The role of prior quitting experience in the prediction of smoking cessation

Aims: In the Transtheoretical Model (TTM), the preparation stage (as applied to smoking cessation) is defined as planning to quit in the next 30 days plus having quit for at least 24 h in the last year. This study examined the value of prior quitting experience as a stage classification criterion by investigating whether prediction of making a quit attempt differed as a function of prior quitting experience. Participants: One thousand and forty-six participants, all planning to quit in the next 30 days, in a randomised trial of the effectiveness of a telephone counselling and computer-generated tailored advice intervention were followed up at 3 months. Findings: A multivariate predictive model had markedly greater capacity to predict making a quit attempt among participants with prior quitting experience (as defined in several different ways), compared to analyses of the overall sample. A previous attempt of 24 h in the previous month was associated with the greatest difference in prediction. A quit attempt in the previous year (the TTM definition) did not discriminate. Conclusions: Recent prior quitting experience moderated the predictive capacity of some variables that influence smoking cessation. The findings provide some support for a stage model of smoking cessation but not its operationalisation by the TTM.     

Neuropsychological Profile of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

In this study, subjects with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) were matched for age, verbal intelligence, and depression with a group of healthy control subjects. Neuropsychological testing was conducted to assess complex attention, language fluency, receptive language, and visuospatial cognition using tests that would not be affected by impaired motor skill. The subjects with DMD demonstrated poorer functioning on tests of complex attention, verbal fluency, and nonverbal memory functions, suggesting that the cognitive deficits in the DMD population may be specific rather than global in nature. Methodological issues salient to the assessment of intellectual functioning among subjects with DMD and the implications of these data for the further study of cognitive deficits in DMD are discussed.     

Working memory: A developmental study of phonological recoding

A cross-sectional study using children aged 3 to 7 years and a cross-sequential study using children aged between 5 and 8 years showed that the development of phonological recoding in working memory was more complex than the simple dichotomous picture portrayed in the current literature. It appears that initially children use no strategy in recall, which is proposed to represent the level of automatic activation of representations in long-term memory and the storage capacity of the central executive. This is followed by a period in which a visual strategy prevails, followed by a period of dual visual-verbal coding before the adult-like strategy of verbal coding finally emerges. The results are discussed in terms of three working memory models (Baddeley, 1990; Engle, 1996; Logie, 1996) where strategy use is seen as the development of attentional processes and phonological recoding as the development of inhibitory mechanisms in the central executive to suppress the habitual response set of visual coding.     

Termination as Necessary Madness

The author offers an intensive clinical study, in which the paradox of termination is illuminated. For this patient, termination repeats the schizoid problem for which he arrived in treatment. The fear of closeness is confirmed by the knowledge that closeness will inevitably lead to loneliness and loss. This treatment dilemma opens up an inquiry into the original formulation of the analytic situation. The author proposes that the structure of psychoanalysis—intimacy entwined with the severing of intimacy—may conceal a need-fear dilemma which lies at the heart of our practice. I propose that this dilemma has always been gendered. Resistance to termination has been “feminized,” and a willingness to terminate has been “masculinized.”     

Growth in emotional intelligence. Psychotherapy with a learning disabled girl

This paper describes the once-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a girl, called Ellie, aged eight at the start of her treatment. Ellie had a learning disability and displayed difficult behaviour at school and at home. In her therapy, Ellie grew in emotional intelligence, more in touch with and able to express her feelings. Her behaviour improved and so did her capacity to learn. In the therapy there were certain limitations to progress and this is discussed in terms of how Ellie's disability affected the basic achievements of emotional development, including a mind with a solid ‘reality ego’, able to contain anxiety, and able to maintain depressive functioning. The importance of parallel parent work, to share observations and understanding of the child's functioning is discussed. Difficulties for both child and parents in dealing with the pain of difference and how this limits emotional intelligence are discussed. The author hopes that this paper will encourage the offering of psychoanalytic psychotherapy to children and young people with learning disabilities, who are significantly more likely to suffer from mental health problems than their peers.     

Distancing and Solidarity as Resistance to Sexual Objectification in a Nude Dancing Bar

ABSTRACT

Drawing on observation and interviews in a mid-Atlantic nude dancing bar, I examine front-stage customer-dancer relations as well as dancers' discourse among themselves backstage. I use James Scott's theoretical framework regarding subordinate group resistance strategies to analyze dancers' attempts to resist customers' harassment. On the micro-level dancers exercise agency, reconstructing their identities within the larger context of macro-level oppression. Dancers' front stage tactics include spatial distancing, verbal one-liners, physical aggression, calling on customers, and united action with other dancers. Backstage, dancers reframe the public text, articulating their own identity construction by creating a social site for solidarity and desexualizing the body.     

The creative process and psychoanalytic insight

The paper looks at the prevalence of audio-visual culture and how it is endemic in our everyday lives. It explores how popular culture emerges in the consulting room and some of the dilemmas posed for the therapist. It goes on to consider how popular culture connects to narratives, dreams and the formation of images in the clinical context. Some clinical vignettes explore audio-visual material in relation to their possible therapeutic message. One suggestion is made that the prevalence of popular culture could intensify anxieties associated with watching and looking and at the same time increase our desires to dismiss and submerge these anxieties. Popular culture in the consulting room reflects a world outside. Psychodynamic psychotherapy and the Media Arts can bring each other into ‘mutual illumination’.