The extent and nature of imagery during worry and positive thinking in generalized anxiety disorder

Clients in treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) were compared to a control group to assess the extent and nature of imagery during worry or while thinking about a personally relevant positive future event. Two methods were used to assess mentation and were completed in counter balanced order within the worry and positive conditions. One method assessed the occurrence of imagery by requiring participants to categorize their mentation as verbal thoughts or images every 10 s. The other method involved participants estimating the duration of any imagery that occurred in the previous 10 s. Imagery during worry occurred less often than while thinking about a positive event for both groups, but GAD clients had a more pronounced deficit of imagery during worry than the control group. Images that occurred were briefer during worry than while thinking about a positive future event and were briefer in the GAD than the control group for both worry and positive conditions. The results thus confirmed that imagery is less common during worry in clients with GAD but also demonstrated that the imagery that does occur in GAD is briefer.     

Explanatory models for mental illness endorsed by Christian clergymen: The development and use of an instrument in Singapore

Researchers have attempted to elicit the explanatory models used by different populations to understand mental illness, since these models can influence how populations use mental-health treatment. However, little effort has been made to understand the explanatory models used by Christian clergymen. This is despite their important role as providers of mental-health care in many Asian and Western societies. Neither are there suitable instruments to conduct such investigations. This study attempts to present a suitable instrument for such research and explore the belief structure of this population by administering a modified version of the Opinions about Psychological Problems to a representative sample of Singaporean Christian clergymen. Factor-analytic techniques revealed five factors which were explained as (1) a Traditional Christian and (2) a Deliverance etiology, both models implicating religious causes for mental illness, (3) a Poor Coping and (4) Internal Conflicts etiology, essentially being psychological explanations and an (5) Organic etiology model. The Traditional Christian model received the greatest endorsement, followed by the Poor Coping model, while the Organic model had the least acceptance. The belief structure used by nearly half of the respondents was noted to be complex, involving a combination of religious, psychological, and organic explanations.     

Autobiographical memory and clinical anxiety

Abstract

Previous experiments on the recall of threatening and neutral information in clinically anxious subjects have yielded mixed results. The present study assessed autobiographical memory in patients with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and normal controls. Subjects were first presented with neutral cue words and asked to respond with any personal memory. GAD subjects judged the content of their own memories as more consistent with anxious mood, and less consistent with pleasant mood, than that reported by controls. Subjects were then again presented with neutral cue words, but with instructions to provide either “anxious” or “nonanxious” personal memories, on specified trials. Significant interactions between group and instruction condition indicated that anxious subjects recalled more anxiety-evoking memories, and recalled them more rapidly, relative to controls. Ratings by blind judges did not support the hypothesis that this apparent difference in the content of autobiographical recall was an artefact due to anxious subjects labelling memories as being more anxiety evoking than would controls. Possible explanations of the findings, and reasons for the apparent discrepancy between these and earlier results, are discussed.     

Processing of emotional meaning in anxiety

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that anxiety and depressive states do not lead to speeding of lexical decisions for mood-congruent words. Theoretical considerations, and some data, suggest that such mood-congruent speeding effects should be more apparent in affective decisions. In three experiments we found no evidence that anxious subjects are faster when making affective decisions for congruent (threatening) words, whether or not these subjects had been recently exposed to the same words. It is concluded that the processes involved in the attentional and interpretive processing of threatening stimuli by anxious subjects are different from those involved when making a conscious decision about emotional meaning.     

Fishing for happiness: the effects of generating positive imagery on mood and behaviour

Experimental evidence using picture-word cues has shown that generating mental imagery has a causal impact on emotion, at least for images prompted by negative or benign stimuli. It remains unclear whether this finding extends to overtly positive stimuli and whether generating positive imagery can increase positive affect in people with dysphoria. Dysphoric participants were assigned to one of three conditions, and given instructions to generate mental images in response to picture-word cues which were either positive, negative or mixed (control) in valence. Results showed that the positive picture-word condition increased positive affect more than the control and negative conditions. Participants in the positive condition also demonstrated enhanced performance on a behavioural task compared to the two other conditions. Compared to participants in the negative condition, participants in the positive condition provided more positive responses on a homophone task administered after 24h to assess the durability of effects. These findings suggest that a positive picture-word task used to evoke mental imagery leads to improvements in positive mood, with transfer to later performance. Understanding the mechanisms underlying mood change in dysphoria may hold implications for both theory and treatment development.     

The Australian Psychology Workforce 4: An analysis of psychologists in private practice providing Medicare‐funded services

There have always been independent private psychology practitioners in Australia, yet in the past payment of their services was largely by a user‐pays model. The introduction of Medicare Benefits for patients, under the Enhanced Primary Care program in 1999, and Better Access in Mental Health Care in 2006, along with Government‐funded mental health initiatives such as Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care introduced in 2001, has provided an alternative funding model for independent private psychological services. Introduction of these and other Government‐funded programs has raised questions about the responsiveness of the psychology workforce to meet the changing demands for psychological services created by these reforms. This study aimed to profile the characteristics of 3,587 independent private psychologists who provide services to clients under these schemes by analysing their responses to the Australian Psychology Workforce Survey. Of the 44% of psychologists completing the survey who indicated that they had a Medicare Provider Number, only 61% were in private practice as their main job. The remainder conducted services for Medicare‐funded clients as part of a private practice in a second job. The demographic characteristics, work roles, client groups and income of psychologists with Medicare provider numbers are reported.     

The Australian Psychology Workforce 2: A national profile of psychologists' education,training, specialist qualifications and continuous professional development

Objective data on the training profiles of Australian psychologists is scarce, despite important reforms across the higher education sector. This study aimed to profile Australian psychological training leading to registration. Universities, Registration Boards and registrants were profiled during 2008. Results revealed that there were 1063 postgraduate places a year across 34 university postgraduate training programs, with two thirds of places in clinical psychology. However, half of psychologists do not undertake postgraduate training, but undertake four years of university psychology followed by a 2 year internship (4+2) to make up the minimum standard for registration of 6 years training. Those with over 6 years of university training tended to work more in clinical, university or specialised areas of practice, whereas those with 4+2 were more likely to work in schools and general counselling. One quarter of psychologists are College members and 13% have doctoral qualifications. Analysis revealed a workforce that is actively engaged in ongoing professional development, supervision and further training. The profession has grown steadily in size by 6.24% per annum over the past 8 years and this presents a challenge for increasing the supply of postgraduate training places.     

Acoustic,semantic and phonetic influences in spoken warning signal words

Three experiments are reported which explore the relationship between semantic, acoustic and phonetic variables in the judgement of eight warning signal words. Experiment 1 shows that listeners can distinguish very clearly between urgent and non‐urgent versions of the words when spoken by real speakers, and that some signal words such as ‘deadly’ and ‘danger’ score more highly than words such as ‘attention’ and ‘don't’. It also shows that the three dimensions of perceived urgency, appropriateness and believability of these words are highly correlated. Experiment 2 replicates Experiment 1 using synthesized voices where acoustic variables are controlled. The semantic effects are replicated, and to some extent appropriateness and believability are found to function differently from that of perceived urgency. Experiment 3 compares the same set of eight signal words with a set of phonetically similar neutral words, showing that warning signal words are rated significantly higher, and largely maintain their previous rank ordering. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who Cares About Human Rights?

Previous studies of human rights attitudes are reviewed, new measures are reported, and a three-factor model is identified (Human Rights Endorsement, Commitment, and Restriction). Individual differences that predict attitudes on each factor overlapped but differed. Dispositional empathy, education, and global knowledge contributed to an endorsement of human rights ideals, but none of these affected commitment or restriction. Globalism (vs. nationalism) and principled moral reasoning strengthened human rights commitment, while ethnocentrism and the social dominance orientation weakened it. Authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, and belief that the world cannot be changed increased a willingness to restrict the rights of unpopular groups, while principled moral reasoning and self-rated liberalism decreased it. In short, the individual differences that influence human rights attitudes depend substantially upon which dimension of these attitudes is considered.