The explicit and implicit dance in psychoanalytic change

How the implicit/non-declarative and explicit/declarative cognitive domains interact is centrally important in the consideration of effecting change within the psychoanalytic arena. Stern et al. (1998) declare that long-lasting change occurs in the domain of implicit relational knowledge. In the view of this author, the implicit and explicit domains are intricately intertwined in an interactive dance within a psychoanalytic process. The author views that a spirit of inquiry (Lichtenberg, Lachmann & Fosshage 2002) serves as the foundation of the psychoanalytic process. Analyst and patient strive to explore, understand and communicate and, thereby, create a 'spirit' of interaction that contributes, through gradual incremental learning, to new implicit relational knowledge. This spirit, as part of the implicit relational interaction, is a cornerstone of the analytic relationship. The 'inquiry' more directly brings explicit/declarative processing to the foreground in the joint attempt to explore and understand. The spirit of inquiry in the psychoanalytic arena highlights both the autobiographical scenarios of the explicit memory system and the mental models of the implicit memory system as each contributes to a sense of self, other, and self with other. This process facilitates the extrication and suspension of the old models, so that new models based on current relational experience can be gradually integrated into both memory systems for lasting change.     

The Feeling-Tone Questionnaire: Reliability and Validity of a Direct Patient Assessment Screening Instrument for the Detection of Depressive Symptoms in Cases of Dementia

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid measure of affective disorder in elderly demented patients. The field lacks instruments which are sensitive to detecting depressive signs in severely as well as mildly and moderately demented subjects. Two samples of subjects were chosen for study. The first sample consisted of subjects from six institutions, which were chosen for study from a probability sample of 25 long-term care institutions in New York City. This sample was part of the Cross-National Institutional Study conducted in New York and London (Gurland et al., 1979; Mann et al., 1984). Thirty patients were selected at random within each institution. The second sample consisted of 52 inpatients at Willard Psychiatric Center, a traditional state psychiatric hospital in upstate New York. All subjects had a chart diagnosis of dementia and were 60 years old or older. The mean age of the sample was 82 years and 56% of the subjects were female. The Feeling-Tone Questionnaire, which was developed for these analyses, consists of 16 dichotomous items and 16 5-point Likert ratings of affect. The reliability of this scale using Cronbach's alpha is .91 for the long-term care institutional sample and .90 for the psychiatric hospital sample. Interrater reliability for two raters on ten cases is .99. Test–retest reliability on ten cases with a 1-day to 2-day interval between trials is .81. A short mood scale was developed from the observational data as a validity measure for the Feeling-Tone Questionnaire. Evidence for the validity of the Feeling-Tone Questionnaire is provided.     

Temporal dynamics of anxiety-related attentional bias: is affective context a missing piece of the puzzle?

Previous research has demonstrated that anxious individuals attend to negative emotional information at the expense of other information. This is commonly referred to as attentional bias. The field has historically conceived of this process as relatively static; however, research by [Zvielli, A., Bernstein, A., &; Koster, E. H. W. (2014). Dynamics of attentional bias to threat in anxious adults: Bias towards and/or away? PLoS ONE, 9(8), e104025; Zvielli, A., Bernstein, A., &; Koster, E. H. W. (2015). Temporal dynamics of attentional bias. Clinical Psychological Science, 3(5), 772–788.], and others, challenges this assumption by demonstrating considerable temporal variability in attentional bias amongst anxious individuals. Still, the mechanisms driving these temporal dynamics are less well known. Using a modified dot-probe task, the present study examined the impact of two relevant contextual variables- affective valence and trial repetition. Affective context was instantiated by the presentation of negative versus neutral pictures before each trial, while repetition context was achieved via the presentation of the valenced pictures in either a blocked- or mixed-trial design. Results indicate that individuals with higher trait-anxiety levels were significantly more influenced by blocked presentations of negative affective information, leading to greater temporal fluctuations in attentional bias. Furthermore, our findings provide additional evidence that attentional bias is best conceptualised as dynamic and variable, and that an individual’s affective experience is one factor that regulates attentional bias dynamics. Implications relating to theoretical and methodological factors are discussed.     

Structure and content of affective associations with health behaviours: Is the behaviour ‘good OR bad’ or ‘good AND bad’

Objective: The feelings and emotions individuals associate with health-related behaviours influence engagement in those behaviours. However, the structure and the content of these affective associations have not been examined. The studies reported here examined competing hypotheses about the structure (unidimensional or bidimensional) and content (generalised affect or specific emotions) of affective associations with two health-related behaviours: physical activity and fruit/vegetable consumption.

Design: For each behaviour, participants (fruit and vegetable consumption n = 149; physical activity n = 199) completed an assessment of the association of 40 positive and 51 negative affect concepts with the behaviour.

Main outcome measures: Ratings of affective associations with each behaviour.

Results: Confirmatory factor analyses comparing unidimensional and bidimensional affect structure models showed that the structure of individuals’ affective associations was bidimensional for both behaviours – positive and negative affective associations were shown to be separate and distinct constructs. Exploratory factor analyses supported a model of affective associations as generalised affect for both behaviours.

Conclusion: Affective associations with both physical activity and with fruit/vegetable consumption consist of separate positive and negative dimensions of generalised affect. These findings lead to recommendations for research and intervention development based on the implications for how affective associations might operate to influence behavioural decision-making.     

Feeling and Thinking of Others: Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Emotion Comprehension in Prosocial/Hostile Preschoolers

This study aims at investigating the affective and cognitive components of empathy in relation to both emotion comprehension and prosocial/hostile behaviors in preschoolers. A total of 219 children (54% boys; aged between 3 and 6: mean age 4.10) and 20 teachers (two for each class: group A and group B) took part in this research. Pupils’ empathy and hostile/prosocial roles were assessed by teacher reports [Belacchi and Farina, 2010] and children's emotion comprehension by a nonverbal test [Test of Emotion Comprehension: Pons and Harris, 2000; adapted by Albanese and Molina; 2008]. As expected, the results showed a significant influence of gender, with girls being more empathic than boys, according to all of the teachers’ perception. Contrary to our expectations, no systematic age influence emerged. Regarding the relations of children's emotion comprehension with both empathy measures and their prosocial/hostile attitudes, we have found: (1) a low significant relation with the total empathy measure, according to all the teachers, but with the cognitive empathy only according to teachers B; (2) a robust negative relationship of both affective and cognitive empathy with Hostile roles and with Outsider role, contrary to a positive correlation of only affective empathy with Prosocial roles. No relationships emerged between empathy measures and Victim role.     

Spirituality and Loss: Approaches for Counseling Grieving Adolescents

The death of a loved one has serious implications for adolescent growth and development. The authors review relevant research on the grief process and spirituality in adolescence, and they give a rationale for integrating spirituality into adolescent grief work. By way of a case illustration, they draw implications for counselors’ use of spirituality in addressing adolescent grief.     

A model for integrating spiritual education into secular curricula

The purpose of this article is to illustrate how the model proposed initially by De Souza and developed by Buchanan and Hyde for religious education can be applied to secular education. Using the context of an action research project in Mainland China to introduce education in human values to government primary schools, examples are drawn from mathematics topics to show how teachers have been able to integrate cognitive, affective and values messages into their existing subject curricula. Children’s and teachers’ comments suggest that both are aware of the inner transformations that occur over time, and illustrate that it is possible to bring about such transformation in a way that is compatible with the ideology of the system.     

早期亲子触觉经验促进个体社会性发展的心理机制

近期研究显示,早期亲子触觉经验和个体的社会性发展存在密切联系。关于这种联系产生的原因,已有研究多从神经科学的角度,探讨CT传入神经(C-tactile afferents)及有关环路在其间可能起到的作用。基于已有文献,本文将提出一个综合模型,系统阐述背后涉及的心理机制,着重论证亲子关系、个体探索行为以及与之关联的心理成分在其间扮演的角色,并在此基础上从研究设计的局限、有关变量关系的多元性以及未来可拓展方向对该领域研究进行进一步讨论和展望。     

Psychological Consequences of Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death in a Sample of Bereaved Parents

This study aimed to explore a broad range of psychological reactions to trauma in a sample of bereaved parents in order to assess whether the traumatic framework is adequate for describing the entire range of emotional reactions to infant death. A sample of bereaved parents (N = 455) who lost their child through perinatal or postnatal loss were compared to a control group of parents (N = 110) who gave birth to a healthy child. Multivariate regression analysis clearly demonstrated that bereaved parents scored significantly higher on the Depression, Anxiety, Dissociation, Sleep Disturbances, Somatization, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Aggression subscales of the Trauma Symptom Checklist. Consistent with previous studies, the results showed that for up to 5 years postloss bereaved parents expressed elevated levels of trauma-specific and psychological outcomes, in particular interpersonal sensitivity and aggression.