Philosophy of Education in a Poor Historical Moment: A Personal Account

Under the post-metaphysical sky “old” humanistic-oriented education is possible solely at the cost of its transformation into its negative, into a power that is determined to diminish human potentials for self-exaltation. Nothing less than total metamorphosis is needed to rescue the core of humanistic genesis: the quest for edifying Life and resistance to the call for “home-returning” into the total harmony that is promised to us within nothingness.     

Improving Delivery Behaviors During Exposure for Pediatric OCD: A Multiple Baseline Training Trial With Community Therapists

This study tested whether a new training tool, the Exposure Guide (EG), improved in-session therapist behaviors (i.e., indicators of quality) that have been associated with youth outcomes in prior clinical trials of exposure therapy. Six therapists at a community mental health agency (CMHA) provided exposure therapy for 8 youth with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design with random assignment to baseline lengths of 6 to 16 weeks, therapists received gold-standard exposure therapy training with weekly consultation (baseline phase) followed by addition of EG training and feedback (intervention phase). The primary outcome was therapist behavior during in-session exposures, observed weekly using a validated coding system. Therapist behavior was evaluated in relation to a priori benchmarks derived from clinical trials. Additional outcomes included training feasibility/acceptability, therapist response to case vignettes and beliefs about exposure, and independent evaluator-rated clinical outcomes. Three therapists reached behavior benchmarks only during the EG (intervention) phase. Two therapists met benchmarks during the baseline phase; one of these subsequently moved away from benchmarks but met them again after starting the EG phase. Across all therapists, the percentage of weeks meeting benchmarks was significantly higher during the EG phase (86.4%) vs. the baseline phase (53.2%). Youth participants experienced significant improvement in OCD symptoms and global illness severity from pre- to posttreatment. Results provide initial evidence that adding the EG to gold-standard training can change in-session therapist behaviors in a CMHA setting.     

Internet-Based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A Transdiagnostic Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis for Mental Health Outcomes

Internet-based acceptance and commitment therapy (iACT) primarily targets the process of psychological flexibility. Its accessibility and low-intensity delivery are applicable across different treatment and prevention scenarios. This transdiagnostic meta-analysis reviews the effectiveness of iACT on anxiety, depression, quality of life, and psychological flexibility across individuals with different psychological and somatic conditions/complaints, or undiagnosed complaints. Seven databases were searched for randomized controlled trials that reported on anxiety, depression, quality of life, and psychological flexibility outcomes from iACT in any adult population. Engagement with iACT was summarized and methodological and population-related variables were investigated as potential moderators of effectiveness. Across 25 studies, small pooled effects were found for all outcomes at post-assessment and maintained at follow-up time-points. Interventions with therapist guidance demonstrated greater effectiveness in improving depression and psychological flexibility outcomes compared to nonguided iACT, and populations defined by a psychological condition or symptoms (e.g., depressed samples) demonstrated greater improvements in anxiety compared to nonclinical or somatic populations (e.g., chronic pain samples or students). Participants completed on average 75.77% of iACT treatments. While we found iACT to be effective in improving and maintaining mental health outcomes across diverse populations, there was limited evidence of reliable, clinically significant effects. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020140086.     

Alliance-Outcome Associations in a Community-Based Social Skills Intervention for Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although the alliance is a consistent predictor of treatment outcomes in psychosocial interventions, few studies have examined this association among youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, youth-therapist alliance has never been examined in social skills interventions (SSIs), a common modality for this population. In this study, thirty-four youth with ASD (M_age = 12.41; 79% male) participated in a community-delivered, group-based SSI in a summer camp format led by eight Head Therapists (M_age = 32.12; 50% male). Early alliance and change in alliance over the course of the treatment were assessed via self- and observer-reported measures. Both self- and observer-rated alliance were associated with positive treatment outcomes as reported by parents (decreased problem behaviors) and other peers in the group (reciprocated friendship and social preference). These results provide the first evidence of the role of the alliance in an SSI for youth with ASD and add to the growing body of literature that demonstrates the importance of assessing and addressing the alliance in treatment for this population.     

Performance of typical and superior face recognizers on a novel interactive face matching procedure

Unfamiliar simultaneous face matching is error prone. Reducing incorrect identification decisions will positively benefit forensic and security contexts. The absence of view-independent information in static images likely contributes to the difficulty of unfamiliar face matching. We tested whether a novel interactive viewing procedure that provides the user with 3D structural information as they rotate a facial image to different orientations would improve face matching accuracy. We tested the performance of ‘typical’ (Experiment 1) and ‘superior’ (Experiment 2) face recognizers, comparing their performance using high-quality (Experiment 3) and pixelated (Experiment 4) Facebook profile images. In each trial, participants responded whether two images featured the same person with one of these images being either a static face, a video providing orientation information, or an interactive image. Taken together, the results show that fluid orientation information and interactivity prompt shifts in criterion and support matching performance. Because typical and superior face recognizers both benefited from the structural information provided by the novel viewing procedures, our results point to qualitatively similar reliance on pictorial encoding in these groups. This also suggests that interactive viewing tools can be valuable in assisting face matching in high-performing practitioner groups.