Fear of Hypoglycemia and Self Reported Posttraumatic Stress in Adults with Type I Diabetes Treated by Intensive Regimens

This study investigated the prevalence of hypoglycemic fear (FH) and hypoglycemia-specific posttraumatic stress (PTS) among individuals with Type I diabetes. Over 25% of participants met diagnostic criteria for current PTSD. High percentages of participants endorsed PTS symptom clusters, suggesting that individuals may be experiencing distress without necessarily meeting diagnostic criteria. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that perceived threat of death from hypoglycemia and FH were significantly related to PTS. Number of recent hypoglycemic episodes did not predict PTS/PTSD. Depression and nonspecific anxiety did not contribute to the statistical prediction of PTSD, suggesting that symptomatology endorsed represents hypoglycemia-specific anxiety rather than global psychological distress. The hypothesis that greater PTS symptomatology would relate to poorer glycemic control was unsubstantiated. Perceived death-threat from hypoglycemia and nonspecific anxiety were the only variables that contributed to prediction of glycemic control, suggesting that PTS did not represent a significant barrier for glycemic control in this sample.     

Return of fear in a human differential conditioning paradigm caused by a return to the original acquistion context

In a differential human fear conditioning paradigm evidence for ABA-renewal was obtained manipulating the lighting in the experimental room. During acquisition in either a dark or illuminated room, one neutral slide was sometimes paired with a loud aversive noise whereas another slide was not. Subsequently, extinction took place in the opposite lighting context. When afterwards the participants were tested again in the original acquisition context, measurements revealed a recovery of the conditioned electrodermal response and an increase in the retrospective verbal US-expectancy ratings. No response recovery was obtained in an AAA-group that received acquisition, extinction and test trials in one and the same context. Several theoretical explanations for this type of return of fear as well as implications for clinical practice are discussed.     

Grace and Imagination: From Fear to Freedom

Creative use of our imagination is essential if we are to live a vibrant life. Although our use of imagination is often blocked by various fears, D. W. Winnicott's insights into play, aggression, and the use of transitional objects open up paths towards greater freedom. The sacred texts, symbols, and liturgies of our religious traditions can then become the toys which engage us in profound and re-creating soul play. Through grace and the evocative examples of our teachers, we can find ways to use our imagination more freely to deepen our spiritual life and psychological wholeness.     

Intrahippocampal scopolamine impairs both acquisition and consolidation of contextual fear conditioning

Lesions of the dorsal hippocampus have been shown to disrupt both the acquisition and the consolidation of memories associated with contextual fear (fear of the place of conditioning), but do not affect fear conditioning to discrete cues (e.g., a tone). Blockade of central muscarinic cholinergic receptor activation results in selective acquisition deficits of contextual fear conditioning, but reportedly has little effect on consolidation. Here we show for the first time that direct infusion of the muscarinic cholinergic receptor antagonist, scopolamine, into the dorsal hippocampus produces a dose-dependent deficit in both acquisition and consolidation of contextual fear conditioning, while having no impact on simple tone conditioning.     

Some reflections on the origin of hate between man and woman

There is no love without hate and no hate without love; their opposite is indifference. According to Winnicott, human being’s deepest guilt evolves when his hate is stronger than his love. This paper will explore how the origin of hate may lie in early helplessness, in the difference between sexes and disturbances of developmental phases. Finally, it will be illustrated how hate can protect love in a relationship between man and woman.     

The influence of implicit theories and message frame on the persuasiveness of disease prevention and detection advocacies

This research investigates the effectiveness of health message framing (gain/loss) depending on the nature of advocacy (prevention/detection) and respondents’ implicit theories (entity/incremental). Three experiments demonstrate that for detection advocacies, incremental theorists are more persuaded by loss frames. For prevention advocacies, incremental theorists are more persuaded by gain frames. For both advocacies (detection and prevention), entity theorists are not differentially influenced by frame. However, entity theorists are message advocacy sensitive such that they are more persuaded by prevention than detection advocacies, regardless of the message frame. These results are robust for measured as well as manipulated implicit theories and for different health contexts.     

Seeing and Being Seen: Courage and the Therapist in Cross-Racial Treatment

ABSTRACT

Correction of the patient's distortion is often the focus of therapeutic treatment. However, the therapist's distortions, based upon pre-existing fears, which themselves are often rooted in greater societal issues and energized by the work with the patient (especially as they relate to issues of racial difference between the therapist and patient), can lead to clinical impasse. Just as an effective treatment relies upon the patient's opening up to correcting distortions, so too the therapist must be able to use transference response and become vulnerable to knowing and moving beyond his own fears and distortions.     

Strategic and Automatic Threat Processing in Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Startle Probe Investigation

Attentional bias research with chronic pain samples has yielded conflicting results. In the present investigation the startle paradigm was used to test the postulate that fear‐based mechanisms play an important role in attentional biases for pain‐related threat in chronic pain. Participants, including 31 individuals with chronic musculoskeletal pain and 20 healthy controls, completed a startle task designed to measure attention to different types of words (neutral vs sensory pain vs affective pain vs health catastrophe) presented at different levels of cognitive processing (strategic vs automatic). Measures of fear‐based individual difference variables, including anxiety sensitivity and fear of pain, were also completed. Startle amplitudes and latencies to acoustic startle probes that followed word presentations were recorded. Data were analyzed with repeated measures ANOVAs and correlational analysis. Significant between‐group differences were found indicating that, relative to chronic pain participants, healthy controls had higher startle amplitude index scores for health catastrophe words. There was also a trend among patients with chronic pain for greater startle amplitude index scores for strategic presentations of sensory pain words. In the automatic condition, all participants demonstrated a lower startle latency index for sensory words relative to both affect and health catastrophe words, suggesting participants had more difficulty disengaging from affect and health catastrophe words or were more avoidant of sensory words. Correlational analyses indicated that startle response indices for words related to health catastrophe became more pronounced for chronic pain patients as anxiety sensitivity and fear of pain increased. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Increasing Family Members' Appreciation of Family Caregiving Stress

Participants read a message discussing the duties of a typical family caregiver (for example, a woman taking care of her elderly mother) and the associated psychological, physical, social, and financial stresses. The message was accompanied by an appeal that was either a control or was altruistic (other-oriented: focusing on the mother/caregiver's well-being) or egoistic (self-oriented: focusing on the child of the caregiver's needs and feelings). Participants who received an altruistic appeal were more appreciative of caregiving stresses than were those given an egoistic or a control appeal. Increasing family members' awareness of the stress involved in family caregiving is a first step in encouraging them to personally intervene on behalf of the caregiver.     

Age and Gender Differences in Children's Halloween Costumes

Based on data reported by Serbin and Sprafkin (1986), we predicted that the Halloween costumes of first and second graders would be less gender stereotyped than those of preschoolers and children in kindergarten. Children from one public elementary school and two preschools (N = 178) were individually interviewed on Halloween. Children were asked which character they were, who they wanted to be next year, and their age. The resulting 113 different costumes were then rated by college students for degree of masculinity, femininity, and scariness. In addition to main effects of gender and grade, two of four predicted interactions were significant. Older boys tended to prefer less masculine and more feminine costumes than younger boys, and older girls tended to prefer more masculine and less feminine costumes than younger girls.