Effectiveness of group psychotherapy for adult outpatients traumatized by abuse, neglect, and/or pregnancy loss: a multiple-site, pre-post-follow-up, naturalistic study

The New Experience for Survivors of Trauma (NEST) is a group psychotherapy intervention for clients traumatized by consequences of abuse, neglect, and pregnancy loss. This multiple site study is the first investigation of its effectiveness. Ninety outpatients from a naturalistic setting completed the Symptom Checklist and the Sense of Coherence questionnaire at baseline, end of treatment, and one-year follow-up. Effectiveness was tested with statistical significance, effect size, and clinical significance. Clients from the total sample as well as from the abortion subsample showed improvement at the end of treatment and at follow-up. Lack of a control group is balanced to some extent by the high ecological validity. The findings suggest that the NEST treatment may be beneficial for traumatized clients and call for further research.     

Quality of Life Before and After Cataract Surgery: Research in a Sample of Polish Patients

The goal of this paper is to present possible change in quality of life (QoL) in older sample of people with vision disturbances. The patients were investigated twice: before (N = 193) and 4 month after the cataract surgery (N = 69), by means of the scale for vision functioning, and the Life Quality Questionnaire (Schalock & Keith, 1993) extend with the items measuring health related quality of life (HRQoL). Two problems were formulated: To what extent are visual defects associated with the decreased subjective QoL? What changes are observed in perceived QoL during the period of treatment of visual defects? The patients reported significant increase of HRQoL, however they did not report similar increase of a general QoL. Few reasons are considered: overlapping of the content of visual function scales and HRQoL and different indices of a general QoL and HRQoL, lack of a proper postoperative care, low socio-economic status of the participants, and too high expectation concerning better functioning after the surgery.     

Hemispheric asymmetry in the efficiency of attentional networks

Despite the fact that hemispheric asymmetry of attention has been widely studied, a clear picture of this complex phenomenon is still lacking. The aim of the present study was to provide an efficient and reliable measurement of potential hemispheric asymmetries of three attentional networks, i.e. alerting, orienting and executive attention. Participants (N=125) were tested with the Lateralized Attention Network Test (LANT) that allowed us to investigate the efficiency of the networks in both visual fields (VF). We found a LVF advantage when a target occurred in an unattended location, which seems to reflect right hemisphere superiority in control of the reorienting of attention. Furthermore, a LVF advantage in conflict resolution was observed, which may indicate hemispheric asymmetry of the executive network. No VF effect for alerting was found. The results, consistent with the common notion of general right hemisphere dominance for attention, provide a more detailed account of hemispheric asymmetries of the attentional networks than previous studies using the LANT task.     

Towards Dialogical Models of Radicalization and de-Radicalization

According to social psychology, radicalization occurs for a variety of reasons reasons. They include a sense of exclusion, threatened identity, loss of meaning and significance, negative emotions and defensive identification with a group representing power and a clear-cut ideology. In the terms of the Dialogical Self Theory, radicalization implies atrophy of the internal polyphony and dialogical functions of the self. Two hypothetical models of the radicalized self are proposed. The first posits the creation of a powerful I-position that represents a “universal” truth that is not open to doubt. The second introduces twin I-positions, one representing a sense of insecurity and another depicting a redemptive idea. Both types imply lowered openness and reduction of social and internal dialogs, resulting in a dysfunctional, rigid organized self. The question discussed in this article is: How can such an internal organization of the self be changed? Thus it aims to describe and explain the process of de-radicalization, which is proposed to consist of three elements: (1) reorganization of the self-structure and stimulation of a promoter position, (2) restoration of security, which can awaken the polyphony and dialogicality of the self, and (3) supporting internal dialog, promoter functions and a meta-position by reference to values that are significant for the relevant I-positions and the system as a whole.     

Working memory load and its impact on space-based and motion-based stimulus-response correspondence (SRC) effects

ABSTRACT

If spatial stimulus-response correspondence (SRC) effect results from automatic processes, cognitive load should not affect this effect. However, if spatial SRC effect is based on the interference of cognitive codes, cognitive load should influence it. Furthermore, the motion-based SRC effect should be affected by the cognitive load, as this SRC effect is related to the cognitive codes interference. In this study, participants performed combined tasks for space-based and motion-based SRC effects without working memory load (WML), or under spatial and verbal WML to see if cognitive load affects both SRC effects or just one. Results demonstrated that space-based SRC remained intact from WML, while the motion-based SRC was influenced by WML, although only in limited degree. This supports the notion that automatic processes underlie space-based SRC effect, whereas the motion-based SRC effect is related to cognitive codes interference, but the latter requires further investigation.     

The Middle Wittgenstein’s Critique of Frege

ABSTRACT

This article aims to analyse Wittgenstein’s 1929–1932 notes concerning Frege’s critique of what is referred to as old formalism in the philosophy of mathematics. Wittgenstein disagreed with Frege’s critique and, in his notes, outlined his own assessment of formalism. First of all, he approvingly foregrounded its mathematics-game comparison and insistence that rules precede the meanings of expressions. In this article, I recount Frege’s critique of formalism and address Wittgenstein’s assessment of it to show that his remarks are not so much a critique of Frege as rather a defence of the formalist anti-metaphysical investment.