The value of stress-management interventions in life-threatening medical conditions

Emotional stress has been associated with the development and progression of several chronic medical conditions. Recently, researchers have assessed the impact of stress-management interventions on patients' psychological functioning, quality of life, and various disease outcomes, including survival. This review summarizes the value of stress-management techniques in the treatment of two important, life-threatening conditions: coronary heart disease and cancer. Results from randomized clinical trials indicate that psychological interventions can improve patients' psychological functioning and quality of life. However, there is limited evidence to suggest that these interventions significantly reduce morbidity and mortality.     

关于哲学的问题研究

“恰当地提出问题”对于哲学甚至比对于科学更为重要,它体现出哲学活动的特殊性质。提问开放新的视域。使我们超出习见,进入思考和对话。着重于提出问题而非构造理论,在今天可以被视为一种研究哲学的方式。当今时代给我们提出了大量需要研究的课题,也要求我们能够提出自己的问题。另一方面,20世纪哲学的自我批判,不仅使哲学的一些基本范畴被重新审视,它的探索方式乃至其功能与合法性根据也受到质询。对问题的研究已成为把握时代和探索哲学发展途径的入手处。     

团体心理辅导对大学生人际交往影响的长期效果的研究

以团体心理辅导技术对34名大学生进行为期6周的团体心理辅导,并于9个月后对辅导的效果进行再评估.结果表明:团体心理辅导对大学生人际交往问题的干预有效;实验组的干预对大学生人际交往影响不仅有即时提高与改善效应,还有潜在的长期效应;因为交往各变量的复杂性,在团体辅导后各变量的具体变化趋势又略有不同.     

同伴团体对儿童青少年学业成就和社会功能关系的影响

运用同伴评价、教师评估和学校记录等多种渠道收集关于同伴团体、社会功能、同伴接纳以及学业成就的资料,旨在考察同伴团体与儿童青少年学业成就和社会功能的关系。研究发现：绝大多数儿童青少年都有自己的同伴团体。这些同伴团体在学业成就上有很高的同质性。学业成就与社会适应无论在团体内的个体水平还是在团体水平上都密切相关。而且,团体的学业表现是个体学业成就和社会适应间的重要调节因素,表明团体学业规范对个体水平上学业成就与社会功能的关系有增强或是减弱的作用。这项研究再一次证明同伴团体在儿童个体发展中的重要意义。     

《姤卦》意辨--兼谈卦意研究的态度和方法

有关《姤卦》意的解释,历来众说纷纭。通过研究周王朝初期社会习俗,特别是婚姻制度的制定和施行,结合文献,分析象意,考据卦辞,认为本卦的主题旨在宣扬周礼婚姻制度的必要性、时代性、进步性,同时也表现了这一婚姻制度的局限性,悲剧性。并对当前《易经》研究的一些不足现象,从注重历史、卦身分析、占辞研究等方面提出看法和建议。     

Medical student dreams about medical school: The unconscious developmental process of becoming a physician

This paper is a report on a collection of almost four hundred dreams of medical students and postgraduate trainees with the manifest content about medical training. It is a unique dream collection from a defined population that experiences a developmental sequence of observable, reality events. The reality events appear in the manifest content of the dreams along with their symbolic alterations. The dreams are used as a psychodynamic database. The data may illustrate which reality experiences seem psychologically formative, their emotional developmental sequences and their specific emotional content. This is a pilot project exploring whether dream material collected from a discrete task group might give information about a group's emotional adaptation. The dreams seem to show an unconscious developmental process in response to medical training and becoming a physician that unfolds in overlapping stages as trainees learn to master skills and tolerate care-giving responsibility for human life. A progressive, unconscious hero-healer fantasy seems to form. It becomes elaborated in masochistic and then sadistic fantasies. These fantasies are evoked by, and used as a defense against, inevitable but painful anxieties of emotional adaptation to medical education experiences.     

Modification of Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques in the Treatment of a Five Year-Old Girl with Social Phobia

Social phobia is a debilitating anxiety disorder that often goes undetected in young children, but can be effectively treated with cognitive-behavioral interventions. For children and adolescents, treatment usually includes education, social skills training, cognitive restructuring, relaxation training, and exposure. However, for very young children who present with social phobia, it is necessary to adapt treatment to the developmental level of the child. A case illustration demonstrates the way in which cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) was modified for the treatment of a five year-old girl with social phobia. Several modifications were made, including utilizing novel exposure techniques and emphasizing parent management training in order to promote generalization of treatment gains outside of session.     

Left caloric vestibular stimulation as a tool to reveal implicit and explicit parameters of body representation

Homeostatic parameters, such as temperature, are related to body representation. In this study, we measured whether caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) alters body temperature and tactile processing, and if in the direction predicted by a holistic body matrix representation.Skin temperature and tactile two-point discrimination (TPD) acuity were measured for both arms before, immediately after and with a delay from CVS. Participants were also administered a personality questionnaire and an anxiety inventory to rule out confounding factors. Two control experiments were planned to exclude casual variations.Our results show that temperature drops significantly in both arms after CVS. CVS also induces a bilateral improvement in tactile acuity (even though not immediately after but in the delayed condition). Finally, these effects are not due to learning, as demonstrated by the control experiment.In summary, our results suggest that vestibular stimulation updates body representation, supporting the evidence in favor of a body matrix.     

Why and how to use virtual reality to study human social interaction: The challenges of exploring a new research landscape

As virtual reality (VR) technology and systems become more commercially available and accessible, more and more psychologists are starting to integrate VR as part of their methods. This approach offers major advantages in experimental control, reproducibility, and ecological validity, but also has limitations and hidden pitfalls which may distract the novice user. This study aimed to guide the psychologist into the novel world of VR, reviewing available instrumentation and mapping the landscape of possible systems. We use examples of state-of-the-art research to describe challenges which research is now solving, including embodiment, uncanny valley, simulation sickness, presence, ethics, and experimental design. Finally, we propose that the biggest challenge for the field would be to build a fully interactive virtual human who can pass a VR Turing test – and that this could only be achieved if psychologists, VR technologists, and AI researchers work together.     

Virtual reality: A new track in psychological research

One major challenge of social interaction research is to achieve high experimental control over social interactions to allow for rigorous scientific reasoning. Virtual reality (VR) promises this level of control. Pan and Hamilton guide us with a detailed review on existing and future possibilities and challenges of using VR for social interaction research. Here, we extend the discussion to methodological and practical implications when using VR.