Assessing the impact of a family nurse-led intervention on young mothers’ references to internal states

A mother's propensity to refer to internal states during mother–child interactions is important for her child's developing social understanding. However, adolescent mothers are less likely to reference internal states when interacting with their children. We investigated whether young mothers’ references to internal states are promoted by the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) intervention, an intensive home-visiting programme designed to support adolescent mothers in England. We also investigated family, maternal, and child factors associated with young mothers’ references to inner states during interactions with their children. Adolescent mothers (n = 483, aged ≤ 19 years when recruited in pregnancy) and their children participated in an observational substudy of a randomized controlled trial investigating the impact of FNP compared to usual care. Mother–child dyads were video-recorded during free play, and mothers’ speech was coded for use of internal state language (references to cognitions, desires, emotions, intentions, preferences, physiology, and perception). We found no differences in mothers’ use of internal state language between the FNP and usual care groups. A sample-wide investigation identified that other features of mothers’ language and relationship status with the child's father were associated with internal state language use. Findings are discussed with reference to targeted interventions and implications for future research.     

To Challenge the Morning Lark and the Night Owl: Using Smartphone Sensing Data to Investigate Day–Night Behaviour Patterns

For decades, day–night patterns in behaviour have been investigated by asking people about their sleep–wake timing, their diurnal activity patterns, and their sleep duration. We demonstrate that the increasing digitalization of lifestyle offers new possibilities for research to investigate day–night patterns and related traits with the help of behavioural data. Using smartphone sensing, we collected in vivo data from 597 participants across several weeks and extracted behavioural day–night pattern indicators. Using this data, we explored three popular research topics. First, we focused on individual differences in day–night patterns by investigating whether ‘morning larks’ and ‘night owls’ manifest in smartphone-sensed behavioural indicators. Second, we examined whether personality traits are related to day–night patterns. Finally, exploring social jetlag, we investigated whether traits and work weekly day–night behaviours influence day–night patterns on weekends. Our findings highlight that behavioural data play an essential role in understanding daily routines and their relations to personality traits. We discuss how psychological research can integrate new behavioural approaches to study personality.     

Blackout of my nights: Contentless,timeless and selfless report from the night in patients with central hypersomnias

At the extreme spectrum of consciousness during sleep, some patients with rare hypersomnias reported experiencing a specific night ‘blackout’ when sleeping, i.e., an absence of experiences or recall of them from sleep onset to offset. Thus, we explored through questionnaires the conscious experiences (dreaming experience, mind, self) during the night in 133 patients with idiopathic hypersomnia, 108 patients with narcolepsy, and 128 healthy controls. The night blackout was more frequent in idiopathic hypersomnia than in narcolepsy and control groups. Patients with idiopathic hypersomnia and frequent night amnesia had lower dream recall frequencies, and felt more often sleep as deep and mind as blank during the night. They had a higher proportion of slow wave sleep on their (retrospectively collected) sleep recordings than those without night blackout. This night blackout provides a new model for studying loss of consciousness during sleep, here as a contentless, selfless and timeless feeling upon awakening.     

Issues in Parent-Child Agreement: The Case of Structured Diagnostic Interviews

There are three primary purposes of this review. First, the review distinguishes among three types of reliability and describes the importance of evaluating the reliability of child psychopathology assessment instruments for clinical practice and research. Second, parent-child reliability findings from 5 of the more carefully studied and frequently used Structured (semi and highly) diagnostic interviews (The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-age Children, The Child Assessment Scale, The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children. The Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents, and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children) are examined. Finally, this review explores factors that have been implicated in terms of their potential effect on parent-child agreement. In addition, future directions for research and clinical practice within this area are identified and potential resolutions to the conundrum of parent-child discordance are discussed.     

The therapist's self in dialogical family therapy: some ideas about not-knowing and the therapist's inner conversation

In this article, the focus is on the therapist's self, which will be in line with Bakhtin's thinking, viewed as a dialogical self. First, the dialogical view of the self is situated in the context of psychology's traditional focus on the individual self. Then, leaning on Bakhtin and Volosinov, the self is described as a dialogue of multiple inner voices. Some of the implications of this concept for family therapy practice are examined, focusing especially on the therapist's participation in the therapeutic process and on the therapist's inner conversation. The author argues that not-knowing does not only refer to the therapist's receptivity and respect but also implies that the therapist is aware of his or her experience and reflects on how his or her inner conversation might inform and enrich the therapeutic conversation. Finally, these ideas are illustrated with a brief clinical vignette.     

The Impact of the Big Five Personality Traits on Reports of Child Behavior Problems by Different Informants

The present study compared ratings of a standardized sample of child behavior problems across informants and examined the effects of informant personality traits on child behavior ratings by mothers, teachers, and group-care workers. Participants were 55 clinic-referred children, aged 6–12 years. All informants watched and rated the same 17-min videotaped behavior sample of a familiar target child. Independent trained observers rated the same videotapes to provide criterion ratings. Informants personality traits were assessed using the NEO Five Factor Personality Inventory. Results showed that mothers reported fewer behavior problems than did the professionals, that the informants who were familiar with the child reported more behavior problems than did the independent observers, and that higher levels of informant neuroticism were related to higher ratings of child behavior problems in the case of the professionals, but not in the case of the mothers. In addition, group-care workers who were less extraverted and open were likely to report more child behavior problems than group-care workers with normal levels of extraversion and openness. Finally, no relations were found between agreeableness or conscientiousness and ratings of child behavior. Findings suggest that professionals who work with children are not immune to distortions based on their own personality.     

What are symbols symbols of? Situated action,mythological bootstrapping and the emergence of the Self

This paper addresses the question of how symbols should be understood in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. The point of view examined focuses on the recent turn to more cognitive and developmental models in both disciplines and briefly reviews and critiques the evolutionary and cognitive arguments. The paper then presents an argument based on dynamic systems theory in which no pre-existing template or structure for either mind or behaviour is assumed. Within the dynamic systems model the Self is viewed as an emergent phenomenon deriving from the dynamic patterns existing in a complex system that includes the physiological characteristics of the infant, the intentional attributions of the caregiver and the cultural or symbolic resources that constitute the environment. The symbol can then be seen as a discrete, and in important ways an autonomous, element in the dynamic system. Conclusions are drawn for further research into the nature of the symbol with implications for both theory and practice in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis.     

Subliminal processes,dissociation and the 'I'

The study of unconscious processes leads to the hypothesis of the limit of consciousness, which involves two main kinds of psychic activity. The first represents psychic contents which are subliminal for their low energy, the second subliminal contents which are inaccessible to consciousness because they are dissociated in the subliminal region. Dissociation is a concept introduced by Pierre Janet for splitting consciousness due to traumatic events or during hypnosis. It takes a more general form in Hilgard's neo-dissociation theory of hypnotic phenomena and also in Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. Further generalization links it to the modern findings of explicit and implicit perception, leading to a shift in dissociation from hypothesis to clinical, experimental and theoretical reality. Studies in hypnosis also point to the existence of an integrative psychic entity, that comprises the conscious 'I'. Hilgard called this the hidden observer, and his findings represent empirical confirmation of Jung's term for the Self as mirror 'I', which leads to many important consequences for self-discovery and the meaning of life.     

Dissociation and the self in the magical pre-Oedipal field

This paper explores the clinical relevance of Jung's idea of the Self in pre-Oedipal and pre-individuation psychology. Incorporating data from neurobiology and recent theories of memory and narrative reconstruction, a post-modern conception of the Self is proposed akin to what Jung called a 'dream of totality'. Such a conception of the Self is distinguished from a reified structure or a deified imago, and is considered to be that aspect of psychological functioning consonant with emerging meanings, and the birth of new psychological ground. Links are made back to Flournoy, William James, and depth psychology's early interest in teleology, the occult, and the creative capacities of the psyche. Updating this mystery tradition, clinical material illustrates how narratives of the Self are present in such pre-Oedipal dynamics as dissociation and projective identification. These dynamics are understood not only as primitive defences but as reconstitutive symbolic metaphors and mythopoetic expressions of an emergent rather than a superordinate Self.     

Anger Can Help: A Transactional Model and Three Pathways of the Experience and Expression of Anger

Anger is a significant human emotion with far‐reaching implications for individuals and relationships. We propose a transactional model of anger that highlights its relational relevance and potentially positive function, in addition to problematic malformations. By evolutionary design, physical, self‐concept, or attachment threats all similarly trigger diffuse physiological arousal, psychologically experienced as anger‐emotion. Anger is first a signaling and motivational system. Anger is then formed to affirming, productive use or malformed to destructive ends. A functional, prosocial approach to anger organizes it for protective and corrective personal and relational adaptation. In our model, threat perception interacts with a person's view of self in relation to other to produce helpful or harmful anger. Inflated or collapsed views of self in relation to other produce distinct manifestations of destructive anger that are harmful to self, other, and relationship. Conversely, a balanced view of self in relation to other promotes constructive anger and catalyzes self, other, and relationship healing. Clinical use of the model to shape healing personal and relational contact with anger is explored.