Sorrow: A Therapist's Reflection on the Inevitable and the Unknowable

People who live with a painful gap between who they have been and who they are now, of who they dreamt themselves to be and who they still long to be, are living with chronic sorrow. Chronic sorrow is a normal, nonpathological state of pervasive, continuing, periodic, and resurgent sadness related to the ongoing losses associated with illness and disability, in this case not loss of an other, but loss of self (Roos, 2002). Focusing on the lives of four women, one of whom committed suicide, I explore the macroprocesses that invade the experience of even so personal an experience as self‐loss. The role of the therapist is made transparent through anecdotes and by discussing implications for clinical practice.     

A narrative evaluation of a psychoeducation and a therapeutic alliance intervention for parents of persons with a severe mental illness

Most attempts to study the impact of psychosocial interventions on parents of persons with severe mental illness (SMI) are quantitative. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the subjective experience of parents of persons with SMI who participated in either a psychoeducational intervention which emphasized providing information on the illness and support, or a therapeutic alliance focused intervention (TAFI) which emphasized the alliance between the group members and group leaders. Ninety-three parents, who participated in either one of these two interventions, were interviewed using the Narrative Evaluation of Intervention Interview. Results show that participants found both interventions to be beneficial with no statistical differences in the level of perceived change. Themes describing change in relating to illness were significantly more frequently mentioned by participants in the TAFI group, whereas significantly more participants in the family psychoeducation interventions reported that implementation and information provided contributed to positive change. Also participants in the TAFI reported significantly more often that group regulation contributed to change. As both interventions were perceived as contributing, the findings support the relationship orientation to psychosocial interventions, which stresses the quality of the social support and interpersonal interaction as the source of positive outcomes of intervention.     

Migrants' Integration in Western Europe: Bridging Social Psychology and Political Science

This article presents the possibilities and advantages of integrating social psychology and political science in the study of intergroup relations in diverse societies in Western Europe. Social psychology provides interesting insights in understanding the emotional and cognitive consequences of increased diversity. However, this literature tends to overlook the role of institutional discourses and correlated practices in stimulating or constraining positive intergroup relations. In order to fill these lacunae, the article suggests the integration of social psychology and a ‘political opportunity structure’ approach. This article maintains that the political opportunity structures operating in a context are not only important for understanding actors' mobilisation, as usually maintained in the literature, but also for studying the extent to which change at the micro‐level of social interaction can be stimulated or constrained. We illustrate the arguments of the article with an analysis of the narrative constructions and the correlated practices of integration as adopted by the city councils of Malmö and Bologna. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Morphologic asymmetries of the face: A review

It has been suggested that asymmetries in the morphological properties of the face contribute to or produce asymmetries in facial emotional expression. Over 50 years of research on hard tissue, soft tissue, and facial surface asymmetries is reviewed here. Generally, it appears that if consistent asymmetry characterizes facial morphology, it is extremely small in magnitude or characterizes regions yet to be examined. In contrast, marked homology and asymmetry in regional size and area has been noted often. At present, it does not appear that asymmetry in facial morphology is associated with facial expressive asymmetry, with the latter more likely to be an outcome of functional brain asymmetry.     

Nathan Söderblom and Our Own Time1

In 1914 Professor Nathan Söderblom was elected archbishop of the Church of Sweden. His consecration took place in Uppsala Cathedral just months after the beginning of World War I. In 1925, he convened an ecumenical meeting in Stockholm that came to shape the ecumenical movement for decades to come. The peace question remained at the heart of his episcopate as long as it lasted. In this article, Antje Jackelén and Jakob Wirén explore some of the additional challenges that lay before Nathan Söderblom. Even today, there are lessons to be learned from the way Söderblom responded to issues such as questioning the relevance of the church, the need for dialogue between science and theology, the urgency of ecumenical cooperation, and the risks of nationalism.     

Mind matters: A narrative review on affective state-dependency in non-invasive brain stimulation

Variability in findings related to non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) have increasingly been described as a result of differences in neurophysiological state. Additionally, there is some evidence suggesting that individual differences in psychological states may correlate with the magnitude and directionality of effects of NIBS on the neural and behavioural level. In this narrative review, it is proposed that the assessment of baseline affective states can quantify non-reductive properties which are not readily accessible to neuroscientific methods. Particularly, affective-related states are theorized to correlate with physiological, behavioural and phenomenological effects of NIBS. While further systematic research is needed, baseline psychological states are suggested to provide a complementary cost-effective source of information for understanding variability in NIBS outcomes. Implementing measures of psychological state may potentially contribute to increasing the sensitivity and specificity of results in experimental and clinical NIBS studies.     

Reading disability: A problem in rule learning and word decoding

Traditional explanations of reading disability (e.g., perceptual, memory, and phonetic receding deficits) have encountered logical difficulties and substantial empirical disconfirmation. An alternative conceptualization of the nature of reading disability is proposed. Disabled readers are hypothesized to suffer a fundamental problem in acquiring word knowledge and word processing skills. Poor decoding skills prevent them from developing sophisticated reading comprehension skills. From this perspective, the cognitive deficits of disabled readers result from failure to acquire and generalize complex processing skills originally mastered through reading experience. Recent research of the author and of others relating to these issues is discussed.     

Processing the intensity of dichotic syllables

Subjects were required to match the intensity levels of the left- and right-ear members of dichotically presented nonsense syllables. When subjects matched the overall average intensities of a sequence of differing dichotic pairs no ear differences were observed. When repetitions of single dichotic pairs were matched right-ear syllables were judged louder than left-ear syllables. The results support a model predicting left-hemisphere superiority in a task permitting higher-level encoding of speech input.     

Ear asymmetry in recognition of unfamiliar voices

Female right-handed subjects were presented with a memory set consisting of five unfamiliar female voices. They were then tested with a recognition procedure in which samples of voice, memory set or novel, 2 or 4 sec in duration, were heard in one ear and a competing noise stimulus was heard in the other ear. There was an overall left-ear advantage in accuracy of recognition. This advantage held particularly for identifications of memory-set voices in the second half of trials. Internal analyses indicated that the left-ear advantage could not be attributed to greater retroactive interference during right-ear presentation. Congruent with studies of recognition of unfamiliar faces, the findings suggested right-hemisphere superiority in the recognition of unfamiliar voices.     

Developmental considerations in the study of childhood depression

Although a great deal of research has been conducted examining biological and psychological factors related to adult depression, relatively little attention has been given to the study of depression in children. The purpose of the present article is to illustrate the importance of considering normal developmental processes in the study of childhood depression. Epidemiological data, diagnostic issues, and methods of assessment in childhood depression are discussed from a developmental perspective, and the role of developmental issues in both the manifestation of depression and its assessment is outlined. Four major theories of depression—biological, psychoanalytic, behavioral, and cognitive—are presented, and developmental issues are discussed in relation to each theory's formulation of the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of depression. Finally, alternative methodologies for the study of childhood depression are considered, and directions for future research, particularly for investigations examining the relationship between childhood and adult depression, are advanced.