Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy

This article presents acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as a spiritually integrated therapeutic modality. ACT is a value‐driven therapy that involves facilitating transcendence of physical, mental, and emotional experience to alleviate human suffering; as such, ACT shares common ground with the domain of spirituality. Approached as a spiritually integrated therapy, ACT can help clients to access spiritual resources and create life meaning as well as aid in the resolution or transformation of spiritual struggles. Given that spiritual struggles, in particular, can have a significant impact on mental health and well‐being, this article provides guidance in how ACT can address such struggles.     

Acali,Ra 1, and Ra 2: Some conclusions and hypotheses concerning human friction under isolation and stress,with special reference to intelligence and personaiity assessment

Eleven adult volunteers - six females and five males - were left on a small raft in the Atlantic in order to study interpersonal relationships affected by family patterns of behavior, attitudes toward sex, race and racism, nationality, verbal and nonverbal communication, personality and character, intelligence, language, religion, leadership roles, and space. We hoped to gain a better understanding of friction and violence phenomena. The Acali experiment grew out of the more limited raft studies of Ra 1 and Ra 2. Intelligence and personality of the 11 members of the Acali raft expedition of 1973 were assessed by crew members and by shore-based scientists. Predictions concerning the Likely outcome of this long period of unavoidable proximity to 10 other individuals were made by a variety of scientists. Media treatment and views of friends and relatives were also studied. Some of the basic findings of the study were that assessments of both intelligence and personality carried out by these two methods were very different. Practising artists showed better predictive powers concerning the outcome of the voyage than either natural or social scientists. Media treatment influenced the views of the relatives of volunteers. It is suggested that laboratory assessments may not be related to assessed performances under stress, and that further progress in understanding human hostility will depend on a better knowledge of individual interactions.     

A word-finding computer program with a dynamic lexical-semantic memory for patients with anomia using an intelligent speech prosthesis

A computer program for a portable microprocessor has been developed which aids anomic patients in finding words given clues about the target word. Over time the lexical-semantic memory is reorganized automatically depending on the frequency of word usage by an individual patient. Words can be added or deleted to fit the patient's idiosyncratic lexicon. A clinical example is given. The program is being tested with a variety of aphasic-anomic patients with major word-finding difficulties.     

Coping strategies and depression in Puerto Rican adolescents: an exploratory study

The use of inadequate coping strategies in stressful situations results in the development of depression in adolescents. This study identified coping strategies used by Puerto Rican adolescents and evaluated the relationship between coping and depression. Fifty-one adolescents participated in the study. Results indicated that the most frequently used coping strategy was developing positive perceptions about life situations. Significant differences were observed according to the severity of depressive symptoms. Investing in family relationships and developing positive perceptions about life situations seemed to reduce depression. Furthermore, the strategies of investing in family relationships and relieving tension through diversion were the variables with more predictive value for depression. The importance of exploring coping responses within the cultural context of the adolescent is discussed.     

“Free will” is vague

This paper argues that “free will” is vague. The argument has two steps. First, I argue that free will is a matter of degrees and, second, that there are no sharp boundaries separating free decisions and actions and non-free ones. After presenting the argument, I focus on one significant consequence of the thesis, although others are mentioned along the way. In short, considerations of vagueness help understand the logic behind so-called manipulation arguments, but also show why these arguments are ultimately flawed.     

Psychiatric Diagnoses and Clinical Characteristics of Asian American Youth in Children's Services

This study examined the psychiatric diagnoses and clinical characteristics of the 981 Asian American children enrolled in the first phase of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program. Asian Americans were less likely than non- Asian Americans to receive diagnoses of depression and ADHD and more likely to receive diagnoses of anxiety and adjustment disorder. As compared to non-Asians, Asian Americans were significantly more likely to be rated with severe functional impairment in community role performance, self-harmful behavior, and thinking. There was also a trend for fewer externalizing behavior problems. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Patterns of attention to threat across tasks in behaviorally inhibited children at risk for anxiety

Although attention bias towards threat has been causally implicated in the development and maintenance of fear and anxiety, the expected associations do not appear consistently. Reliance on a single task to capture attention bias, in this case overwhelmingly the dot‐probe task, may contribute to this inconsistency. Comparing across attentional bias measures could help capture patterns of behavior that have implications for anxiety. This study examines the patterns of attentional bias across two related measures in a sample of children at temperamental risk for anxiety. Children (Mean_age = 10.19 ± 0.96) characterized as behaviorally inhibited (N = 50) or non‐inhibited (N = 64) via parent‐report completed the dot‐probe and affective Posner tasks to measure attentional bias to threat. Parent‐report diagnostic interviews assessed children's social anxiety. Behavioral inhibition was not associated with performance in the dot‐probe task, but was associated with increased attentional bias to threat in the affective Posner task. Cross‐task convergence was dependent on temperament, such that attention bias across the two tasks was only related in behaviorally inhibited children. Finally, children who were consistently biased across tasks (showing high or low attentional bias scores in both tasks, rather than high in one but low in the other) had higher levels of anxiety. Convergence across attention bias measures may be dependent on individuals' predispositions (e.g. temperament). Moreover, convergence of attention bias across measures may be a stronger marker of information processing patterns that shape socioemotional outcomes than performance in a single task.     

Coping with Family Conflict: What’s Helpful and What’s Not for Low-income Adolescents

Family conflict is exacerbated by poverty-related stress and is detrimental to adolescent mental health. Adolescent coping with family conflict has the potential to buffer or exacerbate the negative effects of family conflict on internalizing symptoms. We examined coping with family conflict among 82 low-income adolescents (53.7% female, mean age = 13.5 years at Time 1, SD = 1.98; range 11–18), and their primary caregivers (95% female, mean age = 34.9 years, SD = 7.45). Adolescents were 25.9% Caucasian, 28.4% African American, 38.3% Hispanic, and 7.4% Other (Multi-racial, Native American, or Asian). Results show that family conflict is more strongly associated with internalizing symptoms for adolescents under high levels of poverty-related stress. Regression analyses indicate that secondary control coping moderates the effects of family conflict on internalizing symptoms. In addition, analyses reveal that disengagement coping exacerbates symptoms across time for both adolescent girls and boys. Regression analyses also suggest that primary control coping is helpful for coping with family conflict, but only for girls. Results highlight the importance of examining coping concurrently and across time as well as including moderating effects of gender. Intervention efforts targeting low-income adolescents should incorporate the instruction of secondary control strategies for coping with family conflict.