Secondary traumatic stress and adjustment in therapists who work with sexual violence survivors: the moderating role of posttraumatic growth

ABSTRACT

Due to their secondary exposure to the traumatic events disclosed by clients, therapists who work with sexual violence survivors are at risk of experiencing secondary traumatic stress. We examined whether the negative effects of secondary traumatic stress on therapist adjustment would be buffered by posttraumatic growth. Sixty-one therapists who work with sexual violence survivors completed measures of secondary traumatic stress, posttraumatic growth and a range of adjustment indicators. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that posttraumatic growth moderated the negative impact of secondary traumatic stress on therapist depression, anxiety, personal meaning and satisfaction with life. Posttraumatic growth sustained positive affect through a direct effects model only. This study provides support for the protective role of posttraumatic growth in adjustment to secondary traumatic stress.     

Language proficiency does not modulate executive control in older bilinguals

ABSTRACT

We examined if language proficiency modulates performance in tasks that measure executive control in older Telugu-English bilinguals (n = 50, mean age = 57.15 years). We administered numerical Stroop task, Attention Network Task, Dimensional Change Card Sorting task, and stop-signal task that are known to tap into different aspects of executive functioning on healthy aging Telugu-English bilinguals. Second language (English) proficiency was calculated as a cumulative score that considered both subjective and objective measures of L2 fluency and use. Bilinguals were divided into two groups based on the cumulative score and compared on each task. We did not find any effect of language proficiency on any of the executive control measures. The additional Bayesian analysis also supported these findings. Therefore, the results do not support the claim that bilingual language proficiency modulates executive control, at least in the elderly population. We discuss the results with regard to the issue of bilingual advantage in executive control and the role of age and language use.     

Powerful Occupational Therapists: A Community of Professionals, 1950–1980

A powerful community of therapists changed occupational therapy in the United States between 1950 until 1980. These innovators, primarily women, strategically positioned themselves to market the emerging profession. These therapists, categorized as theorists and futurists, political movers and new and old guard sustainers, determined occupational therapy's direction. Participating in the 1950s rehabilitation, the 1960s equal rights, and the 1970s women's movements, the community of therapists separated from the male-dominated medical model to gain professional and scientific authority. An internal tension arouse between those therapists embracing an objective, and arguably male, science and those supporting a characteristically feminine caring philosophical base.     

Therapists' Experiences of Conducting Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Online vis-à-vis Face-to-Face

This study has explored therapists' experiences of conducting cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) online and face-to-face. Eleven therapists partook in semi-structured interviews, which were thematically analysed using an abductive approach. The results indicate that the therapists viewed face-to-face therapy as a stronger experience than Internet-based CBT (ICBT), and the latter as being more manualised, but providing more work-time control. Several participants also thought that working alliance may be achieved faster and more easily in face-to-face therapy, and might worsen with fewer modalities of communication. Clinical implications in need of investigation are whether working with ICBT might buffer therapist exhaustion, and whether this therapy form can be improved by becoming less manual dependant in order to be easier to individualise.     

Change deafness across voices in music and language

ABSTRACT

Listeners made same/different evaluations of a pair of musical presentations separated by a broadband noise. In the first experiment, the pair had either the same or a different: singers voice, language (Spanish or English), and reverberation (dry or very high reverb). A second experiment was conducted using the same vocal melodies played on guitars to emphasize non-linguistic content. In both Experiments 1 and 2, large-scale changes to Reverb were either completely undetected or ignored. A change of language in Experiment 1 supported only minimal sensitivity to change detection. Changes to multiple variables tended to increase listener sensitivity to a stimulus change. The results seem to indicate that the semantic coherence created by a musical background may limit attention to linguistic changes and voicing. Rather, those changes that more directly influence musical quality may be of greater salience in a musical context.     

非熟练中-英双语者英语句子语义通达的语境效应

设计不同的语境条件, 并采用图-词语义一致性判断来探测非熟练中-英双语者英语句子的语义通达性, 结果表明, 在无语境条件、语义无关动画或语义相关文本伴音语境下, 非熟练中-英双语者表现出英语句子语义通达的非选择性, 而形象和语义一致的动画语境能使他们有效限制对等的L1句子构成词汇的激活, 并表现出目标句语义通达的选择性。这说明, 语境可以影响弱势语识别阶段的非选择激活, 相关的语境影响双语通达的理论也由此被讨论。     

Counsellor conflict in managing the frame: Dilemmas and decisions

An essential feature of psychodynamic counselling is a secure frame for the work that holds boundaries as sacrosanct, both to ensure ethical practice and to provide a vehicle through which unconscious processes can be recognized and understood. Conscious or unconscious attacks on the frame are inevitable in any therapeutic relationship, and provide an opportunity for exploration and insight. However such incidents also have an impact on the therapist who must decide how to respond. In order to understand more about the therapist process when there is an attack on the frame, an investigation was carried out into ways in which psychodynamic counsellors manage the difficulties and dilemmas that arise as they try to hold a secure therapeutic frame. Ten counsellors were interviewed using a semi‐ structured interview format during which they were asked about an instance when the frame was challenged and the process by which it was resolved. The resulting dilemmas were categorized using grounded theory. Three categories of dilemmas emerged a) prior to making a decision about how to deal with it, b) after making a decision, and c), as a result of the outcome of the action taken. The nature of the dilemmas and the process of resolving them are reported and discussed.     

Rural Marriage and Family Therapists: A Pilot Study

Marriage and family therapists practice in more than a third of the rural counties in the United States. However, little is known about the practice patterns of marriage and family therapists who practice in rural settings. This pilot study examined the clinical practice and community involvement of a sample of licensed marriage and family therapists in rural Texas. The results contribute to a small but developing body of research about a relatively unknown group of practitioners.     

双语言语产生中的词汇提取机制

文章主要介绍了双语言语产生中词汇提取机制的两种理论：非特定语言提取的理论和特定语言提取的理论。重点围绕着双语言语产生中词汇提取的一个关键问题,即非目标语言的词汇是否对目标语言的词汇提取形成竞争或者干扰详细地论述了二者的理论分歧,非特定语言提取的理论认为非目标语言的词汇会对目标语言的词汇提取形成竞争,而特定语言提取的理论认为不会形成竞争。文章最后介绍了双语言语产生中词汇提取机制的最新研究趋势,表明了非特定语言提取的理论和特定语言提取的理论逐步走向融和