<p> This study examined the effects of Neurofeedback on individuals diagnosed with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS). Neurofeedback is a non-invase form of brainwave biofeedback in which participants receive real-time visual and auditory feedback of their brainwave activity. Upon receiving this feedback, participants were reinforced via visual and auditory means for producing particular brainwave patterns which have been associated with mental concentration and bodily relaxation. The existing literature on Neurofeedback for Fibromyalgia Syndrome suggests that individuals experience lasting benefit in symptom reduction post-treatment. It was expected that participants would experience substantial improvements in their symptoms over the course of this study. </p><p> Therapeutic improvement was measured with a variety of self-report measures and neurophysiological metrics. Particpants were randomly placed into either an active treatment group or a wait-list control. The wait-list control group received active treatment after a speficied control period during which self-report and EEG data were collected. Active treatment involved approximately 30 minute Neurofeedback sessions once or twice per week depending on participant availability. Brief pre and post session measuress were obtained to track within-session improvements. In addition, a psychometric battery was administered at baseline, and weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8 to track therapeutic improvement and outcome. Participants received 8 to 16 sessions of Neurofeedback. </p><p> All participants showed improvements in subjective ratings of pain and fatigue throughout the course of treatment, decreased their FIQR scores, exhibited changes on EEG indices, and reported being satisfied with the treatment. The majority of participants experienced improvements on symptom frequency and intensity on the MFTQ, had significant pre-post session decreases in fatigue (assessed via a paired samples t-test), and had pre-post session changes on one or more EEG indices (also assessed with a paired samples t-test). VAS pain and fatigue scores and EEG indices appeared to change when participants completed their wait-list control condition and entered active treatment, which offers evidence that Neurofeedback had an additional therapeutic impact when compared to other concurrent treatments. These positive findings are consistent with the results of existing studies of Neurofeedback for Fibromyalgia, which offers additional support for utilizing neurofeedback in the treatment of individuals with Fibromyalgia. This warrants further studies of Neurofeedback as a treatment for Fibromyalgia.</p>

<p> Individuals with profound multiple disabilities (PMD) have significant deficits in intellectual functioning in addition to physical disabilities and associated medical conditions. Often, these individuals have communication deficits making the expression of basic wants and needs challenging. Given the communication difficulties associated with profound multiple disabilities, there is a need for systematic assessment to better understand emotional responses of individuals with profound multiple disabilities, including happiness responses. Methods to identify emotions of individuals with profound multiple disabilities have improved over the past few years. Within the field of psychology, there has been a growing base of empirical information regarding happiness. One of the defining concerns of positive psychologists is the positive emotion of happiness. Applied behavior analysis provides a body of research and theoretical underpinnings to examine theoretical gaps in expression of emotions for individuals who have profound multiple disabilities. This quantitative study assessed whether presentation of preferred items and activities during multiple periods of the day (and over multiple days) increased indices of happiness (over time/sustained) in individuals with PMD. A multiple baseline design across participants was utilized to measure changes in indices of happiness of the participants. Participants were recruited from an adult day activity program specializing in providing assistance to individuals with disabilities. For Mary, baseline indices of happiness were 26.67% of intervals, increasing 6.76% during intervention to 33.43%. For Caleb, baseline indices of happiness were 20.84% of intervals, increasing 6.34% during intervention to 27.18%. For Mark, baseline indices of happiness were 40.00% of intervals, increasing 12.75% during intervention to 52.75%. Overall interobserver agreement was 82.8%, with interobserver agreement observations occurring during 63.04% of the observations. The results of the investigation demonstrated that presenting preferred items and activities increased the indices of happiness compared to baseline rates of indices of happiness. Results may have been more robust if the participants were assessed for overall responsiveness patterns prior to the initiation of measurement of indices of happiness.</p>

<p> This study examined the application of experiential avoidance to understanding anger, a universal emotion that is not presently well-understood despite its pervasiveness in both clinical symptomatology and general experience. Theories including the anger avoidance model (Gardner &amp; Moore, 2008) and the cognitive-neoassociationistic perspective (Berkowitz, 1983) proposed that anger is related to avoidant behaviors and lack of control. Experiential avoidance (EA), a concept introduced in Relational Frame Theory (Hayes, 2004b), describes the avoidance of unpleasant thoughts and negative emotional experiences. Historically, EA has primarily been used to examine anxiety, but may also present a valuable theoretical approach to other emotional experiences, including anger. </p><p> To clarify the link between experiential avoidance and anger, correlations between subjects' scores on subtypes of anger and levels of experiential avoidance were examined. A non-clinical sample of 215 graduate students completed the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2) and the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II). Scores were analyzed for correlations between levels of experiential avoidance and types of anger experiences. Results suggest that experiential avoidance is related to higher levels of trait anger, increased inward expressions of anger, and decreased control over anger experiences. Implications for research, theory, and clinical approaches to anger and aggression are discussed.</p>

<p> Intraindividual variability refers to short-term fluctuations in performance that may be indexed as trial-to-trial variability on response time (RT) tasks. A growing body of evidence suggests that such variability may be a sensitive indicator of the integrity of prefrontal cortical regions. This possibility was tested in a broad clinical sample by investigating the relationship between intraindividual variability on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and a large battery of executive functioning tasks using mathematical models of RT variability. The executive functioning tasks predicted intraindividual variability with a large effect size. The relationship between intraindividual variability and cognitive control tasks was marginally higher than the intercorrelations of the tasks themselves. Thus, intraindividual variability demonstrates considerable convergent validity with more traditional neuropsychological assessment techniques. Trial-to-trial variability was specifically related to measures of set shifting and this relationship was only partially mediated by more basic attentional functions. The findings of this study are consistent with the interpretation that intraindividual variability in response time may index the consistency with which individuals are able to regulate various cognitive control subprocesses involving attentional control, active engagement of response sets, and the ability to suppress task irrelevant information in the pursuit of a self-selected goal. The primary neurostructural substrates of RT variability may lie within prefrontal cortical regions including ventrolateral, dorsolateral, and anterior cingulate cortex. Future research may set the stage for a new clinical measurement tradition based on the application of intraindividual variability data.</p>

<p> Retrospective emotional frequency appraisals are often used in clinical assessment measures, but their suitability for use with children has not been well studied. The aims of this project were to (a) examine whether items that use retrospective frequency structures gather more or less information than items that do not use such structures and (b) examine whether the information gathered by such items differs across children's ages. <i>Method</i>. Data were gathered from 9- to 12-year-old girls who participated in a larger study of a depression treatment protocol. Two sets of five pairs of items were sampled from two children's depression measures. The item pairs contained one item from each measure. One set of item pairs was matched for content and the use of retrospective frequency structures. The other set was matched for content only. <i>Results</i>. For the first research question, information curves for the two item sets were generated using Samejima's (1969) Graded Response Model (GRM). Visual analyses of the information curves provided inconclusive results as to whether the presence of retrospective frequency structures is associated with differences in item information levels. The second research question was conducted in two parts. For both, only data from the 9- and 12-year-old participants were analyzed. In the first part, confirmatory factor analysis was used to analyze measurement invariance across the two groups' responses. Theses analyses showed signs of measurement non-invariance in both item sets. The second part of the analyses was conducted by generating separate GRM information curves for the two age groups and conducting visual analyses of the information curves. These analyses showed that the model which had been used throughout the remainder of the study did not fit the 9-year-old group well. They also showed that the 12-year-old group's information curves varied more in height across measures and item sets than did the 9-year-old group's curves. <i>Discussion</i>. Although the findings failed to shed light on the effects of retrospective frequency structures on children's responding, they highlighted potential differences between the 9- and 12-year-old groups' factor structures and indicated that the 9-year-olds displayed decreased sensitivity to differences in item structure.</p>

<p> People with intellectual disability have historically been excluded from the benefits of psychotherapy, despite the higher incidence of mental illness, in general, and PTSD, in particular, in this population. It had been thought that intellectual disability precluded the cognitive and emotional ability required to participate in therapy. A growing body of literature is reporting successful application of a number of these therapies, established as empirically effective for the general population, with people with intellectual disability. Typically, minor modifications are required. Criticism continues, now based on the problem of using therapies with a population for which they have not been empirically established as effective. The current study contributes to the empirical process of establishing effectiveness of a specific trauma therapy for people with intellectual disability. It applies the EMDR therapy to six participants in a multiple-baseline, ABA, time-series experiment design. EMDR has previously been used with people with intellectual disability, reporting improved symptoms and functioning for the more than 35 cases published. For the current study, the participants were all diagnosed with PTSD and other diagnoses reflecting the emotional distress associated with histories of multi- and poly-traumatization, beginning at an early age. They received weekly assessments on multiple measures: self-report, physiological, observer ratings, and continuous actigraph recordings. Each participated for a minimum of 60 weeks, which included: an A phase, the Baseline; a B phase, the Intervention; and, a second A phase, Maintenance. After a Hiatus of six weeks, participants returned for Follow-up testing. The EMDR therapy was delivered during the Intervention phase, only. All participants lost the diagnosis of PTSD and showed emotional and functional improvement on a number of measures. The self-report measures produced the most descriptive time-series data, providing indication of change in a number of dimensions, visually interpretable from graphs of the data, included in this document. Linear regression analyses support visual analysis. Additional research in using the EMDR therapy with people with intellectual disability is recommended, with the purpose of establishing it as appropriate for use with this population. Limitations of the study are addressed. </p>

<p> The primary goal of the present study was to examine whether avoidance and intolerance of uncertainty predict depression and anxiety through rumination over a two week time period. Results indicated that cognitive, behavioral, and experiential avoidance all individually predicted depressive and anxious symptoms over two weeks. Cognitive, behavioral, and experiential avoidance all predicted rumination one week later. Intolerance of uncertainty predicted higher levels of anxiety and depression but not rumination. No evidence emerged that rumination acted as a mechanism of action between any of the hypothesized mediational models for depressive symptoms. Only the cognitive and experiential avoidance mediational models indicated mediation for anxiety. </p>

<p> Two processes working together account for the building and maintenance of the mind. The generative process makes links within the mind, whereas the degenerative process is used to dissolve links. In this hermeneutic study of the relationship between psychotic and creative processes in the human psyche, some of the prevailing research on psychosis and creativity is reviewed. A model is presented in which the mind is seen as an ecosystem that is built and maintained through continuous establishment and dissolving of links. An imbalance of the generative and degenerative processes is suggested as being responsible for the manifestation of psychotic symptoms. Creativity is proposed as a product of the interaction between these processes of the mind.</p>

<p> The present study investigated differences between individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and non-anxious controls (NAC) on measures of thought processes and anxiety responses surrounding an anxiety-provoking situation. Participants gave a spontaneous speech to an audience and reported their anxiety throughout. Measures of trait decentering and anxiety, situational anxiety, negative thoughts and believability, and willingness to repeat the task were administered. Compared to NAC, individuals with SAD reported a higher prevalence of negative thoughts, found the thoughts more believable, reported lower levels of trait decentering, and reported less willingness to repeat an anxiety-provoking task. Collapsing the groups, we found an inverse relationship between the amount of negative thoughts and willingness to repeat the task, and a positive correlation between decentering and willingness. We did not find evidence to support that decentering and believability moderate this relationship. The present study partially supports the proposed model of SAD, as the SAD and NAC groups differed at each step of the proposed model, however moderation analyses were not significant.</p>

<p> Psychotherapist personal factors, often referred to as countertransference reactions, are widely believed to impact the therapeutic process. While the existence of the countertransference is commonly accepted by contemporary psychotherapists, there is continued debate over its nature, quality and therapeutic utility. Further, there have been relatively few empirical studies on the countertransference reactions of practicing psychologists and other mental health professionals. This study aimed to address this lack by examining the frequency and nature of countertransference experiences as reported by psychoanalysts. Additionally, this study sought to explore the relationship between countertransference reactions and patient symptomology as suggested by recent findings (Betan, Heim, Conklin, &amp; Western, 2005; Brody &amp; Farber, 1996; Rossberg, Karterud, Pedersen, &amp; Friis, 2007, 2008, 2010). Seventy psychoanalysts with memberships to national psychoanalytic organizations completed a brief, web-based survey on countertransference. The results of this study indicated that psychoanalysts report constantly experiencing countertransference reactions and that these reactions are mostly positive in nature, independent of the clinician's background or demographic information. The results also showed that most psychoanalysts defined the CT phenomenon as "all of a therapist's reactions," during the psychotherapy, reflecting the "totalist" perspective of CT. A small but significant association was found between CT definition and reported CT frequency, suggesting the role of theory in shaping clinical experience. While respondents were just as likely to report CT reactions with patients diagnosed with Axis I and Axis II disorders, Cluster B personality disorders were most specified amongst the Axis II endorsements. The findings of this study provide a contemporary outlook on the countertransference phenomenon. This study's limitations relate to its homogenous sample population and abnormal distribution rate. </p>