Intellectual and cognitive profiles in patients affected by schizophrenia

Intellectual abilities display high heterogeneity in patients with schizophrenia that might depend on the interaction among neurodevelopmental processes, environmental factors and neurocognitive decline. This study aimed to disentangle the interplay between intellectual level, cognitive status and each cognitive domain, with a focus on speed-related abilities, also including pre-morbid factors. In details, by means of cluster analysis, we identified both in global sample of 452 patients affected by schizophrenia and in a subsample with high pre-morbid functioning, different profiles based on current intellectual level and global cognitive status, analysing the distribution of deficits in each cognitive domains between groups. Then, through regression models, we analysed the contribution of speed-related domains and global cognitive profile to each other cognitive function. Considering the whole sample, results highlight three groups (high, medium and low cognitive level), while among patients with high pre-morbid level, the heterogeneity was best captured by two groups (high and medium level). Still, within each group, a small to high percentage of patients achieved normal score in neurocognitive abilities depending on the cluster they belong to. Speed of processing and psychomotor coordination resulted impaired in all clusters, even in patients with high pre-morbid functioning. The regression analyses revealed significant effects of both cognitive profile and speed-dependent domains on the other cognitive abilities. This study confirms, in a large sample, previous data about the heterogeneity of intellectual and neurocognitive functioning in schizophrenia and highlights the main role of speed-dependent neurocognitive functioning, also as an important target of rehabilitation.     

执行功能与精神分裂症

执行功能障碍是精神分裂症最重要的认知功能障碍,与精神分裂症其它方面的障碍有着密不可分的关系。文章在相关的认知神经心理学和临床研究的基础上,分别综述了精神分裂症执行功能障碍的特点、研究方法、相关脑机制,执行功能与注意、记忆等一般认知功能间的关系,执行功能与精神症状间的联系及其在诊断、康复、判断预后方面的作用等。对精神分裂症执行功能障碍的认识有助于更深入地理解其病因机制,并有利于临床评价与防治     

Relatively Socially Acceptable Prejudice Within and Between Societies

Two studies investigated the relative social acceptability of certain prejudices within a society (Study 1) and between societies (Study 2), using (less) internal motivation to control prejudice as an indicator of social acceptability. In Study 1, White British participants reported less internal motivation to control prejudice against people with schizophrenia than against Black people. In Study 2, Jamaican participants reported less internal motivation to control anti‐homosexual prejudice than did either British participants or American participants. Other differences in motivation to control prejudice were smaller, absent, or at odds with this difference, indicating that differences in motivation to control anti‐homosexual prejudice were not solely due to cultural differences concerning motivation to control prejudice in general. Results are discussed in terms of novel findings, relevance to the literature and possible future research. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

正念训练对康复期精神分裂症患者抑制控制的影响

探究正念训练对康复期精神分裂症患者正念觉知水平和抑制控制能力的影响。选取54名康复期精神分裂症住院患者随机分为正念组和对照组。对照组予以常规康复治疗,正念组在常规康复治疗基础上进行8周正念训练。结果发现：（1）在正念觉知方面,正念组后测得分显著高于前测,对照组前后测得分无显著差异;正念组后测得分显著高于对照组。（2）在抑制控制方面,正念组后测Stroop任务反应时显著低于前测,对照组前后测反应时无显著差异;正念组后测反应时显著低于对照组。结果表明,正念训练有助于提高康复期精神分裂症患者正念觉知水平和改善其抑制控制能力。     

Skilled help for mental health concerns: comparing the perceptions of Catholic priests and Catholic parishioners

This brief pilot study explored associations between religious attachment (RA) and schizotypy in a nonclinical Christian sample (N = 96). Participants responded to questionnaires assessing the above constructs, as well as adult attachment and neuroticism. Religious attachment accounted for 15.2% of the variance in cognitive schizotypy. Anxious religious attachment uniquely predicted cognitive schizotypy, while its effects on other schizotypy traits were accounted for by adult attachment effects. Schizotypy research may benefit from considering attachment relationships in the religious domain. Should our findings be extended and replicated, they may aid the development of interventions, tailored for specific religious populations, which could improve treatment outcomes for schizotypal or schizophrenic individuals.     

Nonreligious coping and religious coping as predictors of expressed emotion in relatives of patients with schizophrenia

Expressed emotion (EE) is a measure of the amount of criticism and emotional over involvement expressed by a key relative towards a relative with a disorder or illness. Research has established that living in a high EE environment, which is characterised by increased levels of critical and emotionally exaggerated communication, leads to a poorer prognosis for patients with a mental illness when compared to low EE environments. Despite evidence that EE is a strong predictor of the course of the illness, there continue to be questions concerning why some family members express excessive levels of high EE attitudes about their mentally ill relatives while others do not. Based on indirect evidence from previous research, the current study tested whether religious and nonreligious coping serve as predictors of EE. A sample of 72 family members of patients with schizophrenia completed an EE interview, along with questionnaires assessing situational nonreligious coping and religious coping. In line with the hypotheses, results indicated that nonreligious coping predicted EE. Specifically, less use of adaptive emotion-focused coping predicted high EE. Also consistent with predictions, maladaptive religious coping predicted high EE above and beyond nonreligious coping.     

Behavioural characteristics of offenders with mental health disorders in a South African prison population

This exploratory study profiled behavioural characteristics of a non-random sample of 91 offenders with mental illness in a South African correctional facility. The sample is directly related to diagnosed cases from the correctional psychiatrist's case load. The most prevalent mental disorders diagnosed amongst the research participants of this sample specific profile were schizophrenia (33%), major depressive (27.5%), bipolar mood (12.1%) and psychotic disorders (11%).     

Controlling,Avoiding, or Protecting the Object: Three Reactions to the Breakdown of Psychic Retreats

In working psychoanalytically, it is common to encounter patients who need to carefully manage their immediate objects. This is evident in their stories about external life at home, at work, and with friends as well as in how it emerges within the transference. While a frequent theme in many analytic cases, the motives behind this need are varied.

Case material is used to show how these reactions emerge when psychic retreats fail. When unable to find refuge in pathological organizations or psychic retreats, patients are exposed to the worst of paranoid and depressive anxieties with only a fragile foxhole to withdraw into or defend from. In such a precarious psychological state, fantasies of unbearable self and object danger emerge, leading to various forms of acting out, overreliance on projective identification, and perverted images of giving and receiving. These fantasies result in the desire for idealized objects, the drive to resurrect fallen objects, and the need to avoid cruel and attacking objects that have taken over and replaced the sought out ideal.     

Schizophrenic troubles of personal identity: A cognitive model

A cognitive approach to the psychiatric clinic raises the problem of conceptual articulation between the pathological phenomena observed in clinic and models derived from cognitive sciences.

The theoretical approach of H. von Foerster linking communication, language and personal identity in a common formalism seems to constitute a pertinent framework for such articulation.