How much is too much? Understanding the role and function of violence and its manifestation in the consulting room: intensive psychotherapy with a latency-aged boy

The aim of this article is to explore and lend meaning to the role and function of violence in children, in particular boys, who have had disturbing and traumatic early experiences. Psychoanalytic thinking about the role and function of violence, as well as its impact and management in the consulting room, will be central features of this exploration. In a research project involving a single case study, a number of clinical concepts emerged that have potential ramifications for child psychotherapists working with children exhibiting violent and challenging behaviour. The clinical concepts emerged via the application of grounded theory research methodology to clinical data and contribute to the thinking and theory of Meltzer’s use of ‘temperature and distance’ as a means of understanding and regulating emotional states in the therapeutic setting. ‘Time’ and ‘space’ were additional clinical concepts that emerged. These four concepts are considered crucial elements in providing the child psychotherapist with the means to apply transformative and modifying processes to the un-processed and raw externalisation of primitive, violent impulses.     

Negotiating time: the significance of timing in ending inpatient work

This paper discusses work with young people during their stay on an NHS psychiatric inpatient unit, especially focusing on the end of treatment and the appropriate timing of discharge into the community. When approaching the end of an admission, various factors are considered that seem particularly relevant to the decision of when a young person may be ready to leave and cope with the transition back to life outside the unit. Indications of medical stability, in patients where this has been an issue, is a factor of prime importance. Other important factors include family functioning; the availability of adequate ongoing local CAMHS support for the child and family; suitable school provision; and the identity of the child within a peer group. The reality of NHS resources and the demand for inpatient beds is another pressing consideration. The young person's own motivation emerges as crucial at this stage – towards the end of treatment – not only in terms of what is said, and therefore evident verbally, but also through signs of internal shifts in the child that indicate a capacity to re-engage with life outside in a lasting way. Decisions about when to stop are taken with all this in mind and when the decision does not seem straightforward, it can provoke considerable anxiety in the multi-disciplinary team. Clinical material from psychotherapy with a young adolescent boy with anorexia nervosa is used to illustrate some of the dilemmas.     

Testing the hypothesized effect of dysgenic fertility on intelligence with existing reaction time data: A comment on Woodley,te Nijenhuis,and Murphy (2013)

Dysgenic fertility has supposedly resulted in a decline in general intelligence (g) over time. In light of evidence that simple visual reaction time (RT) is inversely related to IQ, Woodley et al. (2013) tested the hypothesized dysgenic effect by subjecting to a meta-regression simple visual RT data collected over 100 years in 15 studies. This analysis found that RT had significantly increased according to a linear function over this time period. Woodley et al. then used this result to estimate the rate at which g had declined over the same period. The present comment points out that there are large gaps in the distribution of RTs analyzed by Woodley et al. with respect to year tested, and that RT in males did not vary as a function of year in the 13 studies published from 1941 on. It is concluded that although existing data are consistent with the idea that g has been adversely affected by dysgenic fertility, it cannot be determined at what rate g has fallen over time.     

时间压力、个人相关性对不同类型框架下决策的影响

该文以178名大学生为被试,考察三种框架下,时间压力、个人相关性对决策及框架效应的影响。结果表明,风险选择框架中,时间压力大,被试思考点数目少,决策保守;但压力和相关性均没有对框架效应造成影响;判定框架下,相关性越高,思考点数目越多,越不易出现框架效应;决策与思考点数目基本保持一致。     

Three fragments on trauma and time

How does trauma influence a client and a therapist’s experience of time in time-limited therapy? The therapist must first work to understand and remain responsive to the different registers of time now operative following the traumatic event. This paper contends that in the immediacy of trauma, hallucinatory wish-fulfilment oblivious to the structuring conditions of time and space appears to dominate. In chronic traumatic states, time appears to circle in a narrow compass, buffering between a cluster of moments surrounding and including the moment of traumatic rupture – as if struggling to re-establish a secure connection with linear time. The three clinical fragments presented attempt to describe different experiences of traumatic bereavement and the felt movement of time within them. The death of another confronts us not only with their loss but with our own mortality – the time we have lived and the time we have left. It is not surprising, therefore, that an individual's otherwise fluid transitions between different temporalities are disturbed in the aftermath of traumatic bereavement. The therapist’s capacity to regulate tempo when the client’s subjective experience of time is dysregulated offers an important means of containment. The aim of the therapist working with the traumatically bereaved client is to develop collaborative understanding to get thinking moving again and to gradually help the client unpin time, moving it beyond the confines that it occupies in trauma.     

转型时期的民间信仰:现状与思考

民间信仰历史悠久,在普通民众生活中有着顽强的生命力和持久广泛的影响力,具有文化传承的强大惯性。本文从民间信仰的概念、现状趋势等方面进行了一些分析,并就民间信仰研究和民间信仰事务管理工作做了一些思考,认为在新时期新阶段,对民间信仰的研究和民间信仰事务管理工作,都需要结合时代发展和社会进步的要求,进行新的探索。     

Breakdown in the metacognitive chain: Good intentions aren’t enough in high school

Two experiments examined the effects of a metacognitive betting implementation in high school Biology students. The results showed that people were generally good at monitoring their own knowledge in that students performed better on items judged with high bets than items judged with low bets. We also found that those who were required to make bets, as compared to those who did not, had higher intentions of studying for longer periods of time, prior to the test. However, there were no differences in actual study time. Nor was there a difference in final performance, as one would expect, between the betters and the non-betters. In summary, we found indication of (1) good intentions when using the betting procedure, but (2) breakdown in the metacognitive chain during control. That is, while requiring students to make deliberate judgments improves their intentions to study, they, unfortunately, fail to carry out those intentions.     

Accounting for sensation seeking in route choice behavior with travel time information

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that latent variables, with the focus on sensation seeking concepts, incorporated in new technique of route choice modeling, improve our analyzing of route choice behavior with pre-trip travel time information. The application of a hybrid discrete choice model framework integrates a latent variable model and a route choice model by combining their measurement and structural equations. The model is estimated based on data from a laboratory experiment and a field study of a simple network. The results show that certain sensation seeking domains (e.g., thrill and adventure seeking) alongside traditional variables (e.g., travel time information) enrich our understanding and provide more insight into route choice behavior. Furthermore, observed personal variables, such as gender and marital status, may serve as causal indicators to sensation seeking variables.     

Contraintes temporelles et qualité du travail dans l’activité des soignants

This article investigates the relationships between care activity and temporal constrains. The main objective is to understand the constrain effects on care givers activity. It is aimed at understanding the effects of the requirements on care givers activity. A research-action of eighteen month was conducted within a residential establishment for older dependent people and studied the activity of thirty four care givers. Our theoretical frame associates both work clinic and ergonomics. Investigations method combined both observation and interviews. The analysis of the care givers activity shows the effects of the organizational constrains on the activity. The care givers activity focuses on time organization rather than care. Finally, the quality of work is impaired, the work looses its sense and misses its primary objectives.     

Coach autonomy support predicts autonomous motivation and daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and sedentary time in youth sport participants

ObjectiveGuided by self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1987), this study tested a trans-contextual model linking perceptions of the social environment created by the youth sport coach to levels of autonomous and controlled motivation, and objectively measured daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time (ST) in young football players.DesignThe study employed a cross-sectional design, assessing physical activity using accelerometers.Method105 male youth sport footballers (M age = 12.79 ± 1.85 years) wore a GT3X accelerometer for 7 days. Measures of height and weight were recorded. Participants completed a multi-section questionnaire assessing perceptions of autonomy support and controlling coaching behaviours, and motivation toward their participation in sport and physically active games.ResultsPath analysis supported a model in which players’ perceptions of coach-provided autonomy support positively predicted autonomous motivation for sport engagement. In turn, autonomous motivation was positively associated with MVPA, and negatively related to ST (min/day). Controlling coach behaviours were positively linked to controlled motivation. However, controlled motivation for sport and physically active games was unrelated to daily MVPA and ST. Perceptions of coach-provided autonomy support had a significant positive indirect effect on daily MVPA, and a significant negative indirect effect on daily ST.ConclusionsResults suggest that autonomy supportive coach behaviours are related to daily physical activity patterns in young male footballers. Theory-based interventions that aim to encourage autonomy supportive coaching, and subsequently foster autonomous reasons for sport engagement, may enhance the potential of youth sport for increasing daily MVPA and reducing ST among children and adolescents active in this setting