Nonsexual relationships between psychotherapists and their former clients: obligations of psychologists

This article examines the issue of nonsexual relationships between psychologists and their former therapy clients. What little research is available concerning nonsexual relationships with former clients suggests that psychologists have clear reservations about some of these relationships, especially personal ones and intentional social interactions. Relationships immediately following termination are seen as particularly suspect. Drawing on the literature dealing with multiple relationships in general, and sexual relationships with former clients in particular, a number of arguments are made outlining why psychologists should avoid significant nonsexual relationships with former clients for at least some period of time following termination.     

The language of anxiety: The subjective experience of vulnerability

The experience of anxiety is a condition known to mankind from time immemorial. In contemporary clinical practice anxiety is the driving force behind some of the most difficult and seemingly intractable clinical syndromes presented to clinicians today. It presents a major challenge to non-clinical populations as well. This paper discusses the problem of anxiety from the perspective of language —the primitive roots of language. How understanding these roots helps therapists to better grasp their patients' inner experience and some suggestions for anxiety management are discussed.     

Prismatically induced curvature and finger-tracking pressure changes in a visual capture phenomenon

A method was developed to help elucidate the manner in which vision exerts a dominant influence over other sources of sensory information. Subjects were required to track a horizontal straight edge with their forefingers while viewing the movements of their limbs through a curve-inducing lens. Finger tracking pressure changes along the edge were transduced and monitored as a function of induced curvature orientation (convex-down, convex-up). Findings showed that greater pressure occurred when the finger was located at the low point(s) of the apparent curvature. A trend analysis indicated that the obtained pressure profiles (passive proprioception) contained large quadratic components and were exactly opposite in orientation to the shape of the visual image and subjects’ reported felt curvature of the straight edge. Results were discussed in terms of central and peripheral interpretations of visual capture.     

Finger pressure during tracking of curved contours: Implications for a visual dominance phenomenon

Several temporal and spatial factors affect gender recognition of a walker when portrayed, without familiarity cues, as a dynamic point-light display. We demonstrate that, among temporal parameters, the duration of the dynamic stimulus must be longer than 1.6 sec, but that 2.7 sec is fully adequate. Given the speed of our walkers, the recognition threshold appears to be roughly two step cycles. In addition, presentation rate of the stimulus must be near to normal, perhaps because nonnormal rates alter apparent gravity and obscure the normal relationship between output and conservation of energy. We demonstrate that, among spatial factors, the discreteness of the joint information must be maintained for accurate recognition. We go on to argue that it is the information about the shoulder and the hip of a walker that is of primary importance. Finally, inversion of the stimulus display produces the unexpected effect of reversing the apparent sex of most walkers. That is, when presented upside down, male walkers appear female and female walkers appear male.     

What masks utrocular discrimination

Utrocular discrimination, the ability to judge which eye has received monocular stimulation, was studied under conditions designed to reduce the salience of the cue mediating this discrimination. In one series of experiments, these conditions involved reducing the likelihood of motor command signals, overwhelming the motor command centers, and triggering motor command signals for both eyes. Those results indicate that utrocular discrimination is not mediated by ocular movements or command signals. In a second series of experiments, a visual masking paradigrn was used. A monocular test grating appeared superimposed upon a background of binocular masking noise, which was presented either simultaneously with the target or at some interval preceding or following the target (asynchronous masking). When presented simultaneously, the binocular masking noise interfered with utrocular performance, but only when the noise contained spatial frequencies near the test frequency. Masking functions obtained under conditions of asynchronous masking indicated that the time course of the forward and backward masking changed with spatial frequency. Finally, a sustained masking pattern that was ineffective in reducing utrocular performance could be made effective by pulsing the mask simultaneously with the target. Taken together, these results implicate a transient response to the target onset as a critical factor in generating the cue for successful utrocular discrimination. This conclusion may account for the fact that utrocular discrimination falls off for normal observers as the spatial frequency of the target grating increases above 4 cycles/deg.     

IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT MEMORY FOR HAPTICALLY EXPERIENCED TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERNS

Abstract— Recent research with visual objects has delineated important representational differences between memory measures that tap identification (implicit tests) and measures that require episodic recognition (explicit tests). We investigated whether these differences reflect a fundamental architecture for the representation of object information in memory. In the present experiment, we contrasted identification and episodic recognition for haptically presented two-dimensional patterns. Haptic identification was not affected by elaborative processing at study, whereas haptic episodic recognition was enhanced by elaborative processing. This finding suggests important similarities in the organization of object information in the visual and haptic modalities.     

The development of sensitivity to biological motion in noise

We investigated developmental changes in sensitivity to biological motion by asking 6-year-olds, 9-year-olds, and adults (twenty-four in each group) to discriminate point-light biological motion displays depicting one of a variety of human movements from scrambled versions of the same displays. When tested without noise dots, participants at all ages performed near ceiling levels and no differences in accuracy were found among the three age groups. Age differences emerged in the second task, in which we used a staircase procedure to determine threshold values of the number of noise dots that could be tolerated in producing a percentage correct value corresponding to a d' value of 1.4. Sensitivity to biological motion improved linearly with age (p < 0.01), with 6-year-olds performing significantly more poorly than adults. This immature performance contrasts with adult-like accuracy by 4 years of age for sensitivity to global motion (Parrish et al, 2005 Vision Research 45 827-837). The comparison implies an immaturity at 6 years of age in the neural networks involved specifically in the processing of biological motion, networks that may include the superior temporal sulcus (STS).