THE SECOND SPHERE AND THE STORY OF NO STORY

The author discusses Roy Schafer's ideas of the second self and second reality, as well as his consistent theme of storyteller and story. The latter theme is also explored in the context of more recent psychoanalytic influences, such as Bionian thought, trauma theory, the French approach, and the interpersonal perspective. To illustrate the idea of the nonstory in today's clinical encounters, the author presents two clinical vignettes.     

Counselor Competency in the Courtroom

This article outlines general courtroom procedures and offers systematic practical advice for the counselor testifying as an expert witness. Major topics include the counselor role in court, preparing for testimony, answering questions, and dealing with the cross-examination.     

The role of sincere amends and perceived partner responsiveness in forgiveness

In a sample of 188 people currently in a romantic relationship, the authors examined the extent to which perceiving a partner as responsive and sincere in making amends relates to participants' forgiveness of a partner after a real‐life hurtful event. Specifically, it was predicted that sincere amends would be associated with greater forgiveness because it conveys that one's partner has understood and validated one's experience of the hurtful event. Results supported this mediational model. Further, exploratory analyses suggested that this meditational model is moderated by event severity and relationship satisfaction. Discussion focuses on understanding how this work might help to inform the dynamic process of forgiveness in couples.     

What Makes Crohn's Disease Patients Difficult to Manage? The Role of Psychosocial Factors

Most GI clinicians face the problem of a small group Crohn's Disease (CD) patients who function poorly and consume inordinate amounts of service with poor outcome. This study examines the hypothesis that psychosocial factors differentiate the CD patients who function poorly from the typical CD patient. A prototypal sample of CD patients with problems functioning, more typical CD patients (not selected for having problems in functioning), and healthy controls each completed a battery of validated psychosocial measures of disease-specific quality of life, coping skills, social support and life stress, perceived medical symptoms and life history factors. Chart data on hospital admissions, ER, GI, Surgeon, and GP visits were also collected. The CD patients with problems functioning reported more symptoms (GI and non-GI) and had many more ER, GI, and GP visits than the typical group. Psychologically, those with problems functioning had poorer quality of life and were more likely to cope using emotional discharge and support seeking. They experienced significantly more stress and reported a more chaotic family history. No differences on an experimental method of information processing biases were found between the CD groups, however. These results indicated that patients with problems functioning, selected by GI staff because they were best-case examples of functional difficulties, shared little with a matched group of typical CD patients. These patients likely require psychological as well as medical intervention to best manage their illness.     

Sequential tapping interferes selectively with multiple-object tracking: do finger-tapping and tracking share a common resource?

Multiple-object tracking involves simultaneously monitoring positions of a number of target items as they move among distractors. Young adults are capable of tracking only 3-5 items at once. In this study we investigated the origin of this limitation by looking for secondary tasks that interfere with tracking. We compared tracking performance (baseline condition), with performance when participants tapped three fingers in a specific order while tracking (sequential tapping) or articulated three syllables in a specific order while tracking (sequential articulation). The articulation task was used to ensure that the interference produced by sequential tapping was more than would be expected by the executive demands of carrying out any two “attention-demanding” tasks at once. Even though sequential tapping does not require vision or memorizing the positions of external items, it produced significantly more interference than did sequential articulation, as might be expected if tracking and sequential tapping shared a common (limited) resource.