Early identification of mental health problems in schools: The status of instrumentation

When embedded within a continuum of mental health services including both prevention and treatment, school-based mental health identification programs can promote improved academic and mental health functioning among students. This article describes the scientific status of assessment instrumentation that may be used for early mental health identification in schools. Currently available instruments are described in terms of their ability to accurately detect youth with mental health problems. Implications for selecting mental health screening and assessment instruments and integrating them into schools are discussed. Finally, a range of approaches to early identification in schools as well as some of the broader ethical and practical issues related to the integration of these strategies into a school-wide continuum of services are presented.     

Which is more critical in identification of random figures,endpoints or closures?1

The present study intended to examine the criticality of the presence of endpoints and its complementary state, the presence of closures, in early figural identification. Three experiments used a same/different judgment task for simultaneously presented pairs of random figures. Rigorous control over the selections of stimulus figures containing closures and endpoints was ensured. Latencies predicted by six explanations of figural identification (i.e. parallel and the presence of endpoint detection; parallel and closure detection; serial, exhaustive and endpoint detection; serial, exhaustive and closure detection; serial, self‐terminating and endpoint detection; and serial, self‐terminating and closure detection) were evaluated by the obtained patterns of latencies. The experiments persistently indicated that serial, self‐terminating feature detections were executed as the means of the identification. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that closures were detected faster than endpoints. Experiment 3 further suggested that multiple closures were detected faster than a single closure.     

On boredom: A close encounter with encapsulated parts of the psyche

The psychoanalytical literature has numerous scattered references to the analyst's experience of boredom, especially amongst writers working with primitive mental states. In the present paper, the author tries to gather some of these references in an attempt to integrate the various facets of this widespread phenomenon, and reflect on some clinical issues and dilemmas it raises. It is suggested that the experience of boredom in analysis may be a reaction to an encounter with a hidden, encapsulated part of the psyche, a bidimensional area of experience in which mental activity has been suspended, and experience remains meaningless. This is a barren area of lack, an encounter with the autistic core of the psyche. However, boredom may also be an experiential expression of despair, a re-living of primitive object relations with an emotionally non-existent primary object. Through bringing the emptiness and desolation into analysis, the individual makes room for the empty, blunt, dead inner object which resides within him, and that needs to be integrated into the psyche. This inner object is a vital part of the patient's inner world, part of his history, and can neither be erased nor filled in order to eradicate the emptiness. This is illustrated by clinical material from patients along the spectrum of autism, autistic reaction following trauma and autistic barriers in neurotic patients.     

Murdered father; dead father: Revisiting the Oedipus complex1

This paper recovers the notion of the sacrifice of sexuality as the central, tragic, element of the oedipal structure. This notion has been largely abandoned in the psychoanalytic literature that has tended to reduce the oedipal structure to processes of exclusion. The paper traces the development of the theoretical and clinical transformations of Freud ’s ideas on the role of the father and suggests that they allow us to more fully comprehend the Oedipus complex proposed by Freud. A paradox is explored: the killing of the father is, in Freud ’s view, the requirement for the creation of the social order which, from then on, prohibits all killings. The father, however, has to be killed metaphorically only, as the actual exclusion of the father lies at the origin of so many psychopathologies from violence to the psychoses and perversions. The paper analyses the fundamental asymmetry that is present in the Oedipal structure and suggests that the three elements of the oedipal triangle constitute the law (of the dead father, that institutes the sacrifice of sexuality), desire (for the lost object) and identification (with both father and mother). Two clinical examples are discussed. In the first, one can identify a perverse structure in which the father has been murdered; in the second, there is a progressive construction of the dead (symbolic) father in the analytic process.     

Interpersonal attachment predicts identification with groups

We propose a model documenting the relationship between interpersonal attachment style and identification with groups. We hypothesized that following threat to a romantic interpersonal relationship higher attachment anxiety would be associated with lowered tendencies to identify with groups. In two studies using varied social groups we observed support for this hypothesis. In Experiment 1 we found that participants higher in attachment anxiety identified less with a salient ingroup after imagining a distressing argument with their romantic partner. In Experiment 2 we replicated these findings using an implicit measure of social identification and additionally observed a moderating role for attachment avoidance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theoretical models of interpersonal attachment and social identification.     

Sociopsychological profiles of students that leave the ingroup or engage in social competition

We present a study of the sociopsychological profiles of students who are disposed to engage in social competition on behalf of ingroup interests. Five predictors were selected: the advantageous or unfavourable context for ingroup interests, group identification, meritocracy, just-world beliefs, and social dominance orientation. It was found that those students who were prepared to invest personal resources on behalf of ingroup interests were characterized by a strong group identification and middle or low scores in the meritocracy and social dominance orientation. In contrast, students with the lowest disposition to social competition were defined by their low identification and/or middle-high scores in the meritocracy and social dominance orientation. Against our expectation, the manipulation of the favourable versus unfavourable situation of the ingroup did not have a significant influence. In order of their importance, the variables that showed stronger effects were group identification, followed by meritocracy, social dominance orientation, and world-just beliefs.     

语篇阅读中高级目标推理的机制

建构主义理论和最小假设模型是有关推理研究的两个比较系统的理论。建构主义理论认为在自然阅读过程中,读者会即时产生高级目标推理,而最小假设模型认为在自然阅读过程中,高级目标推理不会即时产生。该研究采用词汇判断和命名的方法,250ms和500ms两种延时程序,以较连贯的自然语篇为实验材料,对语篇阅读中的高级目标推理机制进行了研究。实验结果发现,被试在阅读过程中即时产生了高级目标推理,这与建构主义理论的预测相一致。     

行动的认知表征水平

个体行动认知表征水平是与个人的行动而非一般心理功能具有特定关联的思维风格。它是一个80年代后兴起的研究领域。本文围绕行动认知表征水平研究的背景、认知表征水平与行动的交互作用以及行动认知表征水平的个体差异展开介绍。文章最后讨论了该研究的不足。     

A note on identification in the oblique and orthogonal factor analysis models

Conditions for removing the indeterminancy due to rotation are given for both the oblique and orthogonal factor analysis models. The conditions indicate why published counterexamples to conditions discussed by Jöreskog are not identifiable.The author would like to thank Gordon Bechtel and the reviewers for their comments and suggestions.     

Organizational identification and “currencies of exchange”: integrating social identity and social exchange perspectives

We integrate social exchange and social identity perspectives to propose and test the prediction that depending on their level of organizational identification, people may reciprocate the received organizational support using different “currencies of exchange”—reducing turnover intentions or, instead, engaging in extra‐role behavior. Specifically, the relationship of perceived organizational support (POS) with turnover intentions is proposed to be stronger with lower identification, whereas POS is proposed to be more closely related to extra‐role behavior with higher organizational identification. These predictions were supported in a cross‐sectional survey of N = 1,000 employees of a financial services firm. These results speak to the added value of integrating the social exchange perspective with its roots in applied psychology and the social identity perspective with its roots in social psychology in understanding the employee‐organization relationship.