Tag: psychology

Factors thought to maintain children and young people’s mental health problems

From Alan Carr’s Handbook of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology (2nd ed) pp. 62-70:

Family system factors

  • Inadvertent reinforcement, e.g., frequently inquiring about mood or commenting on negative conduct
  • Insecure attachment, whereby children don’t experience carers as a secure base
  • Coercive interaction, e.g., escalating negative interaction leading to withdrawal and relief, reinforcing behaviour just before relief
  • Over-involvement, parental criticism and emotional over-involvement
  • Disengagement, low frequency carer-child interaction
  • Inconsistent parental discipline, leading to problems internalising rules
  • Confused communication, e.g., indirect rather than direct communication
  • Triangulation (not always negative), e.g., a “coalition” where one carer is peripheral
  • Chaotic organisation
  • Absent carer
  • Carer relationship discord

Parental factors

  • Parents with similar problems as child act as a role model maintaining the behaviour
  • Resources for parenting compromised by mental health issues or criminality
  • Misinterpreted crying (interpreted as intentionally punishing carer)
  • Low self esteem
  • External locus of control
  • “Immature defences”
  • Unemployment (failure to meet financial needs; impact on status)
  • Boredom in work
  • Excessive stress in work
  • Role strain with parallel “homemaking” and working

Social network factors

  • Lack of social support, e.g., lack of positive interactions with extended family/friends
  • Chronic life stress
  • Unsuitable education placement, e.g., understaffed schools
  • “Deviant” peer-group e.g., peers using drugs
  • Community problems, e.g., social disadvantage, racism, social exclusion, high crime rates

Problem maintaining treatment system factors

  • Family members’ denial of problems
  • Poor working alliance with clinicians
  • Rejection of formulation and/or treatment plan
  • Failure of communication between MDT members
  • Failure of inter-agency network
  • Conflicting formulations in multidisciplinary team and inter-agency work
  • Culturally insensitive clinicians

Also flip side of these, protective factors, such as good physical health, high intellectual ability, high self-esteem, humour, positive engagement with treatment agencies, protective peer group, …

A kõan about why science is tricky

Kõan:

Shuzan held out his short staff and said: “If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?”

Mumon’s Commentary:

If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. It cannot be expressed with words and it cannot be expressed without words. Now say quickly what it is.

Mumon’s Poem:

Holding out the short staff,
He gave an order of life or death
Positive and negative interwoven,
Even Buddha’s and patriarchs cannot escape this attack.

Mentally sloppy freethinkers…

“Mentally sloppy freethinkers tend to be attracted to radical proposals, just because such proposals are radical. They don’t focus much on the detailed arguments, but instead substitute simple arguments based on broad crude analogies, more suited to their style of thinking. And they usually make sure to insinuate that opposition to the idea is mainly from excess conformity or entrenched interests. Others hear such sloppy arguments, reject them, and then reject the idea as well.”

—Robin Hanson, in Overcoming Bias

Nagel on arousal and meaning

“Suppose a man and a woman, whom we may call Romeo and Juliet, are at opposite ends of a cocktail lounge, with many mirrors on the walls which permit unobserved observation, and even mutual unobserved observation. Each of them is sipping a martini and studying other people in the mirrors. At some point Romeo notices Juliet. He is moved, somehow, by the softness of her hair and the diffidence with which she sips her martini, and this arouses him sexually. […] Romeo senses Juliet, rather than merely noticing her. At this stage he is aroused by an unaroused object, so he is more in the sexual grip of his body than she of hers.

“Let us suppose, however, that Juliet now senses Romeo in another mirror on the opposite wall, though neither of them yet knows that he is seen by the other (the mirror angles provide three-quarter views). Romeo then begins to notice in Juliet the subtle signs of sexual arousal: heavy-lidded stare, dilating pupils, faint flush, et cetera. This of course renders her much more bodily, and he not only notices but senses this as well. His arousal is nevertheless still solitary. But now, cleverly calculating the line of her stare without actually looking her in the eyes, he realizes that it is directed at him through the mirror on the opposite wall. That is, he notices, and moreover senses, Juliet sensing him. This is definitely a new development, for it gives him a sense of embodiment not only through his own reactions but through the eyes and reactions of another. Moreover, it is separable from the initial sensing of Juliet; for sexual arousal might begin with a person’s sensing that he is sensed and being assailed by the perception of the other person’s desire rather than merely by the perception of the person.

“But there is a further step. Let us suppose that Juliet, who is a little slower than Romeo, now senses that he senses her. This puts Romeo in a position to notice, and be aroused by, her arousal at being sensed by him. He senses that she senses that he senses her. This is still another level of arousal, for he becomes conscious of his sexuality through his awareness of its effect on her and of her awareness that this effect is due to him. […]”

“Another example of such reflexive mutual recognition is to be found in the phenomenon of meaning, which appears to involve an intention to produce a belief or other effect in another by bringing about his recognition of one’s intention to produce that effect. (That result is due to H. P. Grice, whose position I shall not attempt to reproduce in detail.) Sex has a related structure: it involves a desire that one’s partner be aroused by the recognition of one’s desire that he or she be aroused.”

– Nagel, T. (1969, pp. 10-11) [Sexual Perversion. The Journal of Philosophy, 66, 5-17].

CBT – a flavour of psychodynamic therapy but with an almost-cognitive perspective explanation?

Rosner (2012) looks fun indeed. Here’s how it starts:

“1961 and 1962 were momentous years for Aaron T. Beck. They were the years he made a decisive break with his psychoanalytic past. He closed down his large psychoanalytic research project on depression, put to rest his application for membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association that had been rejected twice, and turned his back on the cornerstone of psychoanalytic theory, the unconscious. He took a sabbatical from the psychiatry department at the University of Pennsylvania following a destructive department-wide battle over the future of psychoanalysis in psychiatry.

But then… here’s a letter Beck wrote to John Bowlby in 1981:

“It might be a point of curiosity therefore for you to know that my psychiatric training was completely and exclusively psychoanalytic… I would consider my theoretical work as derivative from ego psychology rather than from cognitive psychology or learning theory. At the present time in fact I am trying to reformulate many of the basic psychoanalytic concepts into cognitive terms (Beck, A. T., personal collection, July 29, 1981).”

Reference

Rosner, R. I. (2012). Aaron T. Beck’s drawings and the psychoanalytic origins story of cognitive therapy. History of Psychology, 15, 1-18.

Psychoanalytic history

“Psychoanalysis is very different [from psychology], and very peculiar. One might even suggest […] that the structure of psychoanalytic history is much more like the history of a religious sect […]. Like a religion, there was a founding father who had a revelation (the existence of the subconscious); he struggled to have the truth of this revelation recognised by a hostile world, and gradually gathered around him a group of followers. […] A canon of set (scared) texts emerged, mostly penned by (or attributed to) the founder and studied continuously down the generations.”

— Stephen Frosh (2012, pp. 16–17), A brief introduction to psychoanalytic theory

Some elements of some theories of emotion

Some elements of some theories of emotion — bits that moved me.

You might also enjoy this lovely definition. (And this on problems with definitions.)

Basic emotions

(Table from Power & Dalgleish, 2008)

Basic emotion Appraisal
Sadness Loss or failure (actual or possible) of valued role or goal
Happiness Successful move towards or completion of a valued role or goal
Anger Blocking or frustration of a role or goal through perceived agent
Fear Physical or social threat to self or valued role or goal
Disgust A person, object, or idea repulsive to the self, and to valued roles and goals

Where you can read about it

Oatley, K. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1987). Towards a cognitive theory of emotions. Cognition & Emotion 1(1), 29–50.

Power, M., & Dalgleish, T. (2008), Cognition and Emotion: From Order to Disorder. Psychology Press.

A 12-Point Circumplex Structure of Core Affect

(A picture from Yik, Russell, & Steiger, 2011)

Where you can read about it

Yik, M., Russell, J. A., & Steiger, J. H. (2011). A 12-point circumplex structure of core affect. Emotion 11(4), 705–731.

Component Process Model

(Individual difference variables affecting appraisals; from Scherer 2009)

Emotion disposition / Trait affect (Emotional disorder) Appraisal tendencies or biases (motivational and cognitive) Potentially facilitating culturally dominant goal, belief, value dimensions
Trait sadness Resignation, dejection, acquiescence (Depression) Mot: Strong attachment to people and propertyCog: Low self esteem, underestimation of control, coping, and adjustment potential; tendency to ruminate; Goa: interdependent goal pursuitsBel: Human nature goodVal: Conservatism, security, embeddedness, benevolence, harmony
Trait anger Irritation, irascibility, choleric (Hostility, psychoticism) Mot: Strong goal orientation, high expectationsCog: High self esteem, external attribution, blaming, overestimation of control, power, coping, and adjustment potential; exaggerated optimism Goa: Independent goal pursuitsBel: Human nature bad, normativityVal: Conservatism, self-enhancement, autonomy, entitlement, mastery
Trait anxiety Worrier, apprehensiveness, neuroticism (general anxiety disorder) Mot: PerfectionismCog: Exaggerated sensitivity for novelty, uncertainty, and urgency (looming); low self esteem, underestimation of control, coping, and adjustment potential; exaggerated pessimism Goa: Independent goal pursuitsBel: Human nature bad, normativityVal: Conservatism, self-enhancement, autonomy, entitlement, mastery
Trait shame/guilt Embarrassment, unworthiness, disconcertment, abashment(clinical shame/guilt syndromes) Mot: High need for self-worth and social recognition; conformity; perfectionismCog: Internal attribution Goa: Interdependent goal pursuitsBel: Human nature goodVal: Conservatism, embeddedness, benevolence, harmony
Trait positive affect Joyfulness, buoyancy, cheerfulness, good spirits(manic euphoria) Mot: Hedonism, realistic aimsCog: Optimism; high self esteem, overestimation of control, coping, and adjustment potential Goa: Independent goal pursuitsBel: Human nature goodVal: Embeddedness, benevolence, harmony, openness for change
Note: Mot: motivational, Cog: cognitive, Goa: goal pursuit, Bel: beliefs about human nature, Val: value dimensions.

Where you can read about it

Scherer, K. R. (2009). The dynamic architecture of emotion: Evidence for the component process model. Cognition and Emotion 23(7), 1307–1351.

Linking statistics and qualitative methods

You’ll be aware of the gist. Quantitative statistical models are great for generalizing, also data suitable for the stats tends to be quicker to analyze than qualitative data. More qualitative methods, such as interviewing, tend to provide much richer information, but generalization is very tricky and often involves coding up so the data can be fitted using the stats. How else can the two (crudely defined here!) approaches to analysis talk to each other?

I like this a lot:

“In the social sciences we are often criticized by the ethnographers and the anthropologists who say that we do not link in with them sufficiently and that we simply produce a set of statistics which do not represent reality.”

“… by using league tables, we can find examples of places which are perhaps not outliers but where we want to look for the pathways of influence on why they are not outliers. For example, one particular Bangladeshi village would have been expected to have high levels of immunization, whereas it was down in the middle of the table with quite a large confidence interval. This seemed rather strange, but our colleagues were able to attribute this to a fundamentalist imam. […] Another example is a village at the top of the league table, which our colleagues could attribute to a very enthusiastic school-teacher.”

“… by connecting with the qualitative workers, by encouraging the fieldworkers to look further at particular villages and by saying to them that we were surprised that this place was good and that one was bad, we could get people to understand the potential for linking the sophisticated statistical methods with qualitative research.” (Ian Diamond and Fiona Steele, from a comment on a paper by Goldstein and Spiegelhalter, 1996, p. 429)

Also reminds me of a study by Turner and Sobolewska (2009) which split participants on their Systemizing and Empathizing Quotient scores. Participants were asked, “What is inside a mobile phone?” Here’s what someone with high EQ said:

“It flashes the lights, screen flashes, and the buttons lights up, and it vibrates. It comes to life on the inside and it comes to life on the outside, and you talk to the one side and someone is answering on the other side”

And someone with high SQ:

“Many things, circuit boards, chips, transceiver [laughs], battery [pause], a camera in some of them, a media player, buttons, lots of different things. [pause] Well there are lots and lots of different bits and pieces to the phone, there are mainly in … Eh, like inside the chip there are lots of little transistors, which is used, they build up to lots of different types of gates…”

(One possible criticism is that the SQ/EQ just found students of technical versus non-technical subjects… But the general idea is still lovely.)

Would be great to see more quantitative papers with little excerpts of stories. We tried in our paper on spontaneous shifts of interpretation on a probabilistic reasoning task (Fugard, Pfeifer, Mayerhofer & Kleiter, 2011, p. 642), but we only squeezed in a few sentences:

‘Participant 34 (who settled into a conjunction interpretation) said: “I only looked at the shape and the color, and then always out of 6; this was the quickest way.” Participant 37, who shifted from the conjunction to the conditional event, said: “In the beginning [I] always [responded] ‘out of 6,’ but then somewhere in the middle . . . Ah! It clicked and I got it. I was angry with myself that I was so stupid before.” Five participants spontaneously reported when they shifted during the task, for example, saying, “Ah, this is how it works.”’

References

Fugard, A. J. B., Pfeifer, N., Mayerhofer, B., & Kleiter, G. D. (2011).  How people interpret conditionals: Shifts towards the conditional event.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 635–648.

Goldstein, H. & Spiegelhalter, D. J. (1996). League tables and their limitations: statistical issues in comparisons of institutional performance. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) 159, 385–443.

Turner, P. & Sobolewska, E. (2009). Mental models, magical thinking, and individual differences. Human Technology 5, 90–113.

Dysrationalia — if you disagree with me, off with your head

Some quotations from a critique of (an early version of) Stanovich’s theory by Sternberg (1994). Firstly, theory:

“Why do we need a theory? Because we’ve had too many fly-by-night constructs in the abilities business, and we don’t need more of them. We do need serious new constructs — and the way to present them is via a theory […] — and construct validation of that theory.”

What is an irrational belief?

“In the real world, few problems truly lend themselves to the kind of deductive (rational) reasoning we learn in logic classes. The vast majority of problems are inductive, so that arguments can be stronger or weaker, but not logically valid or invalid. I am afraid that Stanovich has fallen into a trap that of labeling people as “dysrational” who have beliefs that he does not accept. And therein lies frightening potential for misuse. And if you disagree with me, off with your head. Here, it’s a joke. Historically, it’s not.”

Reference

Robert J. Sternberg (1994). What If the Construct of Dysrationalia Were an Example of Itself? Educational Researcher, 23, pp. 22-23+27

Understanding unconscious processes is easy…

“Six decades ago our psychoanalytically oriented predecessors wrestled with the problem of formulating a credible account of the unconscious. Paradoxically, perhaps, having gathered such convincing evidence in recent years to support the existence of extensive and elaborate nonconscious information processing, contemporary psychologists now are faced with precisely the reverse problem. A major challenge confronting modern psychology is the need to develop an adequate account of the nature and function of consciousness”

Williams et al (1997 [Cognitive psychology and emotional disorders, 2nd ed.], p. 260), via an article by Mick Power (2000) in the Psycholologst