A record-keeping format for training systemic therapists

Training in systemic therapy necessitates a structured approach to teaching systemic thinking. The Systemic Therapy Sessions Summary Form, a record-keeping method, is presented as a tool for enhancing training in systemic therapy. The purpose of this form is to provide the structure for the trainee to develop circular hypotheses, to connect reflexively the assessment and intervention components of therapy, and to maintain a sense of the evolving nature of therapy across sessions. A case example illustrates the use of this record-keeping format.     

Family Therapy in Trouble: Psychoeducation as Solution and as Problem

The authors cite clinical literature attesting to the importance of recognizing the family, rather than the individual, as the proper locus of conceptualizing, diagnosing, and treating mental illnesses. Specifically with regard to severe psychiatric illnesses, in particular schizophrenia, family dysfunction contributes to the emergence of the illness, significantly affects its course, and strongly influences the achievement and maintenance of treatment gains. Currently, a movement is afoot to limit sharply the amount and kind of treatment offered to schizophrenic patients and their families. Rooted in a “medical model” or “biogenic” view of the etiology of schizophrenia, this school of thought prescribes psychoeducation as the family treatment of choice. The present article looks at some misconceptions regarding treatment that prompted a widespread turning away from psychoanalytically oriented family psychotherapy for schizophrenic patients and their families, examines the reductionism (biological and behavioral) inhering in the exclusive use of psychoeducation, and looks at the clinical dangers of such reductionism. Finally, it proposes that family psycho-therapists should not abandon a concern with the inner lives of severely ill patients and their families in the face of spuriously generalized claims made by reductionist researchers.     

Phonological priming in the lexical decision task: A failure to replicate

Some models of the lexicon predict that recognition of words should produce activation spreading to phonologically related words. Consistent with this prediction, Hillinger (1980) demonstrated priming in a visual lexical decision task for word targets preceded by graphemically similar or graphemically dissimilar primes that rhymed with the target. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether this phonological priming effect occurred automatically or because of subject strategies. Although semantically associated primes produced significant facilitation in Experiment 1, no evidence of phonological priming was obtained. Experiments 2 to 5 were conducted in an attempt to obtain the phonological priming effect. Experiment 5 was a replication of one of Hillinger’s experiments. In none of these experiments was phonological priming observed. These results indicate either that the lexicon is not organized such that spreading activation occurs on the basis of phonological similarity, or that visual lexical decisions are made without phonological mediation.     

Force variability in isometric responses

In the present study we examined the contribution of different impulse parameters to peak force variability in an isometric task. Five experiments are reported that each held constant a different impulse parameter while allowing the other impulse parameters to vary. The results indicate that change in force level is the parameter that has the greatest effect on peak force variability, although time to peak force and preload also systematically influence response variability. A formula that accommodates the relation between impulse parameters and force variability is proposed. The data suggest that even in isometric tasks, it is the force-time properties of the impulse, rather than discrete parameters such as peak force, that determine the outcome variability.     

Age-related changes in working and reference memory performance and locomotor activity in the Wistar rat

Wistar rats of three age groups were tested in an automated tunnel-maze system of variable geometry to investigate whether changes in spontaneous locomotor activity and in learning and memory develop differentially or in a correlated fashion as a function of age. Senescent (30 months) as well as mature-adult (17 months) rats showed an age-correlated decline of locomotor activity as compared to the mature-young (5 months) group. Both working-memory (measured as within-trial arm discrimination performance) and reference-memory (measured as avoidance of "blind alley" visits) were severely affected in the senescent group, whereas the middle-aged animals suffered only from a working-memory deficit. The findings provide evidence that locomotor deficits do not necessarily interfere in the assessment of age-related changes in cognitive performance. Furthermore the results support the hypothesis that working and reference memory have different underlying physiological correlates and that these neuronal systems are differentially affected by the aging process.