When should I trust my gut? Linking domain expertise to intuitive decision-making effectiveness

Despite a growing body of scholarship on the concept of intuition, there is a scarcity of empirical research spotlighting the circumstances in which intuitive decision making is effective relative to analytical decision making. Seeking to address this deficiency, we conducted two laboratory studies assessing the link between domain expertise (low versus high) and intuitive decision-making effectiveness. These studies involved non-decomposable tasks across divergent expertise domains: basketball in Study 1 and designer handbag authentication in Study 2. Across both studies, and consistent with our overarching hypothesis, we found that the effectiveness of intuition relative to analysis is amplified at a high level of domain expertise. Taken together, our results demonstrate the importance of domain expertise in intuitive decision making and carry a number of theoretical and practical implications.     

The Miscarriage Experience: More Than Just a Trigger to Psychological Morbidity?

Most quantitative research considers miscarriage a trigger to grief, anxiety and depression. The present qualitative study involved in depth interviews with a heterogeneous sample of 13 women who had experienced a miscarriage up to five weeks previously. The women described their experiences using a range of themes which were conceptualised into three stages: turmoil, adjustment and resolution. For the majority, the turmoil stage was characterised by feelings of being unprepared and negative emotions. Some women who had had an unwanted pregnancy described their shock at the physical trauma of miscarriage but described the experience as a relief. The women then described a period of adjustment involving social comparisons, sharing and a search for meaning. The latter included a focus on causality which left a minority, particularly those who had had previous miscarriages, feeling frustrated with the absence of a satisfactory medical explanation. The final resolution stage was characterised by a decline in negative emotions, a belief by some that the miscarriage was a learning experience and the integration of the experience into their lives. This resolution seemed more positive for those with children and more negative if the miscarriage was not their first. Rather than being a trigger to psychological morbidity a miscarriage should be conceptualised as a process involving the stages of turmoil, adjustment and resolution. Miscarriage could also be considered a pivotal point in the lives of many women resulting in the reassessment of both their past and future experiences.     

Mirror reading of words and numbers: Practice and transfer effects

It remains unknown whether mirror reading represents a genuine text processing skill or is based on recognition of visual patterns. The present study attempts to determine whether (1) systematic practice with a particular mirrored typography also improves reading performance for other mirrored typographies, and whether (2) this transfer extends from lexical to numerical material and vice versa. The results show that short-term intensive practice with mirror-reversed words significantly improves reading performance not only for the trained typography but also for other mirrored typographies and mirror-reversed Arabic digits. Practice with mirror-reversed Arabic digits showed a mixed pattern of transfer effects with regard to other digit transformations and there were no transfer effects to lexical material. Hence, for lexical material, at least, improvement after training seems to be based on generalized skill with transfer effects beyond lexical material, rather than on mere improvement of visual recognition of the material used in training.     

Cultural variation in psychopathology: From research to practice

In the context of a Professional Doctorate in Psychoanalytic Research, we examined how a group of psychoanalytic therapists responded to the ethos and methods of qualitative research. Although experienced therapy practitioners, the students were mostly new to qualitative research. We were interested in the extent to which students found psychoanalytic training and qualitative research compatible or in conflict. The data for the study was a focus group in which students discussed the experience of becoming researchers. The focus group was recorded, transcribed and analysed using Discursive Psychology but also informed by psychoanalytic analysis, in an iterative process including the participants. We concentrate here on some of the main discourses emerging, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for the course – bound up with life stage, sense of previous unfulfilled aspirations and the current challenges of working in UK mental health services. We also focus on tensions with the concept of developing a researcher identity, both concerning clinician identities and other roles. The sense of an uncomfortable ‘assimilation’ into a ‘foreign territory’ was explored, both in the focus group and the analysis. We use this to highlight some of the expectations and taboos of both psychoanalytic and research communities.     

Storymaking: In-between anthropological enquiry and Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy

The author discusses the relationship between anthropological enquiry and Transactional Analysis (TA) counselling and psychotherapy practice. Both disciplines of anthropology and TA offer an exploration of the individual's story. The concept of in-between-ness can add an extra dimension to working with clients in acknowledging the place of the client's story and the psychotherapist's role in witnessing as a way of making meaning of the whole. Ethnographical extracts are examined to illuminate how the application of anthropological insights and concepts can enhance TA psychotherapy practice.     

The State-Trait Depression Scales: An International Comparison

Equivalent English and German versions of the State-Trait Depression Scales (STDS) were developed and presented to samples of American and German students who were comparable with regard to gender and age. Factorial structure and equivalence of the two versions were determined by confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). The CFAs included multiple group analyses which were employed to compare factor patterns, loadings, factor variances and covariances across the two samples. In addition, statistical and psychometric properties of the items and scales were determined and mean differences between nationalities and genders on these scales were tested. In order to obtain information about the external validity, relationships between the STDS and tests which already exist in English and German (several depression scales as well as the State-Trait Personality Inventory, the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory, and the Mainz Coping Inventory) were analysed.     

A Critical Methodological Review of Discourse and Conversation Analysis Studies of Family Therapy

Discourse (DA) and conversation (CA) analysis, two qualitative research methods, have been recently suggested as potentially promising for the study of family therapy due to common epistemological adherences and their potential for an in situ study of therapeutic dialog. However, to date, there is no systematic methodological review of the few existing DA and CA studies of family therapy. This study aims at addressing this lack by critically reviewing published DA and CA studies of family therapy on methodological grounds. Twenty‐eight articles in total are reviewed in relation to certain methodological axes identified in the relevant literature. These include choice of method, framing of research question(s), data/sampling, type of analysis, epistemological perspective, content/type of knowledge claims, and attendance to criteria for good quality practice. It is argued that the reviewed studies show “glimpses” of the methods’ potential for family therapy research despite the identification of certain “shortcomings” regarding their methodological rigor. These include unclearly framed research questions and the predominance of case study designs. They also include inconsistencies between choice of method, stated or unstated epistemological orientations and knowledge claims, and limited attendance to criteria for good quality practice. In conclusion, it is argued that DA and CA can add to the existing quantitative and qualitative methods for family therapy research. They can both offer unique ways for a detailed study of the actual therapeutic dialog, provided that future attempts strive for a methodologically rigorous practice and against their uncritical deployment.     

The fear of the body in psychotherapy

This paper identifies the fear of attending to and engaging with the patient's body and the therapist's body, regardless of therapeutic orientation, as a topic rarely explored in books and articles but pervasively experienced because of the cultural norms brought to the consulting room. It explores how we might name the constituent parts of this fear and describes how they inter-link. A case study then exemplifies learning about and transforming such fear in both patient and therapist. Finally, the paper offers suggestions of how therapists might increase their awareness and turn this fear into a tool which extends their range of skills.