On Revolutionizing the Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy

The original concepts psychological hurt and therapeutic catharsis are proposed as the basis for a revolutionary change in the theory and practice of psychotherapy. Psychological hurt, understood as any residual interference with psychological functioning from an adverse event(s), is proposed as the irreducible cause of any such difficulty. Therapeutic catharsis is proposed as the optimal healing process for psychological hurt. Such a transformational view of the theory and practice of psychotherapy is deemed as necessary because of the lack of unequivocal answers to the following fundamental questions: What causes psychological problems? What resolves them in the most optimal way?     

Worry in Adults and Children: Developmental Differences in the Importance of Probability and Cost Judgments

This study investigated developmental differences in the relationship of probability and cost estimates to worrying. Adults, younger children (M age = 8.67 years) and older children (M age = 11.06 years) rated the extent to which they worry about a list of negative social and physical outcomes and provided subjective probability and cost estimates for the same outcomes. Adults reported worrying more about social outcomes and rated them as less ‘bad’ (or costly) but more likely to occur than physical outcomes. Unlike adults, children in both age groups reported worrying more about physical outcomes. However, similar to adults, they also rated social outcomes as less ‘bad’ but more likely to occur than physical outcomes. Regression analyses showed that probability ratings were the best predictors of worry in adults, both probability and cost ratings equally predicted worry in older children, but only cost ratings predicted worry in younger children.

Predicting OCB Role Definitions: Exchanges with the Organization and Psychological Attachment

Purpose  To investigate the relationship between trust in the organization and employees’ exchange beliefs (i.e., exchange ideology) and both psychological attachment and role definitions. Design/Methodology/Approach  A field study based on data from 204 line and supervisory employees examined the relationships between the predictors and work role boundaries. Two important mechanisms, psychological attachment (organizational commitment) and job satisfaction were examined as mediator and moderator, respectively, to the relationship between trust and exchange ideology and role definitions. Findings  Results indicate that both relation- and exchange-based variables predict enlarged roles (i.e., employees’ perceived organizational citizenship behaviors as in-role). Additionally, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between the predictor and the outcome. Job satisfaction moderated the relationship between trust and role definition. Implications  Work role boundaries are important in the contemporary workplace, where employees are oftentimes required to enlarge their behavioral set. We provide evidence for the importance of managing the relationship with the organization (through high levels of trust) and making sure employees construe their exchanges with the organization as more open. Such knowledge may help design interventions to increase employee trust, and select employees with favorable exchange ideologies. Originality/Value  This is one of the first studies examining both relationship- and exchange-based variables as predictors of role definitions, and clarifies possible mechanisms (mediation through psychological attachment) and the role of job satisfaction as moderator.     

Adult Attachment: Toward a Rapprochement of Methodological Cultures

ABSTRACT— Attachment security in adulthood is not profitably conceptualized as a single, monolithic construct. It is reflected both in adults' confidence in themselves and others in close relationships (as noted by social-personality psychologists) and in their ability to successfully construct a coherent life narrative about childhood experiences with primary attachment figures (as emphasized by developmental psychologists). Evidence suggests that measures tapping these forms of attachment-related variation represent the underlying structure of adult attachment similarly, in that both may be best captured by two continuously distributed, albeit correlated dimensions tapping anxiety and avoidance. Nonetheless, differing approaches to measuring adult security demonstrate weak empirical overlap, and emerging evidence suggests that each is associated with personal and interpersonal outcomes central to attachment theory in empirically distinct ways. Discussion focuses on how recent insights—in combination with needed experimental and longitudinal data—can help reconcile the developmental- and social-psychological literatures on adult attachment.     

Dialogical journal writing as ‘self‐therapy’: ‘I matter’

Aim: This case study of one woman's (Jane's) experience of dialogical journal writing presents a way of finding a ‘compassionate image’ for self‐therapy. Various theoretical analyses are indicated with Mindfulness‐based conceptualisations at the forefront. Methodology: Based on three recorded interviews, the narrative inquiry took place over a year. Methodologically, this paper is also one contribution to an ongoing debate about different research approaches in therapeutic writing research. Participants: This study took place in Aotearoa New Zealand, where both Jane and I are migrants. Discussion: This account draws on a report of self‐directed writing for well‐being, seen as an alternative to counselling or medication for depression and anxiety. It focuses on how a particular style of writing evolved and how the motivation to write continues.     

工读学校学生孤独感的特点及其与依恋风格的关系

采用《中学生孤独感问卷》和《关系问卷》,对上海市194名工读学校学生和112名普通学校学生进行调查,结果发现：工读学校学生与普通学校学生在孤独感各维度都存在显著或极其显著的差异;工读学校学生孤独感不存在显著的性别差异;在对不同依恋对象（母亲、父亲和同伴）的依恋风格中,工读学校学生的孤独感更容易受同伴依恋风格的影响。     

Evaluative priming from subliminal emotional words: Insights from event-related potentials and individual differences related to anxiety

The present ERP study investigated effects of subliminal emotional words on preference judgments about subsequent visual target stimuli (paintings, portraits). Each target was preceded by a masked 17-ms emotional adjective. Four classes of prime words were distinguished according to the combinations of positive/negative valence and high/low arousal. Targets were liked significantly more after positive-arousing primes (e.g., happy), relative to negative-arousing (brutal), positive-nonarousing (mild), and negative-nonarousing primes (lazy). In the target ERP, amplitude of right-hemisphere positive slow wave was increased after positive-arousing compared to negative-arousing primes. Evaluative priming effects on judgments and ERPs were more pronounced in high state-anxious participants. The results suggest that (1) there is indeed affective/semantic processing of unconscious words, (2) evaluative priming operates relatively late during target processing, (3) to be effective, prime words need to score high on the arousal dimension, and (4) individual differences in state anxiety modulate the susceptibility to subliminal evaluative priming.     

Negative Affectivity, Effortful Control, and Attention to Threat-Relevant Stimuli

There is increasing recognition of temperamental influences on risk for psychopathology. Whereas the link between the broad temperament construct of negative affectivity (NA) and problems associated with anxiety and depression is now well-established, the mechanisms through which this link operate are not well understood. One possibility involves interactions between reactive and effortful components of temperament, as well as cognitive factors, like attentional biases to threat stimuli. This study tested a predicted relation between high levels of NA, low levels of effortful control (EC), and an attentional bias toward threat in children. A sample of 104 4th through 12th graders, selected from a larger screening sample because they reported high or low levels of trait NA and EC, completed a dot probe detection task. Results indicated that EC moderated the relation between NA and attentional bias; only children with low levels of EC and high levels of NA showed an attentional bias to threat stimuli. This pattern was not moderated by grade level or age.

Socio‐emotional development: From infancy to young adulthood

Results from the Uppsala Longitudinal Study (ULS), which started in 1985, are reported in two sections. The first section gives a summary of longitudinal data from infancy to middle childhood (age 9 years; n = 96) concerning predictions of social functioning aspects from the theoretical perspectives of temperament, attachment, and health psychology (social factors). The second section presents the first results emanating from a follow‐up when participants were 21 years old (n = 85). The developmental roots of social anxiety symptoms were studied from the same perspectives as above, although with a special focus on the predictive power of the temperament trait of shyness/inhibition. Results for middle childhood outcomes showed that temperament characteristics were relevant for most outcomes, whereas the contribution of attachment was most convincingly shown in relation to social competence and personality. Social factors were found to have moderating functions, but direct effects were also shown, the most interesting perhaps being positive effects of non‐parental day care. Results from the 21‐year data confirmed the expected predictive relation from shyness/inhibition to symptoms of social anxiety and further showed this relation to be specific; the relation to symptoms of depression did not survive control for social anxiety, although the opposite was true. The broad analysis of predictor associations with social anxiety, showing the relevance of other temperament factors as well as interactive effects, again attested to the need for multi‐faceted models to analyze developmental trajectories.     

Attachment to the Nation and International Relations: Dimensions of Identity and Their Relationship to War and Peace

Since the rise of mass politics, the role national identities play in international relations has been debated. Do they produce a popular reservoir easily tapped for war or bestow dignity thereby fostering cooperation and a democratic peace? The evidence for either perspective is thin, beset by different conceptions of identity and few efforts to identify its effects independent of situational factors. Using data drawn from new national surveys in Italy and the United States, we advance a three‐dimensional conception of national identity, theoretically connecting the dimensions to conflictive and cooperative dispositions as well as to decisions to cooperate with the United Nations in containing Iran's nuclear proliferation and Sudan's humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Attachment to the nation in Italy and the United States is found to associate with less support for militarist options and more support for international cooperation as liberal nationalists expect. This depends, however, on containing culturally exclusive conceptions of the nation and chauvinism.