Depression in Homebound Older Adults: Problem-Solving Therapy and Personal and Social Resourcefulness

The goal of problem-solving therapy is to teach patients systematic coping skills. For many homebound older adults, coping skills must also include both personal and social (help-seeking) resourcefulness. This study aimed to examine the relationship between perceived resourcefulness and depressive symptoms at postintervention and potential mediating effect of the resourcefulness among 121 low-income homebound older adults who participated in a pilot randomized controlled trial testing feasibility and preliminary efficacy of telehealth-PST. Resourcefulness Scale for Older Adults was used to measure personal and social resourcefulness. Only personal resourcefulness scores were significantly associated with depression outcomes at postintervention, and neither resourcefulness scores were significantly associated with group assignment. Analysis found no mediation effect of resourcefulness. The findings call for further research on potential mediators for the potentially effective depression treatment that could be sustained in the real world for low-income homebound older adults who have limited access to psychotherapy as a treatment modality.     

Strengthening Creative Problem-Solving within Upper-Elementary Science Education

This intervention study examined the effectiveness of instructional support tailored toward two techniques (i.e., random associations and constraint identification) to strengthen children's creative problem-solving skills within upper-elementary science education. Five inquiry-based science lessons with ample opportunity for creative problem-solving (i.e., divergent and convergent thinking) were provided. Children were assigned to a condition with instructional support (n = 107) or without (n = 134). Domain-general and specific measures of divergent and convergent thinking were included, and reading comprehension as well as mathematical ability were taken into account. Repeated measures multivariate analyses of covariance revealed how all children improved in terms of domain-general convergent thinking, with a larger increase for children who performed better in mathematics. This shows a promising premise for future research focusing on the domain generality of convergent thinking and for the potential of transfer across domains. No additional improvement based on instructional support was found and children did not improve in terms of divergent thinking. The constraint identification and random associations technique might not be suitable for elementary school children, yet future research is necessary to validate such claims. Meanwhile, teachers could possibly support convergent thinking by simply providing exercises for divergent and convergent thinking.     

The Problem of Transfer from Confidential Interactive Problem‐Solving: What Is the Role of the Facilitator?

Interactive problem-solving workshops provide a relatively confidential atmosphere in which members of societies engaged in protracted social conflict can examine and share their assumptions and perceptions about the conflict and think creatively about the possibilities for de-escalation. Two sorts of workshop goals have generally been articulated: (1) creating change in participants' understanding, and (2) transferring participants' new ideas to political decision-making and public discussion. Although facilitators have tended to emphasize the role of the participants in generating and transferring new learning, this article expands our conceptions of change and transfer to include both participants and facilitators. A basic complementarity is postulated between the strengths and weaknesses of these two agents of transfer. If considered this way, the integrity of this confidential process—and thus of its potentially unique contributions to a peace process—can be maintained while increasing the opportunities for transfer.     

Toward an Alliance Between the Issue-Processing Approach and Pragma-Dialectical Analysis

On the approach to discussions of policy choices that treats such discussions as instances of issue-processing, the joint use of the logic of questions and the logic of rules gives precise formulation to two sorts of issues. To one sort of issue belong issue-circumscribing questions; to another sort, issues-simplicter, which consist of disjunctions of policy proposals – so many proposed social rules – that are answers, in the case of each disjunction, to a given issue-circumscribing question. Work in pragma-dialectics can take over the issue-processing approach; and by doing so add to the pragma-dialectical repertory further dimensions in the analysis of issues and in protocol-narratives of discussion. The analysis and narratives would now include accounts of how issue-circumscribing questions generate initial standpoints and how discussions sometimes end with compromises between standpoints. Further research questions follow about transformations of issues and the comparison of successive rounds of discussion. A narrative of one period of discussion during `the War on Drugs' in the United States illustrates these points.     

Computer-based Testing and Training with Scenarios from Complex Problem-solving Research: Advantages and Disadvantages

The use of PC-based simulations for selection and training for jobs which require complex problem solving skills is ever-increasing. This paper gives a short review of such simulations along with a list of advantages and disadvantages of their use. Possible future developments are sketched.     

The differential effects of solution-focused and problem-focused coaching questions on the affect,attentional control and cognitive flexibility of undergraduate students experiencing study-related stress

Previous research has demonstrated that Solution-Focused (SF) coaching can help individuals to attain positive outcomes. However, not much is known about the processes through which these positive outcomes are achieved. In two experiments, we subjected undergraduate students to either SF or Problem-Focused (PF) questions about their study-related problems. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized and found that SF questioning (as compared to PF questioning) leads to higher positive affect (H1a) and lower negative affect (H1b). Contrary to our expectations, SF questions did not lead to higher attentional control (H2). In Experiment 2, we aimed to replicate the hypotheses for positive and negative affect and additionally hypothesized that SF questioning leads to higher cognitive flexibility (H3a). The results supported these hypotheses. However, our hypothesis that the differential effects of SF and PF questioning on cognitive flexibility are mediated by positive affect (H3b) was not supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

'I'm Just Saying . . .': Discourse Markers of Standpoint Continuity

Examining discourse markers (Schiffrin, 1987) in two transcribed discussions of controversial issues in an undergraduate 'critical thinking' class, we note frequent uses of 'I'm just saying' and related metadiscursive expressions (I'm/we're saying, I'm/we're not saying, etc.). Our central claim is that these 'saying' expressions are pragmatic devices by which speakers claim 'all along' to have held a consistent argumentative standpoint, one that continues through the discussion unless changed for good reasons. Through close analysis of a series of discourse examples, we show how these discourse markers are used to display continuity, deflect counterarguments, and acknowledge the force of counterarguments while preserving continuity. In a concluding section we reflect critically on the use of these continuity markers with regard to four pragmatic functions that they potentially serve: to specify and clarify argumentative standpoints, to acknowledge a presumption of standpoint continuity, to acknowledge a normative expectation that discussion participants should have standpoints, and to avoid overt disagreement while saving face.     

文章标记对高一学生阅读理解的影响

采用测验法,以64名高中一年级学生为被试,探讨文章标记对不同阅读水平学生的回忆成绩和问题解决的影响.结果表明:(1)不同阅读水平读者回忆成绩上的文章标记效应不显著;(2)文章标记对于不同阅读水平学生的问题解决都具有显著的影响作用;(3)不同阅读水平读者的回忆和问题解决成绩存在显著差异.     

(Emotion-centered) problem-solving therapy: An update

Problem-solving therapy (PST) is a psychosocial intervention, typically considered to be a member of the cognitive and behaviour therapies family, and is based on a biopsychosocial, diathesis-stress model of psychopathology. The overarching goal of this approach is to promote the successful adoption of adaptive problem-solving attitudes and the effective implementation of certain behaviours as a means of coping with life stressors in order to attenuate the negative effects of such events on physical and mental well-being. Over the past several decades, in addition to accumulating strong support for its efficacy as a clinical intervention, similar to many other forms of psychotherapy, PST has undergone various evolutionary changes. Developed primarily as a more cognitive-based approach, due to the large body of literature in the field of affective neuroscience that underscores the importance of the impact of affect on problem solving, PST has evolved into emotion-centered problem-solving therapy (EC-PST). This article provides for a brief excursion into the historical roots of PST and why it has evolved into EC-PST, as well as providing support for its characterisation as a transdiagnostic approach. In addition, several meta-analyses that underscore its efficacy are described, as well as the most recent clinical guidelines that comprise EC-PST.     

“I'm a police officer not a social worker or mental health nurse”: Online discourses of exclusion and resistance regarding mental health‐related police work

Despite estimates suggesting that around 15% of UK police incidents involve people with a mental health concern, officers receive very little mental health training. The police have faced high‐profile criticisms over their handling of mental health‐related incidents, whereas the underfunding and fragmentation of UK mental health services has led to concerns that police officers are being forced to undertake a primary role in mental health care. At a time of austerity and widespread cuts to public services, it is important to explore how particular groups work to justify the parameters of their professional duties. This article therefore explores the discourses surrounding mental health problems on an online police discussion forum, highlighting two distinct ways in which mental health‐related work is represented as being incompatible with policing. First, mental health problems are delegitimised and conflated with “scrounging,” positioning individuals as undeserving of police time; second, mental health problems are reified and associated with violence and extreme behaviour, justifying the use of force by police officers and deflecting responsibility onto mental health services. Findings are consistent with previous research suggesting that mental health work is not perceived to be a valid part of the police role.