“Am I Going Crazy,Doc?”: A Self Psychology Approach to Therapeutic Assessment

In this case study, we explore the effectiveness of Therapeutic Assessment with a severely disturbed 25-year-old man, referred by his therapist, following Finn's (2007; Finn & Tonsager, 1992, 1997) model. This patient–therapist pair had been working together for approximately 2 months, but the therapy had ceased to progress. The therapist requested a clearer picture of his patient's affective functioning, interpersonal functioning, and self-functioning that might facilitate more effective treatment. Through a collaborative assessment process informed by the principles of Kohutian self psychology, the evaluator and patient slowly formed a working alliance that proved useful for the eventual communication to the patient of his psychologically tenuous reality. This case illustrates the utility of a collaborative, multimethod Therapeutic Assessment with a severely ill patient and the use of Therapeutic Assessment by a less experienced clinician.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma: The Mediating Role of Parenting Styles on Toddlers' DSM-Related Symptoms

Although the intergenerational transmission of trauma has been well documented, the pathways by which trauma symptoms are passed between parents and children remain unclear. This study examined the mediating role of parenting styles in the transmission of maternal trauma to children. Participants were a sample of 105 mothers of toddlers (18–30 months old). Mothers who had experienced interpersonal trauma were more likely to have an authoritarian parenting style, including verbal hostility, physical coercion, and low nurturance. Verbal hostility especially predicted more prevalent and increasing toddler symptoms associated with affective, hyperactive, and oppositional defiant disorders. Thus, the verbal hostility component of authoritarian parenting could serve as a major intergenerational pathway between maternal trauma and early child symptoms.     

Poor working memory predicts false memories

Two studies investigated whether individual differences in simple span verbal working memory and complex working memory capacity are related to memory accuracy and susceptibility to false memory development. In Study 1, undergraduate students (N=60) were given two simple span working memory tests: forward and backward digit span. They also underwent a memory task that is known to elicit false memories of nonpresented words, the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Poor simple span working memory (as reflected by suboptimal backward digit span scores) was related to elevated levels of false recognition. Study 2 (N=65) replicated this finding, in that suboptimal backward digit span performance was found to be predictive of false recognition. However, complex working memory capacity (operation span) was not related to false recognition. This pattern suggests that even in a homogenous sample of undergraduates, poor working memory is associated with the susceptibility to recollect words never presented.     

Walking on an Oscillating Treadmill: Strategies of Stride-Time Adaptation

Gains in mobility, balance, and gait quality have been observed in clinical populations after treadmill training. In our laboratory, we introduce healthy adults to treadmill training programs in an effort to boost their adaptive generalization skills. We hypothesized that some individuals are more naturally predisposed to gait adaptation than others. Stride-time data from 20 healthy adults were collected while they walked on a laterally oscillating treadmill for the first time. We predicted that the more plastic adapters would rapidly synchronize their stride frequencies to the treadmill's oscillation frequency. A treadmill mounted on a 6-degrees-of-freedom motion base platform was programmed to move laterally in a continuous, sinusoidal pattern for 20 min while participants walked at 1.1 m/s. Twenty-five percent of our participants showed a prolonged uninstructed entrained response. Those who did not entrain were still able to adapt to the novel locomotor challenge by applying various alternative strategies. Although entrainment was not required for adaptation, we report compelling evidence that the frequency of the support-surface motion influenced the adapted strategies of 80% of our participants.     

Role Satisfaction Mediates the Relation between Role Ambiguity and Social Loafing among Elite Women Handball Players

The aims of the study were to develop a questionnaire on self-reported social loafing (SRSLQ), and then to examine its relations with role ambiguity and role satisfaction in a sample of 110 women handball players competing at the elite level in Norway. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that the SRSLQ was a psychometrically sound measure. In line with the expectations, role satisfaction fully mediated the positive relation between role ambiguity and self-reported social loafing: The more players experienced role ambiguity, the less satisfied they were with their role in the team, and the more social loafing they reported.     

Medical help-seeking by different types of chronic pain patients

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the use of health services by different types of patients with chronic benign pain. The purpose of the study was to identify differences in medical consumption between different types of pain patients. In the course of one year 586 patients were selected by 45 general practitioners: they included patients who had had almost daily chronic pain symptoms for at least six months, without a medical diagnosis (such as cancer or arthritis) to explain the pain. Patients were categorized according to the Multidimensional Pain Inventory which distinguishes four categories: the dysfunctional, who perceive severe pain and gain social support; the interpersonally distressed, who combine pain with affective and relational distress; adaptive copers, who cope with their pain in a number of ways; the average type, with characteristics of all three other types. It was hypothesised that adaptive copers would make less use of health services and would be more involved in self-help activities than dysfunctional or interpersonally distressed patients. Frequent use of psychological services by the interpersonally distressed group was expected. It was predicted that difference in health services use would continue during the subsequent year.

No differences were found between the four groups in location, temporal characteristics, or possible medical causes of the pain symptoms. Dysfunctional patients used more services than the others. Adaptive copers used the least. The four groups did not differ in self-care activities. Group-membership as well as pain severity are related to the use of health services. None of the groups showed a significant decline in the use of health services during the year. It is concluded that chronic pain is invalidating, but that not all patients are equally excessive in their use of medical services.     

Proust's Recherche and Hegelian Teleology

The final volume of Marcel Proust's novel [Agrave] la Recherche du Temps perdu (Recherche) presents a striking puzzle. In this volume, the narrator Marcel proposes a literary theory which is supposed to provide the theoretical basis for the whole book, such that the Recherche can be considered a novel which contains its own theory. However, the Recherche as a whole does not seem to comply with this literary theory. I suggest in this paper that this puzzle can be solved by appreciating that Marcel's theory of literature, and his understanding of the way literature relates to his own life, is based on a Hegelian notion of teleology.