StopPulling.com: An Interactive, Self-Help Program for Trichotillomania

Despite the widespread nature and significant impact of trichotillomania (TTM), relatively few controlled studies have evaluated treatment options for people with this disorder. Pharmacological treatment and behavior therapy are the two most widely accepted approaches to treating TTM, but few mental health professionals with appropriate expertise are available to provide care. The cost of treatment also is prohibitive in some cases. A number of self-help books are available for people with TTM, but no empirical data have documented associated outcomes. This paper describes the development and two phases of program evaluation for an alternative, Internet-based self-help treatment strategy for repetitive hair pulling. StopPulling.com is an on-line, interactive self-help approach derived from evidence-based cognitive behavioral models of treatment for TTM. Following program development, an initial test phase elicited feedback from individuals with repetitive hair pulling and professionals with expertise in the treatment of TTM or Web site development. StopPulling.com was modified in accordance with feedback from this initial test phase, and a revised version was made available to the public in January 2003. Preliminary data from 265 users of the program during the first year of public availability suggested significant improvement in symptoms, with some evidence that duration of program use accounted for reductions in symptom severity. Response rates were comparable to long-term follow-up after more intense cognitive behavioral treatment. StopPulling.com may provide a potentially useful self-help alternative or adjunctive strategy for repetitive hair pulling.     

Neediness and narcissistic defensive action

Action-prone patients are difficult for most analysts to treat. The author describes patients who act in treatment by pressuring themselves and the analyst to get rid of what is wrong, to change the imperative, life-and-death qualities of need into something else. Viewing neediness in treatment as narcissistic defensive action helps the analyst address the patient's pressured flight away from focusing on the need of the analyst and toward action aimed at riddance. Ghent's (1992, 1993) views on neediness are discussed and seen to be complemented by a view of action as protection against narcissistic vulnerability. Analysts' intolerance, vulnerabilities, and needs with such patients are considered.     

“Assertion” and intentionality

Robert Stalnaker argues that his causal-pragmatic account of the problem of intentionality commits him to a coarse-grained conception of the contents of mental states, where propositions are represented as sets of possible worlds. Stalnaker also accepts the “direct reference” theory of names, according to which co-referring names have the same content. Stalnaker’s view of content is thus threatened by Frege’s Puzzle. Stalnaker’s classic paper “Assertion” is intended to provide a response to this threat. In this paper, I evaluate Stalnaker’s claim that the causal-pragmatic account of intentionality commits one to a coarse-grained conception of the contents of mental states, and argue that the apparatus laid out in “Assertion” is not sufficiently comprehensive to account for all versions of Frege’s Puzzle.     

A review of methods in the study of attention in autism

Atypical attention, while not a diagnostic feature, is common in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The study of these atypicalities has recently gained in both quantity and quality, due in part to an increased focus on attentional atypicalities as one of the earliest signs of ASD in infancy. A range of attentional processes and components have been investigated, and the methods used are varied, from Posner-type paradigms, to the more recent use of eye-movement recording and change-detection techniques. This methodological complexity is one factor in the production of conflicting evidence on the topic of attention in ASD. This review uses a focus on methodology to clarify the literature to date and provide a resource for researchers wishing to study attention in ASD. Other factors that have contributed to the current discrepancies in findings are discussed, particularly the role of individual and group differences within the population of people with ASD.     

Witness self‐efficacy: Development and validation of the construct

Despite the application of Self‐Efficacy Theory (Bandura, 1977 , 2000 ) to many areas of psychology, there is a lack of research on self‐efficacy in the ability to testify in court. The present study fills this gap by incrementally developing the construct of Witness Self‐Efficacy and establishing its psychometric properties. Study I features exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielding a two‐factor Witness Self‐Efficacy Scale (WSES). The two components are Poise and Communication Style. Study II uses a second data collection to show that both WSES domains possess convergent, divergent, and predictive validity relations consistent with those expected using an SET framework. Notably, WSES components predicted perceptions of witness credibility and sentencing outcomes above and beyond witness extraversion, general self‐efficacy, and general self‐confidence. Implications for SET and witness preparation training are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The unanticipated resilience of trait self-knowledge in the face of neural damage

This paper explores the question of what the self is by reviewing research conducted with both normal and neuropsychological participants. Findings converge on the idea that the self may be more complex and differentiated than some previous treatments of the topic have suggested. Although some aspects of self-knowledge such as episodic recollection may be compromised in individuals, other aspects-for instance, semantic trait summaries-appear largely intact. Taken together, these findings support the idea that the self is not a single, unified entity. Rather, it is a set of interrelated, functionally independent systems. In the process of reviewing neuropsychological findings, an unexpected result emerges: trait self-knowledge appears unusually robust with respect to neural and cognitive damage that render other aspects of self-knowledge dysfunctional in varying degrees.     

When Cross‐Examination Offends: How Men and Women Assess Intrusive Questioning of Male and Female Expert Witnesses

Personally intrusive questioning during cross‐examination has become commonplace. The differential impact of this questioning on female vs. male experts was the focus in this study, thus these questions are referred to as gender‐intrusive questions. The results demonstrated that the female expert was rated as less confident, trustworthy, likable, believable, and credible than the male expert. The male and female experts were both rated as more credible, trustworthy, and believable when subjected to gender‐intrusive questions. Furthermore, the use of these questions left the jurors with a negative impression of the prosecuting attorney and his case. Jury members were more likely to believe that the evidence exhibited the most support for the defense's case when the witness was subjected to gender‐intrusive questioning.