Mankind and Kind Men: an agenda for male family therapists

This article examines some of the gender issues involved when male therapists interview women, children and other men. It looks at issues in the family life of male therapists which have parallels with therapy, and offers some practical suggestions for beginning to overcome obstacles of gender in therapy.     

Freud's three theories of love in the light of later developments

Evidence is presented that Freud developed three very different theories on love. These theories were not integrated into a coherent theory. In subsequent developments each theory had its own history. The paper discusses the history of the controversy on the genital character, the relation between love and gender identity, between love and narcissism, the hierarchical structure of the capacity to love, and the relation between love and object loss. The impact of some concepts such as symbiosis and the rapprochmente subphase on the understanding of conflicts in loving is raised. While at present differences in emphasis make it difficult to build a coherent psychoanalytic theory of love, it is productive to bring divergent views in touch with each other. A unified theory of love based on psychoanalytic observations is suggested.     

Prognosis in children with infantile seizures and possible factors influencing it

Different developments (good n = 8, poor n = 15 and very poor n = 27) in 50 former patients with infantile myoclonic seizures are compared with findings from the acute phase of the disease after 11.1 +/- 4.1 years. It has been confirmed that it is sensible with regard to intellectual development to distinguish idiopathic (very seldom) and symptomatic cases in infantile myoclonic seizures. An early beginning of the disease, developmental backwardness as well as pathological and neurological findings as signs of a cerebral damage or disease (symptomatic cases) suggest a poor prognosis.     

'Good morning, Sir!'Axe handle.' Talking at cross-purposes in family therapy

This paper will examine how therapists can make sense of and use some of the incongruous and apparently absurd replies which clients sometimes make to their therapists' questions. It will be argued that the convention of relying on therapist questions can create its own problems, not least because clients often feel at a disadvantage. Careful attention to the question_answer process in therapy can play an essential part in the therapeutic alliance and can give us clues as to what may be some of the often unstated preoccupations of our clients.     

The mind: psychoanalytic understanding then and now

The author discusses the evolution of psychoanalytic understanding from Freud's time to the present, citing the influence of various sociocultural changes. He addresses Freud's proper place in history and notes ways in which Freud's contributions cast him as belonging to Romanticism. Freud's shift from the topographic model of the mind to the structural one, and the influence of this on psychoanalysis, is discussed, as well as important developments in the field since Freud. The author focuses particularly on difficulties encountered in psychoanalytic practice today, and he describes what he has termed organizing interpretations as uniquely valuable in the treatment setting.     

One, two, three, many - Subitizing in active touch

‘Subitizing’ refers to rapid and accurate judgement of small numbers of items, while response times and error rates increase rapidly for larger set-sizes. Most enumeration studies have been done in vision. Enumeration studies in touch have mostly involved ‘passive touch’, i.e. touch without active exploration. In daily life a much more common situation is that of ‘active touch’, e.g. when we count the number of coins in our pocket. To investigate numerosity judgement in active touch, we let subjects haptically explore varying numbers of spheres. Our results show that enumeration for up to 3 items is more efficient than for larger numbers of items. We also show that enumeration in this regime was not performed through estimation. Furthermore, it is shown that numerosity information was accessed directly and not through mass or volume cues. Not only do our results show that a haptic version of subitizing exists in active touch, they also suggest similar underlying enumeration mechanisms across different modalities.     

Are Auditory Distractions Disturbing and Detrimental to the Performance of Expert Golfers? A Field Experiment

Although auditory distractions are prevalent and often seen as a threat to performance, relatively few studies have explored distraction effects in an applied sport context. This field experiment examined expert golfers' (n = 36) competitive performance in a normal and a distracting condition. The results displayed similar performance in the two conditions. Participants' responses to a postcompetition questionnaire generally suggested that they found auditory distractions below moderately disturbing and detrimental to their performance. Overall, our results contradict the popular consensus that distractions are disturbing and detrimental in motor performance contexts.     

An Open Trial Targeting Food Cue Reactivity and Satiety Sensitivity in Overweight and Obese Binge Eaters

Data suggests that individuals who binge eat are more responsive to food cues in the environment and less sensitive to satiety cues. The aim of this open trial was to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and initial effectiveness of a novel treatment grounded in Schachter’s externality theory targeting food cue reactivity and satiety responsiveness with obese adults who binge eat. Treatment was provided in groups, and utilized appetite monitoring, cue-exposure treatment, in vivo exercises, self-monitoring, and coping skills. Twenty-eight overweight and obese adults who binge eat (82% female; mean age = 47.5 years [SD = 12.8]; BMI = 38.9 [SD = 10.3]; 79% White non-Hispanic) participated in a 4-month group-based treatment program. Assessments were conducted at baseline, posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up time points. Results indicated that this treatment was well accepted and had high retention at posttreatment. Initial effectiveness showed significant decreases in BMI, and improvements in loss of control and overeating episodes, food responsiveness, and power of food. The majority of results were maintained at the 3-month follow-up time point. This open trial provides preliminary evidence for the feasibility, acceptability, and initial effectiveness of this treatment on both eating disorder symptoms and weight in obese adults who binge eat. Because these data are preliminary, further treatment development and randomized controlled studies are needed.     

Development of a portable psychometric testing device for use in the field: an alcohol investigation

Cognitive and psychomotor performance have traditionally been assessed in the laboratory. There is a need for an objective portable assessment tool to assess cognitive and psychomotor performance. This study investigated the viability of a portable psychometric test battery, in a controlled laboratory environment, possibly leading to use in the field. A randomised, double-blind placebo controlled, three-way crossover design was employed. 16 subjects received 50 mg/100 ml and 80 mg/100 ml of alcohol and alcohol placebo. Performance was assessed with a tracking task, and an attention task presented on a small ruggedised handheld computer. The attention task showed no significant training effects; however, an element of the tracking task did. Statistical significance, effect size, and test-retest reliability analyses are presented indicating sensitivity of the portable psychometric test battery to the impairing effects of two separate doses of alcohol. Ability to undertake wide-scale impairment testing in the field with meaningful results in the absence of baseline data collection may have wide reaching implications, particularly in relation to the assessment of drivers impaired by drug use.