Adjustment to War Captivity: The Role of Sociodemographic Background,Trauma Severity,and Immediate Responses,in the Long-Term Mental Health of Israeli Ex-Pows

This study assessed the role of sociodemographic features, pre-captivity combat exposure, captivity severity, emotional responses and coping during captivity, and social support at homecoming, to the short- and long-term mental health of 164 Israeli POWs of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The major contributors to the POWs' mental health were psychological responses during captivity, followed first by their education and ethnic status, and then by severity of captivity. Both traumatic stress of captivity and the results of the study were discussed in the light of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory.     

Coping style in predicting posttraumatic stress disorder among Israeli students

Abstract

Two possible motives for sensation seeking behavior, escape from self-awareness and compensatory self-regulation, were investigated in two studies. In Study I a questionnaire was developed to identify the putative escape and compensation motives suspected to contribute to sensation seeking behaviors. In Study II the factor structure of this new measure, called the Risk and Excitement Inventory (REI), was cross-validated using confirmatory factor analysis, and construct validity was examined. Together these studies suggest that the REI comprises two reliable factors, compensation and escape from self-awareness. Study II showed that these factors have a reasonable degree of construct validity. Limits of the measure and the model are discussed, and suggestions are offered for future research.     

Psychosocial Predictors of Health Status and Health Care Costs among People with Fibromyalgia

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of psychosocial characteristics on health status and the relationship between health status and health care use and costs in a group of people with fibromyalgia (FMS) over a 1-year period. The participants were 600 members of a large health maintenance organization. Demographic characteristics (age, education, employment status, ethnicity and income), need variables (comorbid conditions and baseline health status), and psychosocial variables (self-efficacy, helplessness, coping, and depression) were examined. Better health status at baseline, use of emotion-focused coping, and higher self-efficacy predicted better health status the following year. Higher health care use at baseline, being Caucasian, being older, and having more co-morbid conditions predicted higher health care use at 1 year. Only health care costs at baseline predicted health care costs the following year. Our results indicate that health care use and cost tend to be stable. Intense interventions focused on changing patterns of health care use and methods for coping with the change need to be developed and tested.     

The prediction of turnover intention by means of employee engagement and demographic variables in a telecommunications organisation

This study sought to determine the prediction of turnover intention by employee engagement and demographic variables in a large South African information and communication technology (ICT) organisation. Cross-sectional survey data was collected from the organisation. Using a sample of 2276 participants the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) was employed to measure employee engagement, while the Intention to Stay Questionnaire (ISQ) measured turnover intentions. Employee engagement was significantly negatively related with turnover intentions. A factor analysis conducted on the UWES indicated that activation accounted for 10% of the variance in turnover intentions. Age and tenure had statistically significant negative relationships with turnover intentions, whilst qualification and race had significant positive relationships with turnover intentions. The results also confirmed the predictive model of employee engagement as well as the impact of the demographic variables of race, age, tenure on turnover intentions. The study has practical implications in relation to its ability to contribute to human resources activities in the form of differentiated remuneration and retention strategies based on differences in age and tenure.     

LOGICAL ANALYSES OF VIPASSANĀ MEDITATION

ABSTRACT

In this paper we propose logical analyses of Vipassanā Meditation as modus ponens or universal instantiation, as based upon identification, analysis, and interpretation of the meditation as a (spiritual) thought experiment (STE like e.g. huàtóus and kōans in Chan and Zen).*

The analyses consist in completing the unfinished enthymematic argument of the Sutta-nipāta by explication of hidden major. We speculate the thought experiment inference might be brought about by a faculty like mindfulness. The thought experiment analyses link the meditation to global cross-cultural theories and arguments in philosophy as Ibn Sīnā’s Flying Man and, notably, René Descartes’s Cogito. Last, we will give some indications how Vipassanā Meditation may be explained with help of western theories of consciousness.     

Relationships Between Attachment Security and Self-Construal Orientations

The authors report the results of two studies in which they explored the relationship of related and individuated self-construals, as suggested by the balanced integration—differentiation (BID) model (E. O. Imamo?lu, 2003), with (a) general attachment security in the first study (N = 168 Turkish university students) and (b) relationshipspecific attachment security with the family, peers, and romantic partners in the second study (N = 110 Turkish university students). Results indicated that attachment security tended to be associated with the relational self-orientation; however, when relatedness was complemented with individuation, there was a trend toward enhanced attachment security that reached significance when multiple measures of attachment across relationship contexts were considered. The authors discuss results with reference to their implications for attachment theory and the BID model.     

THE VALUE OF UNCERTAINTY

The author discusses some of the characteristics of Roy Schafer's contributions to psychoanalysis that he finds most valuable, such as his openness to uncertainty, his anti‐reductive view of analytic constructions, his unique formulation of the analyst's role, and his close attention to how the patient engenders particular emotional reactions in the analyst. The author also presents a clinical vignette illustrating the value of the analyst's tolerance of uncertainty in the face of the patient's push for interpretations, explanations, and reassurance.     

Growth in emotional intelligence. Psychotherapy with a learning disabled girl

This paper describes the once-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a girl, called Ellie, aged eight at the start of her treatment. Ellie had a learning disability and displayed difficult behaviour at school and at home. In her therapy, Ellie grew in emotional intelligence, more in touch with and able to express her feelings. Her behaviour improved and so did her capacity to learn. In the therapy there were certain limitations to progress and this is discussed in terms of how Ellie's disability affected the basic achievements of emotional development, including a mind with a solid ‘reality ego’, able to contain anxiety, and able to maintain depressive functioning. The importance of parallel parent work, to share observations and understanding of the child's functioning is discussed. Difficulties for both child and parents in dealing with the pain of difference and how this limits emotional intelligence are discussed. The author hopes that this paper will encourage the offering of psychoanalytic psychotherapy to children and young people with learning disabilities, who are significantly more likely to suffer from mental health problems than their peers.     

Individual treatment needs in the therapeutic environment of a special school

This paper is about the therapeutic process and technique in psychotherapy with deprived children. The need to monitor as a coherent whole both the broader environmental setting and the movements of the transference is illustrated by clinical case material. It is concluded that a) the child's attack on the setting and therapeutic relation has to be picked up and contained both in the transference relationship and in the broader network by the team-work, and b) by carefully following the transference, the child can be helped to a dependent relationship inside which feelings can be made sense of, thus furthering resilience by achieving a better ability to separate good qualities of the self from self-destructive, anti-social aspects of the internal object.