Childhood trauma from a patient and a psychoanalyst perspective: linking chronic depression to relational multiple trauma

The relationship between multiple childhood trauma, as well as adversity, and chronic depression has been reported repeatedly. However, there is a lack of clinical differentiations of these findings. We complemented patient self-ratings, using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), with psychoanalysts’ perspectives in order to provide finer grained clinical differentiations of the trauma behind chronic depression. These differentiations connect the trauma scales with early relational experiences. We developed a bespoke instrument derived from psychoanalytic trauma concepts. A subsample of 52 cases of chronically depressed patients alongside their 24 psychoanalysts was taken from the LAC depression study, in order to complement patient and psychoanalyst ratings. Our results confirm the connection between multiple childhood trauma and chronic depression. Besides relational trauma, the psychoanalysts’ perspective found separation trauma and transgenerational transmission of trauma to be significant. These traumatic relationships seem to precede and accompany adverse life events and/or traumatic experiences. They may even prevent adequate coping and/or processing of such experiences. Patient interview material from study intake and five-year follow-up further provides an insight into the changes the trauma narratives undergo throughout time. These changes emerged due to a joint reconstruction of the meaning of traumatic experiences throughout the course of the psychoanalytic process.     

Strengths use and work engagement: a weekly diary study

The present study among 65 civil engineers investigates the impact of organizational support for strengths use on weekly work engagement and proactive behaviour. Positive psychology postulates that strengths use makes people feel authentic and efficacious. We argue that employees use these positive psychological states as resources that fuel work engagement and proactive work behaviour. Participants completed a general questionnaire regarding strengths use support, and a weekly quantitative diary questionnaire regarding their strengths use, self-efficacy, work engagement, and proactive behaviour over a period of five consecutive workweeks. In line with the hypotheses, the results of multilevel structural equation analyses showed that organizational strengths use support was positively related to weekly strengths use. Furthermore, the results indicated that weekly strengths use was positively related to weekly work engagement and proactive behaviour, through weekly self-efficacy (sequential mediation). Although strengths use support contributed indirectly to work engagement (mediated by strengths use and self-efficacy), there was no significant indirect relationship with proactive behaviour. Our study indicates that strengths use is associated with employees’ levels of self-efficacy, work engagement, and proactive behaviour and that organizations can help employees to use their strengths more often by giving them the opportunity to do what they are good at.     

When does being paid an hourly wage make it difficult to be a happy volunteer?

When people willingly volunteer their time, how does the salience of the opportunity costs of their time influence their experience of the activity? Study 1 uses the American Time Use Survey Well-Being module to examine whether the subjective experience of happiness while volunteering is influenced by how people are paid and the opportunity costs of their time spent volunteering. Among hourly paid workers for whom there is a salient heuristic for the opportunity costs of time, we found that higher opportunity costs of time as indicated by income and duration of the activity were associated with diminished happiness experienced during volunteering. No differences across income and duration emerged among non-hourly workers for whom there was not a salient heuristic for the opportunity costs of time. Using a student population who all volunteered for the same charity activity, Study 2 tested whether making the opportunity costs salient caused less happiness to be reported from the activity than those in the control condition. These studies contribute to our understanding of the psychological consequences of thinking about time in terms of money and how it may influence the hedonic experience of activities people choose to undertake in the applied context of volunteering.     

Improving executive functions in 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds: Evaluation of a small group intervention in prekindergarten and kindergarten children

Research suggests a central role of executive functions for children's cognitive and social development during preschool years, especially in promoting school readiness. Interventions aiming to improve executive functions are therefore being called for. The present study examined the effect of a small group intervention implemented in kindergarten settings focusing on basic components of executive functions, i.e., working memory, interference control and cognitive flexibility. A total of 135 children enrolled in Swiss prekindergarten (5‐year‐olds) and kindergarten (6‐year‐olds) were involved. Results revealed that the small group intervention promoted gains in all three included components of executive functions: prekindergarten children substantially improved their working memory and cognitive flexibility processes, whereas significant training effects were found for the kindergarten children in interference control. Implications of these findings for early intervention programs and for tailoring preschool curricula are discussed, particularly with respect to children's school readiness. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Qualit?tssicherung in der forensischen Psychologie

Approximately 12 years ago the German Federation of Psychological Societies initiated a certified postgraduate training in psychology and law to qualify psychologists as forensic psychology experts. This qualification initiative was a consequence of a decade of evaluative research constantly yielding serious shortcomings in psychiatric and psychological expert reports. The present paper informs about the conception of the training and the experiences with it so far. Furthermore, it reports on current reform efforts regarding the training and informs about some further forensic psychological qualification options that have meanwhile been established in Germany.     

Event-Related Potential Findings in Healthy Extremely Pre-Term (< Week 29) Children at Age 10

Ten healthy extremely pre-term (EPT) children, born before gestational week 29, were tested at age 10 using mismatch negativity (MMN) and a three-tone odd-ball task; the results were then compared to age-matched full-term controls. We found no difference in MMN. By contrast, EPT children had generally shorter N1 latencies and larger P2 amplitudes, possibly indicating a more stimulus-driven response mode. However, P300 parameters, indicative of controlled attention, were unaffected.     

Culturally Competent Family Interventions: Review and Case Illustrations

Family therapy is often the treatment of choice for culturally diverse clients. This article provides a critical review of culturally competent assessment and intervention strategies for use with ethnic minority families in the U.S. A culturally informed view of the definition of family health and dysfunction is presented, basic structure and goals of family therapy are delineated, and family therapy process and techniques are addressed. Clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate critical points.     

Parent predictors of changes in child behavior problems

The present study examined whether ineffective discipline, single parent status, social support, parent involvement, and parent depression predicted changes in preschoolers' (N = 129) behavior problems. This study also evaluated whether child sex and ethnicity moderated the relations between these variables and changes in problem behavior. Parents completed questionnaires at the beginning of the study, and parent, teacher, and observational ratings of children's behavior problems were collected twice during the school year. Parents' own social support predicted improvement for boys and parent depression was associated with worsening symptoms for girls. Single parenthood and parent involvement predicted changes in behavior problems for the sample as a whole. Several significant ethnic differences emerged, highlighting the importance of considering cultural context in studies of parenting and child externalizing behavior.     

Power increases performance in a social evaluation situation as a result of decreased stress responses

We tested whether power reduces responses related to social stress and thus increases performance evaluation in social evaluation situations. We hypothesized and found that thinking about having power reduced fear of negative evaluation and physiological arousal during a self‐presentation task (Studies 1 and 2). In Study 2, we also showed that simply thinking about having power made individuals perform better in a social evaluation situation. Our results confirmed our hypotheses that the mechanism explaining this power–performance link was that high power participants felt less fear of negative evaluation. The reduced fear of negative evaluation generated fewer signs of behavioral nervousness, which caused their performance to be evaluated more positively (serial mediation). Simply thinking of having power can therefore have important positive consequences for a person in an evaluation situation in terms of how he or she feels and how he or she is evaluated. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.