Redemptive Experience in Relational Family Therapy: A Christian Perspective

We all long for relationships with others, because only in connecting with others can we develop our intrapsychic structure and become functional adults. We are psychologically predisposed to have a constant connection with others and are driven toward relationships with others. Our deepest yearnings are therefore devoted to building solid dialogue as the means of becoming fully human. We, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, long for a relationship where we can experience happiness, satisfaction and, above all, redemption or salvation from our dreads, miseries and unhappiness. In this article we presuppose that a therapeutic relationship, demonstrated in a psychoanalytic setting, namely in relational family therapy, can contain redemptive dimensions in which the inextinguishable longing for salvation is always present.

When accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses look the same: a limitation of the ‘pop‐out’ effect and the 10‐ to 12‐second rule

Research has found support for a ‘pop‐out effect’ that occurs when witnesses who accurately identify a criminal from a lineup are faster and uses more automatic processing than inaccurate witnesses who misidentify a foil. We present evidence that this finding may not occur with biased lineups. Witnesses to a mock theft were asked to make a lineup identification and three types of witnesses were compared: (1) accurate witnesses who identified a thief, (2) inaccurate witnesses who misidentified a foil who was more similar looking to the thief than the other lineup foils and (3) inaccurate witnesses who misidentified a foil who was not more similar in appearance to the thief than the other lineup foils. Accurate witnesses who identified the thief and inaccurate witnesses who misidentified a foil more similar to the thief than the other lineup foils were indistinguishable; both were faster, used more automatic recognition processes and were more confident than inaccurate witnesses who identified other foils. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fear conditioning in posttraumatic stress disorder: evidence for delayed extinction of autonomic, experiential, and behavioural responses

Aversive conditioning has been proposed as an important factor involved in the etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, it is not yet fully understood exactly which learning mechanisms are characteristic for PTSD. PTSD patients (n=36), and healthy individuals with and without trauma exposure (TE group, n=21; nTE group, n=34), underwent a differential fear conditioning experiment consisting of habituation, acquisition, and extinction phases. An electrical stimulus served as the unconditioned stimulus (US), and two neutral pictures as conditioned stimuli (CS+, paired; CS-, unpaired). Conditioned responses were quantified by skin conductance responses (SCRs), subjective ratings of CS valence and US-expectancy, and a behavioural test. In contrast to the nTE group, PTSD patients showed delayed extinction of SCRs to the CS+. Online ratings of valence and US-expectancy as well as the behavioural test confirmed this pattern. These findings point to a deficit in extinction learning and highlight the role of affective valence appraisals and cognitive biases in PTSD. In addition, there was some evidence that a subgroup of PTSD patients had difficulties in learning the CS-US contingency, thereby providing preliminary evidence of reduced discrimination learning.     

Intrusive images in PTSD and in traumatised and non-traumatised depressed patients: a cross-sectional clinical study

Although intrusive images are a hallmark of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and also occur in depression, little is known about the differences and similarities of such images in these conditions. Our study focuses on the qualities and triggers of intrusive images and responses to them in three groups--patients with PTSD, and depressed patients with and without trauma (n=65)-to highlight the diagnostic specificity of intrusive images for PTSD and depression. We distinguished intrusive images from verbal intrusive cognitions such as rumination and intrusive (brief) lexical thoughts. Consistent with the literature, the intrusive images of PTSD patients had a more "here-and-now quality" and were perceived more visually compared to those of both depressed groups. The groups showed a good deal of similarity concerning other image qualities. Most importantly, the intrusive images in PTSD and depressed patients with and without trauma were perceived as similarly distressing. Rumination and intrusive (brief) lexical thoughts were two of the five most named triggers of intrusive images. Limitations, such as the lack of a control group, and the clinical implications of these results are discussed, demonstrating the need to help non-PTSD patients with and without trauma to deal with intrusive images.     

Preference for attractiveness and thinness in a partner: Influence of internalization of the thin ideal and shape/weight dissatisfaction in heterosexual women, heterosexual men, lesbians, and gay men

This study assesses whether characteristics of one's own body image influences preferences of attractiveness in a partner. The role of gender and sexual orientation is also considered. Heterosexual women (n = 67), lesbian women (n = 73), heterosexual men (n = 61) and gay men (n = 82) participated in an internet survey assessing attitudes towards the body and preferences of attractiveness in a partner. Men in particular were found to prefer attractive partners, regardless of sexual orientation. Weight/shape dissatisfaction was found to be a negative predictor for heterosexual men and women. For gay men, preferences were better explained by internalization and weight/shape dissatisfaction. No such associations were found in the lesbian group. Levels of weight/shape dissatisfaction and internalization of socio-cultural slenderness ideals influence expectations of thinness and attractiveness in a partner with this effect being modified by gender and sexual orientation.     

PALME

Background

Single mothers and their children are exposed to increased psychosocial burdens and risks. Nevertheless, in Germany offers of help especially designed for the needs of this group are lacking.

Method

An emotion-oriented parental training program (PALME, http://www.palme-elterntraining.de) based on the attachment theory was developed particularly for single mothers with preschool children. The training is guided by trained kindergarten nurses. The effectiveness of the parental training program on the measure of maternal psychological impairment, emotional competence and child problem behavior was investigated within a randomized, controlled study with 61 single mothers suffering from medium grade psychosocial impairment.

Results

Analyses of variance revealed significant group×time interaction effects in favor of the intervention group compared to controls. After the training the mothers showed improvement in their psychological impairment, depression and emotional competence. In addition, evidence suggests that behavioral problems of the children were reduced.

Conclusion

In view of the benefits of this parental training and its low costs it should be recommended as a regular offer of support for single mothers within community settings.     

Harmonic analysis of a complex motor behavior

This study deals with the learning of a complex motor task. The example used is rock climbing, where the subject's motricity is highly constrained by the natural environment. The working hypothesis is that the sensorimotor system searches for behavioral solutions characterized by minimal energy expenditure in the dissipation of forces. Harmonic systems — which satisfy this requirement — are used as models for testing the source signal defined by the acceleration curve at the learner's center of gravity. It is shown that only the dynamics of an expert's motor behavior are harmonic, while those of a beginner are stochastic (or chaotic). It is also shown that for experts, the process of adaptation to environmental constraints involves the relaxation of the dynamics and the ensuing emergence of a stable state which corresponds to a quasi-periodic attractor. A harmonic analysis is used to distinguish the environmental and intrinsic components of the behavioral dynamics, shown to result from the coupling of these two components via resonance.     

Ästhetische Befriedigung und Unbestimmtheitsreduktion

Zusammenfassung Vpn mußten unter standardisierten Bedingungen zweidimensionale Farbmuster herstellen, die ihrer Meinung nach ästhetisch maximal befriedigend, bzw. maximal unbefriedigend waren. Die beiden Gruppen von Bildern wurden untersucht, wobei sich eine Gruppe von ästhetisch befriedigenden und zwei Gruppen von ästhetisch unbefriedigenden Bildern zeigten. Eine weitere Analyse ergab, daß sich die ästhetisch befriedigenden Bilder von den ästhetisch unbefriedigenden statistisch darin unterscheiden, daß bei den ästhetisch befriedigenden Bildern die Farbelemente in hohem Maße zum Aufbau komplizierter und tiefer Hierarchien von Zeichen höherer Ordnung verwendet wurden, wohingegen bei den ästhetisch unbefriedigenden Mustern übergeordnete Konfigurationen entweder nur in einfacher Form und flachen Hierarchien auftreten (1. Gruppe) oder Zeichen höherer Ordnung gar nicht vorhanden sind (2. Gruppe). Aufgrund der empirischen Ergebnisse wird die Hypothese aufgestellt, daß ästhetische Befriedigung auf Unbestimmtheitsreduktion gegen Widerstand zurückgeführt werden kann. In einem nachfolgenden Experiment wurde diese Hypothese geprüft und bestätigt.

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Aesthetical appreciation and the reduction of uncertainty

Summary Subjects were asked to construct colored pictures which they considered to be aesthetically maximally pleasing or unpleasing. These two groups of pictures were analyzed and it was found that the aesthetically pleasing pictures showed a statistically significant increase in the number of higher order configurations of color elements and a greater hierarchical organization of such configurations. Furthermore, the higher order configurations of the aesthetically pleasing pictures were of a more complicated structure than the higher order configurations of the aesthetically unpleasing pictures. Considering these results, the hypothesis was raised that aesthetical appreciation may be based on the reduction of uncertainty against the resistance of a complicated system of ordering relations within a stimulus. This hypothesis was tested and verified in a subsequent experiment.

     

Enhanced perceptual priming for neutral stimuli in a traumatic context: A pathway to intrusive memories?

Clinical observations suggest that re-experiencing symptoms are triggered by stimuli that are perceptually similar to those present shortly before the trauma or its worst moments. Two experiments investigated the possible role of perceptual priming in this phenomenon. Volunteers (N = 28, N = 62) watched a series of “traumatic” and neutral picture stories, and completed blurred object identification (priming) and recognition memory tasks. Neutral objects that immediately preceded the “traumatic” stories were more strongly primed, but not better recognised, than objects from neutral stories. Enhanced priming predicted subsequent re-experiencing symptoms. The results support the role of perceptual priming in re-experiencing.     

Perceived intergroup threat and attitudes of host community members toward immigrant acculturation

The authors expected the extent to which host community members (a) perceive immigrants as threatening, (b) believe that the immigrants are able to assimilate to the host community (permeability), and (c) consider their presence in the host community as legitimate to predict attitudes towards immigrant acculturation. The authors designed Study 1 to examine attitudes of Germans toward Turkish immigrants. Participants were 227 German white-collar and blue-collar workers. As expected, ethnocentric acculturation attitudes positively correlated with perceived threat and negatively correlated with perceived legitimacy and perceived permeability. However, only perceived threat contributed uniquely to the prediction of the attitudes. In Study 2, the authors applied an experimental manipulation of perceived threat. Before answering attitude questions, participants read magazine articles with a threatening, enriching, or irrelevant content. The manipulation had the predicted impact on the self-reported attitudes toward immigrants. However, the salience of threatening or enriching aspects of the Turkish culture did not affect implicitly measured attitudes.