Body, Mind & Spirit Articles and Latest News

Ethics education in psychoanalytic training: a survey.

J Am Psychoanal Assoc. 2010 Feb;58(1):83-99

Authors: Ransohoff PM

Didactic education in psychoanalytic ethics is a relatively new phenomenon. Ethics courses were offered by few institutes before they were mandated and before publication of the first Ethics Case Book in 2001. As institutes have developed ethics training, the solutions they have arrived at-formats, length and placement of courses, and preferred readings- remain unknown to other educators and analysts. This survey was undertaken to gain an overview of the current state of ethics education. Twenty-nine of the thirty-one training institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association (93%) responded to inquiries. Most institutes (79%) offered one course, and the average number of class sessions was 6.3. Of 258 different readings used, 61 (23.6%) were used by more than one institute and 37 (14.3%) by more than two. The most frequent topics were boundaries, confidentiality, and illness, and Dewald and Clark’s Case Book (2008) and Gabbard and Lester (1995) were the most common readings. These findings should be useful to instructors, curriculum committees, and ethics committees in their ethics education planning, as well as to practicing analysts in their ethical self-education. This study may also serve as a model for analogous investigations into other areas of analytic education and as an impetus to further research and educational innovation.

PMID: 20234010 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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D-cycloserine for the augmentation of an attentional training intervention for trait anxiety.

J Anxiety Disord. 2010 May;24(4):440-5

Authors: Behar E, McHugh RK, Peckham A, Otto MW

The present study investigates the combination of two novel strategies for the treatment of anxiety that resulted from translational research. We examined whether the putative memory enhancer, d-cycloserine (DCS), offered benefit to procedures designed to train attention away from threat. Participants were 44 adults selected on the basis of high trait anxiety. In this randomized study, DCS or placebo was administered 1h prior to attentional training away from threat using the dot probe task. On the following day, the effectiveness of this training was assessed along with emotional reactivity following two stressful tasks. We found that the addition of DCS resulted in significantly stronger reduction in attentional bias toward threat relative to placebo, but found no additive effects for the DCS condition on subsequent emotional reactivity. These results provide initial support for the efficacy of DCS for augmenting attentional training tasks; potential strategies for enhancing these results are discussed.

PMID: 20236791 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Associative and spontaneous appraisal processes independently contribute to anger elicitation in daily life.

Emotion. 2010 Apr;10(2):181-9

Authors: Wilkowski BM, Robinson MD

There has been a great deal of debate concerning the antecedents of anger, with appraisal theorists emphasizing the role of hostile interpretations and cognitive neo-associationistic theorists emphasizing the role of more basic associative processes. Recently, theorists have sought to reconcile these views by acknowledging the role of both associative and inferential processes, and the current investigation drew upon recent social-cognitive research to test this compromise. Individual differences in hostile inferences and associations were assessed in an implicit cognitive paradigm, and relevant outcomes were assessed in a daily diary protocol. Implicit hostile inferences predicted both anger and aggression in daily life, and such relationships were mediated by propensities toward hostile interpretations in daily life. Hostile associations also predicted anger in daily life, but this relationship proved to be independent of daily hostile interpretations. Results therefore support a model that acknowledges the role of both associative and appraisal processes in anger elicitation.

PMID: 20364894 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Attentional retraining procedures: manipulating early or late components of attentional bias?

Emotion. 2010 Apr;10(2):230-6

Authors: Koster EH, Baert S, Bockstaele M, De Raedt R

According to cognitive models of anxiety disorders, attentional bias for threatening information is a vulnerability factor to the etiology and maintenance of anxiety. A recently developed methodology to reduce attentional bias has been found to reduce emotional reactivity and anxiety. The present study aimed at identifying the effects of this attentional bias reduction on early and later stages of threat processing. Undergraduates were allocated to an attentional bias reduction (n = 23) versus control condition (n = 25). It was found that attentional bias reduction influenced late but not early stages of threat processing. This finding is of theoretical importance in relation to studies on the causal role of attentional bias and emotional reactivity. Moreover, the present findings also bear relevance to the clinical application of attentional retraining procedures.

PMID: 20364899 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Endocannabinoids and voluntary activity in mice: runner’s high and long-term consequences in emotional behaviors.

Exp Neurol. 2010 Jul;224(1):103-5

Authors: Fuss J, Gass P

The endocannabinoid system participates in the regulation of physical activity, although its role is not yet fully understood. Here, we highlight the impact of endocannabinoid signalling on voluntary wheel running in mice and discuss potential mechanisms involved such as hippocampal neurogenesis. Running-induced short-term and long-term alterations of emotional behaviors are scrutinized with regard to the question how endocannabinoids might be involved. While endocannabinoids seem to contribute to the motivational aspects of voluntary running in rodents, influencing the total distance covered most likely via CB1 receptors, they are less involved in the long-term changes of emotional behavior induced by voluntary exercise.

PMID: 20353785 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Motivational influences on response inhibition measures.

J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2010 Apr;36(2):430-47

Authors: Leotti LA, Wager TD

Psychological research has placed great emphasis on inhibitory control due to its integral role in normal cognition and clinical disorders. The stop-signal task and associated measure–stop-signal reaction time (SSRT)–provides a well-established paradigm for measuring response inhibition. However, motivational influences on stop-signal performance and SSRT have not been examined. We conceptualize the stop-signal paradigm as a decision-making task involving the trade-off between fast responding and accurate inhibition. In 4 experiments, we demonstrate that performance trade-offs are influenced by inherent motivational biases and explicit strategic control. As a result, SSRT was lower when participants favored correct stopping over fast responding than when the same participants favored fast responding over correct stopping. We present a novel variant of the stop-signal task that uses monetary incentives to manipulate motivated speed-accuracy trade-offs. By sampling performance at multiple-trade-off settings, we obtain a measure of inhibitory ability that is independent of trade-off bias, and thus, more easily interpretable when comparing across participants. We present a working theoretical model to explain the effects of motivational context on response inhibition.

PMID: 20364928 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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The impact of facial emotional expressions on behavioral tendencies in women and men.

J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2010 Apr;36(2):500-7

Authors: Seidel EM, Habel U, Kirschner M, Gur RC, Derntl B

Emotional faces communicate both the emotional state and behavioral intentions of an individual. They also activate behavioral tendencies in the perceiver, namely approach or avoidance. Here, we compared more automatic motor to more conscious rating responses to happy, sad, angry, and disgusted faces in a healthy student sample. Happiness was associated with approach and anger with avoidance. However, behavioral tendencies in response to sadness and disgust were more complex. Sadness produced automatic approach but conscious withdrawal, probably influenced by interpersonal relations or personality. Disgust elicited withdrawal in the rating task, whereas no significant tendency emerged in the joystick task, probably driven by expression style. Based on our results, it is highly relevant to further explore actual reactions to emotional expressions and to differentiate between automatic and controlled processes because emotional faces are used in various kinds of studies. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of gender of poser effects when applying emotional expressions as stimuli.

PMID: 20364933 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Auditory imagery shapes movement timing and kinematics: evidence from a musical task.

J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2010 Apr;36(2):508-13

Authors: Keller PE, Dalla Bella S, Koch I

The role of anticipatory auditory imagery in music-like sequential action was investigated by examining timing accuracy and kinematics using a motion capture system. Musicians responded to metronomic pacing signals by producing three unpaced taps on three vertically aligned keys at the given tempo. Taps triggered tones in two out of three blocked feedback conditions, where key-to-tone mappings were compatible or incompatible in terms of spatial and pitch height. Results indicate that, while timing was most accurate without tones, movements were smaller in amplitude and less forceful (i.e., acceleration prior to impact was lowest) when tones were present. Moreover, timing was more accurate and movements were less forceful with compatible than with incompatible auditory feedback. Observing these effects at the first tap (before tone onset) suggests that anticipatory auditory imagery modulates the temporal kinematics of regularly timed auditory action sequences, like those found in music. Such cross-modal ideomotor processes may function to facilitate planning efficiency and biomechanical economy in voluntary action.

PMID: 20364934 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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The impact of cognitive-behavior therapy for anxiety disorders on concomitant sleep disturbances: a meta-analysis.

J Anxiety Disord. 2010 May;24(4):379-86

Authors: Belleville G, Cousineau H, Levrier K, St-Pierre-Delorme ME, Marchand A

INTRODUCTION: Sleep disturbances are present in approximately 70% of individuals with an anxiety disorder (AD). Treatments for AD may alleviate associated sleep problems, but empirical support for this view is sparse. OBJECTIVE: To assess state of knowledge about the impact of CBT for AD on sleep disturbances. METHOD: Systematic search for clinical trials of CBT for any AD in PsycINFO, MedLine, and Proquest Dissertations and Theses. RESULTS: Of 1205 studies, only 25 (2.07%) reported sleep data. The combined ES of CBT for AD on sleep was 0.527 [95%CI 0.306-0.748], indicating a moderate effect of anxiety treatment on concomitant sleep difficulties. The impact did not significantly differ according to study design, sleep variable or anxiety disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Although substantial amounts of research documented the efficacy of CBT for AD, very few reported its effect on concomitant sleep problems. Current state of knowledge does not permit definitive conclusions and future research is needed.

PMID: 20369395 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Editorial: Taking risks (by examining our practice) — Encouragement to address the couple relationship.

Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2010 Apr;15(2):147-50

Authors: Karamat Ali R

PMID: 20382730 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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