Mentalizing in psychotherapy: patients’ and therapists’ reflective functioning during the psychotherapeutic process / Mentalizando en psicoterapia: funcionamiento reflexivo de pacientes y terapeutas durante el proceso psicoterapéutico

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in mentalization in clinical research given its relationship with normal and psychopathological functioning and its explanatory potential as a mechanism of psychotherapeutic change. This study uses the Reflective Functioning Scale (RFS) to identify and characterize mentalization manifestations in psychotherapeutic interaction. Method: the RFS was applied to a sample of relevant episodes — 44 sessions from five different psychotherapy processes carried out with adult patients who had different diagnoses. Results: we observed a higher probability of reflective functioning (RF) passages in relevant events than in neutral segments. There were no differences in the RF passages according to episode or actor type, but there were in RF Failures, which is more likely in patients and during rupture episodes. Discussion: although certain modifications are necessary, the RFS can be applied to clinical material, and it is a promising strategy for the study of mentalization within psychotherapy.     

On the Emotions

Art historians and philosophers often talk about the interpretive significance of titles, but few have bothered with their historical origins. This omission has led to the assumption that an artwork's title is its proper name, since names and titles share the essential function of facilitating reference to their bearers. But a closer look at the development of our titling practices shows a significant point of divergence from standard analyses of proper names: the semantic content of a title is often crucial to the identification, individuation, and interpretation of its associated artwork. This paper represents a first step towards an empirically centred study of our titling practices. I argue that, in order to accept titles as proper names, we must first recognize the social, rather than the referential, function of naming.     

Sales Manager Behavior Control Strategy and its Consequences: The Impact of Manager Gender Differences

Salesperson gender studies have consistently reported no differences. In contrast, a single-company study found several differences based on sales manager gender concerning salesperson attitudes, behavior, and outcome (Piercy, Cravens, and Lane 2001). The present research examines the sales manager gender issue across multiple companies from the perspective of sales managers. Sales units led by female managers display higher effectiveness. Female sales managers perform significantly higher levels of behavior-based control activities and display higher competence in this management approach, compared to male counterparts. There are few differences in managers’ assessments of salespersons’ behavior performance based on gender. Female sales managers do not show higher levels of organizational citizenship behavior as part of their management approach. Interestingly, no differences based on gender were found concerning several salesperson and organizational characteristics. These findings suggest that different selling environments are not affecting the study gender results. Several promising future research directions are discussed.     

The Necessity of Counselor Individuation for Fostering Reflective Practice

Counselor self‐reflection is crucial for increasing self‐awareness and improving counseling practice. Nonetheless, the definition for reflective practice is noninclusive of practitioner self‐reflection. Furthermore, little is known about the characteristics necessary for critical self‐reflection, resulting in insufficient guidance for practitioners to acquire critical self‐reflective capabilities. Examining these concerns reveals that counselors will be more capable of reflective practice as they individuate, or develop, their personalities. Thus, the promotion of counselor individuation is essential.     

The other side of rumination: reflective pondering as a strategy for regulating emotions in social situations

Recent studies have questioned the idea of rumination as a unitary dysfunctional process and identified an adaptive subcomponent: reflective pondering. We tested whether reflective pondering could represent an adaptive strategy of regulating emotions, and contrasted it with reappraisal and acceptance, strategies linked to major psychotherapeutic approaches. Participants (103 students) received training in one of these and were exposed to a negative mood induction consisting of social scenarios, both in the presence and in the absence of the specific emotion regulation instruction. Acceptance was more useful than reflective pondering in impacting negative emotions and anxiety. Reappraisal was more efficient than pondering for anxiety. However, moderation analysis showed that social anxiety (SA) levels influenced the comparative efficiency of reappraisal and acceptance as contrasted to reflective pondering for negative emotions and anxiety. Participants low in SA made equal use of all strategies, while for those high in SA reappraisal and acceptance were more efficient than pondering. Our results provide preliminary evidence that reflective pondering can, in some circumstances, be an adaptive regulation strategy.     

Does Current Social Philosophy Develop Progressively?

This article begins with clarification of the notion of progress. The author believes that it is possible to consider progress objectively, if by progress we understand a positive change in the effectiveness of something. He mentions two types of progress: progress of improvement and progress of augmentation. He then distinguishes evaluative from reflective philosophy. Evaluative philosophy gives answers to the second and third of Kant's famous three questions; reflective philosophy answers the first, dealing with the limits of human knowledge. Progress in evaluative philosophy takes the form of augmentation. But in reflective philosophy it could take the form of improvement. The author believes, however, that it is not an easy task to improve contemporary social philosophy. Three main obstacles are: the “anthropological turn” in philosophy, the challenge of postmodernism, and the turning of social philosophy into a kind of useful knowledge.     

The Wisdom Jar

Abstract

Supervisors can use a wide range of skills and exercises when terminating counseling supervision with supervisees at the end of a practicum class. This article presents an experiential creative activity, the Wisdom Jar, as a metaphor for discussing specific lessons with supervisees. The use of creativity and the integration of symbols and metaphors provided supervisees with images to reflect upon after completing a counseling practicum clinical experience.     

The Relationship Between Personality Traits and Reflective Judgment Among Female Students

Forty-three female undergraduate and graduate students preparing for careers as educators provided Omnibus Personality Inventory and Reflective Judgment Interview data. The sample included 14 seniors, 15 master's candidates, and 14 doctoral candidates. Each educational level group included participants with a range of intellectual disposition scores as measured by the Omnibus Personality Inventory. Scores on six scales of the Omnibus Personality Inventory correlated significantly with Reflective Judgment Interview scores (p < .05): thinking introversion, response bias, altruism, autonomy, complexity, and theoretical orientation. These findings support the conclusion that postformal reasoning, as described in P. M. King and K. S. Kitchener's (1994) reflective judgment model of cognitive development, is related to measurable personality traits.     

What Kind of Normativity is the Normativity of Grammar?

The overall goal of this article is to show that aesthetics plays a major role in a debate at the very center of philosophy. Drawing on the work of David Bell, the article spells out how Kant and Wittgenstein use reflective judgment, epitomized by a judgment of beauty, as a key in their respective solutions to the rule‐following problem they share. The more specific goal is to offer a Kantian account of semantic normativity as understood by Wittgenstein. The article argues that Wittgenstein's reason for describing language as a collection of language games is to allow for a perspective that shows those games as internally purposive without any extralinguistic purpose. This perspective also allows for that union of the general rule and its particular application in practice that the original paradox of rule‐following is wanting.