John Lind memorial symposium

John Lind, Professor of Pediatrics at the Karolinska Institute, emphasized that “the family is born in the maternity hospital.” He had a warm concern for all parents and infants and was extremely influential in both pediatric and child-rearing practices in Sweden and in the promotion of infant and caregiver-infant interaction research. Lind initiated and/or stimulated the scientific study of the infant's cry, parent-infant interactions, the role of the father in the perinatal environment, fetal and neonatal perception, and perinatal hospital practices. In many respects, his work predated contemporary emphases on perinatal coaching programs, social support (doula) during labor and delivery, parent education on childrearing, the use of ethnographic data for contemporary perinatal practices, interdisciplinary team approaches to study of infant care and development, changes in newborn nursery practices, and, above all, care and sensitivity to the initial synchronization of the parent-infant interaction system. This paper honors John Lind's contributions to our knowledge of infant development and parent-infant interaction, his influences on the field of pediatrics and the interdisciplinary study of infancy, and his commitment to enhancement of the quality of life for infants and their families. Although his life has ended, his ideas will continue to inspire and challenge the study of early human development for many years to come.     

Irrationality as a Selfdefeating Calue-Orientation: A further study of the SVO-12 scale

The SVO-12 is based on an emotive approach to the assessment of irrationality. In order to test its reliability and validity the scale was administered to a group of students and a group of psychiatric patients. The statistical analyses gave acceptable reliability coefficients in both groups. Furthermore the scale differentiated significantly between patients and students, both totally and for men and women separately, thus supporting its validity according to RET-theory.and maintains a small private practice in Laksevåg, Bergen, Norway.     

Adding a baby to the equation. married and cohabiting women's relationship satisfaction in the transition to parenthood

The trajectory of relationship satisfaction among married and cohabiting women in their transition to parenthood was compared in a potential sample of 71,504 women taking part in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Prospective longitudinal data were collected in 4 waves over a 2-year period starting 6 months prebirth. Results from latent curve models suggested that married and cohabiting women experience similar negative change in relationship satisfaction during the transition to parenthood. However, cohabiting women start off and stay less satisfied throughout the transition period, suggesting the presence of a negative cohabitation effect that prevailed after controlling for various covariates. Extending investigation on the cohabitation effect to the transition to parenthood, and replicating it in a Scandinavian context, is discussed in relation to the understanding of what causes the cohabitation effect, and its clinical implications.     

Omission of expected reward agitates Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

The evolutionary background for cognition and awareness is currently under ardent scrutiny. Poikilothermic vertebrates such as teleost fishes are capable of classical conditioning and have long-term memories, but it remains unknown to what degree such capabilities are associated with affective states. Here, we investigate whether the concept of frustration may apply to Atlantic salmon. In mammals, this paradigm comprises the omission of an expected reward (OER), which elicits behavioural and physiological coping responses (e.g. aggression and stress reactions). Six groups with 200 fish in each were conditioned to associate a flashing light (CS) with feeding. Conditioning over 22?days led to a change from aversion to attraction to the CS. Subsequently, 3 groups served as control, and 3 groups were subjected to an OER paradigm for 9?days, in which the expected food reward was delayed for 30?min during two out of three daily meals. Compared to controls, OER groups displayed higher levels of aggression and more heterogeneous growth rates, indicating a more pronounced social hierarchy. Cortisol levels did, however, not differ between treatments and both groups responded similarly to acute stress. These results indicate that teleost fishes, like mammals, respond aggressively to OER. The capacity to respond behaviourally to frustrating conditions thus likely reflects an adaptive response to environmental unpredictability, which has been conserved throughout vertebrate evolution.     

Are There Specific Relationships Between Symptom Patterns and Interpersonal Problems Among Psychiatric Outpatients?

Associations between symptoms and interpersonal problems, assessed with the Symptom Checklist–90 (SCL–90–R) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems–64-item version (IIP–64), are examined in a large psychiatric outpatient sample. On the basis of the IIP–64 scores, the sample was divided into 8 subgroups, made up of different types of predominant interpersonal problems. These octant groups were used as independent variables in analyses testing hypothesized associations with symptom subscales of the SCL–90–R. In general, strong associations between symptoms and interpersonal problems were found. In addition, hostile and paranoid ideation symptoms displayed significant differences among octant groups, and were associated with interpersonal problems of the vindictive/self-centered kind. Phobic anxiety was associated with interpersonal problems of the socially inhibited kind. Assessing specific combinations of symptoms and interpersonal problems might be useful in treatment planning and evaluation.     

Client perspectives and uses of psychotherapy

The present paper argues for the importance of studying user perspectives on ongoing psychotherapy. Four approaches to such studies are discussed. It is stressed that studies of user perspectives may allow us to develop a broader and more robust understanding of clients as the primary agents of their own change processes, and that if the studies focus on clients' everyday lives during the course of psychotherapy, they allow us a better understanding of how clients include their psychotherapy, give it a particular significance, fight over it, and transform it as a part of their changing everyday practice in other places than the session. the rationale and design of such a study is presented. It is a study of a small number of family therapies with the present author as a co-therapist. Some preliminary findings from this study are presented.     

The Unity and Commensurability of Pleasures and Pains

In this paper I seek to answer two interrelated questions about pleasures and pains: (i) The question of unity: Do all pleasures share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pleasures, and do all pains share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pains? (ii) The question of commensurability: Are all pleasures and pains rankable on a single, quantitative hedonic scale? I argue that our intuitions draw us in opposing directions: On the one hand, pleasures and pains seem unified and commensurable; on the other hand, they do not. I further argue that neither intuition can be abandoned, and examine three different paths to reconciliation. The first two are response theory and split experience theory. Both of these, I argue, are unsuccessful. A third path, however—which I label “dimensionalism” —succeeds. Dimensionalism is the theory that pleasure and pain have the ontological status as opposite sides of a hedonic dimension along which experiences vary. This view has earlier been suggested by C. D. Broad, Karl Duncker, Shelly Kagan, and John Searle, but it has not been worked out in detail. In this paper I work out the dimensionalist view in some detail, defend it, and explain how it solves the problem of the unity and commensurability of pleasures and pains.     

Psychodynamic milieu-therapy and changes in personality – what is the connection? 1

This article refers to the results of a prospective effect evaluation study of three psychodynamic milieu-therapeutic institutions for children, which included cognitive and projective testing. After introducing milieu-therapy and explaining its roots in psychoanalytic and developmental thinking, the specific results of the research evaluation are outlined. It is found that environmental therapy is very efficient on the level of ego-functioning, but concern is expressed in regards to the relational abilities of the children. These findings are discussed in relation to the practical, organisational and theoretical principles of the actual treatment in order to find ways to improve our understanding of how milieu-therapy works and how it can be improved. Finally, we discuss the ways in which recent theoretical and empiric research emphasising the importance of the affect regulation and mentalisation can contribute to the psychoanalytic theories in the milieu-therapy.     

The influence of decision heuristics and overconfidence on multiattribute choice: A process-tracing study

In the present study it was shown that decision heuristics and confidence judgements play important roles in the building of preferences. Based on a dual-process account of thinking, the study compared people who did well versus poorly on a series of decision heuristics and overconfidence judgement tasks. The two groups were found to differ with regard to their information search behaviour in introduced multiattribute choice tasks. High performers on the judgemental tasks were less influenced in their decision processes by numerical information format (probabilities vs. frequencies) compared to low performers. They also looked at more attributes and spent more time on the multiattribute choice tasks. The results reveal that performance on decision heuristics and overconfidence tasks has a bearing both on heuristic and analytic processes in multiattribute decision making.