Improving Experience in Personal Social Systems through Family Constellation Seminars: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

This study examined the efficacy of family constellation seminars (FCSs) on individuals' experience in their personal social systems, especially the experience of belonging, autonomy, accord, and confidence. We conducted a single‐blind, stratified and balanced, randomized controlled trial. Participants were 208 adults (M = 48 years, SD = 10, 79% women) who were randomly allocated either to the intervention group (3‐day FCSs; 64 active participants, 40 observing participants) or to the wait‐list group (64 active participants, 40 observing participants). Change was measured short‐term (2‐week and 4‐month follow‐up) using the Experience In Social Systems Questionnaire, personal domain (EXIS.pers). EXIS.pers is a new outcome measure being applied for the first time in evaluation research. In addition, we used interpersonal scales derived from established measures (Outcome Questionnaire, OQ‐45; Tool for the Evaluation of the Psychotherapeutic Progress, FEP). The average person in the intervention group showed improved experience in personal social systems, as compared with approximately 73% of the wait‐list group after 2 weeks (total score: Cohen's d = .61, p = .000) and 69% of the wait‐list group after 4 months (total score: d = .53, p = .000). The results were confirmed in per‐protocol analyses (n = 191) by the results of the EXIS.pers dimensions (Belonging, Autonomy, Accord, and Confidence) and the interpersonal scales derived from the OQ‐45 and FEP. No adverse events were reported. This RCT provides first evidence that FCSs tend to positively influence participants' experience in their social systems.     

Perceived ethnic superiority and immigrants' attitudes towards multiculturalism and the national majority

Despite the recent multidimensional conceptualisations of social identities, previous research on the relationship between ingroup identification and outgroup attitudes has approached the former mainly through the strength of cognitive‐emotional identification. In our study among Russian‐speaking immigrants living in Finland (N = 312), we focused on the direct and interactive effects of the strength of ethnic identification and perceived ethnic superiority on immigrants' support for multiculturalism and outgroup attitudes towards national majority. First, we found perceived ethnic superiority to be directly and negatively associated with outgroup attitudes. Second, we found a positive relationship between ethnic identification and support for multiculturalism only when ethnic superiority was not perceived. The results highlight the different ramifications of high ethnic identification and perceived superiority and speak for the destructive attitudinal effects of the latter.     

Evangelism and Popular Culture

This article reports on the work and the deliberations of the United Evangelical Mission's Working Group on Evangelism and Popular Culture. Working with rough heuristic categories, the group identifies Protestantism's discomfort with popular cultural expressions and finds it rooted in Protestant history and modernist cultural theory. Using a postmodernist approach that looks at ways of meaning making in popular culture, the group calls for theological discernment and the identification of the work of the Holy Spirit within popular cultural expressions. Following J. K. A. Smith, liturgies are identified as shaping human identities. Secular, thick liturgies are often far more influential than Christian thin practices. Popular culture is a mirror of groundbreaking social change, but classical Protestant churches still follow the organizational principles of the 19th century. The group argues that to evangelize within popular culture, these churches will have to change their shape and structures, becoming missional but not consumer‐driven.     

Personality traits measured at baseline can predict academic performance in upper secondary school three years late

The aim of the present study was to explore the ability of personality to predict academic performance in a longitudinal study of a Swedish upper secondary school sample. Academic performance was assessed throughout a three‐year period via final grades from the compulsory school and upper secondary school. The Big Five personality factors (Costa & McCrae, 1992 ) – particularly Conscientiousness and Neuroticism – were found to predict overall academic performance, after controlling for general intelligence. Results suggest that Conscientiousness, as measured at the age of 16, can explain change in academic performance at the age of 19. The effect of Neuroticism on Conscientiousness indicates that, as regarding getting good grades, it is better to be a bit neurotic than to be stable. The study extends previous work by assessing the relationship between the Big Five and academic performance over a three‐year period. The results offer educators avenues for improving educational achievement.     

Implicit commitment in theory choice

The proper evaluation of a theory’s virtues seems to require taking into account what the theory is indirectly or implicitly committed to, in addition to what it explicitly says. Most extant proposals for criteria of theory choice in the literature spell out the relevant notion of implicit commitment via some notion of entailment. I show that such criteria behave implausibly in application to theories that differ over matters of entailment. A recent defence by Howard Peacock of such a criterion against this objection is examined and rejected. I go on to a develop a better proposal on which, roughly speaking, a theory is counted committed to a claim if and only if its best fully explicit extension is explicitly committed to the claim. Such extensions in turn are evaluated by ordinary standards of theory choice adapted to the case of theories assumed to articulate their intended content in a fully explicit fashion.     

Choice Blindness and Preference Change: You Will Like This Paper Better If You (Believe You) Chose to Read It!

Choice blindness is the finding that participants both often fail to notice mismatches between their decisions and the outcome of their choice and, in addition, endorse the opposite of their chosen alternative. But do these preference reversals also carry over to future choices and ratings? To investigate this question, we gave participants the task of choosing which of a pair of faces they found most attractive. Unknown to them, we sometimes used a card trick to exchange one face for the other. Both decision theory and common sense strongly suggest that most people would easily notice such a radical change in the outcome of a choice. But that was not the case: no more than a third of the exchanges were detected by the participants. We also included a second round of choices using the same face pairs, and two stages of post‐choice attractiveness ratings of the faces. This way we were able to measure preference strength both as choice consistency and by looking at measures of rating differences between chosen and rejected options. We found that the initially rejected faces were chosen more frequently in the second choice, and the perceived attractiveness of these faces was increased even in uncoupled individual ratings at the end of the experiment. This result is discussed in relation to Chen and Risen's recent criticism of the Free Choice Paradigm, as it shows that choices can affect future preferences. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Übertragung und Gegenübertragung in Verhaltenstherapie und Psychoanalyse

Most psychotherapists and researchers agree that a good relationship essentially contributes to therapeutic change. The psychoanalytic concepts transference and countertransference which describe fundamental aspects of the psychotherapeutic relationship have now become integrated into behavior therapy. These concepts, however, are used differently in psychoanalysis as well as in behavior therapy. This makes the communication between psychotherapists coming from different orientations difficult. Therefore, a research approach which describes the important verbal and nonverbal elements of a helpful therapeutic interaction independently from therapeutic orientation could help to evaluate their effectiveness in different psychotherapeutic methods. In this way a culture of integration into psychotherapy could be encouraged.     

Ungedeckte psychotherapeutische Bedarfe bei Stimulanzienkonsumenten

Background

Despite changes in the regulations concerning outpatient psychotherapy in Germany, relatively few patients with substance use disorders receive this type of treatment.

Objectives

The results of a recent study among stimulant users are taken as an example to illustrate the psychotherapeutic needs of patients with substance use disorders.

Materials and methods

A total of 392 individuals with active use of amphetamine and/or methamphetamine were included using a broad range of recruitment strategies. In a mixed methods approach, qualitative as well as quantitative data were gathered regarding the history of substance use, the motives for use, and traumatic experiences during childhood.

Results

Psychological distress was a frequent motive even at the initiation of stimulant use. About two thirds of the participants (65.1?%) reported at least one form of childhood trauma (sexual, physical or emotional abuse, emotional or physical neglect).

Conclusion

The findings suggest a high need for psychotherapy among patients with substance use disorders. It seems important to further improve the information as well as the training of psychotherapists to work with these clients.     

Assessments in Psychotherapy with Suicidal Patients: The Precedence of Alliance Work

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - In this article the aim was to explore how therapists handle suicide risk assessment in connection with patient’s experience of alliance in...     

Effects of an Online Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Intervention on Children’s Quality of Life

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The present study examined if an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)–based online intervention for parents had indirect effects on their...