Family and food variables that influence life satisfaction of mother-father-adolescent triads in a South American country

This study explored the influence of each family member’s life satisfaction on the other family members’ life satisfaction in mother-father-adolescent triads. We also explored the influence of each family member’s satisfaction with food-related life and family life on their own life satisfaction (LS) as well as on the other family members’ LS in mother-father-adolescent triads. The influence of family eating habits, food-related parenting practices used by each parent and sociodemographic characteristics on each family member’s LS were also explored. A survey was applied to a sample of 300 two-parent families with one child between 10 and 17 years of age in Temuco, Chile. The questionnaire included the Satisfaction with Life Scale, Satisfaction with Food-related Life scale, Satisfaction with Family Life scale, Adapted Healthy Eating Index, Family Food Behavior Survey and Family Eating Habits Questionnaire. Frequency and sources of family meals as well as sociodemographic characteristics were also consulted. Three multivariate ordinal logit models were proposed, with the dependent variable LS in the three subsamples: mothers, fathers and adolescents. The three logit models were significant, but differed in the explanatory variables. Mothers’ LS was influenced by their children’s LS and vice versa. Mothers’ LS was positively influenced by both their own satisfaction with family life and the fathers’ satisfaction with family life and vice versa. Children’s LS was also positively influenced by their own satisfaction with food-related and family life. Both parents’ LS was influenced by eating habits, food-related parenting practices and sociodemographic characteristics, but in different ways. Therefore, different interventions should be implemented to improve each family member’s life satisfaction.

     

Self-Criticism,Neediness, and Distress in the Prediction of Suicide Ideation: Results from Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies

The aim of the present study was to test whether the maladaptive personality traits of self-criticism and neediness predict suicide ideation when controlling for general distress. Further, potential interactive effects on suicide ideation of the two traits and distress were also evaluated. Two studies with nonclinical samples were conducted. The first investigation was cross-sectional and involved a final sample of 202 community adults while the second study was longitudinal with a final sample of 207 college students. Results of Study 1 demonstrated that self-criticism, but not neediness, associated with suicide ideation and, in doing so, also interacted with distress. Neediness also tended to interact with self-criticism in the prediction of suicide ideation. Results from Study 2 were similar and confirmed the Study 1 results. Changes in self-criticism, but not changes in neediness, predicted changes in suicide ideation after statistically controlling for changes in distress. Changes in the interaction between self-criticism and distress predicted changes in suicide ideation and changes in the interaction between self-criticism and neediness tended to predict changes in suicide ideation. Results are discussed with regard to their implications for psychological intervention.     

Dominance and Dialogue in Couple Therapy for Psychological Intimate Partner Violence

Although there is controversy concerning indications for conjoint therapy in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), both research and practice have come to recognize that it has some important benefits. This study analyzes issues of dominance and dialogue in a conjoint therapy for psychological IPV within a naturalistic setting, in which the spouses sought couple therapy on a voluntary basis. The method used to analyze the therapy was Dialogical Investigations of Happenings of Change (DIHC). Results on dominance indicated that the male client showed more quantitative dominance, whereas semantic dominance was more present in the female client, and therapists used more interactional dominance. Results on dialogue analysis showed that dialogical dialogue might help to construct a new-shared meaning of the issue of violence. In the Discussion section some research and clinical implications of the results are derived.     

The Added Value of Studying Embodied Responses in Couple Therapy Research: A Case Study

This article reports on the added value of embodied responses identified through sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in couple therapy research. It focuses on moments of change and the timing of therapeutic interventions or therapeutic moves in a couple therapy session. The data for this single‐case study comprise couple therapy process videotapes recorded in a multi‐camera setting, and measurements of participants’ SNS activity. The voluntary participants were a marital couple in their late thirties and two middle‐aged male psychotherapists. The division into topic segments showed how the key issue of seeking help, which was found to comprise three separate components, was repeatedly dealt with in the session. SNS activity showed different degrees of synchronization between the couple, between the therapists, and between the couple and therapists during the dialogue pertaining to these three components. The issue of timing emerged as a complex, even ambivalent, phenomenon. Arousal in the therapists was in line with their therapeutic activity, whereas in the clients it was more anticipatory. The approach used here rendered visible some of the intensity that therapeutic dialogue can generate when dealing with issues of relationship change in the couple context and showed how this intensity can be dialogically regulated in the therapeutic system.     

Dialogue and Dominance in Couple Therapy for Depression: Exploring Therapists’ Responses in Creating Collaborative Moments

Previous investigations have found specific communication patterns in couples dealing with depression, specifically when depression concurs with conjugal conflicts. The presence of these patterns can reflect couples’ difficulties in engaging in collaborative communication during their sessions, posing a real challenge for therapists. This exploratory study uses a dialogical approach to examine issues of dominance and type of dialogue in two couples who differed in terms of their levels of dyadic adjustment. The therapists’ reactions were explored in order to detect the kinds of responses that were most effective at engendering a collaborative attitude in therapy sessions. The method used to analyze the dialogue was Dialogical Investigations of Happenings of Change (DIHC). Results on dominance indicated that the degree of quantitative and semantic dominance displayed by a different member of the couple in each case was illustrative of their relational dynamics, while in both cases interactional dominance was exercised by the therapists. Results on dialogue revealed that dialogic dialogue might help to coconstruct new shared meanings of depression. The findings indicated that certain responses by therapists as part of the dialogue could be useful in bringing about a reduction in hostility between the members of a couple, provided that the responses are maintained over the course of the session. Some research and clinical implications that emerge from the results are discussed.     

The Effect of Rehabilitation on Positive Interpretations of Illness

Postoperative patients received one of the three, alternative pain-management treatments: patient-controlled analgesia (PCA); perceived PCA (PPCA without actual control) and continuous intravenous infusion of analgesics (CII). Pain reports, morphine consumption and satisfaction of the groups were compared, and influences of individual differences in preferences for control and trait anxiety were tested. The main findings were: (1) PCA patients consumed less morphine and reported more pain and somewhat higher satisfaction; (2) PPCA patients were intermediate between the other two groups in pain reports and morphine consumption and lowest in satisfaction and (3) individual differences did not moderate the effects of PCA. The findings were interpreted as indicating that the main effect of PCA is increased pain tolerance, and that a bio-psycho-social framework is most appropriate to explain these effects.     

Desana mythology: Oral indigenous literature

Abstract

Mythic narrative in an indigenous community is not only an end in itself. It elaborates an interpretive discourse about the world, a shared past, and a common pattern of behavior. Among the Desana of the Brazilian Amazon, mythology serves two purposes: It is a basis for reinforcing a lifestyle and a means of resisting encroachments on the tribe's identity. The author worked with two members of the Desana tribe, rewriting the final draft of their anthology of tribal myths, a book that attempts to preserve the Desana mythology and ethnic heritage.     

Apodemus sylvaticus (LOXT) is a suitable mouse strain for testing spatial memory retention in the Morris water maze

Information on the difference in cognitive function between laboratory and wild-caught mice is anecdotal and this question has not been systematically studied. Moreover, studying a wild-caught mouse strain per se may add information to the repertoire of mouse strains available. We aimed to study spatial memory in a wild mouse strain (Apodemus sylvaticus, AS) as compared to two individual laboratory mouse strains.Male AS (n = 20), CD1 (n = 19) and C57BL/6J mice (n = 19), 12–14 weeks old, were used in the experiments. The Morris water maze (MWM) was used for determination of spatial memory and time spent in the target quadrant at time points 5 (D5) and 12 days (D12) was evaluated. During the acquisition phase latency to reach the platform and path length to reach the platform was evaluated.Following four training days on day 5 (D5), time spent in the target quadrant was highest in AS > CD1 > C57BL/6J (P < 0.006). On day 12 (D12), time spent in the target quadrant was significantly higher in AS than in both other strains (P < 0.001).All animals learned the task and during the acquisition phase, latency to reach the platform as well as path length decreased significantly in AS.It is concluded that the AS is the most suitable strain for the evaluation of spatial memory in the MWM and is presenting with memory retention superior to laboratory mouse strains CD1 and C57BL/6J.     

Aggressive behavior as a function of Taekwondo ranking

This study examined the effect taekwondo training has on the level of aggression of children between the ages of 6 and 11 yr. 68 students (boys and girls) were tested using a behavior checklist designed to measure children's aggression. Analysis indicated a significant inverse relationship between the children's taekwondo rank and their aggression.     

Maternal attachment representations and the development of very low birth weight premature infants at two years of age

There is a consensus that prematurity could increase the risk of attachment impairment. We studied 90 premature children with very low birth weights (<1,500 g) and 96 healthy children born at term with similar age and sociodemographic characteristics. Our objective was to assess maternal stress and attachment representations, and compare development indices on both groups at 2 years of age. Premature infants had a medium‐to‐severe degree of immaturity and biological risk (M gestational age = 29.98 weeks; birth weight = 1,159.76 g), with 57% staying in the ICU ≥1 week. These children born prematurely had lower scores on the development indices within the normal range. Mothers of premature infants (n = 74) reported higher levels of stress during their first year of life (59%) than did controls (41%), but no significant differences were detected in maternal attachment discourse between the two groups. The findings confirm that premature birth has a great influence on maternal emotional responses and the health and development of children in the first years of life, and indicate that stress responses in parents and warning signs for attachment problems should be assessed as early as possible.