Evidence‐Based Effective Practices With Older Adults

Older persons constitute an increasingly large population with significant mental health challenges. The authors review outcome research for both diagnosable conditions and late‐life transitions as a basis for evidence‐based practice with this population. Implications for clinical practice in professional counseling, counselor education and supervision, and research are considered.     

A Structural Equation Model for the School Reinforcement Survey Schedule: Italian and American Early Adolescents

The School Reinforcement Survey Schedule (SRSS) was administered to 2,828 boys and girls in middle schools in the United States and an Italian translation was administered to 342 boys and girls in middle schools in Northern Italy. An exploratory factor analysis using half the American data set was performed using maximum likelihood estimation with a promax rotation. This analysis produced a structural equation model with six interpretable latent variables. This analysis was confirmed by results demonstrating a good fit with the other half of the American sample and separately with the Italian sample. Scores for the six latent variables were constructed and information about the distribution of scores was obtained. Multiple comparisons of the means were performed by gender, within each national sample, for each of the six latent variables. American and Italian girls report obtaining greater enjoyment from a wider variety of school activities compared to American and Italian boys.     

Do Appearance Focused Cognitive Distortions Moderate the Relationship between Social Comparisons to Peers and Media Images and Body Image Disturbance?

The research questions addressed gender differences in the subjective appraisal of teens experiencing sexual harassment, and the psychosocial maturation of male and female teens appraising such events as threatening to their well-being. Using survey methodology, U.S. undergraduate women (n?=?316; 85% White Caucasian) and men (n?=?270; 85% White Caucasian) reported on their earliest formal work experiences (participants?? average age was M?=?19.03, SD?=?1.87). Results indicated that women, more than men, were more upset by, and were more likely to label an event as, sexual harassment. Results further demonstrated that men, particularly men who appraised harassment as bothersome and relied on behavioral coping, reported detriment to maturity outcomes of autonomy and social responsibility. Implications for a ??wimpy male?? hypothesis are discussed.     

Recruitment of anterior and posterior structures in lexical-semantic processing: an fMRI study comparing implicit and explicit tasks

Previous studies examining explicit semantic processing have consistently shown activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). In contrast, implicit semantic processing tasks have shown activation in posterior areas including the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) with less consistent activation in the IFG. These results raise the question whether the functional role of the IFG is related to those processes needed to make a semantic decision or to processes involved in the extraction and analysis of meaning. This study examined neural activation patterns during a semantic judgment task requiring overt semantic analysis, and then compared these activation patterns to previously obtained results using the same semantically related and unrelated word pairs in a lexical decision task which required only implicit semantic processing (Rissman, J., Eliassen, J. C., & Blumstein, S. E. (2003). An event-related fMRI investigation of implicit semantic priming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 1160-1175). The behavioral results demonstrated that the tasks were equivalent in difficulty. fMRI results indicated that the IFG and STG bilaterally showed greater activation for semantically unrelated than related word pairs across the two tasks. Comparison of the two task types across conditions revealed greater activation for the semantic judgment task only in the STG bilaterally and not in the IFG. These results suggest that the pre-frontal cortex is recruited similarly in the service of both the lexical decision and semantic judgment tasks. The increased activation in the STG in the semantic judgment task reflects the greater depth of semantic processing required in this task and indicates that the STG is not simply a passive store of lexical-semantic information but is involved in the active retrieval of this information.     

Employability of Genetic Counselors with a PhD in Genetic Counseling

The development of a PhD in genetic counseling has been discussed for more than 20 years, yet the perspectives of employers have not been assessed. The goal of this qualitative study was to gain an understanding of the employability of genetic counselors with a PhD in genetic counseling by conducting interviews with United States employers of genetic counselors. Study participants were categorized according to one of the following practice areas: academic, clinical, government, industry, laboratory, or research. All participants were responsible for hiring genetic counselors in their institutions. Of the 30 employers interviewed, 23 envisioned opportunities for individuals with a PhD degree in genetic counseling, particularly in academic and research settings. Performing research and having the ability to be a principal investigator on a grant was the primary role envisioned for these individuals by 22/30 participants. Employers expect individuals with a PhD in genetic counseling to perform different roles than MS genetic counselors with a master's degree. This study suggests there is an employment niche for individuals who have a PhD in genetic counseling that complements, and does not compete with, master's prepared genetic counselors.     

Traumatized mothers can change their minds about their toddlers: Understanding how a novel use of videofeedback supports positive change of maternal attributions

This study explored the use of a brief experimental intervention that integrates principles of infant-parent psychotherapy, videofeedback, controlled exposure to child distress in the context of parental posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and stimulation of parental reflective functioning (RF). The Clinician Assisted Videofeedback Exposure Session (CAVES) was applied to 32 interpersonal violence-exposed mothers of very young children (8-50 months) with respect to change of maternal perception of her child. While we found no significant reduction over two videotaped assessment visits with a mental health professional, we did find a significant reduction in the degree of negativity of maternal attributions towards her child following the videotaped visit focused on the CAVES (p<.01). Maternal RF, a mother's capacity to think about mental states in herself and her child, accounted for 11% of the variance in reduction of maternal negativity after accounting for baseline levels of negativity. Clinician-assisted videofeedback appears to support emotional self-regulation of mothers with violence-related PTSD. Focusing with a therapist on videofeedback of child separation distress exposes mothers to avoided mental states of helplessness and perceived loss of protection. Negative maternal attributions may mark violent trauma-associated emotion dysregulation and projected self-representations of the maltreated mother.     

Women at Midlife: An Exploration of Chronological Age,Subjective Age,Wellness, and Life Satisfaction

Women (N = 224) between 35 and 65 years old participated in a study that examined the relationship among chronological age, subjective age, wellness, and life satisfaction. Women whose subjective age was less than or equal to their chronological age reported greater wellness; total wellness was a significant predictor of life satisfaction.     

Touched by suicide: bridging the perspectives of survivors and clinicians

This article is a revised version of an invited plenary address given at the 39th Annual Conference of the American Association of Suicidology. The authors, a psychiatrist and a writer survivor, outline and summarize the different ways in which professionals and survivors come to an understanding of suicide. They explain how each group often exists independently and separate from the other--by cognitive and emotional dissonance, by private language, by psychological defenses and miscommunication--and call for dialog. They argue that both perspectives are essential to advance the science of suicidology and to give hope and meaning to those bereaved by suicide.     

Inferior Frontal Regions Underlie the Perception of Phonetic Category Invariance

ABSTRACT— The problem of mapping differing sensory stimuli onto a common category is fundamental to human cognition. Listeners perceive stable phonetic categories despite many sources of acoustic variability. What are the neural mechanisms that underlie this perceptual stability? In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, a short-interval habituation paradigm was used to investigate neural sensitivity to acoustic changes within and between phonetic categories. A region in the left inferior frontal sulcus showed a pattern of activation consistent with phonetic invariance: insensitivity to acoustic changes within a phonetic category and sensitivity to changes between phonetic categories. Left superior temporal regions, in contrast, showed graded sensitivity to both within- and between-category changes. These results suggest that perceptual insensitivity to changes within a phonetic category may arise from decision-related mechanisms in the left prefrontal cortex and add to a growing body of literature suggesting that the inferior prefrontal cortex plays a domain-general role in computing category representations.     

Neural correlates of variable working memory load across adult age and skill: dissociative patterns within the fronto-parietal network

We examined neural changes related to variations in working memory load by using an n -back task with three levels and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Younger adults were divided into high- and low-performing groups (Young-High; Young-Low) and compared with older adults. Relative to Young-High, capacity-constraints in working memory were apparent between load 1–2 for the elderly and between load 2–3 for Young-Low. Capacity-constraints in neural activity followed this pattern by showing a monotonically increasing response in parietal cortex and thalamus for Young-High, whereas activity leveled off at 1-back for the elderly and at 2-back for Young-Low. The response in dorsal frontal cortex followed a similar pattern with the addition that the magnitude of activation differed within capacity limitations (Old > Young at 1-back; Young-Low > Young-High at 2-back). These findings indicate that an important determinant of WM capacity is the ability to keep the frontal cortex adequately engaged in relation to current task demands.