Review of The psychobiology of mind-body healing: New concepts of therapeutic hypnosis.

Reviews the book, The psychobiology of mind-body healing: New concepts of therapeutic hypnosis by Earnest L. Rossi. This is one of the best books currently available for psychologists that summarizes the burgeoning field of mind-body interaction. Rossi's healing intention is clearly stated in his Preface, and it is this emphasis that tends to distinguish his text most prominently from other available reviews of the same literature. The other chief positive attribute of the Rossi text is his explication of numerous uses of hypnotherapeutic phenomena in the treatment process. Rossi makes no bones about his allegiance to the Ericksonian hypnotherapeutic school, and his effectively presented clinical examples are very similar to Erickson's own case presentations in their vividness and their potency for attacking a large number of mind-body problems. The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing is 380 pages in length, including some 29 pages of references that are comprehensive. They represent contributions from very basic sciences among biology, chemistry, and psychophysiology, as well as a number of references on hypnotherapy, state-dependent learning, and some features of information systems. I highly recommend this text, with appropriate cautions about its tables and anecdotes, to all students of psychotherapeutic phenomena with physically ill patients, especially those who must struggle uphill to assist those with chronic and debilitating illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, musculo-skeletal disorders, and AIDS. Rossi has put together a notable and useful text mat is provocative and rewarding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recent developments in the psychopharmacology of anxiety disorders.

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental disorders in the United States. In the past 3 decades, substantial advances have been made in the ability to identify and treat anxiety disorders including panic disorder (PD), social phobia (SP), obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is now known that these common, usually chronic disorders confer significant disability to untreated sufferers. This overview highlights some of the important advances in pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders. Evidence for efficacy of the various pharmacological agents (including relevant oral dosing and plasma-level data) and of acute and long-term treatment, and the disadvantages of medication treatment are discussed. Finally, some important clinical questions remaining to be addressed by psychopharmacological research are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive neuroscience: A field with increasing interest to school psychologists.

Reviews the book, Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of the mind by M. Gazzaniga, R. B. Ivry, and G. R. Mangun (1998). This excellent book on cognitive neuroscience provides an exposition of the key areas concerned in cognitive neuroscience for the advanced student in adult neuropsychology and/or biological psychiatry. The authors' aim to balance theory with neuropsychology utilizing neuroscientific evidence to support a theoretical basis is a major contribution of this text. In this book there has been a concerted effort to provide a theoretical basis for cognitive neuroscience in addition to a list of empirical evidence. Such an effort provides a backdrop for future research as well as linking various cognitive functions into an understandable whole. This volume provides an excellent overview of brain anatomy and function. The book is highly readable and provides excellent illustrations of complex material. The main weakness of this volume for school psychologists is the emphasis on adult disorders with no real discussion of the most common childhood disorders. Although the text assumes some familiarity with neuroanatomy, it is useful for practitioners who desire more up-to-date information in this exciting field. This volume would be an excellent textbook for courses in biological bases of behavior for doctoral-level school psychologists, provided there is accompanying information on child neuropsychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders: Science and practice.

Reviews the book, Cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders: Science and practice edited by David A. Clark and Aaron T. Beck (2009). Drs. Clark and Beck’s book Cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders: Science and practise is a comprehensive review of cognitive therapy for anxiety from its empirical theoretical foundation to its clinical application to disorders. Although the focus of the text is ultimately on the cognitive treatment of anxiety, the rich theoretical background that is interwoven throughout makes this book of interest to academics and graduate students as well as clinicians. The book is divided into three parts, each with several chapters: 1) cognitive theory and research on anxiety; 2) assessment and intervention techniques used in cognitive therapy for anxiety; and 3) the application of cognitive therapy to specific anxiety disorders (e.g., panic disorder, obsessive– compulsive disorder [OCD]). Overall, this book is an excellent resource for researchers and clinicians working in the field of anxiety disorders. The reference section alone makes it a valuable addition to one’s bookshelf, and the authors have done an excellent job of organising a vast, and at time disparate, body of research into a cohesive review of cognitive theory as it applies to anxiety. Although the treatment chapters may be a bit overly ambitious in attempting to review both the research and the application of the cognitive model to the treatment of specific disorders, the book in its entirety is clearly an essential text for those interested in obtaining a comprehensive understanding of cognitive therapy and anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Anxiety and stress disorders: Cognitive-behavioral assessment and treatment.

Reviews the book, Anxiety and stress disorders: Cognitive-behavioral assessment and treatment by Larry Michelson and L. Michael Ascher (see record 1988-98155-000). In this book, Michelson and Ascher present an up-to-date cognitive-behavioral text with a focus on the theory, assessment, treatment, and research on anxiety- and stress-related disorders. Part I deals with theoretical issues in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of anxiety, and cognitive assessment and methodological issues in the treatment of anxiety disorders. Part II of the book will especially appeal to the clinician in that it specifically speaks to the treatment of simple phobias, panic disorders, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, posttraumatic stress disorders, sexual dysfunction, migraine and tension headaches, and hypertension. The range of the book will appeal to the treating clinician, the researcher, and the graduate student as well as the teaching professional. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of clinical psychopharmacology for therapists.

Reviews the book, Handbook of clinical psychopharmacology for therapists by J. Preston, J. H. O'Neal, and M. C. Talaga (1994). This text is an extremely well-written, carefully organized, and practical volume that is entirely suitable for its stated purpose. The authors comment in their Introduction that their book is "intended primarily for mental health professionals and those in graduate training in psychology, social work, and counseling (p. 3)." The Handbook is organized around the DSM-IV and the attendant conception of mental disorders as having either an explicit or implicit biological basis. The authors do a sound job of specifying typical treatment regimens among the psychotropics, and they also cover the many marginal clinical circumstances which justify moving away from conventional treatment plans. The text is especially strong in addressing some augmentation strategies for treatment refractory mood disorders, the newer or "atypical" anti-psychotics, and utilization of the very flexible and utilitarian Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRI's), such as fluoxetine (Prozac). This volume is especially recommended to two groups of users. The first are graduate-level instructors who are seeking a broad-based, informative, and practical text to introduce students to the burgeoning field of psychopharmacology. The second group of utilizers should be practicing clinicians, who need either to review or to update basic concepts in psychopharmacology as they interface with patients on a daily basis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in preschool children: Examining psychometric properties using item response theory.

Clear and empirically supported diagnostic symptoms are important for proper diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders. Unfortunately, the symptoms of many disorders presented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; DSM–IV–TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) lack sufficient psychometric evaluation. In this study, an item response theory (IRT) analysis was applied to ratings of the 18 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in 268 preschool children. Children (55% boys, 45% girls) in this sample ranged in age from 37 to 74 months; 80.4% were identified as African American, 15.1% as Caucasian, and 4.5% as other ethnicity. Dichotomous and polytomous scoring methods for rating ADHD symptoms were compared and psychometric properties of these symptoms were calculated. Symptom-level analyses revealed that, in general, the current symptoms provided useful information in diagnosing ADHD in preschool children; however, several symptoms provided redundant information and should be examined further. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Motivational interviewing in the treatment of psychological problems.

Reviews the book, Motivational interviewing in the treatment of psychological problems by Hal Arkowitz, Henny A. Westra, William R. Miller, and Stephen Rollnick (2007). The purpose of this book is to describe applications of motivational interviewing (MI) to the treatment of a variety of psychological disorders. This excellent book, edited by the originators of MI (Miller and Rollnick) along with two highly regarded scientist-practitioners (Arkowitz and Westra), begins with an introduction to the spirit and techniques of MI and provides an overview of the ways in which MI has been applied in clinical practise. The main portion of the book consists of 11 chapters written by foremost MI experts describing the use of MI in their research and clinical work treating anxiety disorders, depression, pathological gambling, eating disorders, and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, as well as the use of MI in the corrections system and with suicidal and dually diagnosed patients. Each chapter is similarly organised and offers a brief overview of the clinical population and treatment as usual, a rationale for using MI in treatment, a summary of available research regarding the use of MI in the population, and detailed examples of clinical applications of MI to treatment, including problems and suggested solutions. The chapters are well written and informative, with many offering vivid clinical examples. It is difficult to identify any significant weaknesses. There is some redundancy throughout the text, particularly with regard to the general spirit, principles, and techniques of MI. This is likely intentional and meant to reiterate important points; it also nicely allows each chapter to stand alone. In sum, this terrific book provides a highly readable and informative account of the application of MI to the treatment of psychological problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood stabilizers and anticonvulsants

This article provides pediatricians and other clinicians who treat children and adolescents with a working knowledge of mood stabilizers and their potential uses in children and adolescents with mood and behavior disorders. Mood stabilizers are ubiquitous agents that are often effective in the treatment of children and adolescents with bipolar disorders or conduct disorders and mentally retarded patients with aggressive behavior. The authors' also discuss mechanisms of action, pharmacokinetics, dosing, drug interactions, and potential uses. Following these medication details, specific information concerning the diagnosis and treatment of several child and adolescent mood and behavior disorders, and in which treatment with mood stabilizers may be helpful, is presented.     

Review of Psychophysiological disorders: Research and clinical applications.

Reviews the book, Psychophysiological disorders: Research and clinical applications by Robert L. Gatchel and Edward B. Blanchard (see record 1994-97036-000). This text assumes the approach of the selective presentation of diseases and disorders with a high morbidity rate. Headache, irritable bowel syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis are discussed by contributing authors, and the reader is provided with concise overviews of salient literature and access to adequate reference sections for expanding clinical and empirical interest. The reader is immediately impressed not only with the expertise and efforts of editor and contributors but also, inevitably, with critical areas which are not covered in this text. This is a useful resource for any clinician treating medically ill patients, and some would justifiably argue that since the disorders and conditions are endemic to the human organism, no patient can be treated without an awareness of the incidence, prevalence, and presentation of the disease processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The assessment of aphasia and related disorders (2nd ed).

Reviews the book, The assessment of aphasia and related disorders (2nd ed.) by Harold Goodglass and Edith Kaplan (1983). The authors state in the preface that much has been learned about aphasia since the first edition of this book was published, through both formal research and clinical experience. Unfortunately, there is little to reflect this in the revised text: The most striking feature of this second edition is the similarity to the original publication. There are a few instances where the text has been rewritten to provide better clarification and to include more recent information. For example, the section in Chapter 2 on "loss of grammar and syntax" has been extended and includes recent references. However, the major portion of each chapter (with the exception of Chapter 3 on the statistical background) is essentially a reproduction of the 1972 text. The extent of this word-for-word reproduction includes the phrase "recent historical papers" to refer to papers published in the 1960s. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive remediation in the treatment of stimulant abuse disorders: A research agenda.

Treatment of substance abuse disorders is often characterized by high dropout rates. Patients who fail to complete a treatment course often are worse at follow-up than those patients who received the full treatment course. Cognitive deficits, including impulsivity, have been noted as a major determinant of treatment retention and successful outcomes. This review summarizes the recent literature on cognitive deficits in stimulant users and their remediation. Cognitive deficits can be remediated through computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation in residential settings. A few studies have shown this can be transferred to the outpatient setting although much research remains to be done in this setting. Pharmacological remediation of cognitive deficits is a new target for medications development in the treatment of substance abuse disorders. Psychiatric disorders; for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, are amenable to pharmacological remediation of cognitive deficits. Several cognitive deficits (set-shifting, attentional bias, reversal learning, impulsivity, and risky decision making) and their possible remediation with pharmacological agents are presented in the review. Recommendations for the research agenda include comments on testing hierarchies, clinical trial design issues, and types of pharmacological agents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Monocyte-endothelial cell interactions in vitro, with reference to the influence of interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor

This review discusses augmentation strategies for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder who fail to respond to treatment. A patient's failure to respond to treatment may be due to any of a number of factors, such as noncompliance with a behavioral program, concurrent severe depression or personality disorder, certain ritualistic behaviors, inaccurate diagnosis, and inadequate treatment. It is particularly important that comorbid psychiatric disorders be diagnosed and treated. A review of the literature and my experience with the use of augmenting agents such as lithium, buspirone, clonidine, fenfluramine, antidepressants, anxiolytic agents, and neuroleptics in treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder are presented. Existing evidence suggests that some of these approaches are useful for some patients. However, many questions remain, and much research remains to be done on this topic.     

Instructional effects of discrepancies in content and organization between study goals and information sources.

E. D. Gagné and E. Z. Rothkopf (1975) observed that study goals are less effective when the sequence of the list of goals does not match the sequence of goal-relevant information in a passage. In their study, some goals could not be fulfilled from the information in the experimental passage. Unachievable goals may cause lower performance on out-of-order goals. One hypothesis is that students stop hunting for out-of-order goal-relevant information once they find that some goal-relevant information is not in the text. This hypothesis was tested in a replication of the Gagné and Rothkopf experiment. 144 paid undergraduates participated. The replication included conditions in which all needed, goal-relevant information was in the text. Learning of available, goal-relevant information was lower when the study guide and text sequences of goals did not match. This effect was observed both for conditions having complete goal coverage and for conditions of incomplete coverage. However, when there was complete goal-relevant information, performance on available, out-of-sequence goals was higher than when some goal-relevant information was missing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of psychotherapy for anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

Reviews the book, Handbook of psychotherapy for anorexia nervosa and bulimia edited by David M. Garner and Paul E. Garfinkel (1985). In the Introduction, the editors indicate that the text, intended for an audience of practising and academically oriented clinicians, has two major purposes: (1) to delineate the various types of therapy advocated for the treatment of anorexia and bulimia, and (2) to identify the factors that predispose or precipitate these eating disorders. The book is immensely successful in fulfilling the first intent. However, the ability of the various chapter authors to isolate the risk factors for anorexia and bulimia is less satisfying. In fairness, however, this does not represent a shortcoming on the part of the authors but rather provides an accurate reflection of the degree of our current understanding of these eating disorders. Several features of the book make it an invaluable reference text on anorexia and bulimia--a large range of treatment options is presented ranging from feminist psychoanalytic approaches to behavioural management techniques; the authors attempt to articulate the theoretical bases that underlie or justify the particular treatment they advocate; and the inclusion of case studies, sample therapist-patient dialogue, and the overall detailed manner with which the therapies are described provide the reader with a clear flavour of the treatment modality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hemispheric priming in a reading task

Some theories of reading and of reading disorders assume that the right hemisphere plays an important role in reading. However, despite the evidence supporting the competence of the right hemisphere in recognizing isolate words, there is little direct evidence to support the claim that the right hemisphere is involved in the continuous reading of connected text. This study used a stationary window technique to present text passages in a continuous reading task. At intervals during the reading of the text, a lexical decision was required to a target projected to the left or right side of the visual field. On some trials, the target was primed by a semantic associate which appeared in the passage immediately prior to the presentation of the target. It was found that these associative primes facilitated responses to LVF and RVF targets to an equal degree. It was also found, in agreement with previous investigations, that overall RTs to LVF targets were longer than RTs to RVF targets. It is suggested that these results indicate that the right hemisphere is actively involved in the comprehension of text in normal reading. However, the right hemisphere may not acquire text information directly, but may instead receive most of its information following initial analysis and decoding by the left.     

Review of Canadian mental health law and policy.

Reviews the book, Canadian Mental Health Law and Policy by John E. Gray, Margaret A. Shone, and Peter F. Liddle (2000). The authors of this book have produced a multidisciplinary text that succinctly summarizes the main points of Canadian mental health laws and the variability across provinces and territories in these laws and in their typical interpretation and application. This book offers a concise guide to the laws dealing with key issues such as involuntary hospital admission, authorization of psychiatric treatment, and treatment refusal. Although not always an easy read for those unfamiliar with legal terms and writing, the book is geared to a wide audience that includes legal and policy specialists, mental health professionals, and advocates for the mentally ill. These authors are to be congratulated for their efforts to disseminate and explain information on Canadian mental health law and to promote a more humane and scientifically grounded set of legal standards and interpretations that are pertinent to the disposition and treatment of Canadian citizens with severe mental disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical utility of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in the spectrum of anxiety

The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are now being employed in the treatment of the full spectrum of anxiety disorders. In comparative trials, the SSRIs are proving to be equal or superior in efficacy to traditional antianxiety medications. Due to their favorable side effect profile, safety, and tolerability, they are rapidly replacing older agents in the treatment of anxiety. Neuroanatomical pathways that may be important in the antianxiety effect of the SSRIs are outline and discussed, followed by a review of the clinical evidence supporting the efficacy of this class of medications in the treatment of anxiety disorders.     

Spatial-Semantic Display Processing: The Role of Spatial Structure on Recall

The purpose of the present study was to test a model of spatial-semantic display processing by comparing the aided and unaided recall of information presented in a node-link format (knowledge map) to the aided and unaided recall of information presented in a text format. Structural icons of the knowledge map and text with the verbiage removed were used to aid retrieval in some conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight groups formed by the complete crossing of three factors: knowledge map versus text, structural icon at recall versus no structural icon at recall, and immediate versus delayed recall. Knowledge map groups outperformed text groups on essay tests and they more accurately remembered where information was located within the materials. Both knowledge map and text icon-aided recall groups had significantly better performance than the no icon, unaided recall groups (particularly on main ideas).