Families and family therapy in Germany

The author describes some of the effects of decades of life under a dictatorship for East Germans and the effects on family life and family therapy of changes following the recent reunification of Germany. A case example illustrates some intergenerational family problems associated with the changes. Contrasts are drawn between East and West Germany and family therapy's present stage of development is depicted in both parts of the reunified country. Germany has approximately 10,000 trained family therapists, a minority of whom work in private practice. The largest amount of family and couples therapy is performed in agencies.Portions of this material were first presented in a poster session at the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy annual conference in Miami Beach, 1992.     

Psychodynamik und neurophysiologischer Befund bei einem Patienten mit einer zwanghaften Lesestörung

The present single case study is aimed to investigate neuro-physiological correlates of checking and ordering compulsions in a 40 years old patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by means of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) method. After the presentation of the psychogenesis and psychodynamic of the OCD case, the cardinal symptom, a compulsive reading disturbance, is described in detail. Based on the symptom analysis eight different texts, hierarchically arranged by their degrees of difficulty were composed and presented to the patient for reading during fMRI. The results of the fMRI during symptom provocation display significant increase of activation in fronto-thalamic-cortical neural circuits with the occurence of compulsive reading disturbances compared with unproblematic texts and with the reading of a control subject. The findings are discussed in relation to the neurobiologic literature as well as to an object-psychological model of the OCD.     

The joint flanker effect and the joint Simon effect: On the comparability of processes underlying joint compatibility effects

Previous studies observed compatibility effects in different interference paradigms such as the Simon and flanker task even when the task was distributed across two co-actors. In both Simon and flanker tasks, performance is improved in compatible trials relative to incompatible trials if one actor works on the task alone as well as if two co-actors share the task. These findings have been taken to indicate that actors automatically co-represent their co-actor’s task. However, recent research on the joint Simon and joint flanker effect suggests alternative non-social interpretations. To which degree both joint effects are driven by the same underlying processes is the question of the present study, and it was scrutinized by manipulating the visibility of the co-actor. While the joint Simon effect was not affected by the visibility of the co-actor, the joint flanker effect was reduced when participants did not see their co-actors but knew where the co-actors were seated. These findings provide further evidence for a spatial interpretation of the joint Simon effect. In contrast to recent claims, however, we propose a new explanation of the joint flanker effect that attributes the effect to an impairment in the focusing of spatial attention contingent on the visibility of the co-actor.     

Is Fear of Others Linked to an Uncertain Sense of Self? The Relevance of Self-Worth, Interpersonal Self-Concepts, and Dysfunctional Beliefs to Paranoia

The assumption that a low sense of self-worth can give rise to paranoid delusions is relevant from a therapeutic perspective, but research has been inconsistent. The present study sought to investigate how interpersonal self-concepts and global self-worth relate to psychotic and depressive psychopathology in persons with psychosis. Participants with psychosis (n = 83) and healthy controls (n = 33) were assessed for global self-worth, interpersonal self-concepts, and dysfunctional beliefs using the Frankfurt Self-Concept Scale and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale. Symptoms were assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory, the Paranoia Checklist, and the Beck Depression Inventory. We hypothesized that perceived threat to self-worth, as expressed in dysfunctional acceptance beliefs and negative interpersonal self-concepts, would be uniquely associated with persecutory delusions. In contrast, low global self-worth would be strongly associated with symptoms of depression. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate the association between symptoms and self-concepts. As expected, low global self-worth was associated with depression, whereas the more specific perception of not being accepted by relevant others was most clearly related to psychotic symptoms. Almost half of the variance in paranoia scores was explained by negative interpersonal self-concepts and the interaction between negative interpersonal self-concepts and dysfunctional acceptance beliefs. Thus, cognitive interventions for delusions might be improved by focusing more on interpersonal self-concepts.     

Evidence for a cognitive control network for goal-directed attention in simple sustained attention

The deterioration of performance over time is characteristic for sustained attention tasks. This so-called “performance decrement” is measured by the increase of reaction time (RT) over time. Some behavioural and neurobiological mechanisms of this phenomenon are not yet fully understood. Behaviourally, we examined the increase of RT over time and the inter-individual differences of this performance decrement. On the neurophysiological level, we investigated the task-relevant brain areas where neural activity was modulated by RT and searched for brain areas involved in good performance (i.e. participants with no or moderate performance decrement) as compared to poor performance (i.e. participants with a steep performance decrement). For this purpose, 20 healthy, young subjects performed a carefully designed task for simple sustained attention, namely a low-demanding version of the Rapid Visual Information Processing task. We employed a rapid event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design. The behavioural results showed a significant increase of RT over time in the whole group, and also revealed that some participants were not as prone to the performance decrement as others. The latter was statistically significant comparing good versus poor performers. Moreover, high BOLD-responses were linked to longer RTs in a task-relevant bilateral fronto-cingulate-insular-parietal network. Among these regions, good performance was associated with significantly higher RT-BOLD correlations in the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA). We concluded that the task-relevant bilateral fronto-cingulate-insular-parietal network was a cognitive control network responsible for goal-directed attention. The pre-SMA in particular might be associated with the performance decrement insofar that good performers could sustain activity in this brain region in order to monitor performance declines and adjust behavioural output.     

尼采1885年初之后的遗稿编订

本文围绕《尼采考订版全集》第九系列对于尼采晚期遗稿的编订,分析了从福斯特—尼采版全集,历经Giorgio Colli与Mazzino Montinari的考订版(系列1-8),一直到最新晚期手稿编纂中编辑范式的转变(系列9)。特别在历史比较的视域下,介绍了以形态学原则还原尼采手稿的编辑方法、原则及其优点。     

Being Deluded After Being Excluded? How Emotion Regulation Deficits in Paranoia-Prone Individuals Affect State Paranoia During Experimentally Induced Social Stress

Emotion regulation (ER) has become a relevant construct to understanding paranoia. While the ER strategy called expressive suppression (e.g., poker face) may foster state paranoia by increasing arousal, another strategy called reappraisal (e.g., changing the perspective on situations) may reduce negative emotions and state paranoia when adaptively used. However, if reappraisal fails, this could increase paranoia. The aim of this study was to test the proposed effects of the ER strategies on state paranoia in the socially stressful situation of being excluded in paranoia-prone individuals. We conducted an experimental online study with N=116 participants who were randomized to a social inclusion or an exclusion condition using a virtual Cyberball ball-tossing game. They completed questionnaires on paranoia proneness and habitual ER strategies. Before and after the Cyberball task, participants rated their level of state paranoia. The impact of habitual ER strategies, paranoia proneness, and social stress on changes in state paranoia was investigated using linear regression analysis. The three-way interaction of social stress, paranoia proneness, and habitual reappraisal use significantly predicted state paranoia, t(114)=2.62, p=0.010. The decomposition of the interaction term revealed that in the social stress condition, the impact of reappraisal on state paranoia was moderated by the level paranoia proneness. Specifically, in high paranoia-prone individuals the use of reappraisal predicted higher state paranoia. The findings regarding habitual use of suppression were not significant. Although reappraisal is generally considered a functional strategy, its use in distressing social situations seems to be impaired in persons with higher paranoia proneness. A working model of emotion dysregulation in delusions is presented and possible implications for cognitive therapy of psychosis are discussed.     

Delusion and dreams in "Death in Venice". Thomas Mann's consequential reading of Freud in 1911

The author shows by means of literary comparisons that in "Death in Venice" and The Magic Mountain, Mann was strongly influenced by Freud's psychoanalysis, in particular by the latter's work "Delusion and dreams in W. Jensen's 'Gradiva'."