The Countertransference Experiences of Pregnant Counselors Working With Sex Offenders

Using a phenomenological approach, the authors explored the lived experiences of female counselors who were pregnant during the course of providing clinical services to sex offenders. Themes included awareness of countertransference, emotional distress, safety concerns, and clinical objectivity.     

The day of the week when you were born in 700 ms: calendar computation in an Autistic savant

Some individuals are able to determine the weekday of a given date in a few seconds (finding for instance that June 12, 1900, was a Tuesday). This ability has fascinated scientists for many years because it is predominantly observed in people with limited intelligence and may appear very early in life. Exceptional visual memory, exceptional concentration abilities, or privileged access to lower levels of information not normally available through introspection have been advanced to explain such phenomena. In the present article, the authors show that a simple cognitive model can explain all aspects of the performance of Donny, a young autistic savant who is possibly the fastest and most accurate calendar prodigy ever described.     

Response bias,recollection, and familiarity in individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)

ABSTRACT

The current study focused on individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) and had two main objectives: 1) investigate whether HSAMs have increased recollection performance compared to controls, and 2) investigate whether HSAMs have a reliably different response bias than controls. While previous lab-based recognition tests have shown that HSAMs have normal memory performance, these tests were based on a mixture of both recollection and familiarity. Here, we employed recognition tests specifically designed to separate recollected responses from those based on familiarity. Additionally, we were interested in how HSAMs make their memory decisions. Several studies have shown a great deal of variability between individuals in their response bias. Here, individuals with HSAM and age- matched controls completed a remember/know and a source memory test. HSAMs behaved like controls in both overall and recollection-based memory discrimination. However, HSAMs showed a significantly more liberal response bias, endorsing more items as “old” than controls. These findings contribute to our understanding of how memory processes – especially those related to decision-making – function in those with superior memory abilities and may help elucidate how other (non-HSAM) memory experts make decisions.     

Elevated disgust sensitivity in blood phobia

In order to demonstrate elevated disgust sensitivity and facilitated disgust learning in patients suffering from blood injection injury phobia, 23 phobics and 20 controls underwent an evaluative conditioning experiment. They were presented with picture pairs consisting of affectively neutral pictures (CS), which were followed by either disgust-inducing, fear-inducing, pleasant, or neutral scenes (US). During the presentation we recorded the electromyogram (EMG) of the musculus levator labii as a specific disgust indicator. Affective ratings for the pictures were determined before and after conditioning. Also, CS-US contingency verbalisation (CV) was assessed. Phobics reported a greater overall disgust sensitivity, experienced stronger feelings of disgust, and showed greater EMG responses while viewing disgust-eliciting scenes than control subjects. Evaluative conditioning occurred equally in both groups and depended on CV.     

Normative Scoring of Multidimensional Pairwise Preference Personality Scales Using IRT: Empirical Comparisons With Other Formats

In this article, we offer some suggestions as to why tetrads and pentads have become the dominant formats for administering multidimensional forced choice (MFC) items but, in turn, raise questions regarding the underlying psychometric model and means of addressing item quality and scoring accuracy. We then focus our attention on multidimensional pairwise preference (MDPP) items and present an item response theory–based approach to constructing and modeling MDPP responses directly, assessing information at the item and scale levels, and a way of computing standard errors for trait scores and estimating scale reliability. To demonstrate the viability of this method for applied use, we show that the correspondence between MDPP scores derived from direct modeling with those obtained using single statement and unidimensional pairwise preference measures administered in a laboratory setting. Trait score correlations and criterion related validities are compared across testing formats and rating sources (i.e., self and other), and the usefulness of our model-based approach is further demonstrated by some illustrative results involving computerized adaptive tests (CAT).     

An adolescent perspective on injury recovery and the return to sport

ObjectivesThe purpose of this investigation was to examine adolescent athletes' injury recovery and return-to-sport experiences. Given previous research highlighting competence, autonomy, and relatedness concerns among returning athletes (Podlog & Eklund, 2006), we sought to examine the extent to which basic psychological needs theory (BPNT: Ryan & Deci, 2007) could be used as framework for interpreting the research findings.DesignA qualitative design was employed in the present investigation.MethodEleven Australian athletes (M age = 15.3) who had incurred a range of severe injuries (e.g., anterior cruciate ligament tears, shoulder dislocations) were interviewed on 2–3 occasions (n = 27 interviews) spanning an 11-month period.ResultsAnalysis of the data revealed the following four key themes: (a) injury stress, (b) coping strategies, (c) experiences with social support, and (d) recovery outcomes. Injury stress provides insights into a range of stressors and strain responses reported by the adolescents across the recovery phases, while the theme on coping highlights the specific strategies used to maintain motivation, reduce uncertainties associated with the injury experience, and to keep focused on future athletic attainment. The third theme, experiences with social support, considers the transactions the adolescents held with members of their social network throughout their recovery. The final theme, recovery outcomes, describes participant perceptions of a successful/unsuccessful recovery and stress-related growth.ConclusionsResults suggest that competence and relatedness issues highlighted in BPNT may be relevant in exploring adolescent athletes' injury experience. Somewhat less evidence for the autonomy dimension of BPNT was apparent in adolescent comments.     

Affect at the different phases of cognitive behavioral therapy: An evaluation of psychotherapy provided by candidates

The purpose of this study was to investigate the affect, as measured by “Positive and Negative Affect Schedule” (PANAS), its influence on psychopathology, and to examine the effect of changing affect during cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The study was carried out at the psychotherapy training center, Karlstad University. The hypothesis was whether clients with mental disorders have a self‐destructive affective personality (low PA and high NA) and healthy individuals have a self‐actualizing personality (high PA and low NA). Thirty‐two healthy participants and 44 clients participated in the study. The clients were asked to fill in the PANAS once throughout CBT, either during evaluation, treatment or finishing phase, accordingly there were three different groups at different therapy phases. The healthy subjects were also asked to fill in the self‐report scale once. The comparison of the three phases of therapy and the four affective personality types showed a significant difference between the phases of therapy and the four affective personality types: totally 16 (of 22) and eight (of nine) clients measured at the evaluation and treatment phases, respectively, had a self‐destructive personality. However, at the end of therapy five (of 13) clients had a self‐actualizing personality characteristics, while only three of them were self‐destructive. Furthermore, the results indicate that affective personality does not seem to be a basic and stable personality trait, which could be altered by therapy. The affections measured by PANAS may be influenced by psychopathology and CBT, when conducted by candidate therapists it can be effective in terms of affect changes.     

Issues in the treatment of depressed children

Basic research into the cognitive, behavioral, familial, and physiological disturbances associated with depressive disorders during childhood is reviewed. Implications for the development of a treatment program are discussed and a comprehensive treatment model is proposed. The proposed model includes intervention strategies for the child, parents, family, and school. The child component consists of intervention strategies for the affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological disturbances that are evident from the existing research. The parent training component is designed to address disturbances in parenting due to cognitive disturbances and skills deficits. The family therapy component emphasizes changing interaction patterns that communicate schema-consistent maladaptive interactions. A school consultation component is proposed in which school personnel support the skills training through prompting use of the skills and reinforcement of the use of the coping skills.     

Gender-Based Effects of Frames on Bullying Outcomes

The study extends research on the effect of frames. It is the first study to examine how framing affects the impact of being bullied. College students were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one framing bullying in terms of resilience and the other framing bullying with negative psychosocial consequences. Participants were asked to engage in a brief writing task aimed to actively create a frame and then completed both implicit and explicit measures. There was a significant main effect by gender and several significant interaction effects between frame and gender. These results suggest that framing impacts an individual’s conceptualization of emotionally salient personal memories and should be considered when developing bullying interventions. The impact of framing bullying may vary by gender.