Developmetrics A balanced and short Best Friend Index for children and young adolescents

This study evaluated a short friendship questionnaire providing a balanced assessment of positive (e.g., support) and negative (e.g., jealousy) friendship features. In addition, associations with indices of adaptive functioning versus psychopathology were tested. The friendship questionnaire was presented to 548 typically developing children and young adolescents (M _age = 11;01 years). Results confirmed validity and independence of the two friendship features, and showed that negative friendship features were uniquely associated with symptoms of psychopathology, whereas both positive and negative features were, in opposite directions, uniquely associated with aspects of socioemotional functioning.     

The trajectory of psychoanalysis: A prognosticationy3

I present an overview of the development to this point of psychoanalysis as a discipline'both as a theory of the mind and a treatment of the disorders of the mind' and offer a prediction concerning evolving development over its (near) future. My focus is on the coherence of psychoanalysis as a theoretical structure, starting with Freud's strenuous endeavours to maintain the psychoanalysis that he had single‐handedly created as a unitary and unified theory, tracing then the breakdown of this effort, even in Freud's lifetime, into the burgeoning theoretical diversity or pluralism that characterises worldwide psychoanalysis today, and then going on to the beginning appearance of evidences' not yet widely remarked' of growing convergences from within very disparate and even seemingly very opposed theoretical perspectives, at least at the level of technical interventions and experience‐near clinical theory, with implications, however, even for the level of experience‐distant general (metapsychological) theory. Such a development, if sustained, as I anticipate, would strengthen the credibility of psychoanalysis as a science of the mind, amenable to growth through empirical research in accord with the canons of scientific method.     

临床思维学的教学实践与理论探索

思维是人类理性活动的基本方式,思维能力是最具人类特色的能力,临床思维能力的培养是一个非常重要、然而又常为人们所忽视的问题,主要介绍临床思维学的课程设置、主要内容、教学目的和教学效果,通过对教学实践的阶段性总结,对理论体系进行初步的探索,以推动临床思维学的普及和发展,提高临床诊断治疗水平。     

Predicting consumer satisfaction from CD players

This paper explores the relationship between expectations and product satisfaction evaluations in a high‐involvement product category. While doing so, the paper attempts to develop a regression model to predict the overall level of consumer satisfaction derived from CD players, using a number of explanatory variables within an ordinary least squares framework. This regression model links overall satisfaction to confidence in other people's opinions, expectations of product quality, experience with product quality, replacement rate and the importance of price. The model predicts fairly well for cross‐sectional data, with an adjusted R² of 57 per cent, and appears to be robust. Finally, the implications of these results for marketers are discussed. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Presurgical Coping, Depression, and Quality of Life in Persons with Parkinson's Disease

This study describes utilization of coping strategies and evaluates the interaction between coping strategies, depression, and quality of life (QOL) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) who are being considered for neurosurgical intervention. Eighty patients (mean age 61.7 years) with PD being evaluated for possible deep brain stimulation completed self-report instruments of coping strategies (Coping Responses Inventory), depression (Beck Depression Inventory), and disease-specific QOL (Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire-39). Analyses showed that patients with PD cope with the acute stressor of approaching neurosurgery through a variety of strategies, but particularly avoidant and behavioral strategies. When the correlated but apparently opposing effects of cognitive and behavioral strategies were teased apart, greater use of cognitive strategies was associated with more severe depressive symptomatology (and poorer QOL), while greater use of behavioral strategies appeared to be associated with less depression. Depressive symptomatology, in turn, was associated with poorer QOL. However, coping had minimal direct association with QOL. From this it was concluded that patients with advanced PD generate a variety of coping responses to an acute stressor such as surgery, and the use of behavioral strategies, in particular seeking of alternative enjoyable activities, may be associated with better mood if salutary effects are not overwhelmed by less helpful cognitive coping techniques. The minimization of depressive symptomatology, in turn, is associated with better QOL.     

Randomized Controlled Trial of Cognitive–Behavioral Group Therapy for Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a Medical Setting

Standard medical treatments have not been effective for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients. Though individualized cognitive–behavior therapy is an empirically supported treatment option, cognitive–behavioral group therapy (CBGT) has yet to be established as an effective alternative in a randomized controlled trial. This study compared the efficacy of a 10-session CBGT with a home-based symptom monitoring with weekly telephone contact (SMTC) treatment for IBS, extending previous quasi-experimental research in this area. Twenty-eight refractory IBS patients, evaluated and referred by gastroenterologists using the Rome criteria, participated in the study. IBS symptoms, psychological functioning, and health-related quality of life were assessed pre- and posttreatment, and at 3-month follow-up. CBGT patients reported significantly more gastrointestinal (GI) symptom improvement than SMTC patients on posttreatment global measures and had significantly reduced daily diary pain scores at 3-month follow-up. Based on MANOVA, there was significant improvement in psychological distress and health-related quality of life for the CBGT patients in comparison to the SMTC patients. These improvements were also maintained at the 3-month follow-up. Reductions in GI symptoms, psychological distress, and improved health related quality of life may contribute to less behavioral avoidance, disability, and health care utilization in refractory IBS patients.     

Impacts of Home-Based Telework on Quality of Life for Employees and Their Partners. Quantitative and Qualitative Results From a European Survey

The study investigates the effects of home-based telework on quality of life (QoL). Four dimensions of QoL were analysed; overall satisfaction with life, sense of belonging, sense of becoming and sense of being. Through cross-national survey data (from 217 job holders and 112 partners) and by means of structural equation modeling, a positive association was found between home-based telework to a worker's sense of belonging (beta = 0.30, p < 0.001). On the other hand, a negative path was detected from the job holder's home-based telework to his or her partner's overall satisfaction with life (beta = –0.27, p < 0.05). After controlling for subdimensions of life quality, home-based work did not affect the job holder's overall life satisfaction. Moreover, the more concentration the job holder reported, the lower the sense of belonging was reported by his or her partner (beta = –0.28, p < 0.05). No simple explanation for the negative effects were found, but our interviews with the group of workers and their families leave us the impression that the problem of overworking and withdrawal was most relevant to the cases, in combination with negative spill-over effects and unclear boundary settings in the home.     

自我保护性医疗的伦理扫描--论患方知情同意与医方规避风险

自我保护性医疗是近年来医方为应对医患关系重构而采取的一种行为模式,其本身和影响具有全新特点,充满价值冲突;这种行为模式,客观上是对应医疗风险尤其是重大医疗风险的;主观上同医方免责期待的张扬以及对知情同意的解读直接相关;因而,正当的自我保护性医疗既取决于医方合理的免责期待,以及改变对知情同意的误读,更依赖于自身的医学伦理综合素质的打造和完善。     

A framework and two sketches concerning psychoanalytical training and practice

The author discusses the mode of knowledge production in psychoanalysis based on a reflection on the psychoanalytical education and its relationship to clinical practice. She points out that there is a risk in a form of clinical activity found in our education, which, under the fascination of the analyst's power of operating in the metaphorical domain of words, loses sight of the material dimension of the clinical action. In other words, this form of clinical activity loses sight of the meeting with another human being, of the repertoire of theories and experiences that informs this action and the patient's and the analyst's concrete life situation. The author highlights the role of writing as a privileged way of dealing with the material and immaterial facts that constitute the clinical action and reflects on some of the forces that structure nowadays the reception of knowledge production inside the psychoanalytical field. She uses the notion of 'minor literature', by Franz Kafka, to express the possibility that a live circuit of writings exchanged among psychoanalysts can offer to an interchange of experiences and ideas that is the live expression of the history of the psychoanalytical groups. A clinical session is presented in order to promote considerations about the psychoanalytical education, theory and practice.     

Organizational social context and psychopathology of youth in residential care: The intervening role of youth–caregiver relationship quality

Drawing on an ecological approach with multiple informants, this study investigated the mediating role of youth–caregiver relationship quality in associations between different features of residential care settings' organizational social context and youth's psychopathology. Participants were 378 youth aged between 12 and 25 years old, and 54 caregivers aged between 24 and 57 years old, from 29 generalist residential youth care settings in Portugal. Given the hierarchical structure of data, analyses were performed using multilevel modeling. Results revealed that organizational social contexts characterized by higher levels of engagement, stress, and centralization, as perceived by the caregivers, were associated with lower levels of youth's externalizing problems (e.g., aggressive behavior and delinquency), reported by the caregivers, via better youth–caregiver relationship quality, perceived by the youth in care. These findings highlight the relevance of creating an organizational social context in residential care settings that supports caregivers in establishing high-quality relationships with the youth in care, thereby promoting their mental health. This study contributes to the clarification of conflicting findings in previous studies of this field, by offering further empirical investigation of these issues.