Varieties of dissociative experiences: A multiple code account and a discussion of Bromberg's case of "William".

Adaptive functioning depends on integration of subsymbolic with symbolic functions within emotion schemas, as defined by multiple code theory. Psychological disorders result from dissociations within and between emotion schemas; logical dissociation is implicated in varying ways in all emotional disorders. Therapeutic work, as seen in P. M. Bromberg's (2003) clinical material, requires activation of subsymbolic bodily and sensory experience in the session; associated with ongoing events in the therapeutic relationship; triggering memories of the past. Reconnection of dissociated components of the emotion schemas occurs through their being activated and held in working memory. The effectiveness of interventions to facilitate such connection depends on gradual development of the therapeutic relationship, the converse of the etiology of a dissociated schema. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Something wicked this way comes: Trauma, dissociation, and conflict: The space where psychoanalysis, cognitive science, and neuroscience overlap.

Even in routine analytic work, for what is dissociated to become symbolized and available to conflict resolution, a patient must experience sufficient interpersonal safety to free working memory while activation of unprocessed dissociated experience is taking place. The author proposes that this necessary synthesis of affective security and relational risk depends on what a given patient and analyst do in an unanticipated way that is safe but not too safe--an enactment of the relational failures of a patient's past while allowing "safe surprises" in the here-and-now to occur. Remarkable convergence is found between cognitive research (W. Bucci, 2003), neuroscience research (J. E. LeDoux, 2002), and an interpersonal/relational psychoanalytic approach that works at the interface of dissociation and conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of emotion regulation.

Reviews the book, Handbook of emotion regulation edited by James J. Gross (see record 2007-01392-000). The purpose of this edited volume is to bring the reader and the scientific community up-to-date on the burgeoning field of emotion and particularly how it is regulated. The book comprises 30 chapters divided amongst seven traditional sections within psychology: foundations, biological bases, cognitive foundations, developmental approaches, personality process and individual differences, social approaches, and clinical outcomes. Gross very nicely captures the range of topics and issues surrounding the topic of emotion and emotion regulation in this edited volume. Gross is to be congratulated for taking on the task of editing such a timely and important volume for the field. Given the scope of the volume, it should have wide appeal to researchers as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students in the areas of personality and social psychology, human development, child clinical psychology, psychiatry, and cognitive and affective neuroscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval of emotional memories.

Long-term memories are influenced by the emotion experienced during learning as well as by the emotion experienced during memory retrieval. The present article reviews the literature addressing the effects of emotion on retrieval, focusing on the cognitive and neurological mechanisms that have been revealed. The reviewed research suggests that the amygdala, in combination with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, plays an important role in the retrieval of memories for emotional events. The neural regions necessary for online emotional processing also influence emotional memory retrieval, perhaps through the reexperience of emotion during the retrieval process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive-processing bias in chronic pain: A review and integration.

Do patients with chronic pain selectively process pain- and illness-related stimuli? The evidence with regard to attention, interpretation, and recall biases is critically reviewed. A model is proposed to account for the findings in which it is suggested that biases in information processing in chronic pain are the result of overlap between 3 schemas: pain, illness, and self. With frequent repeated or continued experience of pain, the pain schema becomes enmeshed with illness and self-schemas. The extent of the enmeshment and the salient content of the schema determine the bias. A fundamental assumption is that all patients with pain selectively process sensory-intensity information. A clinical implication of the results is that processing biases that extend beyond this healthy and adaptive process to enmesh the self-schema with pain and illness schemas could maintain and exacerbate distress and illness behavior in patients with chronic pain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress and memory bias interact to predict depression in multiple sclerosis.

This study is an investigation of the moderating effect of cognitive schema on the relationship between stress and depression in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). In the study, the authors employed a performance-based measure of affective memory bias and a self-report measure of everyday stress to assess both direct and interactive effects of cognitive schema and stress on depression in individuals with MS. The specific hypotheses were that high stress would be more highly associated with depression if an individual also demonstrated a bias for negative information, but that a bias for positive information may buffer against the effects of stress on depression. Results supported the hypotheses, demonstrating a significant effect of the interaction and differential effects of stress based on the direction of memory bias. Implications for understanding depression in MS are discussed, as well as dominant theories of adult depression in the general population. The results are also discussed as a potential contradiction to A. T. Beck's (1967, 1976) developmental hypothesis of cognitive schemas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recovered memories of trauma: phenomenology and cognitive mechanisms

We outline four current explanations for the reported forgetting of traumatic events, namely repression, dissociation, ordinary forgetting, and false memory. We then review the clinical and survey evidence on recovered memories, and consider experimental evidence that a variety of inhibitory processes are involved in everyday cognitive activity including forgetting. The data currently available do not allow any of the four explanations to be rejected, and strongly support the likelihood that some recovered memories correspond to actual experiences. We propose replacing the terms repression and dissociation as explanations of forgetting with an account based on cognitive science.     

Stress, memory, and emotion: developmental considerations from the study of child maltreatment

Emotion and memory are examined within a developmental framework. The point of departure for this discussion is the study of maltreated children whose traumatic experiences have been linked to difficulties in emotional development. It is suggested that cognitive processes such as memory and attention serve to link experience with emotion and emotion with psychopathology. Thus, an information processing approach is used to explain the development of maltreated children's adaptive and maladaptive coping responses. It is argued that maltreated children's association of affective stimuli with traumatic experiences and memories selectively alters the meaning of emotions for these children. More generally, the role of experience and learning as a component of emotional development is emphasized.     

Memories of abuse in borderline patients: true or false?

This review will examine issues related to the validity of memories of child abuse in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). A large body of research has shown that all memories are distorted by cognitive schema, and that "recovered memories" may be particularly unreliable. Empirical findings on trauma in BPD will be reviewed, as well as the difficulties in verifying trauma histories. Evidence will be examined suggesting that borderline patients have a distorted perception of interpersonal events. Clinical recommendations will be made for the evaluation of memories of abuse in patients with BPD.     

On the primacy of affect.

Discusses R. S. Lazarus's (see PA, Vols 69:11728 and 25:2812) challenge of the view that there are circumstances under which affect precedes cognition and that affective arousal that does not entail prior cognitive appraisal exists. His argument, however, is based entirely on an arbitrary definition of emotion that requires cognitive appraisal as a necessary precondition. To satisfy this concept of emotion, Lazarus has broadened the definition of cognitive appraisal to include even the most primitive forms of sensory excitation, thus obliterating all distinction among cognition, sensation, and perception. No empirical evidence is offered to document the principle of cognitive appraisal as a necessary precondition for emotional arousal. It is concluded that the contrasting view of an affective primacy and independence is derived from a series of findings and phenomena, including the existence of neuroanatomical structures allowing for independent affective process. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in memory in relation to availability and accessibility of knowledge-based schemas.

Three experiments investigated whether, over adulthood, the use of schemas to process and remember new information increases (developmental shift hypothesis), decreases (production deficiency hypothesis) or remains constant (age-invariance hypothesis). Effects of schema access were studied by having young, middle-aged, and old music experts and nonexperts recall information that was relevant or irrelevant to music (Experiment 1) and by comparing young and old participants' memory for prose passages when they knew or did not know the subject of the passage (Experiments 2 and 3). In each case, schema access facilitated memory equally across age levels, supporting the age-invariance hypothesis and implying that the basic structures and operations of memory do not necessarily change with age. Possible limits on the independence of age and schema utilization were considered in relation to the conditions under which each of the two alternative hypotheses might hold. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It's turtles all the way down: A semiotic perspective on the basic emotions debate.

Comment on an article by (see record 2007-10982-007). A semiotic perspective based on the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce is offered to open up new directions to the current debate over basic emotions. While explaining in a systematic way contested questions such as causal chain, association, and dissociation among the components of emotion, this semiotic analysis suggests that preoccupation with these building blocks type of questions masks and distracts attention from the more global problems that plague affective science—the essentialism that drives the debate, and the tendency to explain behavior in terms of isolated organisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociative tendencies and facilitated emotional processing.

Dissociation is a process linked to lapses of attention, history of abuse or trauma, compromised emotional memory, and a disintegrated sense of self. It is theorized that dissociation stems from avoiding emotional information, especially negative emotion, to protect a fragile psyche. The present study tested whether or not dissociaters do actually avoid processing emotion by asking groups scoring high or low on the Dissociative Experiences Scale to judge the affective valence of several types of emotional stimuli. Manipulations of valence, modality (pictures or words), task complexity, and personal relevance lead to results suggesting that dissociation is linked to facilitated rather than deficient emotional processing. Our results are consistent with a theory that sensitivity to emotional material may be a contributing factor in subsequent dissociation to avoid further elaboration of upsetting emotion in these individuals. The findings for dissociation further exemplify the influence of individual differences in the link between cognition and emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thought-induced attitude change: The effects of schema structure and commitment.

Conducted 4 studies with 218 undergraduates in an attempt to integrate hypotheses about the effects of thought and schema complexity on attitude polarization proposed by P. W. Linville (see record 1982-25791-001) and the 2nd author and C. Leone (see record 1978-09847-001). Linville's work showed that more extreme attitudes were associated with simpler cognitive schemas for construing the attitude object. The 2nd author and Leone demonstrated that thought with a complex schema resulted in greater attitude polarization than thought with a simple schema. Study 1 validated the present author's schema complexity manipulation. Study 2 tested and found support for the hypothesis that 1 moderating variable was motivational: The 2nd author and Leone's effect was obtained in the presence of commitment to an initial evaluation, and there was a tendency toward the Linville effect in the absence of commitment to an initial evaluation. Study 3 tested and found support for the hypothesis that another moderating variable was structural: The Linville effect was obtained when there was little correlation among the dimensions of the cognitive schema, and the 2nd author and Leone's effect was obtained when there was substantial correlation among the dimensions; thought tended to increase the correlation among dimensions. Study 4 tested and found support for the hypothesis that commitment affects cognitive structures in a way that could account for its moderating effect on attitude polarization. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What changes in short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy?

Reviews theories of the change process in short-term therapy and presents case material from 15 therapy sessions of a male seeking treatment for intermittent depression. A reconceptualization of the change process is offered, using examples from the case to illustrate theoretical principles. A taxonomy of loci of neurotic disturbance is proposed, and a corresponding taxonomy of avenues for therapeutic change is described. The 5 loci identified for therapeutic change in short-term therapy include the uncovering and reworking of (1) dysfunctional set-goals, (2) inaccurate or maladaptive cognitions and expectancies, (3) anachronistic affects, (4) maladaptive compromises between multiple cognitive–affective schemas, and (5) routinized and dysfunctional mental and/or behavioral control mechansims. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic emotions, relations among emotions, and emotion-cognition relations.

From the cognitive theory perspective that emotions are cognition dependent and contain cognitive components, A. Ortony and T. J. Turner (see record 1990-27526-001) questioned the validity of the concept of basic emotions. They argued that the so-called basic emotions were neither psychologically or biologically "primitive" nor "irreducible building blocks" for generating the "great variety of emotional experiences." In the biosocial theory tradition, researchers have identified multiple noncognitive activators of emotion and demonstrated the usefulness of defining the essential components of emotion as phenomena that do not require cognitive mediators or constituents. In this framework, emotions are seen as basic because their biological and social functions are essential in evolution and adaptation. Particular emotions are called basic because they are assumed to have innate neural substrates, innate and universal expressions, and unique feeling–motivational states. The great variety of emotional experiences is explained as a function of emotion–cognition interactions that result in affective–cognitive structures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)