of developmentally appropriate tests. This study sought to compare nonverbal learning and recall in children born extremely low birth weight (ELBW; <1000 g) and less than 33 gestational weeks (GW) with term-born children at early school age using a recently developed and adapted test. We administered a modification of the Hopkins Board to 210 children at age six; 84 born ELBW (35 born < 26 GW; 49 born 26–33 GW) and 126 term-born. Six measures were obtained: naming, trials-to-criterion, errors-to-criterion, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention. After age correction, ELBW children had worse general cognition, item naming, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention than term-born children. Delayed item recall and percent retention performances of ELBW children remained worse after correction for general cognition. ELBW groups (< 26 GW and 26–33 GW) groups performed worse than term-born children in naming and delayed item recall with chronological age as covariate. Those born before 26 GW, but not 26–33 GW, performed worse than term-born children in delayed location recall and percent retention. Differences remained significant after controlling for gender, maternal education, and delivery type. All three groups' performance declined from final learning trial to delayed location recall, with a decline greater for less than 26 GW than term-born children. Extreme prematurity (< 26 GW) and ELBW are significant risk factors for spatial location memory deficit. The modified Hopkins Board discriminated high-risk preterm and term-born children at early school age and appears to be a useful test to measure this rarely studied cognitive capacity.     

Executive functions in extremely low birth weight and late-preterm preschoolers: Effects on working memory and response inhibition

Executive function (EF) refers to fundamental capacities that underlie more complex cognition and have ecological relevance across the individual's lifespan. However, emerging executive functions have rarely been studied in young preterm children (age 3) whose critical final stages of fetal development are interrupted by their early birth. We administered four novel touch-screen computerized measures of working memory and inhibition to 369 participants born between 2004 and 2006 (52 Extremely Low Birth Weight [ELBW]; 196 late preterm; 121 term-born). ELBW performed worse than term-born on simple and complex working memory and inhibition tasks and had the highest percentage of incomplete performance on a continuous performance test. The latter finding indicates developmental immaturity and the ELBW group's most at-risk preterm status. Additionally, late-preterm participants performed worse compared with term-born on measures of complex working memory but did not differ from those term-born on response inhibition measures. These results are consistent with a recent literature that identifies often subtle but detectable neurocognitive deficits in late-preterm children. Our results support the development and standardization of computerized touch-screen measures to assess EF subcomponent abilities during the formative preschool period. Such measures may be useful to monitor the developmental trajectory of critical executive function abilities in preterm children, and their use is necessary for timely recognition of deficit and application of appropriate interventional strategies.     

The assessment of adolescents: preconceptions and realizations

The paper explores, in detail, the process of a single assessment as it unfolds session by session. It draws attention to the inevitability of the clinician's harbouring preconceptions of all kinds - especially when working with adolescents. It focuses on the difficulty of withstanding those preconceptions and allowing the patient's true anxieties, conscious and unconscious, to emerge. The process is a complex one requiring close attention to transference and countertransference manifestations, to the central significance of observation, to Bion's notion of the opacity of memory and desire. The case, that of a hypochondriacal 17-year-old young woman, highlights some main concerns and defences of the age group, for example, somatization, separation, fears of madness, issues of identity and, most fundamental of all, sexuality.     

Integration,unintegration, disintegration: an introduction

This introduction to the two papers that follow by Anne Alvarez and Edna O'Shaughnessy is a revised version of the introduction to the ACP Study Day in February 2005 on ‘Integration, Unintegration, Disintegration’, at which Alvarez and O'Shaughnessy had presented and which the author had chaired. The background to the debate is given in terms of how the ACP Study Day itself came about, and the central theme is highlighted in terms of the question of whether unintegration is conceived of as a normal stage of development or only a temporary state of mind in response to catastrophic anxieties. Brief clinical material from a case supervised by the author is discussed in order to elaborate this central question.     

Stepwise Latent Class Models for Explaining Group-Level Outcomes Using Discrete Individual-Level Predictors

Explaining group-level outcomes from individual-level predictors requires aggregating the individual-level scores to the group level and correcting the group-level estimates for measurement errors in the aggregated scores. However, for discrete variables it is not clear how to perform the aggregation and correction. It is shown how stepwise latent class analysis can be used to do this. First, a latent class model is estimated in which the scores on a discrete individual-level predictor are used to construct group-level latent classes. Second, this latent class model is used to aggregate the individual-level predictor by assigning the groups to the latent classes. Third, a group-level analysis is performed in which the aggregated measures are related to the remaining group-level variables while correcting for the measurement error in the class assignments. This stepwise approach is introduced in a multilevel mediation model with a single individual-level mediator, and compared to existing methods in a simulation study. We also show how a mediation model with multiple group-level latent variables can be used with multiple individual-level mediators and this model is applied to explain team productivity (group level) as a function of job control (individual level), job satisfaction (individual level), and enriched job design (group level).     

A longitudinal analysis of the course of depressive symptomatology in geriatric patients with cancer of the breast, colon, lung, or prostate.

This study mapped the trajectory of depression and its components (depressive mood, somatic expression of depression, and lack of positive affect) for 1 year after an initial cancer diagnosis, revealing the complex nature of the psychological response to the cancer experience. The analysis was based on 4 waves of panel data from 860 older patients with incident breast, colon, lung, or prostate cancer. Predictors of depressive symptoms included cancer site; stage; comorbidities; sociodemographic characteristics; and indicators of physical functioning, symptom severity, and treatment. Patients' overall depressive symptoms declined, especially depressive mood and somatic indicators. By contrast, the sense of well-being did not recover; in fact, it would have deteriorated without improvements in physical functioning and physical symptoms. The present findings show the importance of psychological assessments and symptom management during cancer treatment.