Body, Mind & Spirit Articles and Latest News

Effectiveness of stepped care for chronic fatigue syndrome: a randomized noninferiority trial.

J Consult Clin Psychol. 2010 Oct;78(5):724-31

Authors: Tummers M, Knoop H, Bleijenberg G

In this randomized noninferiority study, the effectiveness and efficiency of stepped care for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) was compared to care as usual. Stepped care was formed by guided self-instruction, followed by cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) if the patient desired it. Care as usual encompassed CBT after a waiting period.

PMID: 20873907 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Computer-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy for child anxiety: results of a randomized clinical trial.

J Consult Clin Psychol. 2010 Oct;78(5):737-45

Authors: Khanna MS, Kendall PC

This study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and effects of Camp Cope-A-Lot (CCAL), a computer-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety in youth.

PMID: 20873909 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Training and dissemination of cognitive behavior therapy for depression in adults: a preliminary examination of therapist competence and client outcomes.

J Consult Clin Psychol. 2010 Oct;78(5):751-6

Authors: Simons AD, Padesky CA, Montemarano J, Lewis CC, Murakami J, Lamb K, DeVinney S, Reid M, Smith DA, Beck AT

In this study, the authors examined the feasibility and effectiveness of training community therapists to deliver cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for depression.

PMID: 20873911 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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[Selection of questionnaires measuring outcome and change].

Psychother Psychosom Med Psychol. 2010 Sep-Oct;60(9-10):412-3

Authors: Strauss B, Brähler E

PMID: 20882474 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Power cut in the countertransference.

J Anal Psychol. 2010 Sep;55(4):485-501

Authors: Cavalli A

This paper is an attempt to describe and understand a certain type of defence that I shall call a ‘power cut’ because of its crippling and anti-relational nature. I will take extracts from a baby observation to show how this type of defence can be adopted from the beginning of life, followed by vignettes from my work with a young child and an adult patient which addresses the particular kind of difficulty the analyst has to face with patients who resort to such a defence. I am arguing that while defending from another, the patient is able to destabilize not only the connection between himself and this other, the analyst, but also that between the analyst and the analyst’s internal world. I understand this as the violent re-enactment of the patient’s uncontained and split off primitive experience. I see recovery from ‘power cuts’ as the main challenge for the analyst who is helping the patient to recover from an early failure in containment which has led to defective splitting. Only when the unthinkable experience of ‘power cut’ can become an experience that can be lived through and converted into a deintegrate, may integration be achieved.

PMID: 20883306 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Developmental cascade effects of the New Beginnings Program on adolescent adaptation outcomes.

Dev Psychopathol. 2010 Nov;22(4):771-84

Authors: McClain DB, Wolchik SA, Winslow E, Tein JY, Sandler IN, Millsap RE

Using data from a 6-year longitudinal follow-up sample of 240 youth who participated in a randomized experimental trial of a preventive intervention for divorced families with children ages 9-12, the current study tested alternative cascading pathways by which the intervention decreased symptoms of internalizing disorders, symptoms of externalizing disorders, substance use, and risky sexual behavior and increased self-esteem and academic performance in mid- to late adolescence (15-19 years old). It was hypothesized that the impact of the program on adolescent adaptation outcomes would be explained by progressive associations between program-induced changes in parenting and youth adaptation outcomes. The results supported a cascading model of program effects in which the program was related to increased mother-child relationship quality that was related to subsequent decreases in child internalizing problems, which then was related to subsequent increases in self-esteem and decreases in symptoms of internalizing disorders in adolescence. The results were also consistent with a model in which the program increased maternal effective discipline that was related to decreased child externalizing problems, which was related to subsequent decreases in symptoms of externalizing disorders, less substance use, and better academic performance in adolescence. There were no significant differences in the model based on level of baseline risk or adolescent gender. These results provide support for a cascading pathways model of child and adolescent development.

PMID: 20883581 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Developmental processes in peer problems of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD: developmental cascades and vicious cycles.

Dev Psychopathol. 2010 Nov;22(4):785-802

Authors: Murray-Close D, Hoza B, Hinshaw SP, Arnold LE, Swanson J, Jensen PS, Hechtman L, Wells K

We examined the developmental processes involved in peer problems among children (M age = 10.41 years) previously diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at study entry (N = 536) and a comparison group (N = 284). Participants were followed over a 6-year period ranging from middle childhood to adolescence. At four assessment periods, measures of aggression, social skills, positive illusory biases (in the social and behavioral domains), and peer rejection were assessed. Results indicated that children from the ADHD group exhibited difficulties in each of these areas at the first assessment. Moreover, there were vicious cycles among problems over time. For example, peer rejection was related to impaired social skills, which in turn predicted later peer rejection. Problems also tended to spill over into other areas, which in turn compromised functioning in additional areas across development, leading to cascading effects over time. The findings held even when controlling for age and were similar for males and females, the ADHD and comparison groups, and among ADHD treatment groups. The results suggest that the peer problems among children with and without ADHD may reflect similar processes; however, children with ADHD exhibit greater difficulties negotiating important developmental tasks. Implications for interventions are discussed.

PMID: 20883582 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Music making as a tool for promoting brain plasticity across the life span.

Neuroscientist. 2010 Oct;16(5):566-77

Authors: Wan CY, Schlaug G

Playing a musical instrument is an intense, multisensory, and motor experience that usually commences at an early age and requires the acquisition and maintenance of a range of skills over the course of a musician’s lifetime. Thus, musicians offer an excellent human model for studying the brain effects of acquiring specialized sensorimotor skills. For example, musicians learn and repeatedly practice the association of motor actions with specific sound and visual patterns (musical notation) while receiving continuous multisensory feedback. This association learning can strengthen connections between auditory and motor regions (e.g., arcuate fasciculus) while activating multimodal integration regions (e.g., around the intraparietal sulcus). We argue that training of this neural network may produce cross-modal effects on other behavioral or cognitive operations that draw on this network. Plasticity in this network may explain some of the sensorimotor and cognitive enhancements that have been associated with music training. These enhancements suggest the potential for music making as an interactive treatment or intervention for neurological and developmental disorders, as well as those associated with normal aging.

PMID: 20889966 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Randomized controlled trial of Internet cognitive behavioural treatment for social phobia with and without motivational enhancement strategies.

Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2010 Oct;44(10):938-45

Authors: Titov N, Andrews G, Schwencke G, Robinson E, Peters L, Spence J

The present study (Shyness 7) has two aims: Firstly, to replicate an earlier trial showing that a self-guided Internet treatment for social phobia is efficacious, and secondly, to examine whether the addition of self-guided motivational enhancement strategies improves completion rates and clinical outcomes.

PMID: 20932208 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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The additive impact of group and individual publicly displayed feedback: examining individual response patterns and response generalization in a safe-driving occupational intervention.

Behav Modif. 2010 Sep;34(5):338-66

Authors: Ludwig TD, Geller ES, Clarke SW

Additive effects of publicly posting individual feedback following group goal-setting and feedback were evaluated. The turn-signal use of pizza deliverers was studied in a multiple baseline design across two pizza stores. After baseline observations, pizza deliverers voted on a group turn-signal goal and then received 4 weeks of group feedback on their turn-signal use (i.e., group feedback phase). Then, for the next 4 weeks, individual turn-signal use means were publicly posted along with the group feedback (i.e., individual feedback phase). Deliverers at Store A (n = 24) increased their use of turn signals from a mean of 5% during baseline to 16.9% during the group feedback phase and then to 30% during the individual feedback phase. Turn-signal use at Store B (n = 20) increased from 28.9% during baseline to 43.6% during group feedback phase and to 56% during the subsequent individual feedback phase. Individual analyses suggested that deliverers who improved the target behavior during group feedback phase did not increase their turn-signal use further when individual feedback was added. Conversely, most deliverers who did not improve during the group feedback phase increased their turn-signal use when individual feedback was added. Complete intersection stopping increased concurrently with the turn-signal intervention phases from baseline means of 12% and 30% at Store A and B, respectively, to means of 21% and 48% during the interventions.

PMID: 20935238 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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