The Practice of Psychotherapy in Mexico: Past and Present

This article explores the history of psychotherapy in Mexico and describes past and current practices of psychological services, training, and supervision for Mexican international students in the United States. Sample curricula, texts, and universities in Mexico are listed. Implications for training underscore the importance of collaboration and increased dialogue. Este artículo explora la historia de la psicoterapia en México y describe las prácticas pasadas y actuales de los servicios psicológicos, formación, y supervisión de estudiantes internacionales mexicanos en los Estados Unidos. Se presentan muestras de programas didácticos, textos, y universidades en México. Las implicaciones para la formación subrayan la importancia de la colaboración y un diálogo más profundo.     

Comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in borderline patients defines an impulsive subtype of borderline personality disorder

In order to examine the impulsive profile of a BPD sample with comorbid ADHD, adult patients who met criteria for BPD were assessed for ADHD with the CAADID and the WURS. A high rate of ADHD in the BPD sample was found, with sixty-nine (38.1%) BPD patients diagnosed as having comorbid adult ADHD. BPD-ADHD group had higher rates of general substance use disorder (59.4% vs. 38.4%), antisocial personality disorder (7.2% vs. 0.9%) and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (21.7% vs. 6.3%). The BPD group without comorbid adult ADHD showed a higher rate of mood disorders (62.5% vs. 37.7%), panic disorders (54.5% vs. 23.1%) and benzodiazepine abuse (18.8% vs. 5.8%). Only in BPD patients without ADHD was comorbid avoidant personality disorder found. BPD patients could be distinguished in two clear subgroups related to the adult ADHD comorbidity. BPD-ADHD patients showed a more homogeneous and impulsive profile while BPD without ADHD comorbidity had more anxiety and depressive disorders.     

Closer

Criteria of identity should mirror the identity relation in being reflexive, symmetrical, and transitive. However, this logical requirement is only rarely met by the criteria that we are most inclined to propose as candidates. The present paper addresses the question how such obvious candidates are best approximated by means of relations that have all of the aforementioned features, i.e., which are equivalence relations. This question divides into two more basic questions. First, what is to be considered a ‘best’ approximation. And second, how can these best approximations be found? In answering these questions, we both rely on and constructively criticize ground-breaking work done by Timothy Williamson. Guiding ideas of our approach are that we allow approximations by means of overlapping equivalence-relations, and that closeness of approximation is measured in terms of the number of mistakes made by the approximation when compared to the obvious candidate criterion.     

Drug consumption and perception among Latin American immigrants

The aim of this study is to obtain information about drug consumption, leisure activities and knowledge of community services among Spanish-speaking immigrants to prevent drug abuse in this population. Quantitative methodology was used. The field work of this study has two phases: in the first stage (2003), a survey of social perception of drugs was administered to 147 subjects. During the second stage (2004), 610 surveys were administered. Data were analysed by bivariate analysis. Usual consumption of alcohol was 40.1%, usual consumption of tobacco was 31.3%, and usual consumption of cannabis was 3.4%. Drug users considered that the main reason for drug consumption was "to have fun" (p<.03). There is a relationship between leisure time and drug use. Family plays an important role in drug abuse prevention and preventive drug abuse programs must be adapted to this population.     

Short- and long-term effects of cannabinoids on the extinction of contextual fear memory in rats

Facilitation of memory extinction by manipulation of the endocannabinoid (eCB) system has been recently studied in several paradigms. Our previous results pointed to facilitation of contextual fear memory extinction by a low dose of a cannabinoid agonist, with a suggestion of short-term effects. The aim of the present study was to further investigate the effects of cannabinoid drugs in the short- and long-term extinction of conditioned fear using an extended extinction protocol. Male Wistar rats were placed in a conditioning chamber and after 3 min received a footshock (1.5 mA, 1 s). On the next day, they received i.p. drug treatment (WIN55212-2 0.25 mg/kg, AM404 10 mg/kg, SR141716 A 1 mg/kg) and were re-exposed to the conditioning chamber for 30 min (extinction training). No-Extinction groups received the same drug treatment, but were exposed for 3 min to the conditioning chamber. A drug-free test of contextual memory (3 min) was performed 7 days later. The cannabinoid agonist WI55212-2 and the inhibitor of eCB metabolism/uptake AM404 facilitated short-term extinction. In addition, long-term effects induced by treatments with WIN55212 and AM404 were completely divergent to those of SR141716A treatment. The present results confirm and extend previous findings showing that the eCB system modulates short-term fear memory extinction with long-lasting consequences.     

Gesture and metaphor comprehension: Electrophysiological evidence of cross-modal coordination by audiovisual stimulation

In recent years, studies have suggested that gestures influence comprehension of linguistic expressions, for example, eliciting an N400 component in response to a speech/gesture mismatch. In this paper, we investigate the role of gestural information in the understanding of metaphors. Event related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants viewed video clips of an actor uttering metaphorical expressions and producing bodily gestures that were congruent or incongruent with the metaphorical meaning of such expressions. This modality of stimuli presentation allows a more ecological approach to meaning integration. When ERPs were calculated using gesture stroke as time-lock event, gesture incongruity with metaphorical expression modulated the amplitude of the N400 and of the late positive complex (LPC). This suggests that gestural and speech information are combined online to make sense of the interlocutor’s linguistic production in an early stage of metaphor comprehension. Our data favor the idea that meaning construction is globally integrative and highly context-sensitive.     

Paired-Associate Learning in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder as a Function of Hyperactivity-Impulsivity and Oppositional Defiant Disorder

A paired-associate learning (PAL) test was administered to 22 community volunteers without disruptive disorders and 197 children (7.5–13.5 years-old) presenting with the inattentive and combined subtypes of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) either in combination with or without oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Participants were screened for learning disorders. In comparison to non-ADHD participants, children with ADHD achieved worse PAL and made errors rated as more acoustically and less semantically similar to the correct paired associates. These deficits were not related to hyperactivity–impulsivity or comorbid ODD. These results suggest that ADHD children are less competent at PAL and use less efficient learning strategies than their non-ADHD peers.     

Transactive memory in decision-making teams: implications for team effectiveness

The transactive memory system (TMS) construct is one of the most extended theoretical approaches to understand the role of cognitive processes at group level in the effectiveness of work teams. This study examined the relationships among TMS, performance, satisfaction and functional communication in decision-making teams. 40 four-person teams were asked to suppose they were expert consulting teams advising a fictitious organization on how to solve a problem with their employees. Results showed a mediating effect of TMS on the relationships between functional communication, perceived team performance and satisfaction. Contrary to our expectations, TMSs were not related to performance as evaluated by external raters. These findings suggest the importance of team communication in the formation of TMSs, as well as their implications for the effectiveness of decision-making teams.