Forging partnerships for mental health: The case of a prefecture in crisis ravaged Greece

Public health and in particular mental health have been severely affected by the multitude of socioeconomic crises experienced by people in Greece. The severe austerity programmes, have reduced access to health services and increased demand for publically funded health care. This paper presents a case study focusing on the impact of these measures on the lives of mental health providers in one prefecture in Crete. Focus group methodology was applied and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. Analyses revealed three superordinate themes that converge at many levels and appear to be going counter to the circumstances: firstly, ‘forging partnerships for mental health’; secondly, ‘extending our reach’; and thirdly ‘transformations in professional identity through praxis’. These themes are discussed using the words of the participants and the relevant literature.     

Impact of maternal adverse childhood experiences on child socioemotional function in rural Kenya: Mediating role of maternal mental health

Mothers in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC) suffer heightened vulnerability for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which is exacerbated by the multitude of risk factors associated with poverty and may lead to increased risk of psychiatric disorder. The constellation of complex, co‐occurring biological, environmental, social, economic and psychological risk factors are in turn transmitted to her child, conferring vulnerability for adverse development. This study examines the association between maternal intra‐ and extra‐familial ACEs, maternal education and the mental health of her child, mediated by maternal mental health. Mother‐child dyads (n = 121) in Machakos, Kenya were examined cross‐sectionally using self‐report measures of ACEs, maternal mental health and child internalizing and externalizing mental health problems. The four models proposed to examine the relationship between intra‐ and extra‐familial maternal ACEs and child internalizing and externalizing problems demonstrated indirect pathways through maternal mental health. These effects were found to be conditional on levels of maternal education, which served as a protective factor at lower levels of maternal ACEs. These models demonstrate how the impact of ACEs persists across the lifespan resulting in a negative impact on maternal mental health and conferring further risk to subsequent generations. Elucidating the association between ACEs and subsequent intergenerational sequelae, especially in LMIC where risk is heightened, may improve targeted caregiver mental health programs for prevention and intervention.     

Existential considerations for contemporary career counseling

This article was written to remind career counselors of the potential depth and subjective impact of both unemployment and employment transitions. An existential framework is used in discussing today's world of work, previous and contemporary career counseling models, existential theory in career counseling, and existential considerations for career counselors. Results from 3 research projects are discussed in light of I. D. Yalom's (1980, 1998) 4 existential themes. Using quotations from participants, the authors move beyond theoretical ideas and underscore the real‐life importance of including the individual's larger subjective perspective when engaging in career counseling. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Froebel and the Rise of Educational Theory in the United States

This contribution compares entries on Friedrich Froebel and the kindergarten in German and United States’ histories of education from 1857 to 1933. In the American histories, Froebel appears as the great “hero” of education of the 19th century, whereas in the German histories, Pestalozzi is the “hero.” This difference in the perspectives goes back to fundamental differences in the political culture and political traditions of the two countries, which differed greatly as to the shaping of the public and private spheres. Consequently, there were also different views on public education. In the immigration society of the United States, it was important to integrate children with various language and cultural backgrounds. As families could not do this alone, public kindergartens were needed. In Germany, in contrast, Froebel’s idea of the kindergarten was seen as an attack on family ties, and Pestalozzi was highly esteemed, because he made home education central. The American interest in “making citizens” produced Froebel as the hero; the German interest in leaving the education of young children to mothers and in the family lauded Pestalozzi. This case study of the reception of Froebel in Germany and the United States illustrates the high context-dependence of the construction of educational “heroes.”     

Can I trust you? Negative affective priming influences social judgments in schizophrenia

Successful social interactions rely on the ability to make accurate judgments based on social cues as well as the ability to control the influence of internal or external affective information on those judgments. Prior research suggests that individuals with schizophrenia misinterpret social stimuli and this misinterpretation contributes to impaired social functioning. We tested the hypothesis that for people with schizophrenia, social judgments are abnormally influenced by affective information. Twenty-three patients with schizophrenia and 35 healthy control participants rated the trustworthiness of faces following the presentation of neutral, negative (threat-related), or positive affective primes. Results showed that all participants rated faces following negative affective primes as less trustworthy than faces following neutral or positive primes. Importantly, this effect was significantly more pronounced for participants with schizophrenia, suggesting that schizophrenia may be characterized by an exaggerated influence of negative affective information on social judgment. Furthermore, the extent that the negative affective prime influenced trustworthiness judgments was significantly associated with patients' severity of positive symptoms, particularly feelings of persecution. These findings suggest that for people with schizophrenia, negative affective information contributes to an interpretive bias, consistent with paranoid ideation, when judging the trustworthiness of others. This bias may contribute to social impairments in schizophrenia.     

Making and breaking habits: Revisiting the definitions and behavioral factors that influence habits in animals

Habits have garnered significant interest in studies of associative learning and maladaptive behavior. However, habit research has faced scrutiny and challenges related to the definitions and methods. Differences in the conceptualizations of habits between animal and human studies create difficulties for translational research. Here, we review the definitions and commonly used methods for studying habits in animals and humans and discuss potential alternative ways to assess habits, such as automaticity. To better understand habits, we then focus on the behavioral factors that have been shown to make or break habits in animals, as well as potential mechanisms underlying the influence of these factors. We discuss the evidence that habitual and goal-directed systems learn in parallel and that they seem to interact in competitive and cooperative manners. Finally, we draw parallels between habitual responding and compulsive drug seeking in animals to delineate the similarities and differences in these behaviors.     

Learning How to Generalize

Generalization is a fundamental problem solved by every cognitive system in essentially every domain. Although it is known that how people generalize varies in complex ways depending on the context or domain, it is an open question how people learn the appropriate way to generalize for a new context. To understand this capability, we cast the problem of learning how to generalize as a problem of learning the appropriate hypothesis space for generalization. We propose a normative mathematical framework for learning how to generalize by learning inductive biases for which properties are relevant for generalization in a domain from the statistical structure of features and concepts observed in that domain. More formally, the framework predicts that an ideal learner should learn to generalize by either taking the weighted average of the results of generalizing according to each hypothesis space, with weights given by how well each hypothesis space fits the previously observed concepts, or by using the most likely hypothesis space. We compare the predictions of this framework to human generalization behavior with three experiments in one perceptual (rectangles) and two conceptual (animals and numbers) domains. Across all three studies we find support for the framework's predictions, including individual‐level support for averaging in the third study.     

Representing narrative process in therapy: Qualitative analysis of a single case

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in an approach which views counselling and psychotherapy as being concerned with giving clients opportunities to articulate, examine and re-author aspects of their life-stories. However, most of the literature associated with this approach has been based on observations of clinical practice, and there is a need to develop more systematic research in this area. The present study uses qualitative methods to identify and categorize different types of narrative events occurring in therapy discourse. A representation is offered of the process by which experience is narrativized during therapy. The data for this analysis is drawn from an intensive study of one session of person-centred counselling. The issues involved in applying this method of qualitative analysis are discussed, and the implications of these findings for research and practice are outlined.     

Early development of gaze following into distant space in juvenile Greylag geese (Anser anser)

Visual co-orientation with another's gaze direction (gaze following) may provide important information about the location of food, social interactions or predators. Gaze following has been shown in a variety of mammals, but only in few bird species, and has not been tested in precocial birds at all. It has been suggested that gaze following is an anti-predator behaviour, and in Common ravens (Corvus corax) and rooks (C. frugilegus), it emerges shortly after fledging, at a time when young birds leave the predator-safe nest. However, if gaze following is adaptive, the developmental pattern should differ between altricial and precocial birds. Greylag geese (Anser anser) are highly social birds with a precocial development. Goslings move and feed independently within 24 h post-hatching, and they are highly vulnerable to aerial predators. We therefore predicted that greylag geese are capable of gaze following and that they develop this skill already pre-fledging. We experimentally tested 19 hand-raised greylag goslings for their ability to follow a conspecific's gaze when they were between 10 days and 6 weeks old. In line with our predictions, first responses were already detectable in 10-day-old goslings. Our results therefore not only demonstrate that greylag geese follow the gaze of conspecifics into distant space, but that they also develop this ability much earlier than altricial birds.