Directed Forgetting: Short-term Memory or Conditioned Response?

The Psychological Record - Previous researchers have interpreted the phenomenon of directed forgetting in terms of animal short-term memory and rehearsal. An alternative explanation-that directed...     

Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms and Externalizing Behaviors across Adolescence: Associations with Histories of Suicide Attempt and Ideation in Early Adulthood

We examined associations between adolescent problem trajectories and suicide risk outcomes in 361 community participants. Depressive symptoms (self‐report) and externalizing behaviors (parent report) were assessed six times from grades 5 to 10. Parallel process linear growth curves indicated that lifetime suicide attempt history assessed to age 25 was associated with higher intercept (grade 5) and slope (increases from grades 5 to 10) of depressive symptoms and higher slope of externalizing behaviors. Both problem intercepts predicted suicidal ideation at ages 18 to 25 years. Adolescent depressive and externalizing symptom trajectories showed independent associations with suicide risk. Preventive intervention that occurs prior to the developmental period in which suicidal thoughts and behaviors show peak prevalence is expected to prevent suicide.     

What Changes in Therapy? Who Changes?

SUMMARY

A central component of therapeutic change involves facilitating the capacity to move and be moved by the other. Another way of saying this might be that change entails experiencing a greater freedom of relational movement. The question of who and what actually changes in the process of therapy is the focus of the three vignettes that follow. They highlight, among other things, the recognition and acknowledgment of mutuality as an essential force within the relational matrix and the ever-changing landscape that this creates. Each of these examples of a change process bears, as well, a particular stamp of its own, and thus speaks to the unique personality of every therapeutic dyad.     

Trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses relating to influenza A(H7N9) over the winter of 2014-15 in Hong Kong

Objective: To explore trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses over one influenza A(H7N9) epidemic wave, and examine the interplays among social norm influence, disease worry and protective behaviours.

Methods: Participants were 464 adults who completed the baseline and at least two follow-up assessments on their H7N9-related Perceived Susceptibility, Perceived Severity, Perceived Efficacy, Worry, Social Norms influence and Protective Behaviours in a five-phase longitudinal survey over one H7N9 epidemic wave. Latent growth modelling (LGM) identified trajectories of these psycho-behavioural responses while multi-process LGM examined the inter-relationships among trajectories of Social Norms influence, Worry and Protective Behaviours.

Results: Trajectories of Perceived Susceptibility, Worry, Social Norms and Protective Behaviours increased initially but declined as the epidemic decayed, while Perceived Severity increased linearly and Perceived Efficacy remained stable across the epidemic. Change in Social Norms influence was significantly associated with change in Worry (β?=?0.65) which was significantly associated with change in Protective Behaviours (β?=?0.62).

Conclusion: The public’s threat appraisal but not efficacy appraisal may have been well-informed by epidemic-related information. Social Norms may be important contributors of public emotional response to an epidemic. Communication via social networks during an epidemic could be important for regulating public emotional response and guiding their behavioural change.     

Creative Moments in Relational-Cultural Therapy

SUMMARY

Creative moments in therapy are those occasions when something new and growth-fostering occurs. This article offers three illustrations and a discussion of these characteristics. It is based on a panel discussion held at the Stone Center-Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Hospital “Learning from Women Conference” in April, 2000.