Being in the Moment and Shifting Self-Perspectives

Being in the moment can either heighten self-awareness through observation and interpretation or result in temporary loss of self through experiences of flow. Patients who can flexibly shift between these self-perspectives benefit the most from treatment. When patients risk breaking away from their fixed patterns, they experience a greater sense of aliveness and engagement. Patients who focus too much on the past or too little on the present have problems being centered. Case studies and Antonioni's film Blowup (1966) illustrate how our lives take on renewed meaning through sustaining a present focus.     

Unmitigated communion, social constraints, and psychological distress among women with rheumatoid arthritis

The personality trait of unmitigated communion, an extreme focus on relationships that has been associated with self-neglect, has been linked to poorer outcomes for both men and women, but is more common among women. This longitudinal study is the first to examine the influence of unmitigated communion on adaptation to a chronic illness that affects a much greater proportion of women to men. Women with rheumatoid arthritis completed measures of unmitigated communion, social constraints, and psychological distress at study entry and repeated the distress measure one year later. As expected, unmitigated communion was associated with psychological distress. Cross-sectional moderation analyses indicated that low social constraints buffered the negative effects of unmitigated communion.     

The relationship between interpersonal perception and post-traumatic stress disorder-related functional impairment: a social relations model analysis

This study used Kenny's social relations model to examine the relationship between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-related impairment and interpersonal perceptions. Participants were 124 students who had previously completed the Post-traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale as part of a larger study. After engaging in brief dyadic conversations with 3 other students, participants recorded perceptions of personality traits for themselves, their interaction partners and how they believed their partners saw them (metaperceptions). Results indicated that those with more severe post-traumatic stress disorder-related impairment saw themselves negatively and believed their interaction partners also viewed them negatively. However, these individuals were not seen differently by others, except that they were rated as less dependable. Our findings suggest that post-traumatic stress disorder is associated with negative beliefs about the self that may influence self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.     

School-year employment among high school students: effects on academic, social, and physical functioning

This study describes the effects of different weekly work intensity levels on adolescent functioning in a sample of 3,083 high school students in rural South Texas, where economically disadvantaged and Hispanic youth are heavily represented. Anonymous surveys were conducted in 10th- and 12th-grade students' classrooms in 1995. The following effects were associated with long hours of weekly employment during the school year: (1) decreased performance/engagement in school and satisfaction with amount of leisure time, and (2) increased health risk behaviors and psychological stress. The effects of school-year work on academic factors and health behaviors differed by grade, but not by race/ethnicity, parent education, or race/ethnicity and parent education considered together. It was concluded that parents and professionals should continue to monitor the number of weekly hours that students work during the school year.     

Longitudinal effects of lean production on employee outcomes and the mediating role of work characteristics

The author discusses results from a 3 year quasi-experimental field study (N = 368), which suggest negative effects on employee outcomes after the implementation of 3 lean production practices: lean teams, assembly lines, and workflow formalization. Employees in all lean production groups were negatively affected, but those in assembly lines fared the worst, with reduced organizational commitment and role breadth self-efficacy and increased job depression. A nonequivalent control group had no negative changes in outcomes. Mediational analyses showed that the negative effects of lean production were at least partly attributable to declines in perceived work characteristics (job autonomy, skill utilization, and participation in decision making). The study also shows the longitudinal effects of these work characteristics on psychological outcomes. Implications for lean production, work design, and employee well-being are discussed.     

The social risk hypothesis of depressed mood: evolutionary, psychosocial, and neurobiological perspectives

The authors hypothesize that depressed states evolved to minimize risk in social interactions in which individuals perceive that the ratio of their social value to others, and their social burden on others, is at a critically low level. When this ratio reaches a point where social value and social burden are approaching equivalence, the individual is in danger of exclusion from social contexts that, over the course of evolution, have been critical to fitness. Many features of depressed states can be understood in relation to mechanisms that reduce social risk in such circumstances, including (a) hyper-sensitivity to signals of social threat from others, (b) sending signals to others that reduce social risks, and (c) inhibiting risk-seeking (e.g., confident, acquisitive) behaviors. These features are discussed in terms of psychosocial and neurobiological research on depressive phenomena.     

Waking Rip van Winkle: why developments in the last 20 years should teach the mental health system not to use housing as a tool of coercion

Many housing programs for people with mental illnesses rely on models that require the person to adhere to treatment as a condition of continuing access to housing. These models that 'bundle' housing and treatment are relics of a past in which persons with mental illnesses were afforded little real choice in treatment, housing and other social supports. Conditioning access to housing in this manner is coercive and at odds with current thinking regarding treatment, as well as legal principles that shape the environment in which treatment is provided. This article summarizes the reasons why housing for people with mental illnesses should be provided free of the use of coercion.     

Enhanced retention in the passive-avoidance task by 5-HT(1A) receptor blockade is not associated with increased activity of the central nucleus of the amygdala

The effect of blockade of 5-HT1A receptors was investigated on (1). retention in a mildly aversive passive-avoidance task, and (2). spontaneous single-unit activity of central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) neurons, a brain site implicated in modulation of retention. Systemic administration of the selective 5-HT1A antagonist NAN-190 immediately after training markedly-and dose-dependently-facilitated retention in the passive-avoidance task; enhanced retention was time-dependent and was not attributable to variations in wattages of shock received by animals. Systemic administration of NAN-190 had mixed effects on spontaneous single-unit activity of CeA neurons recorded extracellularly in vivo; microiontophoretic application of 5-HT, in contrast, consistently and potently suppressed CeA activity. The present findings-that 5-HT1A receptor blockade by NAN-190 (1). enhances retention in the passive-avoidance task, and (2). does not consistently increase spontaneous neuronal activity of the CeA-provide evidence that a serotonergic system tonically inhibits modulation of retention in the passive-avoidance task through activation of the 5-HT1A receptor subtype at brain sites located outside the CeA.     

Dorsal stream activation during retrieval of object size and shape

We investigated dorsal visual stream involvement in the retrieval of a variety of visual attributes of common objects, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Seven subjects made binary decisions about the shape, color, and size of named objects during scanning. Bilateral parietal activity was significantly greater during retrieval of shape and size information than during retrieval of color information. Consistent with a domain-specific distributed model of semantic organization, the finding that dorsal stream activity is associated with size and shape retrieval, as compared with color retrieval, may indicate that both size and shape information are learned partly through dorsally mediated processes, such as visually guided grasping. These results demonstrate that both visual-processing streams (i.e., the ventral “what” pathway and the dorsal “where” pathway) are involved in the storage and/or retrieval of knowledge of object appearance but that, just as in vision, these two pathways may play different roles in conceptual processing.