A Pilot Study Implementing Coping Power in Italian Community Hospitals: Effect of Therapist Attachment Style on Outcomes in Children

The study presented the initial report of a project regarding the implementation of the Coping Power Program in Italian community hospitals, and the program’s ability to reduce externalizing behavioral problems in children with a Disruptive Behavior Disorder diagnosis. Usually, interventions for children are implemented by a number of therapists with different personal characteristics, which therefore influence the implementation quality of an intervention. That said, the present study aimed to establish whether the insecure attachment styles of therapists predict unfavorable outcomes for children treated with the Coping Power Program. The sample included 80 children with a Disruptive Behavior Disorder diagnosis and 16 therapists. The results showed that the change in children’s aggressive behavioral problems was significantly related to the levels of the therapist’s preoccupation with relationships. Higher levels of change in aggression (where a higher value means that the aggression at the end of the treatment is higher than aggression at the baseline evaluation) are associated with higher levels of therapist’s preoccupied attachment style (anxious attachment style). This study provided some preliminary evidence that therapists need to be sensitive to their own attachment experiences when delivering therapy for children.     

Day-Hospital Multifocal Integrated Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa in Adolescents: A One-Year Follow-Up

The current guidelines for treatment of Anorexia Nervosa (AN) in children and adolescents recommend an integrated multidisciplinary approach as the elective intervention for this disorder. Nevertheless, there is insufficient evidence on the results of an integrated approach for the treatment of AN adolescent patients, especially in a Hospital setting. This study aims to analyze clinical and psychological changes occurring in adolescent patients after completion of a Day-Hospital Multifocal Integrated Treatment (MIT) for Anorexia Nervosa. The sample consisted of 60 adolescents with AN or Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) restrictive type, aged 11 to 18 years, and their parents. Clinical course was evaluated at 3, 6 and 12-month follow-up periods. Our results showed clinical remission in a good percentage of patients. In general, we found a significant reduction of the eating psychopathology, whereas we did not detect any significant improvement in body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, and relational difficulties. This positive trend was confirmed at 3, 6, and 12-month follow-up, despite the increase of drop-outs. These results suggest that the proposed treatment is reasonably effective, because it aims to contain and reduce the acute phase of the disease in a limited time and in a hospital setting, but it is necessary to continue the treatment with targeted psychotherapeutic interventions to address the deeper psychological discomfort underlying the eating disorder.     

Toward a transcendental account of creativity. Kant and Merleau-Ponty on the creative power of judgment and creativity as institution

Several works published in the last decades defend the claim that the concept of creativity should be demystified. With the aim of showing that creativity is not an obscure power owned by only few individuals and free from constraints, authors working at the intersection field between philosophy and cognitive science have notably focused on the structure and evolution of cognitive mechanisms underlying our creative capacities. While taking up the suggestion that we should try not to mystify creativity, this article argues that what is required for such demystification is primarily a transcendental and phenomenological inquiry. Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works are here discussed in order to develop such a transcendental inquiry into creativity. Both Kant and Merleau-Ponty bring to the fore the conditions of possibility for creative acts, and highlight fundamental role of creativity itself in the formation of meaningfulness. The keystone of both philosophers’ inquiries is the emphasis on the interdependence between creativity and rules. Yet, due to the different approaches to the transcendental, Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts do not fully converge, but should rather be considered as complementary.     

Parents of Adolescents with Mental Disorders: Improving Their Caregiving Experience

Several studies have demonstrated that the family members of adolescents with mental diseases experience distress, anxiety and depression, as well as economic strain, all of which contribute to physical and psychological caregiver morbidity. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of intervention to improve the caregiving experience of the parents of mentally ill adolescents. The parents of 20 patients were assessed with the Experience of Caregiving Inventory (ECI) and the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), while patients’ functioning and psychopathology were evaluated with the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale and the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL), respectively. Assessments were conducted over 9 months, comparing the experimental group receiving the intervention with a control group that received “standard” care. While there were no significant differences in the patients’ psychopathologies, the caregivers in the experimental group had better ECI and WAI scores. Intervention focusing on the parents seemed to improve the caregivers’ understanding of the disease’s impact on their lives irrespective of the severity of their children’s condition. This finding may be useful in developing adequate measures for the parents of adolescents with severe mental diseases to help contain their psychological distress.     

Susceptibility to the flash-beep illusion is increased in children compared to adults

Audio-visual integration was studied in children aged 8-17 (N = 30) and adults (N = 22) using the 'flash-beep illusion' paradigm, where the presentation of two beeps causes a single flash to be perceived as two flashes (fission illusion), and a single beep causes two flashes to be perceived as one flash (fusion illusion). Children reported significantly more fission illusions than adults, indicating that auditory and visual information was integrated more often, and less selectively, than in adults. Within either group, illusion reports did not correlate with either age or motor coordination measures. The current results show that the form of multisensory integration indexed by the illusion is slow to mature in normally developing children.     

A cross-cultural study of relationships between daily social interaction and the five-factor model of personality

Two studies, one in the United States (N = 130) and another in Germany (N = 100), examined relationships between daily social interaction and the traits of the Five-Factor Model. In both studies, student participants described their social interactions for 2 weeks using the Rochester Interaction Record. In both countries, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were positively related to reactions to social interaction, whereas Neuroticism was unrelated to reactions to interactions. In the United States, Extraversion and Openness were positively related to reactions to interactions, whereas these factors were not related to reactions to interactions in Germany. In the United States, Extraversion was positively related to how socially active participants were, whereas none of the FFM traits was related to amount of social interaction in the German sample. In both countries, Extraversion was positively related to percent of interactions involving friends. The results highlight the importance of taking into account the sociocultural milieus within which personality unfolds.     

Learning to fear outgroups: An associative learning explanation for the development and reduction of intergroup anxiety

Pavlovian conditioning is a form of associative learning shown to contribute to the development and reduction of clinical anxiety and fear, and more recently, intergroup anxiety and fear. The current review provides a synthesis of the literature on associative learning of fear toward outgroups. Findings are reviewed that outline how fear toward the outgroup, relative to the ingroup, can be preferentially learnt and is resistant to extinction‐based techniques. Novel future research directions for intergroup anxiety are then identified based upon previous research on clinical anxiety. It is proposed that processes known to enhance the extinction of specific phobia should be investigated with social stimuli. Specifically, it is argued that exploring cognitive factors during extinction and conducting extinction in multiple contexts may provide new avenues to pursue intergroup harmony through reduced intergroup anxiety. The review concludes by suggesting innovative research designs are needed to validate an associative learning account of fear toward outgroups outside of experimental settings.     

Attentional Resources Measured by Reaction Times Highlight Differences Within Pleasant and Unpleasant,High Arousing Stimuli

Simple reaction times (RTs) to acoustic tones were recorded during picture viewing in order to investigate attentional resource allocation to threat stimuli compared with pleasant (sport/adventure) and neutral (household objects) contents. Stimuli were selected as equally arousing according to standardized subjective ratings. In the late stage of picture processing threat pictures showed shorter RTs compared with neutral and pleasant ones. In a second study, a choice-RT task was employed, and a wider range of both pleasant and unpleasant contents was shown. Results indicated slower RTs when blood/injury and erotic couples were presented, compared with other threat, and with other positive (sport/adventure) scenes. Specifically, erotic couples require a greater amount of attentional resources compared with sport/adventure; the same is true for blood/injury stimuli as compared with threat. Remarkable differences were thus shown in attentional deployment to specific stimulus contents within the same valence category. These differences should be taken into account when using such stimuli to investigate emotional processing.