Interviewing a Therapist in the Presence of a Couple: A Description of the Therapeutic Process

A therapy research team interviewed a therapist in the presence of a couple. Following each of six consecutive sessions with a couple, an interviewer posed questions to the therapist and couple. While one question was standard to each interview, other questions were generated by team members who tracked the entire process via live observation. These questions were directed first at the therapist, then at the couple, and then focused on therapeutic process and outcome. Findings of this process for the therapy system included decreasing the hierarchy within the client/therapist relationship; increasing the client ownership and energy in the therapy process; discovering the presence of parallel processes between the systems; and informing the direction of future therapy sessions. Practical, clinical implications are discussed for a variety of therapy settings.     

Psychological state and psychological strain in relation to infertility

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between psychological state and perceived strain in relation to fertility problems. Couples presenting at an infertility clinic completed, on two occasions seven months apart, a series of standardized measures to assess psychopathology. In addition, they completed a weekly diary rating their mood state or distress/strain over a period of 22 weeks, during which investigations and treatment were taking place. Little evidence of psychopathology was found in the sample; the weekly diaries also suggested a general lack of distress/strain, even in response to medical investigations and diagnosis. The results are discussed in the light of wide individual variations in ratings obtained from the diaries. Participants with high distress/strain scores tended to have significantly higher initial scores on the psychometric measures administered. Participants with high distress/strain scores were also more likely to show a further significant increase in distress/strain scores in relation to diagnostic information. It is argued that a task for future research is to determine the characteristics of those couples who are likely to experience difficulty in coping with the strain of infertility investigations so that counselling resources and support services can be most effectively targeted. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing coherence in community and clinical psychology: the integration of idealism and pragmatism

Illustrations of how ideas from community psychology may be integrated with clinical psychological thinking and practice are described from the perspective of a clinical psychologist working in the NHS. The intentions are to consider socially relevant conceptualizations of the causes of people's well-being and distress, and to develop ways of helping individuals and communities to clarify and address these causes. Incorporating an analysis of social power also necessitates a critical awareness of the limited potency of psychological interventions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从词频和新旧效应探讨再认测验中的定向遗忘

本文采用字表方式,从高低词频和新旧效应角度,探讨内隐和外显测验中定向遗忘效应的存在性及其机制问题。结果发现:(1)低频词在两种测验中都存在定向遗忘效应,而高频词仅存在于外显测验中。(2)两种测验中都存在指示记住的新旧效应,而外显测验中不存在指示忘记的新旧效应。由此推断,测验间在没有"意识和无意识"相互污染的理想情况下,只有外显测验可获得定向遗忘效应;定向遗忘的机制可能是选择性编码机制。     

Family Therapy, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

In this article we use our experience with ballroom dancing to revisit three central systemic/relational ideas—summativity, pragmatics/aesthetics, and communication—in order to reaffirm our theoretical grounding in family therapy and to connect that grounding to community-mindedness in therapy. Community-mindedness consists of deliberate attention to the socially constructed grand narratives that dominate clients and therapists in the process of therapy. A detailed example is provided. Thanks to Leo Sayer     

Disequilibrium in the mind,disharmony in the body

Although it is generally acknowledged that experiences of frustration, confusion, and anxiety are embodied phenomena, very little is known about how these processes modulate presumably unconscious, but constantly present, subtle bodily movement. We addressed this problem by tracking the low-level dynamics of body movement, using 1/f noise, pink noise, or “fractal scaling”, during naturalistic experiences of affect in two studies involving deep learning and effortful problem-solving. Our results indicate that body movement fluctuations of individuals experiencing cognitive equilibrium was characteristic of correlated pink noise, but there was a whitening of the signal when participants experienced states that are diagnostic of cognitive distress such as anxiety, confusion, and frustration. We orient our findings within theories that emphasise the embodied nature of cognition and affect and with perspectives that view affective and cognitive processes as emergent products of a self-organising dynamical system (the brain) that is inextricably coupled to the body.