Development of visuomanual tracking in 5- to 9-year-old boys

Visuomanual sinusoidal tracking is investigated in 5- to 9-year-old children. The proportion of successful performances steadily increases with age, but adult proficiency is never attained even by those who can perform the task. Moreover, the progress in proficiency—as measured by systems analysis techniques—is not monotonic and suggests the presence of distinct stages in the development of visuomotor coordination. Qualitative analysis of unsuccessful performance demonstrates that failures cannot be ascribed only to insufficient motor coordination and emphasizes the role of cognitive and representational factors even in such a simple task.     

Archive Fever: ‘Order is no longer assured’

Abstract

This article uses a close reading of Jacques Derrida’s short work Archive fever: A Freudian impression (1996), in order to show the structural impossibility for law and the wider legal system to protect itself from the destabilising effects of deconstruction. It shows law’s inability to stabilise/close the system and hence its inability to ‘assure order’.     

Catching up with wonderful women: The women‐are‐wonderful effect is smaller in more gender egalitarian societies

Inequalities between men and women are common and well‐documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women‐are‐wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross‐cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self‐reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women‐are‐wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.     

Jung’s Axioms: An Introduction to Jung’s “Note on Number”

This article is an introduction to C. G. Jung’s handwritten note on natural numbers (in this issue), which became the basis of Marie-Louise von Franz’s book Number and Time. I present the historical background of Jung’s note and discuss part of its content using mostly Jung’s own words.     

The Vasarhelyi method of child art psychotherapy: an adjunctive treatment in childhood depression

We describe the use of child art psychotherapy (CAP) following the Vasarhelyi method in an 11-year-old female with a history of anxiety and depression which limited her capacity to attend school and in a 15-year-old male who had a history of depressive symptoms with suicidal thinking. In each case, the use of other therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy was not possible or unsuccessful. Through the creation of images, each young person revealed concerns which had not been previously verbalised, and recovery was linked in time to the revelation of these worries. We propose the use of the Vasarhelyi method of CAP as an adjunctive treatment of depression in young people.     

Development and Feasibility of a Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Fear of Cancer Recurrence

This paper describes the development, content, and preliminary results of a group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for fear of cancer recurrence (FCR). A manualized CBT intervention was developed and offered to 38 patients with various cancer types and stages in two hospitals. Four weekly group CBT sessions were administered by two licensed psychologists as part of routine care. Patients completed self-report scales before the first treatment session and, a second time, 1 month after the last session.Overall, 33 patients had clinical levels of FCR at baseline. The participants’ satisfaction toward the group CBT for FCR was high. Significant reductions on the total score and most subscales of the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory (FCRI) were observed, as well as significant improvements on most of the other psychological variables measured (i.e., insomnia, anxiety, depression, dysfunctional beliefs about cancer, and intolerance of uncertainty). In addition, 52% of the patients with clinical levels of FCR (FCRI-severity subscale score ≥ 13) at baseline no longer reached this clinical threshold at posttreatment.These preliminary results suggest that our group CBT for FCR is well accepted and feasible, and shows promising efficacy for decreasing FCR and improving other psychological variables among cancer patients. The next step is to investigate the efficacy of this minimal intervention in larger and controlled clinical trials, as well as its usefulness as part of a stepped care approach.This low-cost intervention is easy to implement in various clinical settings and has a strong potential to help large numbers of patients with FCR.     

Effective interactions: Communication and high levels of marital satisfaction

Of all the significant relationships in the lives of human-beings, the marital relationship remains one of the most central and important to their well-being. For this rapid review the authors accessed four online databases (PsycINFO, PsychARTICLES, JSTOR Journals, and ScienceDirect) to examine the evidence on aspects of communication which contribute to high levels of marital satisfaction and to synthesise these findings. The search yielded 103 unique articles, of which 15 were ultimately included. Principal results found the following activities to relate to high marital satisfaction: 1) communication activities such as engaging in small talk and providing verbal and non-verbal messages of affection; 2) “positive” exchanges which include any interactions perceived by both parties as constructive; 3) effective conflict management including the use of responses of recalibration and reaffirmation (R-R response), the use of we-pronouns, and the Listener-Speaker technique; 4) possessing and implementing effective communication skills such as using “I” instead of “you” messages; and 5) using “positive” communication skills such as clarification to elicit “positive” affect such as feeling understood. The evidence suggests that mental health professionals working with married couples should seek to promote quality dyadic communication as part of treatment interventions.     

Portugal’s Immigration and Integration Policies: a Case Apart?

Most countries in Europe have seen the rise of anti-immigrant political parties in recent years and many have implemented more restrictive immigration measures. Portugal has moved in the opposite direction, seeking to produce some of the best practices and laws on immigration and immigrant integration. Traditional theories of immigration policy fail to account for the Portuguese case, and regional models of immigration overlook ways in which Portugal diverges. Instead, Portuguese policies are best understood as the product of (1) a political consensus on immigration that derives in part from Portugal’s social-revolutionary democratic transition; (2) innovative institutions that enjoy both autonomy and political support, enable a “whole-of-government” approach, and mediate social pressures created by immigration; and (3) leadership choices made by politicians, bureaucrats, and civil society groups to forge consensus and seek inclusion. The Portuguese case signals the importance of adopting other lenses for the comparative study of immigration policies that go beyond regional models and highlight policy similarities among countries from distinct regions.     

Non-binary youth: Access to gender-affirming primary health care

ABSTRACT

Background: Transgender (trans) youth who identify outside the gender binary are a growing subpopulation. In this article, we document differences in access to gender-affirming health care between binary and non-binary identified trans youth and explore ways of meeting the health needs of non-binary youth within primary care settings.

Methods: The Canadian Trans Youth Health Survey is a national online survey of trans youth, 14–25 years, conducted in 2013–2014. Among the 839 participants who responded to gender identity items in the survey, 41% identified as non-binary. We compared demographic, health outcome, and health care access responses between non-binary and binary (trans girls/women and trans boys/men) youth.

Results: Non-binary and binary youth were similar in most demographics, including age, geographic distribution, and ethnocultural backgrounds, however a larger proportion (82%) of non-binary youth were assigned female at birth. Older non-binary youth (aged 19–25) were significantly more likely to forego needed healthcare than older binary youth; no significant differences were found between younger (14–18) non-binary and binary youth in foregoing healthcare. Overall, non-binary youth (13%) were significantly less likely than binary youth (52%) to access hormone therapy, but they were more likely than binary youth to report experiencing barriers to accessing hormone therapy when needed.

Conclusions: Non-binary trans youth in Canada report challenges in accessing needed gender-affirming healthcare. Primary care providers are well-situated to integrate a broad range of gender-affirming care services into practice in order to address the unique needs of non-binary youth. Future research is warranted to explore experiences of non-binary youth related to barriers to care and to explore how services can be designed and delivered to better meet the needs of non-binary youth seeking gender-affirming primary care.