Residential mental health assessment within Dutch criminal cases: a discussion

In Dutch criminal cases in which doubts arise about the defendant's mental health, a forensic assessment will be requested. This is provided either by the multidisciplinary staff of residential clinics who conduct forensic evaluations for the court, or by mental health professionals contracted on a part-time basis by district courts. This article discusses the procedures applied in such cases as well as the relevant legal provisions. It focuses particularly on the clinical observation, evaluation, and reporting that is carried out over a number of weeks in the residential setting of the Pieter Baan Centrum. Specific attention is paid to procedures applied in this clinic. It is suggested that Dutch procedures for the use of mental health expertise can best be characterized by three aspects: multidisciplinary observation and reporting, the use of a sliding scale for indicating degree of responsibility, and, finally, the involvement and payment of experts by the state as such, rather than by the prosecution and/or the defense. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aristotle on Rawls: A critique of quantitative justice

Conclusion Is the 20th Century as obviously preferable to all other times as Rawls would have us assume? Is 20th Century Stockholm preferable to 12th Century Florence in each and every way? In 12th Century Florence men lived without liberty or equality. Yet Florentines were reasonably happy, accepted their place in life, and communicated directly with others. It was a society with sharply marked class distinctions. In such a society the lowly can gain more self-respect through identity, excellence, and capacity within their station than in an egalitarian society. The lowly can perceive the importance of their labour, be secure that their place is assured by powerful protectors, see models of virtue to admire, and derive a sense of contributing to a meangingful social drama. They may also learn something of the difference between the noble and the ignoble. Are these not qualities Aristotle would appreciate? Medieval man was certainly not free but 'sneither was he alone and isolated ... Man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need, for doubt. In a brief reference to feudalism Rawls himself seems to realise this state of affairs (74). In contrast, Stockholm is a competitive society where loneliness, anxiety, and identity crises have been endlessly documented by social scientists, all occurring despite the high material standard of living. Yet Stockholm would seem to be the model for Rawls and obviously not Florence. One wonders if this social scientific knowledge of Stockholm will be part of the knowledge available to persons in the original position. Justice is not quantitative but qualitative, so Aristotle might say in a brief discussion. In a just society a person's possessions and consumptions are not on the minds of the other people with whom they meet and treat. When Odysseus came home he was delighted to climb into a peasant's cart to ride the last mile home. Contrast this king with King Arthur riding with another peasant on another road, choking with the anxiety that he may not be acting kingly by being in the cart. In Ithaca both king and commoner were sure of each other and, more importantly of themselves.An earlier version was presented at a Conference of the Australasian Political Studies Association.

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Cognitive load of navigating without vision when guided by virtual sound versus spatial language

A vibrotactile N-back task was used to generate cognitive load while participants were guided along virtual paths without vision. As participants stepped in place, they moved along a virtual path of linear segments. Information was provided en route about the direction of the next turning point, by spatial language ("left," "right," or "straight") or virtual sound (i.e., the perceived azimuth of the sound indicated the target direction). The authors hypothesized that virtual sound, being processed at direct perceptual levels, would have lower load than even simple language commands, which require cognitive mediation. As predicted, whereas the guidance modes did not differ significantly in the no-load condition, participants showed shorter distance traveled and less time to complete a path when performing the N-back task while navigating with virtual sound as guidance. Virtual sound also produced better N-back performance than spatial language. By indicating the superiority of virtual sound for guidance when cognitive load is present, as is characteristic of everyday navigation, these results have implications for guidance systems for the visually impaired and others.     

Anorexia nervosa and brain tumor in a 14-year-old girl

A 14-year-old girl with anorexia nervosa (AN) was found to have an intracranial neoplasm. Atypical psychological symptoms prompted further evaluation, including electroencephalogram and neuroimaging, which revealed a sellar and suprasellar mass. This patient had an eating disorder and a brain tumor, which appear to be two unrelated conditions. However, it remains unclear how each affected the other. The diagnosis of AN, like all other psychiatric disorders, requires that possible medical etiologies and coexisting medical problems be excluded. AN and other eating disorders are particularly difficult to diagnose in children and adolescents because they often do not present in the manner typical of adults. Perceptual and cognitive disturbances associated with AN are difficult to evaluate because children and adolescents normally change over time as they progress through different stages of development. Therefore, it is particularly important to evaluate for the presence of medical conditions when a diagnosis of an eating disorder is made in a child or adolescent.     

How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task

To date, neither primates nor birds have shown clear evidence of causal knowledge when attempting to solve the trap tube task. One factor that may have contributed to mask the knowledge that subjects may have about the task is that subjects were only allowed to push the reward away from them, which is a particularly difficult action for primates in certain problem solving situations. We presented five orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), two chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), two bonobos (Pan paniscus), and one gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) with a modified trap tube that allowed subjects to push or rake the reward with the tool. In two additional follow-up tests, we inverted the tube 180° rendering the trap nonfunctional and also presented subjects with the original task in which they were required to push the reward out of the tube. Results showed that all but one of the subjects preferred to rake the reward. Two orangutans and one chimpanzee (all of whom preferred to rake the reward), consistently avoided the trap only when it was functional but failed the original task. These findings suggest that some great apes may have some causal knowledge about the trap-tube task. Their success, however, depended on whether they were allowed to choose certain tool-using actions. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at     

The Negative Physical Self Scale: Initial development and validation in samples of Chinese adolescents and young adults

This research presents four studies on the initial development and validation of the 48-item Negative Physical Self Scale (NPS), a multidimensional measure of body image concerns for use with Chinese samples. In Study 1 (N = 1095), exploratory factor analyses identified five dimensions underlying the NPS (General Appearance, Facial Appearance, Shortness, Fatness, Thinness). In Study 2 (N = 1057), confirmatory factor analyses replicated this factor structure. In Studies 3 and 4, the validity of all NPS dimensions except Thinness Concern was supported via their patterns of relation with both objective physical characteristics/behaviors and other self-report measures of body image and general self worth. Because Chinese adolescents and young adults expressed relatively more concerns about General Appearance, Shortness, and Facial Appearance than about Fatness, the NPS may have greater utility for assessing body image disturbances in China than existing measures that focus exclusively on general body satisfaction and body size/weight.     

The acceptability and preference for the psychological treatment of PTSD

The acceptability and preference of psychological treatments is important in understanding patient treatment seeking, choice, engagement and attrition and possibly treatment response in health care. The acceptability of, and preference for, 14 different types of psychological treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were investigated in a student population through invitation to participate in a web-based survey. Respondents were asked to rate each treatment on 10 scales and to rank the treatments in order of preference. Respondents were also asked whether they would seek treatment themselves, recommend treatment to friends and family, feel stigmatised by suffering from PTSD, had any prior knowledge of the treatments and if this had been positive or negative and whether they had a history of psychological problems or treatment. A total of 330 respondents completed the survey. A past or current history of psychological problems and treatment was surprisingly high. Almost all respondents indicated that they would seek or recommend treatment in spite of high levels of stigmatisation. Factor analysis of the 10 scales indicated two factors: Endorsement and Discomfort. Rank ordering on preference and Endorsement scores was highly consistent. The highly preferred and endorsed treatments involved cognitive therapy, exposure or psycho-education in spite of high levels of discomfort anticipated with exposure. Treatments involving new technologies, EMDR and psychodynamic psychotherapy received the lowest Endorsement and preference. There was a modest influence of prior knowledge of a treatment.