Exploring Latent Profiles of Psychopathology in a Sample of Lonely People Seeking Treatment

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Loneliness is a common experience in populations experiencing mental health problems. Associations with symptoms of psychopathology are...     

Age and ageing: What do they mean?

This article provides a philosophical overview of different approaches to age and ageing. It is often assumed that our age is determined by the amount of time we have been alive. Here, I challenge this belief. I argue that there are at least three plausible, yet unsatisfactory, accounts to age and ageing: the chronological account, the biological account, and the experiential account. I show that all of them fall short of fully determining what it means to age. Addressing these problems, I suggest the Two‐tier principle of age: whenever the three accounts of age contradict, combine the two accounts that differ the least, and reject the third. However, while this principle does solve some difficulties, it is itself vulnerable to problems; therefore I propose we should jettison it. I conclude that there are no accounts to ageing that are satisfactory; they all come with a bullet to bite.     

ON THE NORMATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AIMS OF RELIGIOUS PRACTICE

During the last decades it has been common to assert—especially in the field of science and religion—that the aims characteristic of religious practice determine the norms we should employ when evaluating its normative status. However, until now, this issue has not been properly investigated by paying attention to contemporary metanormative research. In this article, I critically examine how different popular theories of normativity relate to the proposed normative significance of the aims characteristic of religious practice. I argue that whether or not, and in what way exactly, the aims characteristic of religious practice are normatively significant is highly dependent both on controversial issues concerning the nature of religion, and on a number of controversial metanormative issues.     

Individually tailored internet-based cognitive behaviour therapy for older adults with anxiety and depression: a randomised controlled trial

Mixed anxiety and depression is common among older adults. The aim of the study was to compare the effects of an eight-week-long tailored internet-supported cognitive behaviour therapy (ICBT) programme and to compare against the provision of weekly general support. A second aim was to investigate if pre-treatment cognitive flexibility and self-reported cognitive problems would predict outcome. We included 66 older adults (aged over 60 years) with mixed anxiety/depression following media recruitment and randomised them into treatment and control groups. We also included a one-year follow-up. As a measure of executive function, we used the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (perseverative errors) and the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire during the pre-treatment phase. Results showed a moderate between-group effect on the main outcome measure, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) (d= .50), favouring the treatment group. Nearly half (45.5%) of that group were classified as responders. One person (3%) in the treatment group deteriorated. There were significant correlations between perseverative errors and outcome (on the BAI r = ?.45), but not among self-reported cognitive function. We conclude that guided, tailored ICBT may be effective for some older adults and that the role of cognitive function needs to be investigated further.     

Social mirrors. Tove Jansson’s Invisible Child and the importance of being seen

This article examines the experience of being seen and analyzes its central role in the formation of a coherent sense of self. Tove Jansson’s short story from 1962, ‘The Invisible Child’, serves as the red thread of the article, and the story is analyzed in the light of Donald Winnicott’s work on social mirroring. The analysis is enriched by the psychoanalytic insights of Veikko Tähkä and Heinz Kohut, and complemented by Axel Honneth’s philosophical elaborations as well as by recent developmental findings as presented by Vasudevi Reddy. The article is divided into an introduction and three sections. After summarizing Jansson’s story in the introduction, the first section elaborates and examines different senses of social invisibility. The second section assesses developmental factors that promote social invisibility and highlights the importance of being seen. The third and final section interprets Jansson’s story as an analogy to an intensive therapeutic process, while pinpointing those elements that facilitate the restructuring of a disturbed sense of self. As a whole, the article thus discusses an issue that is often simply taken for granted in discussions of empathy and interpersonal experience: social visibility.     

Religious versus Conventional Internet-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression

The accessibility and efficacy of two Internet-supported interventions for depression: conventional cognitive behavioral therapy (C-CBT) and religious CBT (R-CBT) were investigated. Depressed participants (N = 79) were randomly assigned to either active treatment or wait-listed control group. Self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and life quality were collected before, immediately after, and 6 months after the intervention. Significant differences among the three conditions emerged at post-intervention with medium to large effect sizes (Cohen’s d between 0.45 and 1.89), but no differences between the R-CBT and C-CBT were found. However, the addition of religious components to CBT contributed to the initial treatment appeal for religious participants, thus increasing the treatment accessibility.     

The relationship between cognitive abilities and maternal ratings of externalizing behaviors in preschool children

The association between child cognitive abilities and maternal ratings of child externalizing behaviors was investigated in a randomly selected sample of 290 preschool children. Child cognitive abilities were assessed by the WPPSI-R, whereas mothers completed the Yale Children's Inventory for the assessment of child externalizing behaviors. Maternal education, and maternal child-rearing style, as defined by scores on the Child Rearing Practices Report, was significantly related to perceived externalizing child behavior. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that for girls, low child IQ remained a significant predictor of perceived externalizing behavior when effects of maternal education and child-rearing style were controlled for (p < 0.01). Maternal child-rearing style made independent contributions to explaining variance in girls' and boys' behavior score. The results are discussed in terms of differential gender socialization practices and gender stereotypes.     

Achievement of specificational information usage with true and false feedback in learning a visual relative-mass discrimination task

Participants' usage of informational variables in learning visual relative-mass discrimination in collisions was tracked by means of PROBIT correlations. Four groups received feedback that was true or accorded with either of three nonspecificational cue variables. A majority in each group adopted the feedback, but several participants defied the false feedback. Unlike in previous research, the fit to data of the relative-mass invariant could not be bettered by post hoc linear combinations of the cues. Discriminability was lower in the use of the invariant. Analytic complexity was rejected as an explanation for discriminability differences. A "smart mechanism" for pickup of the relative-mass invariant was developed as an extension of G. Johansson's (1950/1994) vector model.     

Fatigue, cognitive functioning and psychological distress in Marfan syndrome, a pilot study

Marfan patients report fatigue as a major subjective complaint. We found no studies exploring the subject. The aim of this study was in a strictly defined Marfan population to assess self-reported fatigue, cognitive functions and psychological distress, correlations among them and correlations to visual acuity, joint hypermobility and use of beta-blockers. Sixteen subjects aged 18 - 30 years, fulfilling the Gent criteria, were assessed with the Fatigue Severity Scale, Fatigue Questionnaire, a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Self-reported fatigue was comparable with fatigue reported in other severe chronic diseases and disabilities, and was primarily in the mental/psychological domain. Psychological distress was higher than expected compared with the population at large. All neuropsychological test results were within the normal range, except for tests of visuo-motor coordination and speed of information processing. There was a significant inverse correlation between Fatigue Questionnaire ratings and some neuropsychological tests. Fatigue seems to be a serious problem for persons with Marfan syndrome and seems related to some areas of cognitive functioning. We found no overall impairment in cognitive functioning, but slightly reduced speed of information processing. Reduced visuo-motor coordination could be explained by impaired visual acuity.     

Dialogical mindfulness in supervision role-play

Aims: This exploratory pilot study investigated Mindfulness-based Role-play (MBRP) supervision to find out how therapists would experience the approach, and to what extent they would find it useful, particularly in relation to empathy toward clients. Method: Thirteen therapists participated in a workshop, introducing mindfulness and MBRP supervision, and subsequently had one individual MBRP supervision session. Data collection and analysis: Qualitative data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and analysed with regard to participants' supervision experiences by means of a modified version of the Consensual Qualitative Research method. Findings: Participants predominantly had positive emotional and cognitive responses to their supervision experiences. The main supervision outcomes were empathy with the client's emotional experience, enhanced awareness of functioning as a therapist, and thoughts about how to proceed in therapy. A subset of participants also reported observed effects in therapy with clients. Conclusions: Even taking into account the methodological limitations of the study, these findings are promising and suggest that further research into the MBRP supervision approach is warranted.