In light of the human genome project, establishing the genetic aetiology of complex human diseases has become a research priority within Western medicine. However, in addition to the identification of disease genes, numerous research projects are also being undertaken to identify genes contributing to the development of human behavioural characteristics, such as cognitive ability and criminal tendency. The permissibility of this research is obviously controversial: will society benefit from this research, or will it adversely affect our conceptions of ourselves and each other? When assessing the permissibility of this research, it is important to consider the nature and deterministic significance of behavioural genetic information. Whilst todate there has been much discussion and debate about the properties of genetic information per se and genetic determinism, this has not been applied to behavioural genetic research and its ethical implications. Therefore, this paper elucidates how behavioural genetic information can be distinguished from other types of genetic and non-genetic information and also synthesises the determinative significance of genetic factors for the development of human behavioural traits. Undertaking this analysis enables the ethical issues raised by this research to be debated in an appropriate context and indicates that separate policy considerations are warranted.
This study examined the effect of age and practice on the structure of children's force variability to test the information processing hypothesis that a reduction of sensorimotor system noise accounts in large part for age-related reductions in perceptual-motor performance variability. In the study, 6-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and young adults practiced on 5 consecutive days (15 trials/day), maintaining for 15-s trials a constant level of force (5 or 25% of maximum voluntary contraction) against an object using a pinch grip (thumb and index finger). With increasing age, the amount of force error and variability decreased, but the sequential structure of variability increased in irregularity. With practice, children reduced the amount of variability by changing the structure of the force output so as to be more similar to that of their older counterparts. The findings provide further evidence that practice-driven changes in the structure of force output, rather than a decline in the amount of white noise, largely account for age-related reductions in the amount of force variability. 相似文献
Across their life spans humans actualize a rich potential for cognitive and behavioral plasticity, a set of developmental changes that require regulation of organism-context relations on the part of both the individual and society. An individual’s action on the context must be started in infancy and maintained in subsequent periods of life for adaptive functioning to occur across ontogeny. The process of the individual acting as an agent of his or her own development is continuous, although the particular ways in which such control is manifested will change in developmentally appropriate ways. As demonstrated by the papers in this special issue, the significance of infancy for the rest of the life-span rests on an integration of this continuity and discontinuity within the person-context developmental system. 相似文献
Abstract: This paper explores how untold and unresolved intergenerational trauma may be transmitted through unconscious channels of communication, manifesting in the dreams of descendants. Unwitting carriers for that which was too horrific for their ancestors to bear, descendants may enter analysis through an unconscious need to uncover past secrets, piece together ancestral histories before the keys to comprehending their terrible inheritance die with their forebears. They seek the relational containment of the analytic relationship to provide psychological conditions to bear the unbearable, know the unknowable, speak the unspeakable and redeem the unredeemable. In the case of ‘Rachael’, initial dreams gave rise to what Hobson (1984) called ‘moving metaphors of self’ in the analytic field. Dream imagery, projective and introjective processes in the transference‐countertransference dynamics gradually revealed an unknown ancestral history. I clarify the back and forth process from dream to waking dream thoughts to moving metaphors and differentiate the moving metaphor from a living symbol. I argue that the containment of the analytic relationship nested within the security of the analytic space is a necessary precondition for such healing processes to occur. 相似文献
It is now widely acknowledged that both content and process elements of psychotherapy play a part in client treatment outcomes. Despite this, there are pressures on Australian clinical psychology training programs to teach evidence‐based approaches in a relatively short time frame. Producing clinical psychology graduates who have an adequate level of competence in evidence‐based practice and meeting the demands of professional accreditation requirements can mean that less time is available to teach the process elements of psychotherapy. The aim of this study was to conduct a preliminary evaluation of a clinical psychology psychotherapy training program that combines an interpersonal process group with a cognitive behavioural therapy training model that incorporates self‐reflection and self‐practice. Eleven participants who participated in the training in 2008 completed the Counseling Self‐Estimate Inventory at pre‐ and post‐training. Significant improvements on the majority of the subscales of this inventory were found. A separate sample of nine trainees and clinical psychology registrars who also previously completed the program attended individual interviews in 2010 aimed at gaining their perspective regarding various aspects of the program. Self‐practice of cognitive behavioural therapy techniques was found to be important in the identification and management of trainees’ own core beliefs, and to their appreciation of how challenging this process may be for clients. The interpersonal process group was described by participants as enhancing their competency as psychotherapists. Common themes included the experience of anxiety and a high level of emotion, and understanding how this experience might be similar for clients; increased self‐awareness; and increased competence in process issues. Many participants believed the process and content components of training were equally important to their development as psychotherapists. 相似文献