Strengthening doctoral supervision in a Doctor of Psychology (DPsych) Specialisation in Child and Adolescent Psychology

Supervision differs in PhD and DPsych contexts. PhD supervision focuses on students' pursuit of a career in academia, with the emphasis on research. In a DPsych framework, the focus of supervision is to assist students, who are experienced practitioners in a professional field, to complete a structured course and a research component. The aim of the article is to reflect on the application of supervision principles, models, metaphors and supervisory styles within a DPsych context. This article presents a case illustration of supervision in a DPsych programme (with specialisation in child and adolescence, or DPsych Child) presented at the University of the Free State in South Africa. Supervision focuses on developing the DPsych students' doctoral identity so that they, as scientist-practitioners, could contribute ultimately to the professional context of child psychology and apply theoretical knowledge to complex challenges. The article proposes that research on supervision processes and practices within a DPsych Child context could complement explorations into the value of the implementation of the scientist-practitioner model and thus augment quality assurance of the DPsych programme.     

A Bibliometric History of the Journal of Psychology Between 1936 and 2015

The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied is a leading international journal in psychology dating back to 1935. This study examines its publications since its creation utilizing a bibliometric analysis. The primary objective is to provide a complete overview of the key factors affecting the journal. This analysis includes such key issues as the publication and citation structure of the journal, its most cited articles, and the leading authors, institutions, and countries referenced in the journal. The work uses the Scopus database to classify the bibliographic material. Additionally, the analysis provides a graphical mapping of the bibliographic data by using visualization of similarities viewer software. This software uses several bibliometric techniques including co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords. The Journal of Psychology is strongly connected to most of the current leading journals in psychology, and currently has a 5-year impact factor of 1.77 (Thomson Reuters, 2015 Reuters, T. (2015). InCites? Journal Citation Reports®. Web of Science. [Google Scholar] Journal Citation Reports).     

Attitudes toward Out‐groups and the perception of consensus: All feet do not wear one shoe

Although social perception research has been carried out across a number of diverse domains, to the best of our knowledge, studies have not directly assessed the relationship between attitudes toward the out‐group and perceptions of community support for those attitudes. In the present research, we report the findings of a study conducted in Western Australia using data collected from 653 participants from three different locations. The main thrust of our study was the accuracy of beliefs about consensus as it related to attitudes toward two marginalized groups: Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers. With respect to their attitudes toward these two groups, our respondents were placed in seven categories corresponding to their responses to our seven point attitude scales. Three main findings emerged. First, respondents at all seven levels overestimated community support for their views with respect to both Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers. Second, as respondents in both groups became more rejecting, their estimates of community support progressively increased in a linear fashion. Third, respondents in the more negative categories were significantly less accurate in their estimates than those in the more positive categories. How these findings might contribute to programmes designed to reduce prejudice is discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Functions of attitudes towards ethnic groups: Effects of level of abstraction

A direct measure of attitude function was used to examine symbolic and instrumental elements of racial attitudes as a function of level of abstraction. Two studies were conducted in different countries, in which participants explained their thoughts and feelings concerning a specific (e.g., “Indians” or “Chinese”) or abstract (e.g., “Ethnic Minorities”) attitude object, and then rated the importance of each thought or feeling. A coding scheme was used to record the attitude function represented by each thought or feeling. In both studies, symbolic functions were more present for the abstract target than the specific targets. These differences have important implications for interventions and theories that address prejudice. They also provide evidence that functions of attitudes towards broader social groups cannot be regarded as the central tendency of functions toward subgroups, which is an important potential caveat to theories of social categorization.     

Aggressiveness and dominance in captive cock red grouse

A method for measuring the aggressiveness of captive cock red grouse is described. A cock's aggressiveness varied according to season, type of cage and social environment. A method for ranking the dominance order of cocks in a group is also described. Dominance ranks remained stable for up to two years. Correlations between the aggressiveness of isolated cocks and their dominance ranks when in a group were positive but weak. Aggressiveness and dominance should be clearly distinguished. Both aggressiveness and dominance were related to the size of cock's combs, and implants of testosterone increased all three. In situations where a cock's aggressiveness changed, comb size changed in the same direction. The aggressive behaviour of captive cocks shows several major parallels with that of wild cocks.     

The Relationship Between Violent Fantasy and Alcohol Misuse in Aggressive Behaviours

Alcohol misuse and cognitions supportive of violent behaviour have been linked with higher likelihood of engaging in aggressive actions. The present study investigated the interactive effects of alcohol abuse and violent fantasy on aggressive behaviour. A community sample of 279 adults recruited from South East Queensland completed the Aggression Questionnaire, Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, Scheduled of Imagined Violence, and the Marlowe‐Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Controlling for age, gender, and social desirability response, participants who acknowledged fantasies about violence and higher levels of alcohol consumption reported higher levels of aggression. Importantly, the interactive effects of alcohol and fantasy indicated that the contribution of violent fantasies was greatest among individuals with high levels of alcohol use compared with individuals with low alcohol use. The current findings, in conjunction with recent experimental evidence, highlight potential concerns regarding the additive effects of alcohol and violent fantasy.     

Alexithymia and aspects of dreaming: Differential associations of alexithymia facets with dream variables

Research on aspects of dreaming associated with alexithymia has yielded mixed results. The present study recruited a young adult online sample of 577 participants who completed validated indices of alexithymia, emotion suppression, negative moods, and eight aspects of dreaming, with a focus on evaluating a counterintuitive previous finding that alexithymia and two of its core facets were associated with greater self-reported typical emotional intensity of dreams. Total alexithymia and facet scores showed differential relationships to aspects of dreaming including dream recall frequency, emotionality, meaningfulness, nightmare frequency, nightmare distress, usefulness of dreams in problem-solving and creativity, and learning about oneself through dreams. Planned hierarchical regression controlling for demographics, alcohol use, and dream recall frequency indicated that the difficulties identifying feelings (DIF) facet of alexithymia was a significant positive predictor of dream emotionality, whereas the externally oriented thinking (EOT) facet was a significant negative predictor. Stress, but not emotion suppression, mediated the positive relationship between DIF and dream emotionality. The likely role of dream emotionality in higher ratings of nightmare distress, dream meaningfulness, and learning about oneself through dreams among those with higher DIF scores is noted, along with other findings and the strengths and limitations of the study.     

Editorial

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to address the issue of trust in the therapeutic relationship from the counsellor's perspective, with a particular reference to working with drug addicts. It is a personal reflection on previous work with drug addicts in which a cognitive-behavioural approach was used. The comparison will be made, in a post hoc, reflective manner, on the issue of trust from a very different perspective; namely psychodynamic. It is suggested that the counsellor's trust in their own ability to contain the patient's often projected anxiety, is a central element or variable that can be seriously disrupted by the process of projective identification. And, moreover, it may have some explanatory power for the choice of method of working with this particular client population, that the issue of trust and its containment says as much, if not more, about us as counsellors, as it does about the client. It is argued that our anxieties may lead us to adopt a certain course of action in the therapy, rather than to address the possible meaning of these anxieties in terms of the relationship regarding the clients' needs.     

Psychoanalysis,violence and rage-type murder

Abstract

This paper presents and explores some ideas about the ways that children referred to a London borough learning support service, their teachers and school managers can be helped by a specialist teacher making use of her training as a psychodynamic counsellor and child psychotherapist. This paper is based on the premise that conditions necessary for feeling secure and establishing the capacity to think and learn by experience are based upon the infant's experience of a facilitating maternal environment coupled with the infant's ability to engage in this relationship. By extension, children need to feel safe enough in order to take advantage of the learning and social opportunities offered in the context of the school environment. The author draws upon psychoanalytic theories and developmental psychology as useful frameworks for understanding the continuing impact of infantile experience upon the learning process. The author also draws attention to the context of her work as an area support teacher, concluding that prevailing political demands for rapid change hinder the capacity of educational support services, schools and individual staff from mediating effectively the emotional demands of children trying to engage in the difficult task of learning.

One starts somewhere -where the learner is. And one starts whenever the student arrives to begin his career as a learner.