Physical framework for a counselling environment in India: Thematic analysis of counsellors' perceptions

The influence of the physical environment on the counselling process is an inevitable part of a counselling session. However, there is little insight in Indian research into the desirable elements of the physical environment of the counselling room that helps facilitate a counselling session. Interviews were conducted with 10 professional counsellors in India. Thematic analysis of the data brought out various Basic and Organising themes under the following three Global themes: (a) Elements of the physical framework; (b) Counsellor's perspectives about the physical framework in counselling; and (c) Motivation to build a framework. The findings show how counsellors can systematise the physical framework to help construct the counselling session effectively.     

心理健康素养：内涵、测量与新概念框架

本文概述了国内外心理健康素养概念的研究及其测量的演进。在此基础上尝试提出国民心理健康素养的新概念框架。新概念将心理健康素养定义为个体在促进自身及他人心理健康,应对自身及他人心理疾病方面所养成的知识、态度和行为习惯。新概念框架包含“心理疾病应对——心理健康促进”和“自我——他人”两个维度;在内容上包含知识、态度和行为习惯三个方面。文章还探讨了未来的研究方向。     

The effect of oral vocabulary on reading visually novel words: a comparison of the dual-route-cascaded and triangle frameworks

Dual-route-cascaded (DRC) (e.g. Coltheart & Rastle, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20 (1994) 1197) and triangle framework (e.g. Seidenberg & McClelland, Psychological Review 96 (1989) 523) predictions were tested regarding the effect of having a word in oral vocabulary prior to reading that same word. Over two sessions, at intervals of 2--3 days, 44 Grade 1 (6--7-year-old) children were aurally familiarized with the sound and meaning of ten novel words (semantic oral instantiation), and with just the sound of another ten novel words (non-semantic oral instantiation). Two to three days later non-word naming performance was significantly more accurate for aurally trained novel words compared to pseudohomophones, which were in turn advantaged over untrained non-words. The semantic manipulation had no effect. Experiment 2 manipulated articulation during (non-semantic) training. Forty Grade 1 children participated. Again, aurally trained items were named more accurately and quickly than equivalently trained pseudohomophones, which were in turn advantaged over untrained non-words. The articulation manipulation had no effect. The results suggest that word-specific phonological information is represented in the reading system independently of semantic or articulatory influences. The results are interpreted as being problematic for both the DRC and triangle frameworks, but more so for the latter.     

Consonances and controversies: Investigation and its discontents revisited

The author responds to the commentaries of 13 experts on his 1980 American Psychologist article, “Investigation and its discontents: On some constraints on progress in psychological research.” Among the themes addressed are the role of theory in psychological research, the meanings and implications of “productivity” by scholars and researchers, the role of grants, and of money in general, in directing research efforts, and the relation between psychological and neuropsychological research.     

Why psychology needs conceptual analysts: Wachtel's “discontents” revisited

Commenting on Wachtel's “Investigation and its Discontents” [Wachtel, P. L. (1980). Investigation and its discontents: Some constraints on progress in psychological research. American Psychologist, 35, 399–408], I agree that lack of support for a career path of conceptual analysis and critique is a serious problem. Psychology requires a strong conceptual component because it is subject to unusual distortions and self-deceptions in theory formation and evidential evaluation due to issues of power, self-esteem, and social ideology. I agree with Wachtel that pressures for quantity of publication are detrimental to scientific quality, but dispute his suggestion that excessive focus on quantity in assessing productivity can be addressed by having tenure and promotion candidates submit only their three best papers. Such reviews must be based on the entire record, so improvements must involve journals’ acceptance standards. Regarding Wachtel's concern about the influence of grants on reviews, I argue that grants should be relevant only to the extent they bear on the candidate's scholarly goals.     

情绪性权衡困难下的决策行为

权衡是决策行为的一个重要特点。情绪性权衡困难是指决策者在对与价值目标相关的特性进行权衡时会产生负性情绪,从而在情感上难以对不同的特性进行权衡。在情绪性权衡困难条件下,认知努力最小化、准确性最大化与负性情绪最小化标准共同影响决策行为,表现出不同于低情绪性决策行为的特点。     

图表加工的理论模型

图表作为一种以图形和表格记录、展示和传递信息的表征方式已得到广泛应用。图表加工是指人们对图表所呈现信息的认知加工。文章首先说明并简要评述图表加工的规则模型、认知过程模型和计算模型,然后介绍2004年提出的层次框架模型,最后进行小结并指出未来的研究方向     

Sacrifice and Stigma: Managing Religious Risk

This article develops a theoretical explanation for the incidence of sacrifice and stigma or “strictness” that—unlike the extant literature—explicitly incorporates a supernatural motive for religiosity. This innovation permits a precise delineation of religious risks and leads to the critical insight that “strictness” is an instrument of mutually beneficial risk mitigation. The theory yields alternative explanations for all empirical regularities on the incidence of strictness that the club model explains, including the seemingly anomalous labor market behavior of Ultra‐Orthodox Jews in Israel, the high lethality of extremist religious sects, and the positive correlation between strictness and social service provision. Among the attributes that distinguish the risk mitigation approach from the club model are: its explanation of observed income dispersion within strictness categories that is substantially greater than that implied by the club model; its prediction that the positive correlation between strictness and exclusivity is a causal relationship in which exclusivity is causally prior to strictness; and its demonstration that variation in the risk mitigation benefits members derive from strictness is at least as important as variation in the opportunity costs of strictness in explaining variation in the levels of strictness employed across denominations and sects.     

Emotional inertia: A key to understanding psychotherapy process and outcome

The processes underlying psychotherapeutic change have increasingly been emphasized in both research and clinical practice. Nonlinear dynamical systems theory (NDS) offers a transdisciplinary scientific approach to the study of these processes. This paper introduces the NDS concept of “emotional inertia”, the property of human emotion by which it retains its course so long as it is not acted upon by an external force, as a key to understanding moment-by-moment and also longer-term change processes within psychotherapy. A testable mathematical model of emotional inertia is presented that represents specific impacts of psychotherapeutic processes on emotional dynamics over time. Emotional trajectories in phase space, treatment energy, and the interaction between them are the essential elements of the model, and a detailed explanation is provided. Procedures for testing this model are described, such as by tracking the movement of emotion in phase space within and across therapy sessions, along with clinical implications of the model, which can potentially help to make more clear the complementary roles of therapeutic force, timing, and leverage.     

No more psychiatric labels: Why formal psychiatric diagnostic systems should be abolished

This article argues that psychiatric diagnoses are not valid or useful. The use of psychiatric diagnosis increases stigma, does not aid treatment decisions, is associated with worsening long-term prognosis for mental health problems, and imposes Western beliefs about mental distress on other cultures. This article reviews the evidence base focusing in particular on empirical findings in relation to the topics of: aetiology, validity, reliability, treatment and outcome, prognosis, colonialism, and cultural and public policy impact. This evidence points toward diagnostic based frameworks for understanding and intervening in mental health difficulties being unable to either improve our scientific knowledge or improve outcomes in clinical practice and suggests that we need to move away from reliance on diagnostic based approaches for organising research and service delivery. Alternative evidence-based models for organising effective mental health care are available. Therefore formal psychiatric diagnostic systems such as the mental health section of the International Classification of Diseases Tenth Edition (ICD-10) and Diagnostic Statistical Manual Fifth Edition (DSM 5) should be abolished.