Working in the Metaphor Commentary on Paper by Stephen Seligman

This paper expands on Seligman's ideas about mentalization and the challenges of working with patients who cannot mentalize. Seligman's clinical presentation demonstrates that much valuable analytic work takes place without explicit reference to the transference. Drawing on Britton's notion of the triangular internal space that allows for reflective thought, we propose that analytic interest in an external object, discovered through the relationship and meaningful to both patient and analyst, helps create the same kind of space. The difference-within-sameness of shared contemplation can increase receptivity to divergent perspectives. Likewise, the “third object” can become a therapeutic metaphor, open to various meanings without being limited to any one interpretation. We trace how Seligman and his patient use a series of third objects in their work together. In this process, the patient moves from a transitional relationship of minimal differentiation to an increasingly secure sense of her own separateness, beginning to accept, and even enjoy, having a motivated mind of her own. Finally, we discuss how Ferro's concept of the analytic field offers a theoretical rationale for the effectiveness of this process.     

Infants' responses to mothers' imitative behaviors

Several investigators have suggested that young infants' smiles and vocalizations following their mothers' imitative behaviors might reflect infant recognition that the mother's behavior is imitative or at least contingent. This study investigated whether infants smile and vocalize more frequently subsequent to maternal imitative than non-imitative behavior during both spontaneous and imitative face-to-face interactions. Fourteen 3 1/2-month-old infants and their mothers were videotaped in these two face-to-face interaction situations. The infants vocalized more frequently during the imitative situation and infant vocalizations plus simultaneous smiling, and vocalizations occurred more often following maternal imitative than non-imitative behavior. Although these data suggest that infant vocalizations and simultaneous smiles and vocalizations may reflect the infants' recognition of maternal imitative behavior, they do not establish definitively that it is the imitation per se vs. the contingency aspect that is recognized by the infant.     

Strong memories are hard to scale

People are generally skilled at using a confidence scale to rate the strength of their memories over a wide range. Specifically, low-confidence recognition decisions are often associated with close-to-chance accuracy, whereas high-confidence recognition decisions can be associated with close-to-perfect accuracy. However, using a 20-point rating scale, the authors found that the ability to scale memory strength had its limitations in that a high proportion of list items received the highest rating of 20. Efforts to induce participants to differentiate between these strong memories using emphatic instructions and alternative scales were not successful. Remember/know judgments indicated that these strong and hard-to-scale memories were often based on familiarity (not just recollection). Providing error feedback on a plurals discrimination task finally produced a high-confidence criterion shift. The authors suggest that the ability to scale strong (and almost perfectly accurate) memories may be limited because of the absence of differential error feedback for very strong memories in the past (the kind of differential error feedback that may account for the memory-scaling expertise that participants otherwise exhibit).     

The effect of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug on two important predictors for accidental falls: Postural balance and manual reaction time. A randomized, controlled pilot study

Accidental falls in older individuals are a major health and research topic. Increased reaction time and impaired postural balance have been determined as reliable predictors for those at risk of falling and are important functions of the central nervous system (CNS). An essential risk factor for falls is medication exposure. Amongst the medications related to accidental falls are the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). About 1-10% of all users experience CNS side effects. These side effects, such as dizziness, headaches, drowsiness, mood alteration, and confusion, seem to be more common during treatment with indomethacin. Hence, it is possible that maintenance of (static) postural balance and swift reactions to stimuli are affected by exposure to NSAIDs, indomethacin in particular, consequently putting older individuals at a greater risk for accidental falls. The present study investigated the effect of a high indomethacin dose in healthy middle-aged individuals on two important predictors of falls: postural balance and reaction time. Twenty-two healthy middle-aged individuals (59.5 ± 4.7 years) participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover trial. Three measurements were conducted with a week interval each. A measurement consisted of postural balance as a single task and while concurrently performing a secondary cognitive task and reaction time tasks. For the first measurement indomethacin 75 mg (slow-release) or a visually identical placebo was randomly assigned. In total, five capsules were taken orally in the 2.5 days preceding assessment. The second measurement was without intervention, for the final one the first placebo group got indomethacin and vice versa. Repeated measures GLM revealed no significant differences between indomethacin, placebo, and baseline in any of the balance tasks. No differences in postural balance were found between the single and dual task conditions, or on the performance of the dual task itself. Similarly, no differences were found on the manual reaction time tasks. The present study showed that a high indomethacin dose does not negatively affect postural balance and manual reaction time in this healthy middle-aged population. Although the relatively small and young sample limits the direct ability to generalize the results to a population at risk of falling, the results indicate that indomethacin alone is not likely to increase fall risk, as far as this risk is related to abovementioned important functions of the CNS, and not affected by comorbidities.     

Pastoral counseling among Chinese churches: a Canadian study

This article reports the results of a survey of Canadian Chinese pastors (N 20) regarding their experiences and attitudes related to pastoral counseling. It identifies common concerns encountered during pastoral counseling, as well as key areas of church concerns. Results of the survey indicate that pastoral counseling may be more important than is currently recognized by Chinese pastors, particularly in key areas of marriage, family life, and general relationship issues. The authors discuss possible implications of the survey relative to training and equipping Chinese pastors to engage more in pastoral counseling as an integral part of their parish ministry.     

Having Our Say: African American Women,Diversity, and Counseling

African American female counseling professionals contribute greatly to the multicultural growth of the counseling profession by spurring the profession's evolution and defining new paradigms and counseling activities. Despite their contributions, they face serious organizational, intrapersonal, and interpersonal challenges to their success in academia. This article seeks to elucidate the challenges to African American female counseling professionals and offers systemic and personal strategies that will facilitate the profession's evolution to culturally competent, ethical, and intentional helping orientations and worldviews.     

Detecting phonemes and letters in text: Interactions between different types and levels of processes

In six experiments, subjects detected phonemes or letters in text presented auditorily or visually. Experiments 1 and 2 provided support for the hypothesis that a mismatch between the phoneme and letter representations of a target leads to detection errors. In addition, visual word unitization processes were implicated. Experiments 3 and 4 provided support for the hypothesis that the Gestalt goodness of pattern affected detection errors when subjects searched for letters. Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated that the effects of unitization on the detection of letters in common words were decreased by altering the familiar configuration of the test words. The combined results of all six experiments lead to the conclusion that both visual and phonetic processes influence letter detection, that these processes communicate through a type of cross-checking, and that there are at least two levels of visual (and perhaps of phonetic) processing involved in the letter detection task.     

Effects of male postpartum depression on father–infant interaction: The mediating role of face processing

It is estimated that postpartum depression affects up to 25% of men. Despite such high prevalence, the majority of studies on postpartum depression are focused on mothers, and the role of paternal depression and its effects on infant development have been overlooked by researchers and clinicians. The present study aimed to fill this gap by investigating the effect of paternal postpartum depression on father–infant interactions. In addition, we examined whether differences in face recognition mediated the effects of paternal postpartum depression on father–infant interactions. A total of 61 father–infant dyads (17 postpartum depression, 44 controls) took part in the study. Results revealed that compared to controls, fathers with postpartum depression had a worse pattern of interaction with their infants on measures of responsiveness, mood, and sensitivity; they also had greater difficulty in recognizing happy adult faces, but greater facility in recognizing sad adult faces. Depressed fathers attributed greater intensities to sad adult and infant faces. The tendency to attribute greater intensity to sad adult faces was confirmed as a partial mediator of the effect of paternal postpartum depression on measures of father responsiveness and as a full mediator of the effects of paternal depression on father sensitivity. Clinical implications and suggestions for further studies are discussed.     

Best professional practices when approaching religiosity/spirituality in psychotherapy in Brazil

The religiosity/spirituality (R/S) dimension is recognised as an important component of the concept of health advocated by the World Health Organization; however, it does not appear in the undergraduate Psychology curricula in the Brazilian context, revealing a gap in the way this theme has been covered. In order to identify the professional reality of Brazilian psychotherapists in relation to this theme, this study aimed to identify what constitutes the best professional practices when approaching R/S in psychotherapy. We interviewed 24 psychotherapists of both sexes, with a mean age of 36.43, from two medium‐sized cities of two Brazilian states. According to the interviewees, the best practices considered when addressing R/S, that is, the most appropriate actions/attitudes, are as follows: (a) Respect; (b) Knowing how to separate what is from the psychotherapist and from the patient/client; (c) Recognising the theme as an integrative dimension of the human being; (d) Knowing how to listen; (e) Questioning the role of R/S in the life of the patients/clients; (f) Knowledge about the subject matter; and (g) Not imposing knowledge, practices or doctrine. These practices were revealed as the skills, competencies and knowledge needed to deal with the subject and highlight important references to think about the theme in psychotherapy, guiding the formation of new professionals and updating practising psychotherapists.