A Review of “Mind to Mind: Infant Research,Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis”

Abstract

This article examines current research pertaining to the relationship between a mother and her children, and how this relationship may affect sibling interactions. Issues such as temperament, gender, and the age gap between children are also explored to ascertain their impact on the sibling relationship.

The displacement of the first-born child and the ensuing sense of loss and anger he may experience as a result of this is explored. The mother's second pregnancy is also discussed in regard to the impact of unresolved issues relating to her own sibling relations. The mother's interactions with each child, her role as a model for identification, and marital relations are discussed in light of their impact on sibling relations.

The evolution of a positive attachment between siblings is explored. Rivalrous behavior between siblings is also discussed, particularly in association to the mother's treatment of her own children and the manner in which the mother deals with her own aggression.     

Dyadic Flexibility in Early Parent–Child Interactions: Relations with Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Child Negativity and Behaviour Problems

Lower levels of parent–child affective flexibility indicate risk for children's problem outcomes. This short‐term longitudinal study examined whether maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility and positive affective content in mother–child problem‐solving interactions at age 3.5 years (N = 100) and whether these maternal and dyadic factors predicted child emotional negativity and behaviour problems at a 4‐month follow‐up. Dyadic flexibility and positive affect were measured using dynamic systems‐based modelling of second‐by‐second affective patterns during a mother–child problem‐solving task. Results showed that higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility, which predicted children's higher levels of negativity and behaviour problems as rated by teachers. Mothers' ratings of child negativity and behaviour problems were predicted by their own depressive symptoms and individual child factors, but not by dyadic flexibility. There were no effects of dyadic positive affect. Findings highlight the importance of studying patterns in real‐time dyadic parent–child interactions as potential mechanisms of risk in developmental psychopathology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Language: The art of therapeutic communication

Abstract

This article shares insights into the processes of suggestibility in the interaction between client and therapist. The article also draws on the work of Yapko and Langs and the insights of the author himself in order to make suggestions on how clinical practice and its supervision could be improved by greater scrutiny of the content of client-therapist interactions.     

The queer life of Christian exceptionalism

This response to Jasbir Puar's monograph, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007. Durham, NC: Duke University Press), brings Puar's analysis to bear on the current attraction to ‘Christian identity’ as a historical analytic in the fields of New Testament and early Christian Studies, and to increasing associations of the ancient emergence of ‘Christian identity’ with transgressive queerness. I argue that this latter trend, especially, abets certain forms of Christian exceptionalism under the guise of resistance against empire, but I also suggest that this scholarship reveals certain affinities between the notion of queerness as pure transgression and contemporary Christianity.     

Objects of Heart's Desire

SUMMARY

We enter the world with an expectancy of love and a need to love. That which we love is dictated by our histories and limited by our fears. This paper explains some of the consequences of that for the individual and the couple.     

潜变量交互效应结构方程：分布分析方法

对于潜变量交互效应结构方程分析,目前应用较多的是乘积指标方法.分布分析方法国内还罕有应用,包括潜调节结构方程（LMS）方法和准极大似然（QML）方法.该研究以乘积指标方法的模型假设为参照,介绍了分布分析方法的模型假设.并简要叙述了LMS方法及其Mplus程序,QML方法及其QML程序.综合现有研究结果,总结出LMS和QML方法、无约束和约束方法的特点,从中可以看出各方法的优缺点,推荐了不同条件下合适的分析方法.     

数字-空间联结SNARC效应的编码：视觉空间和言语空间

采用Gevers等的实验范式,以判断数字大小并选择不同言语符号方向信息左右为任务。材料为阿拉伯数字（1、2、8、9）和汉字、英文单词符号（“左”、“右”、“left”、“m#t”）。考察在不同语言符号方向信息下数字-空间联结SANBC效应的编码方式,结果发现：（1）在汉字和英文符号信息下,被试在数字大小比较任务中都表现出SNARC效应;（2）在汉字符号方向信息下。SNARC效应的编码方式主要存在视觉空间和言语空间编码,且以言语空间编码为主;（3）在英文符号方向信息下。SNARC效应的鳊码方式主要是视觉空间编码。     

知情交互作用的实证研究现状与展望

知情交互作用(the interaction of cognition-emotion)是指认知与情绪之间相互作用,相互影响,二者密不可分.当前,知情交互作用的研究主要涉及两个方面:一是认知对情绪的影响,即认知对情绪的产生和情绪调节的影响;二是情绪对认知的影响,即情绪对感知觉、记忆和思维的影响.本文从实证角度,综合相关文献选取各自领域具有代表性的最新研究成果进行了概要述评,并进一步指出未来的研究应该在无意识情绪的脑机制、情绪-想象的交互作用、情绪-语言的交互作用,以及知-情-行的整合等方面进一步探讨.     

A longitudinal examination of factors predicting anxiety during the transition to middle school

Abstract

The transition from elementary to middle or junior high school is commonly regarded as a period of stress and turmoil for young adolescents, and has been associated with changes in anxiety and other psychological problems. However, less is known about risk and resilience factors that may predict these changes. This study examined changes in anxiety, as well as predictors of these changes among 77, predominantly Caucasian (88%), male and female (52%) adolescents from Grades 6 to 8. Repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to examine the predicted grade and gender differences. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the prediction of eighth grade anxiety symptoms by sixth grade self-worth, perceived social acceptance, and social support, as well as the potential moderating role of gender in these relations. Results suggested a significant decrease in anxiety, particularly social anxiety, over this period for boys but not girls. Examination of predictors of changes in anxiety suggested that, in general, global self-worth, social acceptance, and gender were each associated with overall and social anxiety. Findings are integrated with extant literature on developmental changes associated with anxiety and school transitions and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Relationships between restrictive mother-child interactions and anxiety of the child

Abstract

The “two-process model” postulates that there are specific associations between patterns of parental child-rearing styles and the development of the child's anxiety and coping dispositions. Besides parameters of parental feedback to the child, this model considers support and restriction to be the central dimensions of child-rearing behavior. The present study aims at assessing behavioral indicators for restriction. For this purpose, the working and intervention behavior of 47 mothers and their ten- to 13-year-old children was observed and registered during a 15-minute period of common problem-solving (putting together a difficult puzzle-like cube). In order to register processes of problem-oriented cooperation between mother and child, transitional probabilities between defined state and event classes were analyzed. Based on the theoretical definition of the child-rearing style “restrictio”, hypotheses concerning the significance of variable transitional probabilities are formulated and tested regarding their correspondence with anxiety-related characteristics of the child.