A Meta-Commentary: Response to the Commentaries of Marks-Tarlow and Solow Glennon

In replying to the commentaries of Marks-Tarlow and Solow Glennon, I have provided some clarification and expansion on the epistemology of dynamic systems models. These models served as the basis for integrating neuroscientific research findings with the phenomena of self and identity. Some of the challenges offered by the commentators have been specifically addressed with reference to a clarification of a “linguistic system” and causality as it applies to nonlinear dynamics.     

Assessing Stimulus Control in a Discrimination Task with Compound Stimuli: Evaluating Testing Procedures and Tracking Eye Fixations

The Psychological Record - Experiments with pigeons have suggested that the way stimuli are arranged in tests affects the demonstration of the stimulus control established during training. The...     

Observing behavior and atypically restricted stimulus control

Restricted stimulus control refers to discrimination learning with atypical limitations in the range of controlling stimuli or stimulus features. In the study reported here, 4 normally capable individuals and 10 individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) performed two-sample delayed matching to sample. Sample-stimulus observing was recorded with an eye-tracking apparatus. High accuracy scores indicated stimulus control by both sample stimuli for the 4 nondisabled participants and 4 participants with ID, and eye tracking data showed reliable observing of all stimuli. Intermediate accuracy scores indicated restricted stimulus control for the remaining 6 participants. Their eye-tracking data showed that errors were related to failures to observe sample stimuli and relatively brief observing durations. Five of these participants were then given interventions designed to improve observing behavior. For 4 participants, the interventions resulted initially in elimination of observing failures, increased observing durations, and increased accuracy. For 2 of these participants, contingencies sufficient to maintain adequate observing were not always sufficient to maintain high accuracy; subsequent procedure modifications restored it, however. For the 5th participant, initial improvements in observing were not accompanied by improved accuracy, an apparent instance of observing without attending; accuracy improved only after an additional intervention that imposed contingencies on observing behavior. Thus, interventions that control observing behavior seem necessary but may not always be sufficient for the remediation of restricted stimulus control.     

For the new family therapist: A glossary of terms

Abstract

Traditional psychodynamic terms used in describing, diagnosing, and treating individual patients have proven less than helpful in working with families. In an attempt to alleviate this difficulty, and as an aid to the newcomer in the field of family therapy, this glossary of terms is presented. This glossary is not meant to be all-inclusive. Rather, its purpose is to provide the new family therapist with an introduction to the language of the field, an armamentarium from which to work, and to provide a basis of knowledge that is usually not accumulated by the new family therapist until he or she has worked with a number of families over a period of time.     

Psychoanalytic Engagements With Death: Discussion of Martin Frommer’s “Death Is Nothing at All: On Contemplating Non-Existence”

In this discussion, I reflect on some historical, theoretical, and clinical implications of Martin Frommer’s thesis that death anxieties are best navigated via reaffirming attachments with that which is beyond the self. Frommer’s examples of active engagement with his patients in personal modes of discourse about shared existential concerns are considered in terms of the ethics and responsibilities of self-disclosure and the therapist’s own subjective reactions to the death anxieties. Frommer’s contribution is applauded as an exemplar of relational psychoanalytic therapy that incorporates and goes beyond Freud’s formulations of internal processes of identification with the deceased.     

Observing Behavior Topography in Delayed Matching to Multiple Samples

The Psychological Record - This study examined relations between eye movements and accuracy scores in a delayed matching-to-sample procedure with multiple sample stimuli. Four adult humans...     

The Drama of Couples Therapy

In the author's view, the intensity of couples/family treatment arises from a suppressed acknowledgment of reciprocity, of interconnectedness among family members, beyond the often familiar dynamics of blaming and deprivation. Eliciting a recognition of profound interdependence raises anxiety, and stands in opposition to culturally prescribed concepts of autonomy and independence. To this end, a dramaturgical model of couples/family is proposed and discussed, involving the therapist's participation as director, witness or audience, and protagonist.     

The relational unconscious: a core element of intersubjectivity, thirdness, and clinical process

The relational unconscious is the fundamental structuring property of each interpersonal relation; it permits, as well as constrains, modes of engagement specific to that dyad and influences individual subjective experience within the dyad. Three usages of the concept of thirdness are delineated and contrasted with the concept of the relational unconscious, which, it is suggested, has the advantage of being both consistent with existing views of unconscious processes and more directly applicable to therapeutic concerns. Enactments and intersubjective resistances are viewed as clinical manifestations of the relational unconscious, and the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis results, in part, from altering the structure of the relational unconscious that binds analysand and analyst.     

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS OF MOTION CONTROL FOR PEDIATRIC NEUROIMAGING

Magnetic resonance imaging is a promising technological advance used for research and diagnosis of disease. The procedure has no risks, except when uncooperative patients require sedation. Four normal children participated in simulated scans to study the effects of (a) antecedent changes in the imaging environment and (b) operant conditioning of movement inhibition. Changing the environment can decrease movement, but operant contingencies were necessary to decrease movement to a level that, in most cases, would allow the procedure to occur without sedation.