Can we confirm our theories? Can we measure causal effects?: Reply to Kazantzis et al (2001).

Correlations between psychotherapy homework (HW) and recovery from depression (DEP) could be explained by 4 models: (a) HW causes reductions in DEP; (b) reductions in DEP lead to HW compliance; (c) HW and DEP have circular causal effects on each other; and (d) HW and DEP are simultaneously influenced by a 3rd variable, such as motivation. In the D. D. Burns and D. Spangler (2000) (see record 2000-13544-005) study of HW and changes in DEP during the first 12 weeks of therapy using structural equation modeling (SEM), only the first model was consistent with the data. Still, one cannot conclude that a model is "true" or definitely confirm a causal effect, even with experimental designs. The authors recommend SEM for naturalistic and experimental designs. Quality of HW should be included in future research, as N. Kazantzis, K. R. Ronan, and F. Deane (2001) (see record 2001-05666-023) suggest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Treatment of aggression for an adult diagnosed with schizophrenia at a public psychiatric hospital.

The effectiveness of a behavioral program to treat chronic aggression in an adult male individual diagnosed with schizophrenia at a public psychiatric hospital was evaluated. A behavioral plan was developed to provide the client with positive social interactions, social skills training, and positive reinforcement for prosocial behavior; no negative consequences were implemented. The number of aggressive acts declined with the introduction of the behavioral plan and ultimately remitted even without ongoing reinforcers. This article demonstrates the value of psychological intervention in treating aggression with a treatment-resistant client in an in-patient setting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temperament in Childhood Predicts Body Mass in Adulthood: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study.

This study examined associations of temperament at ages 6 to 12 with body-mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) at ages 24 to 30 years. The participants were 619 men and women derived from the population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Temperament was operationalized as (negative) emotionality, sociability, and activity. High emotionality predicted increased BMI, independently of WC, and independently of childhood and adulthood risk factors for adult obesity. None of the temperament dimensions had any associations with WC after controlling for BMI. The findings suggest that temperamental difficulty in childhood may be a useful risk indicator for general body mass in adulthood, and the mechanisms relating temperament with body mass should be further explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Influence of Therapist Adherence and Competence on Client Reprocessing of Child Abuse Memories.

This study follows previous research examining change processes in emotion-focused therapy for adult survivors of child abuse (N = 37). Therapist (n = 10) adherence to intervention principles and competence with an imaginal confrontation (IC) intervention were examined in the context of relationship skills. The Therapist Facilitating Scale assessed competence with IC. Therapists differed in technical (but not relationship) skills; relationship skills and IC competence (but not adherence) improved over therapy. Therapist competence predicted better client processes during IC. Relationship skills independently contributed to abuse resolution; the potency of IC (Competence x Frequency of Implementation) independently contributed to reduced interpersonal problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health-Related Stress, Affect, and Depressive Symptoms Experienced by Caregiving Mothers of Adults With a Developmental Disability.

The interrelationships among health-related stress, positive and negative affect, and depressive symptoms patterned in the dynamic model of affect (J. Reich, A. Zautra, & M. Davis, 2003) were examined using data from 932 women having an adult child with a developmental disability. Results indicate that women experience a moderate inverse correlation between positive and negative affect under conditions of low levels of health-related stress, whereas at high levels of stress, positive and negative affect become more strongly inversely correlated. Under high-stress conditions, both negative affect and positive affect have a stronger relationship to depressive symptoms than they do under low-stress conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment and treatment of sleep disorders in older adults: A review for rehabilitation psychologists.

Recent research has led to significant progress in the assessment and treatment of sleep disturbance in older adults. Similar advances have been made with sleep disorders secondary to age-related chronic illness. The assessment and treatment of sleep disorders encompasses numerous behavioral aspects. Thus, rehabilitation psychologists are ideally positioned to help apply these new advances to the growing number of older adult patients in the rehabilitation setting. The authors provide an overview of age and disease-related sleep disorders. They provide details for implementation of behavioral treatments for geriatric insomnia that is comorbid with chronic illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elevated levels of impulsivity and reduced place conditioning with d-amphetamine: Two behavioral features of adolescence in mice.

Human adolescents may have experience with easily available psychoactive drugs. Impulsivity and/or peculiarities in reward systems may play a role. These variables were studied in adolescent (Postnatal Day [PND] 30-49) and adult (PND > 60) CD-1 mice. In Experiment 1 (impulsivity), food-restricted mice were tested in operant chambers with 2 nose-poking holes that delivered 1 food pellet immediately or 5 pellets after a delay, respectively. Delay length was increased over days (0-100 sec). Adolescent mice showed a shift to the left in the intolerance-delay curve, as well as enhanced demanding when nose-poking was not reinforced. In Experiment 2 (place conditioning with d-amphetamine at 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.3, or 5.0 mg/kg for 3 days), adolescent mice showed no reliable evidence of place conditioning when compared with adults. Hence, 2 main features of adolescence were elevated impulsivity and restlessness, and low (or absent) rewarding efficacy of amphetamine. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental-contextual model of couples coping with chronic illness across the adult life span.

A developmental-contextual model of couples coping with chronic illness is presented that views chronic illness as affecting the adjustment of both the patient and the spouse such that coping strategies enacted by the patient are examined in relation to those enacted by the spouse, and vice versa. The developmental model emphasizes that dyadic coping may be different at various phases of the life span, changing temporally at different stages of dealing with the illness as well as unfolding daily as spouses interact around dyadic stressors. In addition, couples engaged in dyadic coping are affected by broad sociocultural factors (culture and gender) as well as more proximal contextual factors (quality of the marital relationship and the specific demands of the chronic illness). The model provides a framework for understanding how couples coping with chronic illness may together appraise and cope with illness during adulthood and for determining when spousal involvement is beneficial or harmful to both patient and spousal adjustment. The developmental-contextual model to dyadic appraisal and coping has numerous research implications for the field, and the authors conclude with specific recommendations for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in episodic memory: Further support for an associative-deficit hypothesis.

This study further tested an associative-deficit hypothesis (ADH; M. Naveh-Benjamin, 2000), which attributes a substantial part of older adults' deficient episodic memory performance to their difficulty in merging unrelated attributes-units of an episode into a cohesive unit. First, the results of 2 experiments replicate those observed by M. Naveh-Benjamin (2000) showing that older adults are particularly deficient in memory tests requiring associations. Second, the results extend the type of stimuli (pictures) under which older adults show this associative deficit. Third, the results support an ADH in that older adults show less of an associative deficit when the components of the episodes used are already connected in memory, thereby facilitating their encoding and retrieval. Finally, a group of younger adults who encoded the information under divided-attention conditions did not show this associative deficit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)