Modification of Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques in the Treatment of a Five Year-Old Girl with Social Phobia

Social phobia is a debilitating anxiety disorder that often goes undetected in young children, but can be effectively treated with cognitive-behavioral interventions. For children and adolescents, treatment usually includes education, social skills training, cognitive restructuring, relaxation training, and exposure. However, for very young children who present with social phobia, it is necessary to adapt treatment to the developmental level of the child. A case illustration demonstrates the way in which cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) was modified for the treatment of a five year-old girl with social phobia. Several modifications were made, including utilizing novel exposure techniques and emphasizing parent management training in order to promote generalization of treatment gains outside of session.     

Collective mental time travel: remembering the past and imagining the future together

Synthese - Bringing research on collective memory together with research on episodic future thought, Szpunar and Szpunar (Mem Stud 9(4):376–389, 2016) have recently developed the concept of...     

The development of language in genie: a case of language acquisition beyond the “critical period”

The present paper reports on a case of a now-16-year-old girl who for most of her life suffered an extreme degree of social isolation and experiential deprivation. It summarizes her language acquisition which is occurring past the hypothesized “critical period” and the implications of this language development as related to hemispheric maturation and the development of lateralization. The results of a series of dichotic listening tests administered to her are included.     

The error power spectrum as a technique for assessing the performance of the human operator in a simple task

The measurement of performance of a human operator in a closed loop control system is considered; it is suggested that the power spectrum of the fluctuations of his tracking error (or error spectral density curve) gives a useful picture of performance and the equipment and technique for producing such a curve is described briefly.

As an example of the technique the power spectra obtained on several subjects performing a simple task with a pressure joystick are given and the implications of the shape of the curve are discussed.     

The American Girl: Playing with the Wrong Dollie?

This essay explores the American Girl Just Like You doll through a variety of feminist lenses. It was inspired by my experiences chaperoning my friend Grace (aged eleven) to the American Girl Store in New York City, and returning to the store to shop for my own doll. I returned to the store because I was not sure why I was so extremely disturbed by this doll. The doll is not emaciated, not overtly sexy, and marketed along with outfits that supposedly send girls the message that they can achieve their goals. She comes in a variety of skin, eye, and hair colors, and the line is therefore marketed as racially and ethnically sensitive. I argue that although the Just Like You line appears to be empowering and racially sensitive on a superficial level, an in‐depth feminist analysis indicates that it is not. In fact, the Just Like You line is highly problematic from a feminist perspective.     

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.