Longitudinal Associations Between Personality Profile Stability and Adjustment in College Students: Distinguishing Among Overall Stability,Distinctive Stability,and Within‐Time Normativeness

ABSTRACT In the present study, longitudinal associations of 3 aspects of personality profile stability (i.e., overall stability, distinctive stability, and within‐time normativeness) with 3 adjustment measures (i.e., depressive symptoms, self‐esteem, and delinquency) were examined, using 4 waves of longitudinal data on a Belgian college sample (N=565). Longitudinal path models revealed strong longitudinal associations between adjustment and overall stability. Subsequent analyses showed that it is not the degree to which one's personality profile consistently diverges from the average personality profile within a population (i.e., distinctive stability) that is related to adjustment but the degree to which a personality profile of an individual matches the average personality profile within the sample at a certain point in time (i.e., within‐time normativeness). The current study thereby underscores the importance of distinguishing normativeness and distinctiveness when examining personality profile stability.     

On the nature and standing of psychoanalytic psychotherapy

In this paper, I offer some reflections on the standing of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the National Health Service (NHS), with special reference to contemporary forms of evidence-based thinking. I consider what may follow when a narrow view of science or psychotherapeutic practice becomes conventional wisdom and assumes dominance. I place stress on the potential loss to NHS psychology and psychiatry if psychoanalytic psychotherapy becomes increasingly marginalized on the one hand, or overly standardized on the other.     

Self-representing dreams

SUMMARY

Certain dreams are particularly striking for the way they represent themselves and the manner in which they are told within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Within such a dream is contained a picture of the dream's function and significance as part of the transaction between patient and psychotherapist. This phenomenon illustrates the nature and function of unconscious phantasy, the relations that hold between phantasy and mechanisms of defence, and the manifestations of phantasy within the transference.

Three examples are given of self-representing dreams which have been reported and re-enacted by trainee psychiatrists in psychotherapy supervision.     

Associations of Identity Dimensions with Big Five Personality Domains and Facets

Personality is among the most important factors contributing to individual differences in identity formation. However, previous studies mainly focused on broad personality domains and neglected more specific facets. In addition, it has only recently been recognized that identity formation is guided by multiple types of commitment and exploration. The present study aimed to remedy these limitations by relating the 30 personality facets of the NEO‐PI‐3 to five identity dimensions. In general, identity formation was especially facilitated by high levels of Conscientiousness and, to a lesser extent, also by high levels of Extraversion and low levels of Neuroticism. Openness and Agreeableness predicted greater involvement in both the positive side (i.e. exploration in breadth and depth) and negative side (i.e. ruminative exploration) of the exploration process. Personality facets and their overarching domains, as well as facets underlying the same domain, were often differentially associated with identity dimensions. Additionally, we found that some personality facets both have bright and dark sides, as they predicted both proactive identity work and a weakened sense of identity. Overall, the present study underscores the utility of multidimensional models of identity formation and points to the benefits of considering personality facets in addition to broad domains. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Verisimilitude and belief change for nomic conjunctive theories

In this paper, we address the problem of truth approximation through theory change, asking whether revising our theories by newly acquired data leads us closer to the truth about a given domain. More particularly, we focus on “nomic conjunctive theories”, i.e., theories expressed as conjunctions of logically independent statements concerning the physical or, more generally, nomic possibilities and impossibilities of the domain under inquiry. We define both a comparative and a quantitative notion of the verisimilitude of such theories, and identify suitable conditions concerning the (partial) correctness of acquired data, under which revising our theories by data leads us closer to “the nomic truth”, construed as the target of scientific inquiry. We conclude by indicating some further developments, generalizations, and open issues arising from our results.     

Sleep and dream suppression following a lateral medullary infarct: a first-person account

Consciousness can be studied only if subjective experience is documented and quantified, yet first-person accounts of the effects of brain injury on conscious experience are as rare as they are potentially useful. This report documents the alterations in waking, sleeping, and dreaming caused by a lateral medullary infarct. Total insomnia and the initial suppression of dreaming was followed by the gradual recovery of both functions. A visual hallucinosis during waking that was associated with the initial period of sleep and dream suppression is described in detail. Since the changes in sleep and their recovery are comparable to results of animal experiments, it can be concluded that damage to the medullary brain stem causes extreme but short-lived alterations in conscious state and that substantial recovery occurs even though the damage to the brain stem endures.