Ernest Dichter's fur coat models: Fashioning a therapeutic culture

Discussions of the rise of therapeutic culture have tended toward the abstract, in part due to a focus on theory. This article looks at the case of Ernest Dichter's motivational research, particularly a study conducted on fur coats in the late 1950s, to locate this broader cultural shift more materially. Motivational research was a broad project of study that aimed to uncover unconscious consumer desires using the tools of psychology and psychoanalysis. This project materialized culture first through the pen-and-paper projective test created for the study, which sorted styles of fur into different classifications of womanhood, and second through the fur coats themselves, which were granted by Dichter a psychological agency of their own in their relationship with middle-class women. Through this study, Dichter observed a shift in Americans' understanding of the self, a movement away from meeting physiological needs to addressing their inner lives; changing economic conditions had granted more income and free time with which to look inward, and Americans wanted consumer goods to aid in such self-discovery. Dichter suggested that the fur industry capitalize on this change by emphasizing the versatility of fur and the role of objects more generally in fostering creative self-expression. The advertising office was where theory was put into practice. In that way, it is a uniquely generative though often overlooked space from which to look into the rise of the therapeutic culture.     

Infinite Epistemic Regresses and Internalism

This article seeks to state, first, what traditionally has been assumed must be the case in order for an infinite epistemic regress to arise. It identifies three assumptions. Next it discusses Jeanne Peijnenburg's and David Atkinson's setting up of their argument for the claim that some infinite epistemic regresses can actually be completed and hence that, in addition to foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism, there is yet another solution (if only a partial one) to the traditional epistemic regress problem. The article argues that Peijnenburg and Atkinson fail to address the traditional regress problem, as they don't adopt all of the three assumptions that underlie the traditional regress problem. It also points to a problem in the notion of making probable that Peijnenburg and Atkinson use in their account of justification.     

Barriers to Learning Motivational Interviewing: A Survey of Motivational Interviewing Trainers' Perceptions

Trainers reported that motivational interviewing (MI)–inconsistent behaviors were frequently perceived during training and believed to create barriers to learning. More barriers were perceived in corrections than in mental health training audiences. Strategies to facilitate unlearning MI‐inconsistent behaviors may accelerate acquisition of MI.     

Stained glass as a model for consciousness

Contemporary phenomenal externalists are motivated to a large extent by the transparency of experience and by the related doctrine of representationalism. On their own, however, transparency and representationalism do not suffice to establish externalism. Hence we should hesitate to dismiss phenomenal internalism, a view shared by many generations of competent philosophers. Rather, we should keep both our options open, internalism and externalism. It is hard, however, to see how to keep open the internalist option, for although transparency and representationalism have not yet definitively established externalism, they have indeed made it quite intuitive. Internalism, by comparison, comes across at first sight as antiquated and ridden with difficulties. This is why I propose the Stained Glass model of consciousness. I do so with the following two aims: first, to make internalism intuitive in the age of transparency, and second, to show how to resist the many recent anti-internalist arguments. In particular, I argue that phenomenal internalism need not be epistemically worrisome, that it is compatible at once with transparency, representationalism, and content externalism, and that although it requires an error theory, this error theory is a harmless one.     

Development of a Brief Motivational Enhancement Intervention for Intimate Partner Violence in Alcohol Treatment Settings

The current studies were a manual development study and a small pilot study of a 90-minute motivational enhancement style intervention to address intimate partner violence in alcohol-treatment-seeking men. Analyses of feedback provided during manual development suggest participants (a) liked the intervention, (b) reported behavior change intentions, and (c) found the feedback compelling. Findings from the pilot study suggest the intervention might be superior to referral only in increasing short-term help-seeking and lead to marginally significant enhancements in motivation and self-reported intimacy. Help-seeking and motivation findings were associated with medium-large to large effect sizes. At 3- and 6-month follow-up, both groups showed improvements in self-reported alcohol outcomes, anger, and verbal and physical aggression. These findings support further research on this intervention.     

Statement Validity Analysis

Summary

All information regarding 103 Dutch sexual abuse cases was analyzed using the Validity Checklist, the second part of the Statement Validity Analysis procedure. The fulfillment of the VC items was compared for four different age groups. Only two VC items differed significantly between the age groups. The systematic summarization of content analysis and validity checks revealed only a weak relationship between the fulfillment of the CBCA criteria and the VC items together and the outcome of the cases. The results suggest that SVA cannot yet be used as a scientifically validated instrument for judging the truthfulness of allegations of child sexual abuse.     

A Brief Motivational Intervention for Treatment‐Refusing OCD Patients

Cognitive behavioral therapy involving exposure and response prevention (ERP) is the psychosocial treatment of choice for obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD). Despite this, ERP is not widely used by mental health practitioners, and so dissemination of ERP and other empirically supported treatment (ESTs) has become a priority. Even so, utilization of ESTs such as ERP remains below 50% even among therapists who self‐identify as having a cognitive behavioral orientation. Barriers to the acceptance of ERP include practical obstacles such as lack of training and the cost of treatment, but also patient variables such as treatment refusal. It has been estimated that approximately 25% of OCD patients refuse ERP. This paper describes a brief, 4‐session readiness intervention (RI) designed to decrease ERP refusal among patients with OCD. In this study, 12 patients with OCD who had refused ERP were randomized to RI or wait‐list (WL). 86% of participants in the RI condition and 20% of participants in WL condition agreed to begin ERP following the 4‐week period. ERP following RI, but not WL, was associated with a decrease in OCD symptoms comparable to that observed in OCD patients who did not refuse ERP. However, ERP following RI was associated with a high drop‐out rate (50%), a figure that exceeds that typically seen in OCD treatment studies. Techniques to reduce drop‐out as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

Some Worries about Normative and Metaethical Sentimentalism

In this response I raise a number of problems for Michael Slote's normative and metaethical sentimentalism. The first is that his agent–based account of rightness needs be qualified in order to be plausible; any such qualification, however, leaves Slote's normative ethics in tension with his metaethical views. The second is that an agent–based ethics of empathic caring will indeed struggle to capture our common–sense understanding of deontological constraints, and that appeal to the notion of causal immediacy will be of little help here. Finally, it seems to me that Slote's metaethical account will turn out to be much less externalist (and hence, by his own lights, much less plausible) than he suspects.     

Exercise based interventions for alcohol use disorder: A comment on motivational aspects of participation

Exercise based treatment for alcohol use disorders have shown an impact on mental health (e.g., depression or anxiety), and alcohol outcomes (e.g., craving or abstinence). However, there is a lack of information on the role of motivational aspects of participation in the process of designing exercise interventions for alcohol use disorder. This study aims to examine: (1) whether motivational aspects are taken into account when the type and delivery method of exercise interventions are chosen; (2) whether motivational aspects are taken into account post intervention; and (3) whether there are different traditions regarding payment for participants. A systematic search was conducted to identify eligible studies in order to investigate the impact of motivational aspects including payment for participation. Twelve samples including ten to 620 participants were investigated. Participants were predominantly male and in their 40s, ranging from 20 to 69 years. Aerobic exercise (running, walking, fitness) either in a group or individual condition is the most frequently used exercise form. Two studies included ball games or cycling, while only one study offered the opportunity to choose between a wide range of sports. Motivational aspects are mentioned explicitly in half of the studies, mostly with regard to adherence to participation and social integration as the reason for using a group condition. Achievement is mentioned in two studies but not explicitly with regard to planning the intervention design. Five studies include payment for participation in exercise. Findings of the present study identify that motivational aspects for participation are rarely involved in the planning of an exercise intervention. With regard to the specific psychosocial vulnerability of an alcohol use disorder population, this should be an important aspect of further research studies.