Analysis of the self: A cognitive relabeling technique.

Describes a technique for altering self-labeling processes as the method is used in group therapy. Group members are encouraged to identify negative adjectives that they use to describe themselves. Using the assumption that polarities exist in everyone, the group members are then encouraged to identify positive adjectives that exist to counterbalance these negative adjectives. Having accomplished this, many members become aware of their rigid, global approach to self-labeling. One-dimensional extreme views such as "passivity is bad" and "activity is good" become more apparent. Construction of a lost-quality list is then attempted. Members are helped in finding new, more flexible accepting labels such as "receptivity" that formerly were suppressed or assigned to the good–bad polarized categories as "activity-passivity." Variations on this technique that can be integrated into other therapeutic approaches are discussed. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Taking charge: How families can climb out of the chaos of addiction.

Reviews the book, Taking charge: How families can climb out of the chaos of addiction by Stephen E. Schlesinger and Lawrence K. Hornberg (1998). In this guidebook the authors present their multimodel approach, which is designed especially for family members of an addict. The authors encourage the reader throughout the book not to feel ashamed to look for professional help. The reviewer can recommend this book as an excellent resource for professional work, either for individual therapy or as an introductory reading for groups. The reviewer appreciates very much the themes of this book--to help family members become more aware of their own needs, to repair the damage caused by addiction, and to reunite them for a more satisfying and happier life. This change in the family interaction holds great promise for the addict who wants to recover. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor discontinuation syndrome: Understanding, recognition, and management for psychologists.

Psychologists increasingly provide psychotherapeutic services to patients receiving concomitant pharmacotherapy. Ongoing experience with the relatively new selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and other atypical antidepressants has revealed a discontinuation syndrome that emerges following abrupt or tapered withdrawal from these agents. The syndrome has both somatic and psychological characteristics, which tend to be mild and transient but can also be more distressing and become temporarily debilitating. Psychologists need to be aware of the potential for these events, as they are in an optimal position to collaborate with physicians and other prescribing clinicians to prevent or manage this syndrome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of experiential psychotherapy.

Reviews the book, Handbook of experiential psychotherapy by Leslie S. Greenberg, Jeanne C. Watson, and Germain Lietaer (see record 1999-02133-000). The editors of this book note that what they call the experiential therapies (such as client-centered, Gestalt, and existential therapies) have receded into the background since their heyday in the sixties and seventies. Their stated purpose in this useful book is to make professionals aware of how experiential therapies have become more focused, generated a new theoretical perspective on human functioning, and continued research on the process of change. The editors also wish to integrate the experiential therapies to become an alternative to cognitive and dynamic approaches to therapy. Each chapter contains a reference section for those who wish to pursue any of the topics in more depth. The editors might not have succeeded in shaping the experiential therapies as an integrated alternative to the prevailing approaches of our day, but they definitely have provided an exposition of this approach that can inform every clinician's work, no matter what orientation he or she espouses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental illness and the impact of believing others know about it.

Reports 2 studies measuring the impact upon 30 male inpatients and 29 male outpatients of believing others have become aware of their psychiatric history. Ss thought the interest was in determining if another person would behave the same toward mental patients and controls. 1/2 the Ss were told the other person knew they were patients and the remainder that he believed them to be nonpatients. Believing others were aware of their status caused Ss to feel less appreciated, to find a task more difficult, and to perform more poorly, and they were perceived as more tense, anxious, and poorly adjusted by an O. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Alabama Eye Bank: 25 years of giving sight

Modern Eye Banking had its start in the mid-1940's. However, it was not until the 1960's that eye banking grew to become a movement or even a necessary part of the health care delivery system in the state of Alabama. The Alabama Eye Bank has grown rapidly to become one of the largest corneal processing networks in the United States. Corneal transplant surgery remains highly successful in restoring sight. The contraindications for donor tissue should be clarified to all physicians and other health care professionals. The public should be make aware of the vision care available to them in the state of Alabama. The general public should be aware of how to become a pre-pledged eye donor, of research, teaching and transplantable tissue and also how they can be assured that their wishes are carried out at the time of their demise. Even with scheduled transplant surgery for all Alabamians, the need for the general public and medical professionals to be oriented and educated towards multi-organ and tissue donations is important.     

Discussion of "The Challenge of the Strong Adaptive Approach": Comment on Langs (2005).

According to the strong adaptive hypotheses of R. Langs (see record 2005-01622-004), unconscious processes within a patient pick up the precise interactional significance or core emotional impact of each act by the therapist, of which neither the therapist nor the patient is consciously aware. This initiates a search among millions of affect-image units within the mind of the patient until it finds and selects those that assemble around this core emotion to become a narrative that is analogous to the therapist's act. This matching narrative enters the patient's free associations. However, it is now a story about some other persons or interactional events in some other place, while at the same time it is about the meaning and implications of the specific action by the therapist that set this process in motion, of which the therapist and the patient were not consciously aware. An illustrative clinical example is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The intentionality model: A theoretical integration of psychodynamic talking and relating with cognitive–behavioral interventions.

The intentionality model is a model for integrative practice that links the awareness of clients to the interventions of therapists. The model is experientially based because psychological distress is assessed in terms of mental processes, or intentionalities, which create complex outcomes of emotion, repetitive patterns of maladaptive relating, and persistently negative mood. Intentionality refers to the many ways in which consciousness is aware. Accordingly, psychological interventions become recognizable as preparing for and creating changes in meaning by helping clients obtain new experiences and occupy new perspectives on what already exists. The intellectual background is the classical phenomenological psychology of Edmund Husserl, a theory of mind. Given that psychological suffering and health concern the awareness of meaning, and the intentionality of consciousness refers to the many ways in which people can be conscious of the same object of attention, it is argued that therapy concerns making changes in the forms of being aware. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowing the self: Building a bridge from basic research to clinical practice.

The articles under discussion give promise that basic research information about the self can be translated into useful information for the clinical practitioner. Several issues were delineated that require more careful attention and research: (a) The self needs to be more clearly defined in both basic and clinical literatures; (b) the process of self-experiencing must be studied in conjunction with the study of the acquisition, functions, and developmental trajectories of self-concepts; and (c) the complexities of identity formation in multicultural societies must be factored into future research designs. Psychotherapists need to be aware that many patients have internalized self-related ideas from several different cultures and subcultures, and puzzling out these culture-based conflicts may become a significant focus of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subarachnoid hemorrhage: an update of pathogenesis, diagnosis and management

Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) remains a devastating neurological disorder, which most commonly develops after rupture of an intracranial aneurysm. Advances have occurred in the areas of epidemiology, diagnostic imaging, medical management and surgical intervention, related to aneurysmal SAH. Interested physicians must become aware of these and other advances to diagnose and manage this potentially lethal disorder more effectively. This review provides information about the pathogenesis and complications of aneurysmal SAH and an update of new and evolving treatment modalities to provide an in-depth overview for the clinician and researcher involved in this rapidly evolving field.     

Sex differences in 2- and 3-years-olds: Mother-child relations, peer relations, and peer play.

This paper examines the different behavior patterns utilized by boys and girls as they form peer relationships and engage in peer play; the nature of their relations with their mothers is also reported. Girls manifested more intense involvement with their mothers, engaged in less peer play than boys, showed lower mood, lower levels of play, less direct aggression, and more controlling play with peers. Furthermore, their mothers handled their requests for contact and aggressive behavior differently than did mothers of boys. Boys were slower to become aware of separateness but once aware, they came to terms with it faster than girls. The boys took longer to pay attention to peers; once peers were focused on, the play moved more quickly to high levels than did the play of the girls. Qualitative findings were supported by quantitative findings-boys showed more contact and more involvement with their peers than did girls. The hypothesis is tentatively offered that the reaction to the awareness of psychological separateness from their mothers is more intense in girls than in boys partly because girls experience this awareness earlier, owing to their more rapid cognitive maturation. . . (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A novel antimicrobial peptide from the loach, Misgurnus anguillicaudatus

We investigated the effects of thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH) on changes in cortical concentrations of acetylcholine (ACh) and monoamines produced by concussion in mice. Concussion was induced by dropping a metal rod on the head, and the concentration of ACh, norepinephrine (NE), dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) in the cerebral cortex were measured by HPLC. We also examined the arousal effects of 0.5 mg/kg of TRH and 0.015 mg/kg of L-pyro-2-aminoadipyl-histidyl-thiazolidine-4-carboxamide (MK-771), a TRH analogue, injected intraperitoneally 10 min before concussion, on neurotransmitter concentrations. Mice were sacrificed at 25 (representing the righting reflex time) and 210 s (representing spontaneous movement time). At 25 s after concussion, the concentration of ACh was significantly higher than in control mice, but pretreatment with TRH and MK-771 prevented the rise in ACh. In contrast, head injury significantly reduced NE concentration. TRH and MK-771 also prevented the fall in NE. Concussion did not change cortical concentrations of DA and 5-HT. Our results suggest that disturbances of consciousness produced by concussion may be due to increased ACh and diminished NE in the cerebral cortex. Our findings also suggest that the arousal effects of TRH on concussion-induced disturbances of consciousness are due to normalization of cortical cholinergic and noradrenergic neuronal systems.     

Bringing psychology to the legal system: Opportunities, obstacles, and efficacy.

In recent years, psychologists have become increasingly interested in applying their knowledge to legal problems, and judges and legal scholars have become more receptive to such applications. Studies of legal authorities' use of social science knowledge show that such use is substantially more likely when researchers make systematic efforts to diffuse their work into the legal system. Thus, the frequency of use increases when research is reported in law reviews or the popular press, or a summary of findings bears the imprimatur of a professional organization or government task force. Issue networks offer focused, influential audiences for diffusion. Researchers who do try to ensure that legal policymakers are aware of their work should nonetheless be prepared for a "creeping" pace of diffusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The foreign evil

The strange as well as the criminal may serve to maintain a person's psychohygiene. They help to take the burden of internal psychological conflicts from the individual's shoulders, but at the same time confine his personal growth and his ability to become aware of his own dark sides.     

Interpretation of homophones related to threat in anxiety states.

In previous studies, we have established that anxiety states are characterized by an attentional bias that favors the processing of threatening stimuli. In the present study we extend this finding to ambiguous stimuli, specifically, homophones with spellings that correspond to either a threatening or a neutral meaning. As predicted, clinically anxious subjects used the threatening spellings relatively more than did controls, whereas recovered subjects were intermediate in this respect. Threatening words were associated with greater skin conductance responses than were neutral words, but the groups did not differ in their electrodermal reactions to homophones. We take these findings as evidence that, although the different meanings of ambiguous stimuli may be processed in parallel by all subjects, an interpretive bias operates such that anxiety-prone individuals tend to become preferentially aware of the more threatening meaning of such events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Smoking, intra-uterine growth retardation and sudden infant death syndrome

A unique aspect of soccer is the use of the head for directing the ball. The potential for resultant head injuries has been the focus of discussions worldwide. Prior work has attributed neuropsychologic deficits to the cumulative effects of heading, without evaluating concussion rates in soccer players. We prospectively studied the seven men's and eight women's varsity soccer teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference during two seasons to document concussion incidence. The 29 concussions diagnosed over the 2 years in 26 athletes, 17 (59%) concussions in men and 12 (41%) in women, resulted from contact with an opponent's head (8, 28%), elbow (4, 14%), knee (1, 3%), or foot (1, 3%); the ball (7, 24%); the ground (3, 10%); concrete sidelines (1, 3%); goalpost (1, 3%); or a combination of objects (3, 10%). Twenty concussions (69%) occurred in games; none resulted from intentional heading of the ball. The basic incidence was 0.96 concussions per team per season. The overall incidence was 0.6 per 1000 athlete-exposures for men, and 0.4 per 1000 athlete-exposures for women. By concussion grade, there were 21 (72%) grade 1, 8 (28%) grade 2, and no grade 3 concussions. These findings suggest that concussions are more common in soccer than anticipated and that acute head injuries may have potential for long-term neuropsychologic changes.     

Critique of Sampson.

Evaluates E. E. Sampson's recommendation (see record 1982-04617-001) that cognitive psychologists become more aware of their value bias and develop a new line of work, one that is designed to change society and increase human welfare and freedom. The author suggests that human welfare and freedom are not harmonious goals, and one may be obtained only at the expense of the other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Standardized assessment of concussion (SAC): on-site mental status evaluation of the athlete

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the clinical utility of the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) in detecting concussion in athletes. METHOD: Athletic trainers administered the SAC to 568 nonconcussed high school and college football players prior to the 1995 and 1996 football seasons. Thirty-three of these players experienced concussion and were tested immediately following injury; 28 of the 33 underwent additional follow-up testing 48 hours after the injury. RESULTS: Concussed players scored significantly below nonconcussed controls on all SAC measures and significantly below their own pre-injury baseline performance. Follow-up testing documented return to preinjury baseline. CONCLUSION: These findings support the SAC's effectiveness in detecting concussion and tracking recovery in order to determine a player's fitness to return to play.     

Child abuse and dentistry: what you should know

Dentistry must become more aware of its moral, legal and ethical responsibilities in recognizing and reporting child abuse and neglect. All dental professionals must be aware of the seriousness of the problems of child maltreatment, and understand that children do not just get hurt in abuse and neglect, they often die as a direct result of their maltreatment. It has been said that victims of child abuse and neglect fall into only two categories--those who lived through it, and those who did not.     

Toward a theory of episodic memory: The frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness.

Adult humans are capable of remembering prior events by mentally traveling back in time to reexperience those events. In this review, the authors discuss this and other related capabilities. considering evidence from such diverse sources as brain imaging, neuropsychological experiments, clinical observations, and developmental psychology. The evidence supports a preliminary theory of episodic remembering, which holds that the prefrontal cortex plays a critical, supervisory role in empowering healthy adults with autonoetic consciousness—the capacity to mentally represent and become aware of subjective experiences in the past, present, and future. When a rememberer mentally travels back in subjective time to reexperience his or her personal past, the result is an act of retrieval from episodic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)