The Persistent Case of Major Depression: An Argument for Long-Term Treatment

According to psychotherapy outcome literature, treatments for major depressive disorder (MDD) yield impressive results. Study after study demonstrates the efficacy of brief, evidence-based interventions for depressed individuals. Nevertheless, MDD continues to exact a devastating toll on modern society. The World Health Organization has identified it as the leading cause of disability worldwide. This reality is surprising given the implications from the academic literature. A historical analysis of MDD treatment suggests that most people with MDD experienced complete remission and enhanced outcomes when long-term, psychodynamically influenced treatments prevailed. An analysis of the system that perpetuates the brief intervention model for MDD, managed care, is discussed. This analysis is followed by a case study that illustrates the harm managed care can do to patients with MDD who are not permitted treatment of longer duration. Implications and recommendations for psychologists to intervene at the micro and macro levels are discussed.     

Use of the frostig DTVP with economically disadvantaged children

This research dealt with the reliability and validity of the DTVP when used with a sample of economically disadvantaged, predominantly Negro children from a large eastern city. Regarding reliability, test-retest and split-half procedures were employed; for validity the test was correlated with intelligence and achievement measures. The authors concluded that (a) the total test values alone evidence the necessary reliability to be used with confidence for diagnostic purposes, and (b) the validity of the measure has not been sufficiently demonstrated.     

Advantages of rhythmic movements at resonance: minimal active degrees of freedom, minimal noise, and maximal predictability

Using time delay embedding, the authors applied phase space reconstruction to the time series of rhythmic movements of a hand-held pendulum. Subjects (N = 6) produced the manual oscillations about the wrist at the pendulum's resonant frequency and at a higher and a lower frequency. The number of active degrees of freedom required to capture the dynamics of the rhythmic behavior was 3 for the resonant frequency and 4 for each of the nonresonant frequencies. The residual high-dimensional noise was similarly lowest for the resonant frequency. Whereas 33% and 20%, respectively, of the vectors in the phase spaces of the dynamics higher and lower than resonance were unpredictable, only 12% were unpredictable at resonance. Finally, the predictability of the evolving dynamics extended farther into the future for oscillations at the resonant frequency. At resonance, the prediction horizon was 5 times farther than the prediction horizon for the higher than resonance behavior and 2.5 times farther than that for the lower than resonance behavior. The results suggest that, in pendular oscillations of a limb or limb segment, attunement of the central nervous system to the resonant frequency minimizes the variables to be controlled and maximizes the predictability of the rhythmic movement's chaotic dynamics.     

What people believe about memory

Two representative samples of adult Norwegians (n=2000) were asked a set of general and specific questions regarding their beliefs and opinions about human memory. The results indicate that on many questions, such as time of the earliest memories, inhibiting effects of collaboration, and memory for dramatic versus ordinary events, the views of the general public concurred with current research findings, and people in general had realistic views about their own memory performance. On other questions, such as the reliability of olfactory as compared with visual and auditory memory, the memory of small children in comparison with that of adults, the likelihood of repression of adult traumatic memories, and on more general questions such as the possibility of training memory and the capacity limitations of long-term memory, a large proportion of the participants expressed views that are less supported by scientific evidence. Implications of these findings are briefly discussed.     

Individual differences in emotional memory: adult attachment and long-term memory for child sexual abuse

In the present study, attachment-related differences in long-term memory for a highly emotional life event, child sexual abuse (CSA), were investigated. Participants were 102 documented CSA victims whose cases were referred for prosecution approximately 14 years earlier. Consistent with the proposal that avoidant individuals defensively regulate the processing of potentially distressing information (Bowlby, 1980), attachment avoidance was negatively associated with memory for particularly severe CSA incidents. This finding was not mediated by the extent to which participants reported talking about the abuse after it occurred, although post abuse discussion did enhance long-term memory. In addition, accuracy was positively associated with maternal support following the abuse and extent of CSA-related legal involvement. Attachment anxiety was unrelated to memory accuracy, regardless of abuse severity. Implications of the findings for theories of avoidant defensive strategies and emotional memory are discussed.     

Ethnic differences in battered women's formal help-seeking strategies: a focus on health, mental health, and spirituality

The primary goal of this study was to identify ethnic differences in battered women's use of health, mental health, and spiritual coping strategies, as well as differences in the perceived helpfulness of each strategy. The authors recruited a sample of 376 African American and Caucasian victims of interpersonal violence from various sites. In comparison with Caucasian women in the sample, African American women were significantly more likely to report using prayer as a coping strategy and significantly less likely to seek help from mental health counselors. The 2 groups did not significantly differ in terms of the extent to which they sought help from clergy or medical professionals. African American women found prayer to be more helpful than did Caucasian women.     

A prospective study of memory for child sexual abuse: new findings relevant to the repressed-memory controversy

Previous research indicates that many adults (nearly 40%) fail to report their own documented child sexual abuse (CSA) when asked about their childhood experiences. These controversial results could reflect lack of consciously accessible recollection, thus bolstering claims that traumatic memories may be repressed. In the present study, 175 individuals with documented CSA histories were interviewed regarding their childhood trauma. Unlike in previous studies, the majority of participants (81%) in our study reported the documented abuse. Older age when the abuse ended, maternal support following disclosure of the abuse, and more severe abuse were associated with an increased likelihood of disclosure. Ethnicity and dissociation also played a role. Failure to report CSA should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that the abuse is inaccessible to memory, although inaccessibility or forgetting cannot be ruled out in a subset of cases.