STRONG MILITARY FAMILIES INTERVENTION ENHANCES PARENTING REFLECTIVITY AND REPRESENTATIONS IN FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

Military families face many challenges due to deployment and parental separation, and this can be especially difficult for families with young children. The Strong Military Families (SMF) intervention is for military families with young children, and consists of two versions: the Multifamily Group, and a Home‐based psychoeducational written materials program. The Multifamily Group was designed to enhance positive parenting through both educational components and in vivo feedback and support during separations and reunions between parents and children (n = 78 parents). In the present study, we examine parenting reflectivity and mental representations in mothers versus fathers in military families, service members versus civilian spouses/parenting partners, and before versus after participation in the SMF Multifamily Group and Home‐based interventions. Parenting reflectivity and mental representations were coded from the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI; C.H. Zeanah & D. Benoit, 1995). Results suggest that neither parenting reflectivity nor WMCI typology differs between mothers and fathers in military families, or between service members and civilian parenting partners. Furthermore, there was substantial stability in parenting reflectivity and WMCI typology from baseline to posttest, but participation in the Multifamily Group, relative to Home‐based, was associated with improvements in both parenting reflectivity and WMCI ratings from baseline to postintervention.     

Maintenance of Relationship and Individual Functioning Gains Following Online Relationship Programs for Low‐Income Couples

Initial evidence suggests that gains in relationship functioning from brief, web‐based programs are maintained through one year following the intervention; however, whether these results generalize to a low‐income sample is unclear. Furthermore, previous research from in‐person couple therapy suggests there may be different shapes of maintenance slopes for behavioral versus acceptance‐based techniques. This study contacted 668 individuals who enrolled in online behavioral (ePREP) or acceptance‐based (OurRelationship) programs one year following completion of the program. Multilevel modeling was used to examine linear and quadratic rates of change in the year following the online intervention as well as total amount of change from pretreatment to 12‐month follow‐up for both relationship and individual functioning. The majority of couples who responded continued to be in a relationship with the same partner (68.3%). Examinations of relationship functioning indicated couples in both programs maintained their gains over follow‐up (i.e., no significant linear or quadratic changes), with medium‐to‐large within‐group effect sizes from pre‐ to one‐year follow‐up. There were no significant differences in relationship outcomes between OurRelationship and ePREP. Similarly, examinations of individual functioning outcomes indicated couples maintained their gains over follow‐up or continued to improve. In total, couples experienced small‐to‐medium within‐group effect sizes from pretreatment to one‐year follow‐up, with larger effects for individuals who were initially distressed. These results suggest that online programs create lasting change for low‐income couples in relationship and individual functioning, with minimal differences between behavioral and acceptance‐based orientations.     

Engaño,intenciones y creencias en el desarrollo y evolución de una psicología natural

Resumen

Los comportamientos de engaño suelen relacionarse con la intencionalidad y la conciencia, aunque desde una perspectiva evolutiva amplia puede apreciarse que el engaño es una estrategia evolutiva bastante antigua. En este artículo se discutirá en qué medida los engaños que producen los seres humanos y algunos otros primates pueden entenderse como el producto de una competencia básica para atribuir mente a los demás y no a uno mismo. El criterio más aceptado para determinar si un organismo posee tal capacidad mentalista es que demuestre la comprensión de las creencias falsas. Las situaciones de engaño en las que se crean deliberadamente creencias falsas en otros para conseguir beneficios cumplen teóricamente bien los criterios de mentalismo que los humanos alcanzan hacia la edad de cuatro años y medio. En otros primates no se ha demostrado experimentalmente con claridad la comprensión de las creencias falsas. Sin embargo, si atendemos a los datos de observación naturalista vemos numerosos comportamientos de engaño tanto en algunos primates no humanos como en niños menores de cuatro años. ¿Son estos engaños el producto de una teoría de la mente? ¿De una capacidad mentalista previa? ¿Quéotros estados mentale estarían implicados? Tras una revisión crítica de los trabajos que nos proporcionan estos datos, se discutirá el papel de la manipulaión y detección de intenciones como un proceso anterior a la manipulación de creencias falsas y las implicaciones que esta postura tiene para la consideración evolutiva de la capacidad mental.     

汉字识别中的部件加工：错觉性结合实验的证据

本研究用“错觉性结合”的实验范式探讨汉字识别中的部件加工。被试对两个刺激字之后出现的目标字进行再认。结果发现在速示条件下,目标字部件与刺激字的部件相同时（如目标字为“她”,而刺激字为“姓”及“地”）,被试常把目标字误认为刺激字。这种错误再认率随字频及部件频率的升高而降低。此外,刺激字的排列方式不同于字的结构方式时,字频及部件频率的效应减弱。上述结果不但表明整字频率、字的空间组织因素影响汉字识别,更显示部件是汉字认知过程的一个重要加工层次。     

Anger Can Help: A Transactional Model and Three Pathways of the Experience and Expression of Anger

Anger is a significant human emotion with far‐reaching implications for individuals and relationships. We propose a transactional model of anger that highlights its relational relevance and potentially positive function, in addition to problematic malformations. By evolutionary design, physical, self‐concept, or attachment threats all similarly trigger diffuse physiological arousal, psychologically experienced as anger‐emotion. Anger is first a signaling and motivational system. Anger is then formed to affirming, productive use or malformed to destructive ends. A functional, prosocial approach to anger organizes it for protective and corrective personal and relational adaptation. In our model, threat perception interacts with a person's view of self in relation to other to produce helpful or harmful anger. Inflated or collapsed views of self in relation to other produce distinct manifestations of destructive anger that are harmful to self, other, and relationship. Conversely, a balanced view of self in relation to other promotes constructive anger and catalyzes self, other, and relationship healing. Clinical use of the model to shape healing personal and relational contact with anger is explored.     

Clinical Guidelines for Working With Stepfamilies: What Family,Couple, Individual,and Child Therapists Need to Know

This article draws on four decades of research and clinical practice to delineate guidelines for evidence‐informed, clinically sound work with stepfamilies for couple, family, individual adult, and child therapists. Few clinicians receive adequate training in working with the intense and often complex dynamics created by stepfamily structure and history. This is despite the fact that stepfamilies are a fundamentally different family form that occurs world‐wide. As a result many clinicians rely on their training in first‐time family models. This is not only often unhelpful, but all too often inadvertently destructive. The article integrates a large body of increasingly sophisticated research about stepfamilies with the author's four decades of clinical practice with stepfamily relationships. It describes the ways in which stepfamilies are different from first‐time families. It delineates the dynamics of five major challenges stepfamily structure creates: (1) Insider/outsider positions are intense and they are fixed. (2) Children struggle with losses, loyalty binds, and change. (3) Issues of parenting, stepparenting, and discipline often divide the couple. (4) Stepcouples must build a new family culture while navigating previously established family cultures. (5) Ex‐spouses (other parents outside the household) are part of the family. Some available data are shared on the impact of cultural and legal differences on these challenges. A three‐level model of clinical intervention is presented: Psychoeducational, Interpersonal, and Intrapsychic/Intergenerational Family‐of‐Origin. The article describes some “easy wrong turns” for well‐meaning therapists and lists some general clinical guidelines for working with stepfamily relationships.     

On matters of mind and body: regarding Descartes

In this paper the author considers Descartes’ place in current thinking about the mind‐body dilemma. The premise here is that in the history of ideas, the questions posed can be as significant as the answers acquired. Descartes’ paramount question was ‘How do we determine certainty?’ and his pursuit of an answer led to cogito ergo sum. His discovery simultaneously raised the question whether mind is separate from or unified with the body. Some who currently hold that brain and subjectivity are unified contend that the philosopher ‘split’ mind from body and refer to ‘Descartes’ error’. This paper puts forward that Descartes’ detractors fail to recognise Descartes’ contribution to Western thought, which was to introduce the Enlightenment and to give a place to human subjectivity. Added to this, evidence from Descartes’ correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia supports the conclusion that Descartes did in fact believe in the unity of mind and body although he could not reconcile this rationally with the certainty from personal experience that they were separate substances. In this Descartes was engaged in just the same dilemma as that of current thinkers and researchers, a conflict which still is yet to be resolved.     

Couple‐based Intervention for Depression: An Effectiveness Study in the National Health Service in England

This study represents an effectiveness study and service evaluation of a cognitive behavioral, couple‐based treatment for depression (BCT‐D) provided in London services that are part of the “Improving Access to Psychological Therapies” (IAPT) program in England. Twenty‐three therapists in community clinics were trained in BCT‐D during a 5‐day workshop, followed by monthly group supervision for 1 year. The BCT‐D treatment outcome findings are based on 63 couples in which at least one partner was depressed and elected to receive BCT‐D. Eighty‐five percent of couples also demonstrated relationship distress, and 49% of the nonclient partners also met caseness for depression or anxiety. Findings demonstrated a recovery rate of 57% with BCT‐D, compared to 41% for all IAPT treatments for depression in London. Nonclient partners who met caseness demonstrated a 48% recovery rate with BCT‐D, although they were not the focus of treatment. BCT‐D was equally effective for clients regardless of the clinical status of the nonclient partner, suggesting its effectiveness in assisting both members of the couple simultaneously. Likewise, treatment was equally effective whether or not both partners reported relationship distress. The findings are promising regarding the successful application of BCT‐D in routine clinical settings.     

A Review of Baum's Review of Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism

Baum expressed numerous concerns about my Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism in his review. If his review were an independent submission and I were an independent referee, I would recommend that his review be rejected and that he be encouraged to revise and resubmit, once he has studied the field a bit more and clarified for himself and journal readers several important matters. I outline two sets of concerns that he might usefully clarify in his revision: (a) the important contributions of B. F. Skinner to a book about radical behaviorism, and (b) the nature of private behavioral events. In particular, the methodological behaviorism inherent in Baum's position needs to be resolved.