Unerwünschte und schädliche Wirkungen von Psychotherapie

Unwanted effects or even damage due to psychotherapy are largely neglected issues within psychotherapy research as compared to other fields. On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that unwanted effects of a treatment which intends to influence patients into a positive direction are very likely. The rate of negative effects of psychotherapy (the deterioration effect according to Bergin) is consistently estimated to be 10% of all cases and shows this same rate in a variety of studies. This review highlights side effects of psychotherapy both on the part of the patients and of the therapists. It reports unwanted effects related to different psychotherapeutic methods, i.e. psychoanalysis, cognitive behaviour therapy, client-centered psychotherapy and – beyond these basic orientations – group psychotherapy. The paper also reports on negative effects of psychotherapy on an untreated partner. Finally, some proposals are given on how negative effects of psychotherapy could be diminished. The authors especially highlight the possibilities of changing the therapist, the treatment technique, or the theoretical treatment approach as a way to reduce negative effects.     

Brauchen wir Richtlinien oder Leitlinien für psychotherapeutische Behandlungen?

In many countries, psychotherapy is increasingly influenced by standards of scientifically evaluated methods and disorder-specific approaches. Referring to the definitions of the Scientific Council for Psychotherapy in Germany (WBP) concerning the differentiation of modalities, methods and techniques, this article points out that clear distinctions between modalities and methods are increasingly vanishing; instead, the tendency, especially within behavior therapy, to integrate all scientifically based methods and techniques is prevailing. This trend runs parallel with a development away from ?disorder-specific“ to a ?disorder-oriented“ approach. Facing the fact that technical aspects explain a relatively small proportion of outcome variance in psychotherapy, research related to the quality of psychotherapists is recommended. In addition, ?empirically validated psychotherapists“ should receive guidelines instead of rules of action.     

Chimpanzee (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pan troglodytes</Emphasis>) and orangutan (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pongo abelii</Emphasis>) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Planning for future needs has traditionally been considered to be restricted to human cognition. Although recent studies on great ape and corvid cognition challenge this belief, the phylogenesis of human planning remains largely unknown. The complex skill for future planning has not yet been satisfactorily established in any other extant primate species than our own. In humans, planning for future needs rely heavily on two overarching capacities, both of which lie at the heart of our cognition: self-control, often defined as the suppression of immediate drives in favor of delayed rewards, and mental time travel, which could be described as a detached mental experience of a past or future event. Future planning is linked to additional high complexity cognition such as metacognition and a consciousness usually not attributed to animals. In a series of four experiments based on tool use, we demonstrate that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and they do not merely rely on associative learning or semantic prospection when confronted with a planning task. These results suggest that great apes engage in planning for the future by out competing current drives and mentally pre-experiencing an upcoming event. This suggests that the advanced mental capacities utilized in human future planning are shared by phylogenetically more ancient species than previously believed.     

Entwicklung eines Curriculums für psychosomatische Grundversorgung in Frauenheilkunde und Geburtshilfe

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Accessibility and fit as determinants of the salience of social categorizations

The present article proposes a theoretical model of factors affecting the salience of social categorizations. The model is strongly related to the accessibility×fit formulation by Bruner (1957) and to Oakes' (1987) functional perspective on category salience. The results of an experimental series using the ‘Who said what?’ paradigm are presented, which examined several hypotheses derived from the model. In Study I it was shown that the salience of a social categorization with high chronic accessibility (sex categorization) was related to perceptions of issue relevance (normative fit) and intercategory differences (meta‐contrast ratio). Furthermore, in line with the salience model measures to increase the situational accessibility, (i.e. a priming procedure) of categorizations with low chronic accessibility (educational group and home town categorizations) failed to affect category salience as long as participants perceived no comparative and normative fit of these categorizations (Study II). Under conditions where comparative fit of these categorizations was perceived, however, the priming procedure successfully enhanced category salience (Studies II and III). Results are largely consistent with the hypotheses derived from the salience model and support Oakes' functional approach to category salience. Finally, the complex interrelation between situational accessibility and perceived fit will be discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When views about alternative medicine,nature and god come in the way of people's vaccination intentions

In spite of the safety and efficiency of the COVID-19 vaccines and the many promotion efforts of political and expert authorities, a fair portion of the population remained hesitant if not opposed to vaccination. Public debate and the available literature point to the possible role of people's attitudes towards medical institutions as well as their preference for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) on their motivations and intentions to be vaccinated. Other potential ideological factors are beliefs about environmental laissez-faire and divine providence insofar as they encourage people to let the pandemic unfold without human interference. In three cross-sectional samples (total N = 8214), collected at successive moments during the Belgian vaccination campaign, the present research examines the distal role of these psychological and ideological factors on vaccination intentions via motivational processes. Study 1 gauges the relation between trust in medical institutions and preference for CAM on intentions to get vaccinated via motivations. Study 2 examined the role of beliefs in the desirability of letting nature take its course (‘environmental laissez-faire beliefs’) on vaccination intention via motivations. Study 3 tests whether people's adherence to environmental laissez-faire and beliefs about divine providence are linked to their motivations for vaccination via trust in the medical institutions and CAM. Results show that adherence to CAM has a deleterious effect on vaccination intentions, whereas trust in medical institutions has a positive effect. Both ideological factors pertaining to external control are only moderately related, with environmental laissez-faire beliefs having stronger effects on CAM, medical trust and vaccination motivations. We discuss the importance of this set of results in light of the growing interest in CAM and the increasing presence of messages appealing to the environment.     

Framing Political Risks: Individual Differences and Loss Aversion in Personal and Political Situations

People are motivated to avoid losses. In the context of politics, studies consistently show that the threat of losses increases support for risky public policies more than the promise of gains. Here, we predict that this loss aversion is calibrated by individual differences related to one’s ability to accommodate resource loss, and we investigate how these individual differences moderate reactions to the threat of losses and the promise of gains. Results from large-N experiments consistently demonstrate that this moderation effect crucially depends on whether the resource loss relates to oneself or one’s group—whether the setting is personal or political. Consistent with classic assumptions, individuals with inferior abilities to cope with resource loss are more loss averse in personal settings. In political settings where group resources are threatened, effects reverse: Individuals with superior resources and a more central position within the group consistently respond more to the prospect of loss. As discussed, these findings have important implications for our understanding of why and for whom the threat of loss motivates risky personal and political choices. By consequence, the findings also shed novel light on the psychological underpinnings of recent risky political events.