Reshaping Couple Configurations that Get in the Way of Relationship Repair and Healing

In the context of relationship trauma, partners' reactive patterns of engagement can disrupt and derail attempts at relationship correction and healing. A circumplex typology of couple patterns of engagement in relational trauma context is defined in terms of partners' underlying views of self in relation to other (VSIRO). VSIRO is conceptualized along a continuum anchored at opposite poles by inflated (self-aggrandizing) versus collapsed (self-abnegating) VSIRO, with a balanced (egalitarian) VSIRO, characterized by accountability and forbearance, as the target position. The circumplex model delineates four problematic couple configurations—a dejected couple, a taker–enabler couple, an ultimate fighting couple, and a debtor–collector couple. Where problematic engagement occurs, therapists need to reshape couple engagement toward the balanced, egalitarian position prior to relational trauma work. Clinical vignettes depict these couples and springboard an analysis of unique needs and interventions associated with each couple configuration. Reshaping couple patterns of engagement using a circumplex model of couple configurations is an essential prerequisite to effective and ethical relational trauma work.     

THE LIMITS OF NEO-ARISTOTELIAN PLENITUDE (AND ITS CONCEPTUAL NEIGHBORS)

Neo-Aristotelian Plenitude is the thesis that, necessarily, any property that could be had essentially by something or other is had essentially by something or other if and only if and because it is instantiated; any essentializable property is essentialized iff and because it is instantiated. In this paper, I develop a partial nonmodal characterization of ‘essentializable' and show it cannot be transformed into a full characterization. There are several seemingly insurmountable obstacles that any full characterization of essentializability must overcome. Moreover, these obstacles threaten other views in the conceptual neighborhood such as Counterpart Theoretic Plenitude and Conceptualist Plenitude.     

“I'm Having a Little Struggle With This,Can You Help Me Out?”: Examining Impacts and Processes of a Social Capital Intervention for First‐Generation College Students

Social capital plays a key role in college and career success, and research indicates that a dearth of on‐campus connections contributes to challenges first‐generation college students face in effectively navigating the college environment. This study investigates a novel intervention that focuses on the development of skills and attitudes to empower first‐generation college students to cultivate social capital and on‐campus connections during the transition to college. A mixed methods, explanatory design was used to evaluate impacts and processes of the intervention among first‐generation college students (n = 164) in the context of an ethnically diverse, urban, public university in the Northeast. Results indicated that students who participated in the intervention demonstrated improved attitudes and behaviors around seeking support in college, closer relationships with instructors, and higher GPAs at the end of their first year in college. These results suggest the potential benefits of a relatively scalable approach to supporting the needs of first‐generation college students.     

Changes in frontal and posterior cortical activity underlie the early emergence of executive function

Executive function (EF) is a key cognitive process that emerges in early childhood and facilitates children's ability to control their own behavior. Individual differences in EF skills early in life are predictive of quality‐of‐life outcomes 30 years later (Moffitt et al., 2011). What changes in the brain give rise to this critical cognitive ability? Traditionally, frontal cortex growth is thought to underlie changes in cognitive control (Bunge & Zelazo, 2006; Moriguchi & Hiraki, 2009). However, more recent data highlight the importance of long‐range cortical interactions between frontal and posterior brain regions. Here, we test the hypothesis that developmental changes in EF skills reflect changes in how posterior and frontal brain regions work together. Results show that children who fail a “hard” version of an EF task and who are thought to have an immature frontal cortex, show robust frontal activity in an “easy” version of the task. We show how this effect can arise via posterior brain regions that provide on‐the‐job training for the frontal cortex, effectively teaching the frontal cortex adaptive patterns of brain activity on “easy” EF tasks. In this case, frontal cortex activation can be seen as both the cause and the consequence of rule switching. Results also show that older children have differential posterior cortical activation on “easy” and “hard” tasks that reflects continued refinement of brain networks even in skilled children. These data set the stage for new training programs to foster the development of EF skills in at‐risk children.     

Working with issues of difference in supervision of counselling

In this paper, I describe some meanings of the word ‘difference’ and connect these to aspects of the supervisory relationship, roles, tasks and process. Describing some theoretical views of the origins of the sense of difference and the significance of this for the work of the supervisor and supervisee, I suggest that, for maturational processes to take place, the development of a potential space is essential. Ideas are drawn from cross-cultural counselling, but are applied broadly to the client-counsellor-supervisor triangle of relationship, particularly the emphasis on the need to address difference and the possibility of proxy-self communication. I give examples from supervisory practice to illustrate.     

Infants' discrimination of faces by using biological motion cues

We report two experiments in which we used animated averaged faces to examine infants' ability to perceive and discriminate facial motion. The faces were generated by using the motion recorded from the faces of volunteers while they spoke. We tested infants aged 4-8 months to assess their ability to discriminate facial motion sequences (condition 1) and discriminate the faces of individuals (condition 2). Infants were habituated to one sequence with the motion of one actor speaking one phrase. Following habituation, infants were presented with the same sequence together with motion from a different actor (condition 1), or a new sequence from the same actor coupled with a new sequence from a new actor (condition 2). Infants demonstrated a significant preference for the novel actor in both experiments. These findings suggest that infants can not only discriminate complex and subtle biological motion cues but also detect invariants in such displays.