The Impact of Periventricular Brain Injury on Reading and Spelling Abilities in the Late Elementary and Adolescent Years

The present study was designed: (1) to investigate the long-term consequences of both the presence and the severity of periventricular brain injury (PVBI) on intellectual, academic, and cognitive outcome in extremely-low-birthweight (ELBW: < 1,000 grams) children at a mean age of 11 years; and (2) to determine the nature of the underlying difficulties associated with academic problems in these children. The results indicated that ELBW children without PVBI performed as well as full-term children on intelligence, academic, and cognitive ability tests. In contrast, ELBW children with mild and severe PVBI achieved significantly lower scores than either ELBW children without PVBI or children who were born at term. A second analysis indicated that, after accounting for Full Scale IQ, working memory and phonological processing were significant predictors of reading and spelling performance in ELBW children. These findings suggest that the presence and severity of PVBI, and not ELBW status alone, is associated with performance on tests of intelligence, and academic and cognitive functioning, and that some of the same factors known to be associated with learning disabilities in full-term children contribute to learning disabilities in ELBW children.     

The Many Faces of Self: Ego and Ethnic Identities

This study addressed how adolescents come to develop a sense of ethnic identity. The author examined ethnic identity development as a process that occurs simultaneously with the development of ego identity and attitudes toward groups other than one's own. A multiethnic sample of 297 adolescents and young adults (aged 13 to 26 years) completed the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Scale Revision 2 (EOMEIS2; L. Bennion & G. Adams, 1986), the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; J. Phinney, 1992), and the Other Group Orientation Scale (J. Phinney, 1992). An Age x Ethnic Group x Gender experimental design was used to determine whether these factors contributed differently to ethnic identity and ego identity. Analyses showed significant differences in the level of ethnic identity development among the ethnic groups. More pronounced age differences were found at the lower levels of ego identity development than at the more advanced levels.     

The Fears of Youth in the 1990s: Contemporary Normative Data

This article reports the findings of a normative fear investigation involving a sample of 918 Australian children and adolescents, ranging in age from 718 years. The Fear Survey Schedule for Children and Adolescents-II (FSSC-II) was administered to determine self-reported prevalence, intensity, and content of fear. Consistent with past research, girls generally reported significantly higher levels of fearfulness than boys. Age differences also were found; younger children reported a higher intensity and a greater number of fears than older children and adolescents. Qualitative differences in normative fear were found, with younger children reporting more animal fears and older children reporting more fears relating to social evaluation or psychic stress. Significantly, although the specific content of children's and adolescents' normative fears in the 1990s (as compared with the 1960s) has changed (now including fear of AIDS and of nuclear war), the fears found to be most prevalent continue to relate to death and danger. These findings are discussed within the context of the prepotency and preparedness concepts of fear.     

Ego,self and otherness

The concept of self has been introduced as a core concept in several contemporary psychoanalytical theories. This study undertakes a critical examination of the historical and theoretical presuppositions of the concept of self and its corollary, the object. The proposed thesis is that the concept of self on a theoretical level has grown out of ego-psychology and the ambition is to bring consistency into the ambiguous concept of the ego left by Freud. On a clinical level, the concept of self is seen as an attempt to adjust psychoanalytical theory and technique to what, broadly speaking, we call non-neurotic patients. While the concept of self on a theoretical level dates back to Hartmann, it was left to those following the tradition of ego-psychology to work out the implications for our understanding of the pathology of the self and its proper treatment. The work of Heinz Kohut is seen as an exponent for those analysts who have been wrestling with the task of adjusting psychoanalytical theory and technique to our understanding and treatment of non-neurotic patients. A re-reading of the Freudian concept of the ego allows the author to present an alternative to ego-psychology and self psychology. While the concept of the self implies a re-centred theory of subjectivity, the author points to the de-centeredness of classical psychoanalytical thinking. Freud did not find an independent concept of the self necessary. On the contrary, psychoanalytical theory rejected the idea of the psyche as a complete and unified entity. Defining the ego as a representative of the divided psyche encompassing the other, the author suggests that incorporating contributions from French psychoanalytical thinking and the ideas of Winnicott places the self as a concept in accordance with classical psychoanalytical thinking.     

The ego and the id revisited Freud and Damasio on the body ego/self

Freud's statement in The Ego and the Id (1923) that the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego is well known. This paper tempts to clarify the premises underlying Freud's thesis. Particular attention is paid to Freud's investigation of internal perceptions. Freud argued that internal perceptions are more primordial than perceptions arising externally. In Freud's opinion the roots of the ego, the id, are to be found in body sensations and feelings, but he had to admit that very little was known about these sensations and feelings. Only much later was neuroscience in a position to offer evidence that feelings can be the direct perception of the internal state of the body. Damasio (2010) has recently suggested that the core of the self might be found in what he, like Freud, terms primordial feelings. Not only was Freud able to conceive of the ego as the perception and feeling of our own body but also to conceive of knowing the mental life of another by means of recreating the bodily state of another through imitation.     

Dropping Out of Couple Therapy

Abstract

Current literature on dropouts in marriage and family therapy includes few studies that focus exclusively on couple therapy and only a limited number of qualitative studies. Clients' perceptions of premature termination are seldom considered. This qualitative case study describes, from both the clients' and the therapist's perspectives, one couple's experience of dropping out of couple therapy after three, sessions. Findings from this case study are compared with existing literature and a fourfold typology of dropouts is proposed. We offer recommendations for future research of dropouts in couple therapy.     

自我控制的力量模型

自我控制是人们克服冲动、习惯或自动化的反应,有意识地掌控自己行为方向的能力。自我控制的力量模型认为自我控制的执行会消耗有限的心理能量。力量模型的证据主要来自冲动行为、人际交互以及决策和判断等领域的研究,影响自我控制力量的因素包括人格和个体差异、情绪和动机以及自我控制训练等。自我损耗与疲劳感的区别、动机和信念在自我损耗中的作用以及力量模型的应用价值等是未来研究值得关注的问题。     

Ego Psychological Contributions to Understanding Microaggressions in Clinical Social Work Practice

Although the concept of microaggressions is highly useful for social work, current discussions of this concept have failed to adequately address some of the complex clinical issues associated with the recipient's experience of microaggressions. The complexity of these issues is especially noteworthy in work with clients who have mental illness, and/or have experienced trauma. Our understanding of microaggressions and the assessment and treatment process can be enriched by applying a psychoanalytic lens, and in particular, an ego psychological framework.     

自我损耗对运动表现影响的元分析

运用元分析方法考察自我损耗对运动表现影响及其调节变量。通过中英文文献搜索,共纳入31篇文献和37个效应量,总样本量为1613。结果:(1)总体效应量检验发现,运动任务中的自我损耗为中等效应量,d=0.55,95%CI为[0.39,0.71];由于存在发表偏倚性,该中等效应量可能会被高估。(2)调节变量检验发现,自我损耗效应量较少受研究对象来源、研究对象类型和运动任务类型的影响;但受损耗任务类型和技能型任务中压力情境的影响。(3)执行运动任务时,主观体力感、心率和肌电等指标不存在自我损耗效应。这些研究结果支持了自我控制的力量模型具有普遍适用性,自我控制资源的领域普遍性以及自我控制的力量模型与注意控制理论整合的观点。未来研究应严格控制实验条件、拓展运动任务中自我损耗应对和自我控制训练的研究。     

Where East meets West: in the house of individuation

The psychological process of individuation as experienced in Jungian work may lead to states of consciousness that resemble advanced spiritual developments across religious traditions and cultures. This is where Westerners may reach a common ground with the East. In the essentials and with respect to the final goal there is little difference among the many ways to the self, even if the cultural features in the landscape are disparate. In late stage Jungian analysis and individuation and in what Erich Neumann calls ‘centroversion’, the personal and the impersonal aspects of the personality accumulate around the ego‐self axis to form a composite identity. In this complex structure the ego does not vanish but is joined to the impersonal archetypal levels of the psyche and identity thus becomes at once individual and archetypal. This is the third stage of conjunction as described by Jung in Mysterium Coniunctionis and it is identical to the type of consciousness depicted in the final scenes of Zen Buddhism's Ten Ox‐Herding Pictures.