The elephant tied up with string: a clinical case study showing the importance of NHS provision of intensive,time-limited psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatments

Prof. Richard Layard's influential advocacy for greater provision of ‘evidence-based’ psychological therapies, based in part on an economic rationale, has lead to greatly increased provision of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and short-term therapies for depression, through the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative, whilst longer-term psychodynamic treatments are under threat, criticised as lacking an evidence base. This paper argues for the continuing provision of intensive thrice-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatments, time-limited to two years. It does so by describing such a treatment within an NHS psychotherapy department with a patient with a long history of severe personality pathology, including significant levels of perversity. The paper describes the patient's difficulties and his movement through the treatment, focussing on his difficulties making genuine emotional contact, his destructiveness of such contact, his acting out in the treatment, his perversity and the vital working through of the ending. The shifts the patient made are described, and follow-up information on the patient is given. The paper discusses the unique benefits of time-limited treatment and intensive psychoanalytic treatments for this ‘hard-to-help’ group of patients, and the economic rationale that can be made for such treatments.     

The involvement of distinct visual channels in rapid attention towards fearful facial expressions

This paper reports five experiments demonstrating that the low spatial frequency components of faces are critical to the production of rapid attentional responses towards fearful facial expressions. In our main experiments, low spatial frequency (LSF) or high spatial frequency (HSF) face pairs, consisting of one fearful and one neutral expression, were presented on a computer screen for a brief period. Participants were required to identify as quickly as possible the orientation of a bar target that immediately replaced one of the faces. Responses were faster when targets replaced the location of LSF fearful faces, compared with LSF neutral faces. By contrast, there were no differences between responses to targets replacing HSF fearful versus HSF neutral faces. This facilitation in spatial orienting occurred specifically with short time intervals between faces and target, and is consistent with a rapid processing of fear cues from LSF inputs that can serve to guide attention towards threat events.     

Validation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale and an examination of a model of career adaptation in the Philippine context

This paper presents the validation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) in the Philippine context. The CAAS consists of four subscales, with six items each, measuring self-regulative psychosocial resources (e.g., concern, curiosity, control, and confidence) for coping with occupational tasks and transitions. Filipino university students (N = 289) and working adults (N = 495) participated in the study. Internal consistency estimates for the full scale and subscales ranged from .87 to .97. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the multidimensional and hierarchical model of career adaptability. The factor structure was similar to that obtained from the CAAS international validation from 18 countries. Results also suggested that career adaptability was positively associated with adaptivity in the form of tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment as well as with adaptation outcomes of career satisfaction and promotability. Overall, the findings confirm the utility of CAAS in the Philippine context and support the model that states higher levels of personal adaptivity (willingness) and career adaptability (competence) relate to better adaptation outcomes in terms of career success.     

The formation of cubic and monoclinic Y2O3 nanoparticles in a gas-phase flame process

Synthesis of phase-pure cubic and monoclinic Y₂O₃ nanoparticles (16–90?nm) was achieved in a gas-phase flame process. The effect of process parameters on the crystal structure of the Y₂O₃ nanoparticles was systematically investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Fuel gases, H₂ or C₂H₄, at various flow rates, two yttrium precursors, an oxidant stream with varying degrees of N₂ or Ar dilution and different burner diameters were used to examine the effects of chemical atmosphere, flame temperature, residence time and precursor concentration on the crystal structure of the synthesized Y₂O₃ nanoparticles. Regardless of the other process parameters, at diluent/O₂ ratios of 0.25 or lower, monoclinic Y₂O₃ nanoparticles were obtained, whereas at diluent/O₂ ratios of 1 or higher, cubic Y₂O₃ nanoparticles were obtained. A lower diluent/O₂ ratio was related to higher flame temperature. Thermodynamic analyses suggest that high temperatures likely favour the formation of monoclinic Y₂O₃ nanoparticles in this flame process.     

Input and output modality effects in immediate serial recall

In immediate recall tasks, visual recency is substantially enhanced when output interference is low (Cowan, Saults, Elliott, & Moreno, 2002 Cowan, N., Saults, J. S., Elliott, E. M. and Moreno, M. V. 2002. Deconfounding serial recall. Journal of Memory & Language, 46: 153–177. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Craik, 1969 Craik, F. I. M. 1969. Modality effects in short-term storage. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 8: 658–664. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) whereas auditory recency remains high even under conditions of high output interference. This auditory advantage has been interpreted in terms of auditory resistance to output interference (e.g., Neath & Surprenant, 2003 Neath, I. and Surprenant, A. M. 2003. Human memory: An introduction to research, data and theory, London: Thomson Learning.  [Google Scholar]). In this study the auditory-visual difference at low output interference re-emerged when ceiling effects were accounted for, but only with spoken output. With written responding the auditory advantage remained significantly larger with high than with low output interference. These new data suggest that both superior auditory encoding and modality-specific output interference contribute to the classic auditory-visual modality effect.     

Memories of uncertain origin: Dreamt or real?

The existence of a memory whose origin, real or dreamt, was uncertain was reported by just over half of an undergraduate sample of 358. Each respondent described one such memory if they had one. The memories were typically of mundane events, although 10 respondents described possible crimes. Respondents were often concerned to resolve the origin of these memories. Their plausibility, vividness, and how well the events fitted into one's life were often considered by the respondents, but where resolution occurred it was frequently based on evidence obtained from the physical or social environment. The reported qualities of the event did not correlate with whether the respondent thought it more likely to have been originally a dream or a real event.     

Children's Unusual Responses to Observed Movement

Olum discovered that seven-year-old children give unusual responses to observed movement, presented on a Michotte apparatus, in contrast to that of adults. We made the following changes in Olum's procedures: (a) stimuli were presented without repetition, (b) neutral instructions were used, (c) different and more complicated stimuli were used, (d) 20 seven-year-old and 20 ten-year-old children were used. The unusual responses remained. They cannot be explained as an effect of repetition, particular stimuli, or procedure. The younger children's responses were less accurate and more variable. This accords with Piaget's perceptual theory, as it relates to stages of cognitive development.     

Analysis of Memory as a Feedforward Control Mechanism

The properties of memory as a feedforward control mechanism of perception and motion have been investigated by requiring Ss to project in active space-time an observed stimulus wave pattern. Memory error was measured under conditions in which the visual feedback of the memory response was delayed and interrupted (sampled) at five time magnitudes (0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 sec). In addition, memory performance was measured under conditions of temporal pacing by an auditory clock and no such pacing. Results confirmed the hypotheses that memory error in projecting an observed stimulus target on a space-time basis would be improved by time pacing and systematically degraded by variable magnitudes of feedback delay and interruption of the projected movement patterns. The results indicate that memory, as well as learning, may be organized on a spacetime basis and that the critical time factors are related to feedback-and feedforward-control timing in temporally spanning past response and experience through learning and in projecting such space-time control of acquisition in-memory.