Trauma-Informed Knowledge and Practices in School Psychology: A Pilot Study and Review

Growing acknowledgement that adverse childhood experiences are widespread and can threaten healthy development has led to advocacy for schools to systematically incorporate trauma-sensitive practices and policies. While the background and training of school psychologists would seem to make them the ideal professionals to lead such work, little is known regarding their preparedness to engage in these school-based practices. The current pilot study examines the experiences, education and training, confidence and competence, current and desired roles, and perceived barriers and supports of school psychology trainers, trainees, and practitioners to engage in trauma-informed practices within schools. Results indicated that high majorities reported scant knowledge or competencies across domains of professional practice considered essential to trauma-informed care delivery. Findings and implications are discussed.     

‘It’s bit of an eye opener’ – A qualitative study of women’s attitudes towards tanning,sun protection and a facial morphing intervention

Objective: Skin cancer is to a large degree behaviourally preventable, meaning that evidence-based interventions have scope to make a difference. Previous research indicates that appearance-based interventions such as facial morphing may be more effective than health-based interventions, and that it can personalise the issue of skin cancer.

Method: This study examined attitudes to UV exposure, as well as reactions to a facial morphing intervention, through interviews with 25 women aged 35 years and older.

Results: Thematic analysis revealed four themes; two regarding attitudes to UV exposure (confusion and contradiction, and change and continuity), and two relating to the facial morphing intervention (negative reactions to UV-exposed photo and positive outcomes of the intervention). Women experienced a number of barriers to adopting safer behaviour in the sun; their current attitudes to UV exposure had been shaped by available information sources throughout their ageing. They expressed negative evaluations of the UV photo, which fed directly into motivation to reduce UV exposure.

Conclusions: These results can be interpreted along the lines of goal-directed behaviour. This type of intervention has the potential to reduce UV exposure among this participant group, something that needs to be further investigated with randomised control trials.     

Pregnant Genetic Counselors in an Era of Advanced Genomic Tests: What Do the Experts Test Prenatally?

Advanced genomic tests in pregnancy, such as chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA), provide higher detection rates yet often produce probabilistic and uncertain information. This study aimed to understand how the most knowledgeable patients, i.e., pregnant genetic counselors, act in their own pregnancies, thereby gaining insight into the impact of patients’ knowledge on the diagnostic process. Seventeen interviews were conducted with Israeli genetic counselors, either pregnant or up to 2 years post-pregnancy. A third of the participants chose not to have CMA while two thirds underwent it despite no detected abnormalities. Although knowledge was the main motivation, counselors varied in the desired degree of information. Two thirds of those opting for CMA wished to have all findings identified whereas roughly one third asked for a targeted platform seeking to avoid uncertain results. Counselors were not quick to adopt new tests such as whole-exome sequencing. Being knowledgeable was described as promoting a sense of control yet also being a source of stress and moral dilemmas. While the basic premise of informed consent is crucial, it does not always make things easier for educated patients. Consequently, raising levels of patient knowledge is only a limited step forward in the search for best practice.     

Attachment patterns moderate the relation between coping flexibility and illness acceptance among kidney transplant recipients

Background and Objectives: Post-transplant kidney recipients may experience psychological concerns which have been associated with negative health behaviors. Illness acceptance might have an important role in this process. In line with the Conservation of Resources Theory (COR), the current study aimed to examine the relationship between coping flexibility, attachment patterns and illness acceptance among post-transplant kidney recipients, and to evaluate whether attachment patterns moderate the link between coping flexibility and illness acceptance.

Design: The study employed a cross-sectional design.

Methods: Ninety-four post-transplant kidney recipients completed questionnaires assessing demographic and medical characteristics, illness acceptance, coping flexibility and attachment patterns.

Results: Our results indicated that coping flexibility was positively associated with illness acceptance. Moreover, attachment moderated this link, as high coping flexibility was associated with increased illness acceptance among individuals with low levels of attachment anxiety, a finding which was not significant when high levels of anxiety were reported.

Conclusions: This study highlights the potential importance of building greater flexibility in order to enhance illness acceptance among kidney transplants recipients. Moreover, the role of insecure attachment patterns in health-related outcomes among kidney transplants recipients is emphasized.     

Predicting ADHD Symptoms in Adolescence from Early Childhood Temperament Traits

Extreme levels of certain temperament traits can be early markers of different developmental pathways of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the long-term utility of using these traits as predictors of ADHD is not fully known. This study includes 64 male adolescents (M age = 13.5), who have been followed since birth as part of a longitudinal study. The primary aim was to test effortful control (EC), activity level, and anger, measured in early childhood – both with mother’s reports and laboratory assessments –as predictors of ADHD symptoms in adolescence. Further, we investigated the specificity of this prediction to the different ADHD symptom domains. The results demonstrated that early temperament dimensions of EC and activity level were predictive of ADHD symptoms about 10 years later, when the participants reached adolescence. Moreover, activity level showed specificity only to hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms whereas EC was a predictor of the two symptom domains. Anger had a predictive correlation with ADHD symptoms; however, it did not have a unique predictive contribution. These results emphasize the relevance of EC and activity level in the developmental course of ADHD. Identification of early risk factors can lead to more efficient design and implementation of intervention programs.     

From Knowing to Discovering: Some Suggestions for Work with Anorexic Patients

ABSTRACT

In this article I offer some technical suggestions for psychoanalytic work with anorexic patients. Although focused on an outpatient setting, certain parts of the article will also have utility for inpatient work. As an outpatient therapist working with an anorexic patient, especially in the acute stages of the illness, there are case management demands that need immediate attention. The setting up the particular frame is required to augment the therapeutic work. The most urgent pressure felt by the clinician is the precariousness of the patient’s physical health. This can be experienced as if there is a gun to the head of the therapist. This deathly force must be carefully and constantly grappled with, and particularly so in the most symptomatic stages of the illness. The clinician must work with a patient who might die at any time, yet an anorexic patient cannot be managed the way a suicidal patient would be. The question of technique in this situation is a complex one. Above all, the patient must be met where s/he is. Notwithstanding the uniqueness of each patient there are some specific themes that often arise in the acute stage of the illness. Certain technical suggestions are offered.     

Religiosity,Meaning in Life and Suicidal Tendency Among Jews

The study examines the impact that meaning in life, or lack thereof, has on suicidal tendencies among youth, as well as the nexus between level of religiosity, meaning in life and suicidal tendencies. Subjects were 450 students from both Jewish religious and Jewish secular schools aged 15–18. Findings: a significant and negative correlation was found between a sense of meaning in life and suicidal tendencies, beyond gender or level of religiosity. In addition, no difference was found in level of suicidal tendency between Jewish religious and Jewish secular youth; however, among Jewish religious teens, a lower level of depression was reported in comparison with their secular peers. The study therefore concludes that meaning in life is the dominant variable in minimizing suicidal tendencies among youth. The results of this study may promote the establishment of prevention, intervention and therapy plans, especially in the age range that is crucial for suicide. Such programs should be based upon finding meaning in life.     

Implementation intention and planning interventions in Health Psychology: Recommendations from the Synergy Expert Group for research and practice

The current article details a position statement and recommendations for future research and practice on planning and implementation intentions in health contexts endorsed by the Synergy Expert Group. The group comprised world-leading researchers in health and social psychology and behavioural medicine who convened to discuss priority issues in planning interventions in health contexts and develop a set of recommendations for future research and practice. The expert group adopted a nominal groups approach and voting system to elicit and structure priority issues in planning interventions and implementation intentions research. Forty-two priority issues identified in initial discussions were further condensed to 18 key issues, including definitions of planning and implementation intentions and 17 priority research areas. Each issue was subjected to voting for consensus among group members and formed the basis of the position statement and recommendations. Specifically, the expert group endorsed statements and recommendations in the following areas: generic definition of planning and specific definition of implementation intentions, recommendations for better testing of mechanisms, guidance on testing the effects of moderators of planning interventions, recommendations on the social aspects of planning interventions, identification of the preconditions that moderate effectiveness of planning interventions and recommendations for research on how people use plans.     

Functional connectivity dynamics during film viewing reveal common networks for different emotional experiences

Recent theoretical and empirical work has highlighted the role of domain-general, large-scale brain networks in generating emotional experiences. These networks are hypothesized to process aspects of emotional experiences that are not unique to a specific emotional category (e.g., “sadness,” “happiness”), but rather that generalize across categories. In this article, we examined the dynamic interactions (i.e., changing cohesiveness) between specific domain-general networks across time while participants experienced various instances of sadness, fear, and anger. We used a novel method for probing the network connectivity dynamics between two salience networks and three amygdala-based networks. We hypothesized, and found, that the functional connectivity between these networks covaried with the intensity of different emotional experiences. Stronger connectivity between the dorsal salience network and the medial amygdala network was associated with more intense ratings of emotional experience across six different instances of the three emotion categories examined. Also, stronger connectivity between the dorsal salience network and the ventrolateral amygdala network was associated with more intense ratings of emotional experience across five out of the six different instances. Our findings demonstrate that a variety of emotional experiences are associated with dynamic interactions of domain-general neural systems.     

Does the type of prompt affect the accuracy of information provided by alleged victims of abuse in forensic interviews?

Forty‐three victims of sexual abuse averaging 9.78 years of age and 52 youths who admitted abusing them were interviewed about the abusive incidents. Forensically relevant details provided by the victims were categorised as confirmed, contradicted or ignored by the perpetrators. Most (66.6%) of the details were ignored, but details were more likely to be confirmed when they were elicited using invitations (open‐ended free‐recall prompts) rather than focused prompts. However, similar effects were not evident with respect to contradictions. The results support predictions that information elicited using free‐recall prompts is more likely to be accurate than information elicited using focused prompts. Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.