Family transactions and relapse in bipolar disorder

This study examined whether patient symptoms and relatives' affective behavior, when expressed during directly observed family interactions, are associated with the short-term course of bipolar disorder. Twenty-seven bipolar patients and their relatives participated in two 10-minute family interactions when patients were discharged after a manic episode. Results indicated that patients who showed high levels of odd and grandiose thinking during the interactions were more likely to relapse during a 9-month followup period than patients who did not show these symptoms during the family discussions. Relapse was also associated with high rates of harshly critical and directly supportive statements by relatives. Patients' odd thinking and relatives' harsh criticism were significantly more likely to be correlated when patients relapsed (r = .53) than when they did not relapse (r = .12). Results suggest that bipolar patients who show increased signs of residual symptomatology during family transactions during the post-hospital period are at increased relapse risk. The data also suggest that relatives of relapsing patients cope with these symptoms by increasing both positive and negative affective behaviors. Moreover, a bidirectional, interactional relationship between patients' symptoms and relatives' coping style seems to capture best the role of the family in predicting relapse in bipolar disorder.     

Spiritual well-being and personality

The hypothesis that High and Low Spiritual Well-being groups have different personality profiles was tested with 319 psychology undergraduates (132 men and 187 women who completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and the Spiritual Well-being Scale for partial course credit. Univariate analyses of variance indicated that the High Spiritual Well-being group scored lower on Neuroticism and higher or Extraversion, Agreeableness. and Conscientiousness than the Low Spiritual Well-being group. Multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the two groups had significantly different personality profiles, supporting the hypothesis.     

Quality of life before and after lung transplantation in patients with emphysema versus other indications

Whether lung transplantation improves Health-related Quality of Life in patients with emphysema and other end-stage lung diseases before and after lung transplantation was examined. Between 1992 and 1999, 23 patients with emphysema and 19 patients with other indications completed self-administered questionnaires before lung transplantation, and at 4, 7, 13, and 25 mo. after transplantation. The questionnaire included the Nottingham Health Profile, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Self-rating Depression Scale, the Index of Well-being, the self-report Karnofsky Index, and four respiratory-specific questions. Neither before nor after transplantation were significant differences found on most dimensions of Health-related Quality of Life between patients with emphysema and other indications. Before transplantation, both groups report major restrictions on the dimensions Energy and Mobility of the Nottingham Health Profile, low experienced well-being, depressive symptoms, and high dyspnea. About 4 mo. after transplantation, most Health-related Quality of Life measures improved significantly in both groups. These improvements were maintained in the following 21 mo.     

Social and environmental factors influence the suppression of pup-directed aggression and development of paternal behavior in captive meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus)

During summer, female meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) maintain territories and males do not engage in paternal care. As day length shortens, territories dissolve and males nest with females and young. Because paternal behavior has never been studied in free-living meadow voles during colder months or in the laboratory under short photoperiods, the authors examined whether males housed in short day (SD) lengths exhibited more frequent or better quality paternal behavior than males housed in long day (LD) lengths. Sexually and parentally inexperienced (naive) SD males exhibited proportionally more and qualitatively better paternal care than naive LD males. SD males were more responsive than LD males to classic social cues associated with prepartum aggression inhibition and paternal onset. SD sires also displayed qualitatively better paternal behavior than LD sires. These data suggest that meadow vole paternal state is regulated by specific social and environmental cues that may contain reliable information about ecological conditions that favor paternal care.     

A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness

Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The outside world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the governing laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Several lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual "filling in," visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception.     

Stress and Immunity: Age Enhances the Risks

A competent immune response is central to good health. There is good evidence that both aging and psychological stress can dysregulate immune function, resulting in changes in various aspects of the immune response that are large enough to have consequences for health. Older adults appear to show even greater immunological impairments associated with stress or depression than younger adults. Thus, the data suggest that aging interacts with stress and depression to enhance risks for morbidity and mortality among older adults.     

Implicit attitude measures: consistency, stability, and convergent validity

In recent years, several techniques have been developed to measure implicit social cognition. Despite their increased use, little attention has been devoted to their reliability and validity. This article undertakes a direct assessment of the interitem consistency, stability, and convergent validity of some implicit attitude measures. Attitudes toward blacks and whites were measured on four separate occasions, each 2 weeks apart, using three relatively implicit measures (response-window evaluative priming, the Implicit Association Test, and the response-window Implicit Association Test) and one explicit measure (Modern Racism Scale). After correcting for interitem inconsistency with latent variable analyses, we found that (a) stability indices improved and (b) implicit measures were substantially correlated with each other, forming a single latent factor. The psychometric properties of response-latency implicit measures have greater integrity than recently suggested.     

Refugee families: issues of systemic supervision

Families of refugees tend to evoke many powerful responses in all who come into contact with them. Loss and trauma, helplessness and victimhood, transition and change are some of the main themes that seem to dominate. In particular, in contact with mental health professionals, refugee families are more likely to be seen as 'traumatized' and their resilience less acknowledged. In this article I will endeavour to address some issues that contribute to this skewing of our perception of refugee families, especially in the context of supervision.     

Theism, Dualism, and the Scientific Image of Humanity

Recently, some philosophers of religion have suggested that a reduction of the classical image of humanity may jeopardize classical theism. To obstruct reductionism, some theologians have argued for dualism on the basis of the argument of consciousness. In this essay, I argue that even consciousness must be considered a brain-based phenomenon. This does not commit one to reductionism, however. Nonreductive physicalism appears to offer a promising alternative to either dualism or reductionism, without necessarily compromising more traditional views of humanity. I do suggest that a modification of the classical image of God may be inevitable.