Individual differences in problem solving via insight

The purpose of the present work was to identify general problem solving skills that underlie the production of insight. One hundred and eighteen participants completed insight problems, analogies, series-completion problems and the Remote Associates Test. Scores on all measures were related to performance on the insight problems (Pearson r's ranged from .31 to .47, p < .008). These findings are consistent with the notion that the abilities to apprehend relations and fluency of thought are involved in insightful problem solving.     

Working With the Sacred: Four Approaches to Religious and Spiritual Issues in Counseling

This article examines the advantages and disadvantages of 4 helping orientations of the counselor to religious and spiritual issues in psychotherapy: rejectionism, exclusivism, constructivism, and pluralism. The constructivist and pluralist approaches are advocated as those orientations best suited to work with diverse clients and religious beliefs, and flexible enough to deal respectfully, ethically, and effectively with a variety of religious and spiritual issues in counseling.     

Coercive family processes: A replication and extension of Patterson’s coercion model

Patterson hypothesized that aggressive behavior develops in families when parents use coercion as the primary mode for controlling their children. The model has been tested with boys and older children. In this paper, through confirmatory factor analysis, we examine how well the coercion model generalizes to 5‐year‐old children (boys and girls). Our results suggest that the model fits the data similarly for boys and girls. Few sex differences in child antisocial behavior were found on observed or parent‐rated measures, nor were differences found in observed parent aversive responses to child behavior. This implies that similar coercion processes apply to both boys and girls. Aggr. Behav. 27:14–25, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Ethnoracial comparisons in anxiety and depression outcomes among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander college students

We explored differences in distress scores at intake as well as the change in anxiety and depression scores over the course of 12 therapy sessions for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) college students. Data were collected from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (N = 256,242). Results support the notion that NHPI college students experience anxiety and depression in therapy differently from other ethnic groups with moderate-to-large magnitudes of effect.     

Episodic and semantic memory in accounts of food intolerance

It was hypothesized that accounts of occasions of eating followed by adverse symptoms (i.e. perceived food intolerance) would contain greater detail when based on recall of actual events, using episodic memory. Where accounts lacked detail it was hypothesized that recalled events were based on knowledge about food intolerance, without personal experience of a plausible incident. These hypotheses were tested by categorizing the contents of interviews of respondents to a randomized survey of the electorate in the Birmingham area, who attributed one or more adverse symptoms to one or more foods. The majority of interview records provided evidence for semantic memory rather than recall of actual episodes of food ingestion followed by symptoms(s). Vagueness of recollection correlated negatively with patho‐physiological plausibility of the perceived food intolerance. Greater detail and specificity in accounts of food‐symptom episodes was positively correlated with plausibility. Rareness of food‐symptom(s) contingencies also correlated with detail and specificity in accounts of episodes and with plausibility of food intolerance. Detail and specificity of accounts of the eating of foods followed by symptoms, when coupled with rareness of the contingency of that food being followed by those symptoms, may prove to be a better predictor of physically diagnosed food intolerance than plausibility by patho‐physiological criteria alone. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Better Late than Never: The Reparative Therapeutic Relationship in Regression to Dependence by Lorraine Price,Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2018, 216 pp.

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Parental Attachment and Adjustment to College: The Mediating Role of Avoidant Coping

Many studies have documented an association between parental attachment and college student adjustment. Few studies have explored the mechanisms underlying this association. The authors asked college students nearing the end of their first academic year to complete instruments measuring parental attachment, coping, and adjustment to college. Structural equation modeling was used to model mediation separately for attachment to mother and father. Avoidant coping mechanisms (operationalized as denial, mental disengagement, behavioral disengagement, and substance use) significantly mediated the parental attachment and adjustment to college relationship. Self-sufficient coping mechanisms (operationalized as planning, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, active coping, and suppression) did not mediate the parental attachment and adjustment to college relationship.