The Concept of Dreaming: On Three Theses by Malcolm

In his monograph Dreaming (1959), Normal Malcolm puts forward the following three theses:
(1) The temporal location of dreams as taking place in one's sleep is not an empirical fact, but determined by grammar.
(2) This grammatical determination does not allow dreams a precise date in physical time.
(3) Dreams do not consist of mental occurrences.
I argue that (1) is indeed perfectly true, whereas (2) is false; (3) is not borne out by Malcolm's verificationist main argument, although it can be shown to be largely true for other considerations.     

Can I Have Your Pain?

In the so‐called private language argument, Wittgenstein argues both against the alleged epistemological privacy of sensations and against their alleged ontological privacy, that is, the common view that somebody else cannot have my pain. A prominent proponent of the claim of sensations' ontological privacy was Gottlob Frege, whose position has recently been defended by Wolfgang Künne. This paper reconsiders Wittgenstein's objections to ontological privacy and attempts to defend Wittgenstein's position against Künne's Frege‐inspired arguments.     

Einfluss des Behandlungssettings auf den Gesundungsverlauf

Even though managed care systems research emerged as an important field in psychotherapy research in the last years, studies examining the effects of its psychotherapeutic measures on outcome are still rare, especially in Germany. Little is known about the effectiveness of psychotherapy in different treatment settings, i. e. whether and how patients in outpatient psychotherapy differ from inpatients in respect to initial impairment status and pace of improvement. Two longitudinal data sets—inpatient (N=759) and outpatient (N=521)—were used to scrutinize these questions. Results yielded no differences between treatment settings as to patients’ initial impairment. A linear model adequately represented the mean course of improvement in inpatient psychotherapy. For outpatient psychotherapy, a bipartite linear model for treatment and for the follow-up period proved more appropriate. During 1 year, patients in both settings attained a similar amount of improvement. However, pace of in-treatment improvement was 10 times faster in the inpatient setting. Initial impairment substantially predicted the course of psychological improvement in both treatment settings.     

Group processes and process evaluations in a new treatment setting: inpatient group psychotherapy followed by internet-chat aftercare groups

Little is known about processes characterizing therapeutic Internet-chat groups, which offer a novel way of providing group therapy over distances. In this study group processes and group evaluations were examined in a treatment setting where face-to-face inpatient groups are followed by chat aftercare groups. For a sample of 121 patients who participated in both treatment modalities, group processes and group evaluations were modeled using hierarchical linear modeling. The group evaluations followed a consistent upward course from the beginning of therapy until the end of chat aftercare. For the process measures Activity and Emotional Reactivity, the initial scores at the beginning of the chat groups were lower than at the end of the inpatient treatment, but higher than at admission. During chat aftercare, Activity and Emotional Reactivity scores increased less than during the inpatient phase, but on average Activity and Emotional Reactivity were higher during Internet-chat aftercare. The predictive value of the acquaintance of the therapist from inpatient treatment and the course of group evaluations during inpatient treatment on the course of group evaluations during chat aftercare were examined.     

Predictors of adherence to aerobic exercise in rectal cancer patients during and after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy

This pilot study explored predictors of adherence to exercise during and after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NACRT) in rectal cancer patients. Eighteen rectal cancer patients were prescribed three supervised aerobic exercise sessions/week during NACRT followed by ≥150 min/week of unsupervised aerobic exercise after NACRT. Although not statistically significant, adherence to supervised exercise during NACRT was meaningfully better for patients who were women (d = .82; P = .12), younger (d = ?.62; P = .30), married (d = .62; P = .42), with better mental health (r = .32; P = .21), fewer diarrhea symptoms (r = .48; P = .052), and higher anticipated enjoyment (r = .31; P = .23), support (r = .32; P = .22), and motivation (r = .31; P = .23). After NACRT, adherence was significantly better for patients who reported worse mental health (r = ?.56; P = .046) and meaningfully better for patients who were women (d = .54; P = .38), better educated (d = .77; P = .22), had no comorbidities (d = ?.63; P = .17), and exercised at baseline (d = 1.05; P = .12). Demographics, tumor side effects, and motivational variables may predict adherence to exercise during and after NACRT.