Music therapy with hospitalized infants—the art and science of communicative musicality

Infants seek contingent, companionable interactions with others. Infants in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), while receiving care that optimizes their chances of survival, often do not have the kind of interactions that are optimal for their social development. Live music therapy (MT) with infants is an intervention that aims for contingent, social interaction between therapist and infant. This study, with a limited numbers of infants, examined the effectiveness of an MT intervention in the NICU at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. Two groups of late pre‐term and full‐term infants were recruited to the study; one was given MT and the other was not. A healthy group of infants not given MT served as an additional control. The effect of MT was indexed using two measures reflecting infant social engagement: the Neurobehavioral Assessment of the Preterm Infant (NAPI) and the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB). Results suggest that the MT intervention used at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne supports infants' neurobehavioral development. In particular, hospitalized infants who received MT were better able to maintain self‐regulation during social interaction with an adult, were less irritable and cried less, and were more positive in their response to adult handling, when compared with infants who did not receive the intervention. These are important prerequisites for social interaction and development. Further and larger scale research using MT with this population is indicated.     

Apparitions and possessions as boundary objects: an exploration into some tensions between mental health care and pastoral care

Apparitions and possessions can be taken as genuine spiritual events or as symptoms of psychopathology. We focus upon occasions when the two seemingly conflicting “interpretations” co-exist in order to explore these phenomena as kinds of boundary objects—polymorphous realities stable and graspable enough, yet belonging to different worlds at once. Related diagnostic knowledge is often uncertain and always incomplete. Yet it enables authoritative and effective professional interventions. We conclude by discussing the relevance of such a view for contemporary efforts to validate patients’ spiritual experiences within mental health care.     

Development and Construct Validation of the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults (ITEA)

This article presents the construction, exploratory dimensionality analysis (Study 1), and validation (Study 2) of the self-report and 36-item Individuation Test for Emerging Adults (ITEA). It is the first instrument to measure different aspects of individuation (in relation to mother and father) specifically in emerging adulthood. The construct validity of the final 5-factor structure (Support Seeking, Connectedness, Intrusiveness, Self-Reliance, and Fear of Disappointing the Parent) was satisfactory. The results of multigroup analyses demonstrated that the factor structure is stable across male and female emerging adults for ITEA assessments in relation to both mother and father. The ITEA scales also show good internal consistency and concurrent validity against Emotional, Conflictual, and Functional Dependence scales of the Psychological Separation Inventory.     

The ideas of 1914

Battles of the First World War were accompanied by what was the first full-scale war of words in European history. It was aimed at influencing the public opinion abroad as well as at mobilizing the population at home. Leading intellectuals, including famous scholars, participated in propaganda campaigns waged by the belligerent nations. This text focuses on the discussions between philosophers involved in the international conflict.     

A Comparison of New and Revised Rorschach Measures of Schizophrenic Functioning in a Serbian Clinical Sample

We empirically evaluated indexes derived from the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) and the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R–PAS) that are used for the assessment of psychotic functioning in schizophrenia. We compared the Perceptual Thinking Index (PTI) and the Ego Impairment Index (EII–2) with their revised versions: Thought and Perception Composite (TP–Comp) and EII–3. We evaluated their predictive validity for differentiating schizophrenic from nonschizophrenic patients in a Serbian sample. The sample consisted of 211 (109 men and 102 women, 18–50 years old) inpatients in Serbia who were divided into 2 groups: schizophrenic (100) and nonschizophrenic (111). Test administration, coding, and form quality classification followed CS guidelines. Logistic regression analysis indicated that the new indexes TP–Comp and EII–3 have slightly better predictive power than their counterparts, PTI and EII–2, in identification of schizophrenia, and that TP–Comp performed better than other indexes, although all 4 indexes were successful in differentiating these groups. The results supported the use of TP–Comp in diagnosis of schizophrenia and generally provided evidence for the utility of the Rorschach in evaluating psychosis and for its use in a cross-national context.     

Modelling of dissolution kinetics of thin amorphous chalcogenide films

A theoretical relationship for the dissolution kinetics of thin chalcogenide films is proposed. The influence of light irradiation on the film dissolution is taken into account. The theoretical curves are in good agreement with the experimental dissolution results obtained for As₂S₃ thin amorphous films.     

The Distribution of the Product Explains Normal Theory Mediation Confidence Interval Estimation

The distribution of the product has several useful applications. One of these applications is its use to form confidence intervals for the indirect effect as the product of 2 regression coefficients. The purpose of this article is to investigate how the moments of the distribution of the product explain normal theory mediation confidence interval coverage and imbalance. Values of the critical ratio for each random variable are used to demonstrate how the moments of the distribution of the product change across values of the critical ratio observed in research studies. Results of the simulation study showed that as skewness in absolute value increases, coverage decreases. And as skewness in absolute value and kurtosis increases, imbalance increases. The difference between testing the significance of the indirect effect using the normal theory versus the asymmetric distribution of the product is further illustrated with a real data example. This article is the first study to show the direct link between the distribution of the product and indirect effect confidence intervals and clarifies the results of previous simulation studies by showing why normal theory confidence intervals for indirect effects are often less accurate than those obtained from the asymmetric distribution of the product or from resampling methods.