Science‐based interviewing: Information elicitation

This article describes an ethical and effective science‐based model of interviewing. An initial planning phase assists the investigative team in separating facts from inferences, decreases the likelihood of errors based on cognitive biases, and prompts careful preparation of the environment. The interview begins with an explanation of why the subject is being questioned. The interviewer then metaphorically hands the interview over to the subject, making him the talker and the interviewer the listener. The interviewer engages in active listening, soliciting as much information from the subject as possible by deploying tactics that enhance memory based on science, including elements of the cognitive interview. Cues to deception are found in the details of the story, rather than in signs of anxiety or nonverbal behaviours, and by deploying Strategic Use of Evidence. This model has been shown to increase cooperation, decrease resistance, and provoke useful information in real‐world criminal interviews.     

Writing,Reading, and Listening Differentially Overload Working Memory Performance Across the Serial Position Curve

Previous research has assumed that writing is a cognitively complex task, but has not determined if writing overloads Working Memory more than reading and listening. To investigate this, participants completed three recall tasks. These were reading lists of words before recalling them, hearing lists of words before recalling them, and hearing lists of words and writing them as they heard them, then recalling them. The experiment involved serial recall of lists of 6 words. The hypothesis that fewer words would be recalled overall when writing was supported. Post-hoc analysis revealed the same pattern of results at individual serial positions (1 to 3). However, there was no difference between the three conditions at serial position 4, or between listening and writing at positions 5 and 6 which were both greater than recall in the reading condition. This suggests writing overloads working memory more than reading and listening, particularly in the early serial positions. The results show that writing interferes with working memory processes and so is not recommended when the goal is to immediately recall information.     

On becoming textually active at Youthline,New Zealand

The phones hardly ring at Youthline New Zealand anymore; youth still have problems and seek help, but it mostly happens silently. This article reports on experiences of texting at a 24-hour crisis helpline for young people. To date, there has been no formal evidence base for this practice; however, for new practice, there never is. In prompting discussion, this article attends to the tight constraints that texting imposes, returning to the necessary and sufficient conditions of any effective therapeutic relationship particularly in regard to working with young people. New possibilities are demonstrated with emotional support being demonstrated even in the tightly constrained space of a text-based medium.     

The triumph of American psychiatry: How it created the modern therapeutic state

Over the past 170 years, American psychiatry has progressively asserted its authority over a larger segment of the American population. From the mid-1800s to the end of World War II, psychiatry had authority over the asylum population, which markedly increased in the first half of the twentieth century due to the influence of eugenics, an ideology that argued the ‘mentally ill’ had to be segregated from society. After the war, American psychiatry adopted Freudian conceptions of mental disorders, which enabled it to begin treating people in the community who were ‘neurotic’ in some way, which dramatically expanded its influence in society. Then, in the 1970s, when many in American society were questioning psychiatry’s legitimacy as a branch of medicine, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) responded by adopting a disease model for diagnosing mental disorders, which it set forth in the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. There were no scientific discoveries that led to this new model, but soon the APA was informing the American public that mental disorders were diseases of the brain, and that psychiatric drugs helped fix those diseases, ‘like insulin for diabetes.’ The APA, in concert with pharmaceutical companies, has successfully exported this belief system to much of the developed world. In order to break free of this ‘therapeutic state,’ the public needs to understand the history of how it came to be, and see the social injury it has caused.     

Dichotic listening with forced attention in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy: significance of left hemisphere cognitive dysfunction

Fifty right-handed patients with focal temporal lobe epilepsy were administered a dichotic listening test with consonant-vowel syllables under non-forced, forced right and forced left attention conditions, and a neuropsychological test battery. Dichotic listening performance was compared in subgroups with and without left hemisphere cognitive dysfunction, measured by the test battery, and in subgroups with left and right temporal epileptic focus. Left hemisphere cognitive dysfunction led to more correct responses to left ear stimuli in all three attention conditions, and fewer correct responses to right ear stimuli in the non-forced attention condition. This was probably caused by basic left hemisphere perceptual dysfunction. Dichotic listening was less affected by a left-sided epileptic focus than by left hemisphere cognitive dysfunction. General cognitive functioning influenced dichotic listening performance stronger in forced than in non-forced attention conditions. Larger cerebral networks were probably involved in the forced attention conditions due to the emphasis on conscious effort.     

Three Views of Artful Practice in Psychosocial Occupational Therapy

This qualitative study explored artfulness in the psychosocial practice of three occupational therapists through in-depth observation and interviews. Analysis focused on the therapist-client relationship, activity use, self-reflection, and the change process. Each therapist established an interpersonal connection while offering meaningful, engaging activities. In addition, each brought a distinct and unique personal view to treatment. Findings suggest that the art of practice in occupational therapy is constructed by the therapist's integrated balance of substance, form, and vision to achieve a coherent whole, which positively influences the personal views of substance, form, and vision in clients.     

Moses,Michelangelo and Freud: From an interlacement of stories in history to some suggestions for treatment theory

Abstract

The first part of this paper is inspired by Freud's interpretation of Michelangelo's Moses, which as the author shows, profoundly expresses Freud's subjectivity and personal features. With reference to clinical treatment, when the analyst “reasons” without considering his or her partner's position, the setting is lacking from a relational point of view. The consequence is that the analyst is missing a precious resource, that is, his or her patient and the documental sources he or she transmits in the analytic dialogue. In the second part of the paper, the author analyzes the nature of documental sources. This information pertains to both the patients’ pasts and their histories, expressing their rigid conservative needs, and to their evolution and transformational needs, in view of future possible change. Evolution needs are not visible, because they are implicitly present, and—according to the author—they could be recognized through the method of discrete details proposed by the Italian art critic G. Morelli. A broader vision of analytic listening is also considered: the past should be taken into account with the aim of interpreting the present and the future, as changing spaces. Change in therapy is announced through nonrepressed unconscious signals and by the language of the implicit. In the conclusion, the author exposes the connections of change, implicit, symbol, metaphorical language and waiting time.