Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care
Monday, February 21, 2022
Fast response times signal social connection in conversation
Friday, December 17, 2021
The Conversational Circumplex: Identifying, Prioritizing, and Pursuing Informational and Relational Motives in Conversation
Sunday, December 12, 2021
Moral Psychopharmacology Needs Moral Inquiry: The Case of Psychedelics
Thursday, November 25, 2021
APF Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Practice of Psychology: Samuel Knapp
Monday, August 16, 2021
Therapist Targeted Googling: Characteristics and Consequences for the Therapeutic Relationship
Saturday, February 20, 2021
How ecstasy and psilocybin are shaking up psychiatry
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Research on Non-verbal Signs of Lies and Deceit: A Blind Alley
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Checked by reality, some QAnon supporters seek a way out
Friday, December 11, 2020
11th Circuit blocks South FL prohibitions on 'conversion therapy' for minors as unconstitutional
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
‘Disorders of consciousness’: Understanding ‘self’ might be the greatest scientific challenge of our time
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Psychotherapy With Suicidal Patients Part 2: An Alliance Based Intervention for Suicide
Abstract
This column, which is the second in a 2-part series on the challenge of treating patients struggling with suicide, reviews one psychodynamic approach to working with suicidal patients that is consistent with the elements shared across evidence-based approaches to treating suicidal patients that were the focus of the first column in this series. Alliance Based Intervention for Suicide is an approach to treating suicidal patients developed at the Austen Riggs Center that is not manualized or a stand-alone treatment, but rather it is a way of establishing and maintaining an alliance with suicidal patients that engages the issue of suicide and allows the rest of psychodynamic therapy to unfold.
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From the Conclusion
There is no magic in ABIS (Alliance Based Intervention for Suicide), and it will not work in all cases, but these principles are effective in making suicide an interpersonal issue with meaning in the relationship. This allows direct engagement of the issue of suicide in the therapeutic relationship and direct discussion of the central question of whether the patient can and will commit to the work. ABIS supports the therapist in efforts to assess whether the therapist has the will and the wherewithal to meet the patient’s anger and hate, as manifested by suicide, as fully as the therapist is prepared to meet the patient’s love and attachment. Neither side of the transference alone is adequate in work with suicidal patients.
There are no randomized trials of ABIS, but it is a way of working that has evolved at Austen Riggs over the course of a hundred years. In a study of previously suicidal patients at Riggs, at an average of 7 years after admission, 75% were free of suicidal behavior as an issue in their lives.6 These patients were considered “recovered” rather than “in remission,” using the same slope-intercept mathematical modeling as in cancer research. These findings offer encouraging support for the value of ABIS as an intervention to add to psychodynamic psychotherapy as a way to establish and maintain a viable therapeutic alliance with suicidal patients.
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
How to Combat Zoom Fatigue
Harvard Business Review
Originally posted 29 April 20
If you’re finding that you’re more exhausted at the end of your workday than you used to be, you’re not alone. Over the past few weeks, mentions of “Zoom fatigue” have popped up more and more on social media, and Google searches for the same phrase have steadily increased since early March.
Why do we find video calls so draining? There are a few reasons.
In part, it’s because they force us to focus more intently on conversations in order to absorb information. Think of it this way: when you’re sitting in a conference room, you can rely on whispered side exchanges to catch you up if you get distracted or answer quick, clarifying questions. During a video call, however, it’s impossible to do this unless you use the private chat feature or awkwardly try to find a moment to unmute and ask a colleague to repeat themselves.
The problem isn’t helped by the fact that video calls make it easier than ever to lose focus. We’ve all done it: decided that, why yes, we absolutely can listen intently, check our email, text a friend, and post a smiley face on Slack within the same thirty seconds. Except, of course, we don’t end up doing much listening at all when we’re distracted. Adding fuel to the fire is many of our work-from-home situations. We’re no longer just dialing into one or two virtual meetings. We’re also continuously finding polite new ways to ask our loved ones not to disturb us, or tuning them out as they army crawl across the floor to grab their headphones off the dining table. For those who don’t have a private space to work, it is especially challenging.
Finally, “Zoom fatigue” stems from how we process information over video. On a video call the only way to show we’re paying attention is to look at the camera. But, in real life, how often do you stand within three feet of a colleague and stare at their face? Probably never. This is because having to engage in a “constant gaze” makes us uncomfortable — and tired. In person, we are able to use our peripheral vision to glance out the window or look at others in the room. On a video call, because we are all sitting in different homes, if we turn to look out the window, we worry it might seem like we’re not paying attention.
The info is here.
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
A Psychological Exploration of Zoom Fatigue
Psychiatric Times
Originally published 27 July 20
Here is an excerpt:
This neuropathophysiology may explain other proposed reasons for Zoom fatigue. For example, if the audio delays inherent in Zoom technology are associated with more negative perceptions and distrust between people, there is likely decreased reward perceived when those people are videoconferencing with each other. Another example is direct mutual gaze. There is robust evidence on how eye contact improves connection—faster responses, more memorization of faces, and increased likeability and attractiveness. These tools of social bonding that make interactions organically rewarding are all compromised over video. On video, gaze must be directed at the camera to appear as if you are making eye contact with an observer, and during conferences with 3 or more people, it can be impossible to distinguish mutual gaze between any 2 people.
Not only are rewards lessened via these social disconnections during videoconferencing compared to in-person interactions, but there are also elevated costs in the form of cognitive effort. Much of communication is actually unconscious and nonverbal, as emotional content is rapidly processed through social cues like touch, joint attention, and body posture. These nonverbal cues are not only used to acquire information about others, but are also directly used to prepare an adaptive response and engage in reciprocal communication, all in a matter of milliseconds. However, on video, most of these cues are difficult to visualize, since the same environment is not shared (limiting joint attention) and both subtle facial expressions and full bodily gestures may not be captured. Without the help of these unconscious cues on which we have relied since infancy to socioemotionally assess each other and bond, compensatory cognitive and emotional effort is required. In addition, this increased cost competes for people’s attention with acutely elevated distractions such as multitasking, the home environment (eg, family, lack of privacy), and their mirror image on the screen. Simply put, videoconferences can be associated with low reward and high cost.
The info is here.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Inference from explanation.
(2020, May 22).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x5mqc
Abstract
What do we learn from a causal explanation? Upon being told that "The fire occurred because a lit match was dropped", we learn that both of these events occurred, and that there is a causal relationship between them. However, causal explanations of the kind "E because C" typically disclose much more than what is explicitly stated. Here, we offer a communication-theoretic account of causal explanations and show specifically that explanations can provide information about the extent to which a cited cause is normal or abnormal, and about the causal structure of the situation. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that people infer the normality of a cause from an explanation when they know the underlying causal structure. In Experiment 2, we show that people infer the causal structure from an explanation if they know the normality of the cited cause. We find these patterns both for scenarios that manipulate the statistical and prescriptive normality of events. Finally, we consider how the communicative function of explanations, as highlighted in this series of experiments, may help to elucidate the distinctive roles that normality and causal structure play in causal explanation.
Conclusion
In this paper, we investigate the communicative dimensions of explanation, revealing some of the rich and subtle inferences people draw from them. We find that people are able to infer additional information from a causal explanation beyond what was explicitly communicated, such as causal structure and normality of the causes. Our studies show that people make these inferences in part by appeal to what they themselves would judge reasonable to say across different possible scenarios. The overall pattern of judgments and inferences brings us closer to a full understanding of how causal explanations function inhuman discourse and behavior, while also raising new questions concerning the prominent role of norms in causal judgment and the function of causal explanation more broadly.
Editor's Note: This research has significant implications for psychotherapy.
Monday, July 20, 2020
Seven Tips for Maintaining the Frame in Online Therapy
Psychiatric News
Originally published 25 June 20
While we are in the midst of a pandemic, teleconferencing technology can be a source of both stability and insecurity in the therapeutic relationship; on the one hand, it confers the near-miraculous ability to remain connected at a safe distance, while on the other hand it upends the basic conditions under which therapy takes place, like simply being in the same room together.
When striving for continuity in the transition from in-person to online therapy, a possible pitfall is to conserve the verbal elements of therapy and ignore the rest. This is counterproductive since the nonverbal aspects of therapy have an arguably greater impact on patients, and without them words can be ineffectual. The set of nonverbal conditions that engender trust, confidence, and security in patients and allow the words of therapy to be effective is called the therapeutic frame. The following tips are meant to help maintain the therapeutic frame during this precarious time, specifically in the transition from the office to the screen.
1. Create some distance: One way to preserve a familiar and comfortable frame is to observe personal space online as one would in the office. It would feel awkward, intrusive, and exhausting to sit four feet away from a patient and stare directly into her face for an hour straight in the office, yet we do that regularly online. Perhaps we are compensating for feeling distant in other ways or perhaps we simply can’t see or hear very well. It’s ok to back up, and some technological modifications can help (see tip #3). The extra space might allow both parties to feel less self-conscious and more at ease, less focused on maintaining a perfect affect and more on the therapy.
2. Body language matters: Here’s another reason to back off the camera a bit: Expanding the field of vision to include not just facial expressions but also upper-body language (for example, hand gestures, posture, distance modulation) has been shown to increase empathy measures, according to David T. Nguyen and John Canny in the article “More Than Face-to-Face: Empathy Effects of Video Framing.” Experiment with this. Sit back, expand the visual frame, move, and gesture as you would in person—find what feels connective and go with it. In addition to camera distance, the angle matters too; if the lens is positioned at a height lower than your eyes it may appear to your patients that you are looking down on them. Stack some books under your monitor to avoid the impression of being overbearing or aloof.
The info is here.
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Empathy is both a trait and a skill. Here's how to strengthen it.
CNN.com
Originally posted 24 June 20
Here is an excerpt:
Types of empathy
Empathy is more about looking for a common humanity, while sympathy entails feeling pity for someone's pain or suffering, Konrath said.
"Whereas empathy is the ability to perceive accurately what another person is feeling, sympathy is compassion or concern stimulated by the distress of another," Lerner said. "A common example of empathy is accurately detecting when your child is afraid and needs encouragement. A common example of sympathy is feeling sorry for someone who has lost a loved one."
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A "common mistake is to leap into sympathy before empathically understanding what another person is feeling," Lerner said. Two types of empathy can prevent that relationship blunder.
Emotional empathy, sometimes called compassion, is more intuitive and involves care and concern for others.
Cognitive empathy requires effort and more systematic thinking, so it may lead to more empathic accuracy, Lerner said. It entails considering others' and their perspectives and imagining what it's like to be them, Konrath added.
Some work managers and colleagues, for example, have had to practice empathy for parents juggling remote work with child care and virtual learning duties, said David Anderson, senior director of national programs and outreach at the Child Mind Institute…. But since the outset of the pandemic in March, that empathy has faded — reflecting the notion that cognitive empathy does take effort.
It takes work to interpret what someone is feeling by all of his cues: facial expressions, tones of voice, posture, words and more. Then you have to connect those cues with what you know about him and the situation in order to accurately infer his feelings.
"This kind of inference is a highly complex social-cognitive task" that might involve a variation of mental processes, Lerner said.
The info is here.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Want To See Your Therapist In-Person Mid-Pandemic? Think Again
Forbes.com
Originally posted 27 June 20
Here is an excerpt:
Psychotherapy is built on a promise; you bring your suffering to this private place and I will work with you to keep you safe and help you heal. That promise is changed by necessary viral precautions. First, the possibility of contact tracing weakens the promise of confidentiality. I promise to keep this private changes to a promise to keep it private unless someone gets sick and I need to contact the local health department.
Even more powerful is the fact that a mid-pandemic in-person psychotherapy promise has to include all the ways we will protect each other from very real dangers, hardly the experience of psychological safety. There will even be a promise to pretend we are safe together even when we are doing so many things to remind us we are each the source of a potentially life-altering infection.
When I imagine how my caseload would react were I to begin mid-pandemic in-person work, like I did for a recent webinar for the NYS Psychological Association, I anticipate as many people welcoming the chance to work together on a shared project of viral safety as I do imagining those who would feel devastated or burdened. But even for the first group of willing co-participants, it is important to see that such a joint project of mutual safety is not psychotherapy. No anticipated reaction included the experience of psychological safety on which effective psychotherapy rests.
Rather than feeling safe enough to address the private and dark, patients/clients will each in their own way labor under the burden of keeping themselves, their families, their therapist, other patients, and office staff safe. The vigilance required to remain safe will inevitably reduce the therapeutic benefits one might hope would develop from being back in the office.
The article is here.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
What To Do If You Need to See Patients In Office?
If you are a mental health professional who continues to see (some) patients in the office because of patient needs, the following chart may be helpful.
To protect my patients, I imagine I am a carrier, even though I have no way of knowing because our government lacks the capacity for adequate COVID-19 testing.
Friday, May 1, 2020
The therapist's dilemma: Tell the whole truth?
J. Clin. Psychol. 2020; 76: 286– 291.
https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22895
Abstract
Honest communication between therapist and client is foundational to good psychotherapy. However, while past research has focused on client honesty, the topic of therapist honesty remains almost entirely untouched. Our lab's research seeks to explore the role of therapist honesty, how and why therapists make decisions about when to be completely honest with clients (and when to abstain from telling the whole truth), and the perceived consequences of these decisions. This article reviews findings from our preliminary research, presents a case study of the author's honest disclosure dilemma, and discusses the role of therapeutic tact and its function in the therapeutic process.
Here is an excerpt:
Based on our preliminary research, one of the most common topics of overt dishonesty among therapists was their feelings of frustration or disappointment toward their clients. For example, a therapist working with a client with a diagnosis of avoidant personality disorder may find herself increasingly frustrated by the client’s continual resistance to discussing emotional topics or engaging in activities that would broaden his or her world. Such a client —let’s assume male—is also likely to feel preoccupied with concerns about whether the therapist “likes” him or feels as frustrated with him as he does with himself. Should this client apologize for his behavior and ask if the therapist is frustrated with him, the therapist may feel compelled to reduce the discomfort he is already experiencing by dispelling his concern: “No, it’s okay, I’m not frustrated.”
But either at this moment or at a later point in therapy, once rapport (i.e., the therapeutic alliance) has been more firmly established, a more honest answer to this question might be fruitful: “Yes, I am feeling frustrated that we haven’t been able to find ways for you to implement the changes we discuss here, outside of session. How does it feel for you to hear that I am feeling frustrated?” Or, arguably, an even more honest answer: “Yes, I am sometimes frustrated. I sometimes think we could go deeper here—I think it’d be helpful.” Or, an honest answer that is somewhat less critical of the patient and more self‐focused: “I do feel frustrated that I haven’t been able to be more helpful.” Clearly, there are many ways for a therapist to be honest and/or dishonest, and there are also gradations in whichever direction a therapist chooses.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Difficult Conversations: Navigating the Tension between Honesty and Benevolence
PsyArXiv
Originally published 18 Jul 19
Abstract
Difficult conversations are a necessary part of everyday life. To help children, employees, and partners learn and improve, parents, managers, and significant others are frequently tasked with the unpleasant job of delivering negative news and critical feedback. Despite the long-term benefits of these conversations, communicators approach them with trepidation, in part, because they perceive them as involving intractable moral conflict between being honest and being kind. In this article, we review recent research on egocentrism, ethics, and communication to explain why communicators overestimate the degree to which honesty and benevolence conflict during difficult conversations, document the conversational missteps people make as a result of this erred perception, and propose more effective conversational strategies that honor the long-term compatibility of honesty and benevolence. This review sheds light on the psychology of moral tradeoffs in conversation, and provides practical advice on how to deliver unpleasant information in ways that improve recipients’ welfare.
From the Summary:
Difficult conversations that require the delivery of negative information from communicators to targets involve perceived moral conflict between honesty and benevolence. We suggest that communicators exaggerate this conflict. By focusing on the short-term harm and unpleasantness associated with difficult conversations, communicators fail to realize that honesty and benevolence are actually compatible in many cases. Providing honest feedback can help a target to learn and grow, thereby improving the target’s overall welfare. Rather than attempting to resolve the honesty-benevolence dilemma via communication strategies that focus narrowly on the short-term conflict between honesty and emotional harm, we recommend that communicators instead invoke communication strategies that integrate and maximize both honesty and benevolence to ensure that difficult conversations lead to long-term welfare improvements for targets. Future research should explore the traits, mindsets, and contexts that might facilitate this approach. For example, creative people may be more adept at integrative solutions to the perceived honesty-dilemma conflict, and people who are less myopic and more cognizant of the future consequences of their choices may be better at recognizing the long-term benefits of honesty.
The info is here.
This research has relevance to psychotherapy.