Can being scared cause tummy aches? Naive theories, ambiguous evidence, and preschoolers' causal inferences.

Causal learning requires integrating constraints provided by domain-specific theories with domain-general statistical learning. In order to investigate the interaction between these factors, the authors presented preschoolers with stories pitting their existing theories against statistical evidence. Each child heard 2 stories in which 2 candidate causes co-occurred with an effect. Evidence was presented in the form: AB→E; CA→E; AD→E; and so forth. In 1 story, all variables came from the same domain; in the other, the recurring candidate cause, A, came from a different domain (A was a psychological cause of a biological effect). After receiving this statistical evidence, children were asked to identify the cause of the effect on a new trial. Consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian model, all children were more likely to identify A as the cause within domains than across domains. Whereas 3.5-year-olds learned only from the within-domain evidence, 4- and 5-year-olds learned from the cross-domain evidence and were able to transfer their new expectations about psychosomatic causality to a novel task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An intelligent fitness diagnosis system using electroencephalogram with biomedical signals

This paper proposes an intelligent fitness diagnosis system (IFDS), which integrates the electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) biomedical signals and fitness data. IFDS detects the voltage and current produced by the users under different states of attention and meditation during exercise. Based on EEG, ECG, and fitness data, the extension method is applied to distinguish the physical and mental conditions of the users during exercise. The brainwave training system, designed by LabVIEW, analyzes the α and θ wave bands of EEG, and plots the waveforms under different states of attention and meditation simultaneously to effectively improve the users' attention. Ten subjects were included to exercise for 15 times, lasting 3 min each. The accuracy of IFDS reaches 91%. Meanwhile, IFDS indirectly diagnoses the symptoms of some diseases in the users. © 2016 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Seductive symbolism: Psychoanalysis in the context of oncology.

Beliefs about what caused their cancer are a central facet of patients' experience of illness. These beliefs make up the patient's theory of etiology, which derives from various sources, including conscious and unconscious fantasy. This paper highlights this dimension of patients' experience, and the possible interaction between patients' psychogenic theories of etiology and their therapists' potentially generated psychogenic theories regarding patients' disease. It is suggested that a countertransferential pull for therapists exists to generate psychogenic theory regarding patients' cancer in the face of the threat of impotency it presents. This is discussed as a seductive pull into symbolism-based understanding of patients' cancer etiology—a pull this paper aims to characterize. It is suggested that the seductive pull results from the influence of psychoanalytic psychosomatic theory in the context of the dynamic between the ill patient and the therapist. Some psychoanalytic psychosomatic theory posits symbolism-based linear psychogenesis and the possible correction of soma via psyche in a great variety of illnesses and conditions, including cancer, and the hypothetical effect of this literature on the clinician's mindset and clinical work is considered. Specifically, it is suggested that this portion of our literature might serve a psychological function for clinicians, as it can help to shore up an omnipotence defense against the undertow of chaos inherent in cancer-related bodily dysfunction. More generally, it is argued that the context of existing psychoanalytic psychosomatic theory characterized by a focus on symbolism-based linear psychogenesis is potentially influential, and that this influence needs to be examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations entre humeur dépressive et somatisation: Recension des écrits autour du portrait cible du somatisateur.

A diagnosis of clinical depression just as masked depression is often associated with body aches that can not be medically explained. After a presentation of operational definitions of somatization and psychosomatic disorders, and of the relationship between depression and somatization, a sociopsychological portrait is given of a target subject suffering from somatization disorder, as discussed in recent publications. The type and psychosocial characteristics, vulnerability to stress, character traits and beliefs, and the family model of the average person suffering from somatization disorder were specified. Finally, the relevance of various treatments was discussed, emphasizing the interest in multiple treatments after arriving at a successful diagnosis. The clinical benefits of prevention in the normal person and of learning to control the psyche/soma interrelationship were outlined. Developing research on somatization, whether it is related or not to depressive moods, is definitely of cultural and financial interest since these patients are large consumers of health care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Language and the body: The talking cure in the new century.

This panel was the second plenary meeting entitled "History and Psychoanalysis." The 3 invited speakers were Robert Wallerstein, Charles Spezzano, and Hanna Decker. Dr. Wallerstein discussed his current views of psychoanalysis, pointing out that there are areas of common ground within contemporary psychoanalytic theories. Dr. Spezzano suggested that there are 3 sites in the analytic situation: free association, reveries, and enactments in which the analyst gathers information that structures his or her understanding of technique. Professor Decker spoke about hysteria from a historical perspective and discussed its manifestation in somatic patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The body image barrier concept.

"A check was made on whether the Rorschach Barrier score of 54 patients with external psychosomatic disorders were greater than those of 29 patients with internal psychosomatic disorders. Statistical analysis showed no evidence of difference in the distribution of Barrier scores in the two groups. The potentialities of the Barrier approach cannot be truly assessed until ambiguities in the theory are clarified and until the scale is improved as a measuring instrument." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Striving for Unwanted Goals: Stress-Dependent Discrepancies Between Explicit and Implicit Achievement Motives Reduce Subjective Well-Being and Increase Psychosomatic Symptoms.

Three studies investigated the relevance of affect regulation, stressful life events, and congruence between explicit achievement orientation and implicit achievement motive for subjective well-being and symptom formation. According to personality systems interactions (PSI) theory, stressful life events were expected to reduce motive congruence when the ability to self-regulate affect was impaired (i.e., state orientation). Consistent with expectations, the State Orientation × Stress interaction predicted incongruence in healthy participants (Studies 1 and 3) and in patients (Study 2). Furthermore, incongruence partially mediated the direct State Orientation × Stress effect on subjective well-being (Studies 1 and 3) and the course of psychosomatic complaints over 3 months (Study 2). In Study 3, the experimental induction of threat reduced motive congruence in state-oriented participants compared with an acceptance condition. Findings underscore the importance of assessing motive congruence as a "hidden stressor" and validate a new operant multimotive test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The analytic environment in times of bodily dysfunction: The effect of psychoanalytic psychosomatic theories.

This article examines the analytic environment in which psychoanalytic work occurs when patients struggle with complex somatic experiences, such as disease or physiological dysfunction. Patients express fantasies and beliefs about the etiology of their somatic experiences; they elaborate theories about why infertility, irritable bowel disease, or some other disease, syndrome, or crisis is happening to them. I consider these to be patients’ multiply determined, fantasy-saturated psychosomatic theories, and suggest that the analyst’s understanding of patients’ ideas about their somatic experiences is organized by the analyst’s both articulated and not articulated psychosomatic theories. Using brief clinical vignettes, I highlight the potentially constricting effect of clinicians’ theories on their analyses of patients’ psychosomatic theories. I examine psychoanalytic theories of psychosomatics, suggesting that adherence to the theories we have, which often posit linear psychogenesis of somatic phenomena, can result in collusion with, rather than analysis of, the psychic stances reflected by patients’ theories. To address the problematic adherence to our theories, and characterize a less constricting clinical and theoretical stance, I critique aspects of the theories and suggest directions for replenishing them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lester Bernard Luborsky (1920–2009).

The field of psychotherapy research has lost one of its founding fathers. Lester Bernard Luborsky, born in Philadelphia on May 15, 1920, to Meyer and Celia Luborsky, immigrants from Eastern Europe, died on October 22, 2009. Lester Luborsky is best known as one of the pioneers of empirical research on psychodynamic psychotherapy. Indeed, he operationalized many of its concepts. His core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) method was a breakthrough in the formalization of clinical psychodynamic concepts (Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1998, Understanding Transference: The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method, APA Books). Until the end of his life, Lester was a strong believer that psychotherapy is effective and that different psychotherapies are equally effective (a belief known as the “dodo bird verdict”). On the basis of a qualitative review of about a hundred comparative treatment studies, Luborsky, Singer, and Luborsky (1975, Archives of General Psychiatry, 32, 995–1008) first concluded that all psychotherapies were equally effective. Lester’s early contribution to psychosomatic research attempted to delineate the onset conditions for the appearance of both psychological and somatic symptoms. Using his symptom-context method, he compared the content of clients’ narratives preceding the appearance of symptoms in psychotherapy to sections of a psychotherapy session preceding a randomly selected control event. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Reasons to leave shiftwork and psychological and psychosomatic complaints of former shiftworkers": Correction to Frese and Okonek.

Reports an error in "Reasons to leave shiftwork and psychological and psychosomatic complaints of former shiftworkers" by Michael Frese and Klaus Okonek (Journal of Applied Psychology, 1984[Aug], Vol 69[3], 509-514). On p. 510, first column, third line from the bottom of the page, the N for the OR group should be 96, not 36. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1984-32942-001.) 191 male blue-collar workers who had previously worked nights and shifts were differentiated into 3 groups: a group that had left night- and shiftwork because of health reasons; another that left it for various other reasons; and a middle group that had a combination of health and other reasons for leaving. Ss completed measures of environmental and psychological stress, psychosomatic and other health complaints, and irritation and strain. Findings show that the 1st group had more health complaints than the one that left for other reasons. They were less skilled, had been unemployed less often, and were typically told by their physician to leave shiftwork. They had also stayed in shiftwork longer than the group that left shiftwork for other reasons. It is suggested that studies on former shiftworkers should differentiate between these groups so as not to underestimate the real problems of former shiftworkers who left for health reasons. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)