Sleep-Related Outcomes Following Early Intervention for Childhood Anxiety

A bidirectional relationship between sleep and anxiety is well-established whereby difficulties in one domain predict problems in the other. Interventions for childhood sleep-related problems also share considerable overlap with interventions for anxiety. Although anxious youth report high rates of sleep-related problems, it is relatively unknown whether anxiety-focused interventions for children produce improvements in sleep-related problems. The current study included N = 25 youth ages 7–16 (13 female; mean age 9.92 years ± 2.6) who participated in an early intervention program for anxiety as part of the Arizona Anxiety Resilience Building Project. Child and parent measures of sleep and anxiety symptoms were examined before and after the 12-week cognitive-behavioral intervention program. Statistically significant decreases in total sleep-related problems, bedtime resistance, sleep anxiety, and pre-sleep arousal were observed at post-intervention, though clinically meaningful change was apparent in only a small portion of the sample. Results suggest that purely anxiety-focused interventions may be useful for reducing certain types of sleep-related problems in anxious children, specifically those that occur during the bedtime/pre-sleep period. However, a lack of clinically meaningful change, in addition to post-intervention sleep-related problem scores above the clinical cut-off in a large proportion of the sample, suggest that the sleep-related problems of anxious youth may require direct attention as part of treatment.     

Poetics in the shadow of the other's language: The melancholic discourse of the trilingual poet Amelia Rosselli

In this paper, I propose a psychoanalytic reading of some of the writings of Amelia Rosselli, a trilingual poet who, at the age of seven, lost her father Carlo, who was persecuted and murdered by Mussolini's regime. History and her history conflate into personal and collective trauma which defies human possibilities to work through and mourn. Rosselli's work testifies to such predicament of the human subject of the 20th century, his/her dislocation, alienation and internal irreconcilable divisions. In particular I examine Diary in three tongues, which is the most autobiographical of her works and a self‐analytic piece, written after the conclusion of her second analysis. In the Diary, Rosselli employs textual strategies which convey the fragmentation and destructuring of language, where her traumatic experience resides as a wound inflicted to the symbolic order. I propose that her writings contain her unconscious memories in an estranged and melancholic language which becomes the crucible to express her impossible mourning, in a complex mixture of Eros and Thanatos which allowed her to survive psychically and to create a very personal experimental poetic discourse which made her a literary figure of international acclaim. My primary engagement will be with Freud's theory of mourning and melancholia and its successive elaboration by Kristeva, who maintains that the melancholic discourse finds its expression in the pre‐verbal and infra‐verbal aspects of language, which she calls ‘semiotics’, in dialectic articulation with its symbolic components. Drawing on literary texts, significant inferences can be made on the psychoanalytic listening to the prosodic aspects of language as the carrier of inchoate forms of representation of that which exceeds language: trauma, raw affects, mnemic traces, that is, the unrepresented and/or unrepresentable.     

Impetus for a robust science of behavior: A review of Nevin's Behavioral Momentum: A scientific metaphor

Nevin provides a scientific role model, illustrating momentum in his own research and providing impetus through his effects on the scientific behavior of his students and his colleagues. I discuss his book in the context of a review of the history of the concept of extinction, I cite his introduction of signal‐detection analysis into behavior analysis as a contribution not covered in this book, I briefly consider applications, such as the potential extension to fluency procedures in education, and I critique his concept of momentum, relating it to other metaphors for maintained behavior such as the dynamics of sensory systems and robustness in biological accounts of the stability of phenotypes.     

The relationship between maternal psychiatric disorder and very young children's coping behaviors

The coping behavior of high-risk infants aged 4 to 36 months was investigated. Two groups of infants (n = 60) (mothers with and without psychiatric disorders) were rated using the Early Coping Inventory (ECI), an observational measure. Results indicated that children whose mothers had chronic psychiatric disorders demonstrated significantly less effective coping behavior on all subscales of the ECI (Sensorimotor Organization, Reactive Behavior, and Self-Initiated Behavior) and on 47 of the 48 items. The at-risk children's behavior was found to be more “situationally effective”; that is, behavior used effectively in one type of situation was not generalized to other types of situations. The greatest discrepancy between the groups was in self-initiated behavior. No significant effects of demographic variables or type or severity of psychiatric disorder were found. Implications for treatment of this high-risk group are discussed. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

An overview of the literature on sexual harassment: Perpetrator,theory, and treatment issues

Sexual harassment has been recognized as a serious problem in the literature over the past 30 years. In this paper, we review the existing research surrounding the phenomenon of sexual harassment, paying particular attention to factors of relevance for understanding perpetrators of sexual harassment. We also provide an overview of the perplexing nature of sexual harassment and the various concerns that have surrounded the topic leading to its recognition. The different theoretical perspectives and models of sexual harassment (sociocultural, organizational, sex-role spillover, natural/biological, socio-cognitive, and four-factor) are also considered and reviewed. Finally, lack of empirical evidence and focus on assessment and treatment for harassers is recognized in this paper, and several suggestions are made for future research and treatment avenues relating to the sexual harasser.     

B. F. Skinner, organism.

B. F. Skinner illustrated the power of behavior analysis by turning it upon his own behavior. This article considers parallels in the life and work of Charles Darwin and places Skinner's views on life and death in the context of his selectionist paradigm for psychology. The term organism plays a special role, and the account shows why B. F. Skinner might have regarded it as an appropriate title.     

Symposium: Recollections of B. F. Skinner

This symposium was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Pavlovian Society, Lord Baltimore Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland, September 27, 1991.