Community-Based Interventions in New York City After 9/11

Abstract

The horrors of 9/11 have created tremendous psychosocial needs in the population of New York. For all major providers in this field, this has meant taking up the challenge of learning within the new situation, creating new frameworks for intervention, and implementing programs that previously had not been a part of the traditional social services environment. In this article, we will describe the process of transforming this challenge into an opportunity for organizational, professional and conceptual growth.     

Body Temperature Influence on Time Perception

The chemical clock hypothesis implies a causal link between body temperature and the perception of duration. A strict interpretation of this construct requires a common slope value in an Arrhenius plot that relates time to temperature for every individual tested. Previous studies testing this proposition have confirmed a general relationship for data summed across multiple subjects. However, the same studies raise doubts as to whether this relationship holds for each and every individual tested. Unfortunately, these investigations have been limited by methodological constraints, thus, one could argue that the strong isomorphism intrinsic to the chemical clock hypothesis has yet to be fairly tested. In the present experiment, I sought to distinguish the effects of selective head temperature changes on the estimation of duration. Nonlinear decreases in estimated duration were observed with ascending deep auditory canal temperature. These findings support the contention of a thermally stable region of temporal perception bounded by conditions in which temporal estimates directly depend on body temperature. In contradicting physiological adequacy as an explanatory construct, the present results suggest a direct relationship between time perception and the homeothermic platform. I compare these results with earlier findings concerning the chemical clock concept and examine respective discrepancies as a basis for a fuller understanding of a temporal phenomenon that is frequently referred to as me internal clock.     

THE FREUDIAN UNCONSCIOUS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COGNITIVE ORIENTATION

The essence of the story of King Oedipus forms a cornerstone of psychoanalysis since Freud. Oedipality means the painful experience of the child who is left outside the mutual relationship between the parents and the child's wish to kill one parent and marry the other one. The life-long oedipal attitude and relationship develop in dyadic and triadic relationships. An example is given of a boy whose dyadic relationships are threatened by triads, and whose triads are threatened by integrated oedipality. Only after the oedipal situation is worked through does it become possible to live and love in reality, and to maintain manifold relationships. This development is also reflected in thinking, which only slowly develops into multidimensional levels of symbolization and thought. Prior to this development, we continue to “marry dyads” and “kill triads” and remain driven by dyadic and triadic wishes in all fields of our life.     

Effects of September 11 on patients with obsessive compulsive disorder

Effects of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA were investigated in 25 patients with obsessive compulsive disorder and 27 normal controls 4–6 months after the attacks. Participants completed a 15‐item questionnaire to retrospectively assess changes in mood, cognition, behavior and somatic complaints since September 11, 2001. Overall, both patients with obsessive compulsive disorder and normal controls reported minor changes in mood, behavior and somatic complaints. However, normal controls reported severe to extreme initial impact, slightly more cognitive symptoms (uncertainty about the future, intrusive recollections and greater desire to be with loved ones) and a slightly greater degree of overall impact on emotion and behavior at 1, 2 and 3 months after September 11 than did patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. Results support previous research that has found a relatively minor lasting impact of September 11 on both clinical and normal populations. Differences in cognition and coping mechanisms between normal controls and patients with obsessive compulsive disorder are proposed.     

Parents' Differential Treatment of Adolescent Siblings in African American Families

Research on European and European American families suggests that parents' differential treatment of siblings has negative implications for youths' adjustment, but few studies have explored these dynamics in minority samples. This study examined parents' differential acceptance and conflict in a sample of mothers, fathers, and two adolescent siblings in 179 African American families who were interviewed on three annual occasions. In an effort to replicate findings from European and European American samples, we assessed the longitudinal associations between differential treatment and adolescent adjustment and tested three sibling characteristics (birth order, gender, and dyad gender composition) as potential moderators of these linkages. To illuminate the sociocultural context of differential treatment and its implications, we also explored parents' cultural socialization practices and experiences of financial stress as potential moderators of these links. Multilevel models revealed that, controlling for average parent–child relationship qualities, decreases in parental acceptance and increases in parent–youth conflict over time—relative to the sibling—were associated with increases in youths' risky behavior and depressive symptoms. Links between differential treatment and adjustment were not evident, however, when mothers engaged in high levels of cultural socialization and in families under high financial stress. The discussion highlights the significance of sociocultural factors in family dynamics.     

A Multi‐Family Group Intervention for Adolescent Depression: The BEST MOOD Program

Depression is the most common mental disorder for young people, and it is associated with educational underachievement, self‐harm, and suicidality. Current psychological therapies for adolescent depression are usually focused only on individual‐level change and often neglect family or contextual influences. The efficacy of interventions may be enhanced with a broader therapeutic focus on family factors such as communication, conflict, support, and cohesion. This article describes a structured multi‐family group approach to the treatment of adolescent depression: Behaviour Exchange Systems Therapy for adolescent depression (BEST MOOD). BEST MOOD is a manualized intervention that is designed to address both individual and family factors in the treatment of adolescent depression. BEST MOOD adopts a family systems approach that also incorporates psychoeducation and elements of attachment theories. The program consists of eight multifamily group therapy sessions delivered over 2 hours per week, where parents attend the first four sessions and young people and siblings join from week 5. The program design is specifically aimed to engage youth who are initially resistant to treatment and to optimize youth and family mental health outcomes. This article presents an overview of the theoretical model, session content, and evaluations to date, and provides a case study to illustrate the approach.     

幼儿箱庭基本特征的初步研究

研究选取了10名幼儿（3～6岁）,对他们的初次箱庭的基本特征进行研究,结果如下：给幼儿介绍箱庭时通常需要他们的父母或朋友在场,利用玩具在引导幼儿熟悉箱庭时发挥重要作用;幼儿箱庭制作时间都比较长;玩具选择以动物类为主;制作过程中频繁移动玩县;空间使用以“占满”类型为主;大多数幼儿制作时都不动沙;作品主题以“无明确主题”为主,有明确主题的主要为“动物世界类”和“家庭生活类”;制作过程中幼儿主动与见证人之间的互动频繁。     

African American cultural history and reflections on Jung in the African Diaspora

Racism is defined as a psychopathology and the ground in which the covenant of whiteness is rooted and mirrored in the system of apartheid structured by American Constitutional Jurisprudence between 1857 and 1954. This historical period overshadowed Carl Jung's visit to America between 1909 and 1937. The spirit of the times and practices of racism coloured Jung's views, attitudes, and theories about African Americans, just as colonialism coloured his attitudes toward Africa and Africans. Consequently Jung failed to see the African Diaspora and the extraordinary intellectual and artistic period of the Harlem Renaissance (1919‐1929). Its introduction here foregrounds the exceptionalism of African Americans and the cultural continuity of African ancestry. This exceptionalism was not seen by Jung and there have been no attempts to redress its omission from analytical psychology and other sub‐disciplines of Western psychology. Jung's theories of personality and psychoanalysis and his negative projections about primitivism among Africans and African American ‘Negroes’ would have been mediated by knowledge of a legislated American apartheid and the Harlem Renaissance which occurred within the barriers of apartheid. In this paper I posit that culture, kinship libido, and the African principle of Ubuntu are healing modalities that play a critical role in instinct and the relational ground of human psychology and biology, from which culture as an environmental expression constellates around common goals of the human species. Cultural equivalencies and expressions within the wisdom traditions and mythologies of the Africa Diaspora are considered. Specifically, the Bantu principle of Ubuntu or ‘humanity’ is identified as the relational ground in African cultures, while the Kemetic‐Egyptian deity Maat, as an archetypal anima figure and the religio‐mythology offer a transcendent position from which to critique the inequities and constitutional jurisprudence that structured American apartheid. Maat is the personification of truth, justice, balance and weighing of the heart in orderly judicial processes. In her we find the alignment of the spirit and matter in the law and judgement. The paper concludes with reflections on pathways toward healing the psychopathology of racism and recommendations to enhance clinical training and practice.