‘Black holes’: escaping the void

The ‘black hole’ is a metaphor for a reality in the psyche of many individuals who have experienced complex trauma in infancy and early childhood. The ‘black hole’ has been created by an absence of the object, the (m)other, so there is no internalized object, no (m)other in the psyche. Rather, there is a ‘black hole’ where the object should be, but the infant is drawn to it, trapped by it because of an intrinsic, instinctive need for a ‘real object’, an internalized (m)other. Without this, the infant cannot develop. It is only the presence of a real object that can generate the essential gravity necessary to draw the core of the self that is still in an undeveloped state from deep within the abyss. It is the moving towards a real object, a (m)other, that relativizes the absolute power of the black hole and begins a reformation of its essence within the psyche.     

Grateful individuals are not suicidal: Buffering risks associated with hopelessness and depressive symptoms

With suicidal behavior serving as a leading cause of injury and death around the world, researchers must expand ongoing efforts to uncover protective factors. In this study, we examined if gratitude mitigated existing risk factors for suicide. Specifically, we predicted that gratitude moderates the relationship between suicidal ideation and (a) hopelessness and (b) depressive symptoms in a sample of 369 diverse undergraduate students. Results indicate that for people who are highly grateful, both hopelessness and depressive symptoms are less likely to be associated with thoughts and intentions to kill oneself. The findings demonstrate the value of integrating protective factors against suicidality, including character strengths such as gratitude, into existing theories that tend to be limited to vulnerability factors. We offer tentative ideas for enhancing the impact of suicide prevention and intervention programs by directly addressing gratitude, which has been shown to be highly modifiable.     

Toward an Understanding of the Connections in Creating Lasting Family Connections

Abstract

The Creating Lasting Family Connections^® (CLFC) program is designed to help improve relationship skills and reduce antisocial behaviors. Strader and colleagues propose that prosocial connectedness is responsible for program outcomes. We propose that the intersection of high agreeableness and low impulsivity represent an operational definition. We examined this definition in the context of a RCT with 246 men in prison reentry. CLFCFP increased the number of connected individuals. Being connected and the program independently impacted relationship skills, but no evidence was found to support the hypothesis that the program impacts would be more pronounced among those who were connected.     

Versión española del “Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ)” adaptado a Educación Física

Resumen

El propósito de este trabajo es analizar las propiedades psicométricas del TEOSQ, en una muestra española, aplicado al contexto de la educación física escolar. Con ello se pretende determinar si constituye un instrumento válido y fiable para utilizar en futuras investigaciones en la Educación Física. Se administró a 6170 estudiantes representativos de las provincias de Almería, Granada y Murcia de ESO y ESPO, de edades comprendidas entre 12 y 19 años. El análisis factorial confirmatorio apoyó el modelo teórico hipotetizado de dos factores (orientación a la tarea y orientación al ego) para el TEOSQ-12EF. La baja correlación entre los factores demostró la independencia de los mismos y los coeficientes alfa mostraron una consistencia interna aceptable de las dos subescalas. Las pruebas indican que existen diferencias significativas por sexo, los alumnos presentan una mayor orientación al ego que las alumnas.     

The Theory Of Social–Cultural Genetic Gene (S- c Dna)

It took a long time for humanity to know about biogenetics. And yet its role as a determinant in the living system was not proven until the twentieth century when DNA was discovered. Similarly, it took a long time for humanity to know about culture and civilization. And yet until now there is neither definite standards for differentiating them nor a definition that is commonly acceptable. By taking an evolutionary pluralism as ontology framework and the transdisciplinary research method of the systems science, we have in the new social system model discovered the central rules that govern the social–cultural heredity: Culture–Production–Civilization. The relationship between culture and civilization is exactly that of genotype and phenotype. Culture is the S-cDNA within the social system while civilization is the social phenotype. Culture is a determinant that ultimately determines the existence, stagnation, change, and evolution of the social system.     

QUAL and the dynamics of evolution

The emergence of the first structures that are capable of “replication” is a mysterious problem of evolution. The majority of the scientists dealing with evolution agree on the point that this is the very property that differenciate animate and inanimate beings. The main purpose of the present paper is to prove that the phenomenon of replication cannot be forced into frames of the Bios, but is an inherent attribute of the material, and the biological replication is a more advanced and perfect manifestation of this attribute.

The cohesion and resistance, in a general sense, is the attribute of any material system, i.e. it is an attribute of coexistence that makes possible its life. This may be the property that was identified as Jacob Böhme's mystic concept “Qual”. The self‐preservation, the cohesion in a general sense is manifested against the different destructive effects by scattering the “attacked” system into successor systems. This process makes possible for the different successive systems to get among other, differing circumstances than they were before the destructive forces began to exercise their impact. These other circumstances however include the possibility of the emergence of other systems of interrelatedness, and the successive system may become different from the parent system. The multiplication and scattering, due to the impact of destruction, at the same time increase the system's surface of interaction, and this leads to an organization of higher level.     

Understanding,respecting and integrating difference in therapeutic practice

The purpose of this paper is to promote thought and discussion around how and why we treat patients in chosen ways. In the present climate practitioners are required to treat patients following NICE guidelines in which cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the treatment of choice in the majority of diagnoses. This paper raises concerns that this may lead to an homogenization of treatment, loss of invaluable skills and understanding from other treatment approaches, and loss to the patient who may be best cared for by a combination of treatments and approaches, most notably patients presenting with complex pathology. This paper aims to present this as a general principle, and by way of example, will focus on coupling two specific treatment orientations, cognitive behavioural therapy with psychodynamic psychotherapy, with the specific diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

Methods: Clinical material is drawn from case studies from practice in secondary adult mental health care services within the NHS. All patients were referred to the psychological services for treatment for OCD and provided with 1:1 therapy with UKCP‐registered therapists. Details have been anonymized by describing fictitious cases re‐constructed from clinical material. A theoretical understanding is included which provides both an overview for integrating treatment for the specific example of OCD and is intended by extension to other diagnoses.

Results: Working with the commonalities of therapeutic approaches, and integrating specific skills of CBT and psychodynamic psychotherapy, appears to offer a viable mode of treatment for cases resistant to single‐orientation therapies.

Conclusions: Coupling the skills of different therapies can be effective in treating complex patients that are referred to the secondary mental health services. Conversely, restricting practice to single orientation therapies can lead to an impoverished care for patients and diminution of invaluable therapeutic skills which may become underused, undervalued and lost in the practice of mental health care within the NHS. Acknowledgement of the skills of others, valuing these and learning from each other can help to avoid the defensive reactions of practitioners, where each may defensively retreat to their corners of specialism. Respecting and sharing skills from different orientations, and acknowledging this in the NICE guidelines, is good for both mental health services and patient care and addresses the concerns raised by practitioners exemplified by Bateman (2000 Bateman, A. 2000. Integration in psychotherapy: An evolving reality in personality disorder.. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 17(2): 147–156.  [Google Scholar], p. 147) that ‘psychotherapy continues to be bedeviled by ideological schisms with practitioners apparently ignoring alternative conceptualizations and potentially superior interventions’.     

Positive affect facilitates task switching in the dimensional change card sort task: Implications for the shifting aspect of executive function

Using the modified Dimensional Change Card Sort task, we examined the influence of positive affect on task switching by inspecting various markers for the costs, including restart cost, switch cost and mixing cost. Given that the executive-control processes that underlie switching performance—i.e., inhibition or shifting—are distinct from the component processes that underlie non-switching performance—i.e., stimulus evaluation, resource allocation or response execution—we hypothesised that if positive affect facilitates task switching via executive-control processes, rather than via component processes, positive affect would reduce both switch and restart costs, but not mixing cost, because both switch and restart costs rely on executive processes, while mixing cost imposes only minimal demands on executive processes. We found beneficial effects of positive affect on both restart and switch costs, but not on mixing costs. These results suggest that positive affect improves switching abilities via executive processes rather than via component processes.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory predicts changes in depression in a community sample

This study investigated whether overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) predicts the course of symptoms of depression and anxiety in a community sample, after 5, 6, 12 and 18 months. Participants (N = 156) completed the Autobiographical Memory Test and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) at baseline and were subsequently reassessed using the DASS-21 at four time points over a period of 18 months. Using latent growth curve modelling, we found that OGM was associated with a linear increase in depression. We were unable to detect changes over time in anxiety. OGM may be an important marker to identify people at risk for depression in the future, but more research is needed with anxiety.