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We currently struggle to create satisfying intimate or close relationships, something we yearn for but often fail to achieve in our evolving world culture. With our changing concepts of and demands on close relationships, we need new ways to understand what facilitates satisfying close relationships. In this book, a new theory, called postformal thought, is presented, along with previously unpublished related studies and research approaches and the idea that complex cognition is useful for co-constructing satisfying intimate relationships. The personal relational aspects of relationships as well as cultural, historical, and social factors are combined to give a big-picture view of cognitive aspects of thriving close relationships. The book rests on 30 years of research in adult cognitive development and on other recent empirical research conducted by the author and others. Cases are presented to illustrate the thinking of persons in close and satisfying relationships. Future research and applications are suggested in the final section of the book.

Chapters in this volume reflect, to one degree or another, eight critical aspects of contemporary research attempting to understand the etiologic processes that heighten risk or resilience factors for substance use disorders: (1) a focus on systemic frameworks for understanding developmental process, (2) the heterogeneity of developmental pathways, (3) the role of genes and epigenetic–experience transactions, (4) risk cumulative/cascade models of the effects of exposure to adverse childhood experiences, (5) negotiating developmental transitional periods, (6) neurobiological embodiment of adverse childhood experiences, (7) links between alcohol use disorder and tobacco addictive behaviors, and (8) longitudinal studies and data analysis within and between studies.

This book focuses on the relationship between basic research in emotion and emotional dysfunction in depression and anxiety. Each chapter is authored by a scientist who looks at both psychological and biological implications of research relevant to psychiatrists and psychologists. Following each chapter is a commentary that raises questions, illuminates connections with other bodies of work, and provides points of integration across different research traditions. Topics range from stress, cognitive functioning, and personality to affective style and behavioral inhibition, and the book as a whole has implications for understanding and treating anxiety disorders.

This book explores the relationship between key methodological debates in social research and the special context of studies concerning deaf/D people(s). The book is organized around seven topics: being d/Deaf as a site of contested identity and representation; epistemology and the boundaries of claims for population specific and plural epistemologies; ethics and the implications of collective identity on standard ethical principles and practices; populations and sampling given the highly heterogeneous nature of d/Deaf people(s); narrative methodologies re-examined in light of the visual nature of sign language; interpretation, translation and transcription and the context of multiple modalities; and information and communication technologies as transformative epistemologies. Through these themes, new aspects of old debates within social research become evident, and the book challenges specialist field of studies by, with, and about d/Deaf people. Throughout, the book shows how the field provides challenges to established ways of thinking and working. This book is of interest to scholars within and outside of research concerning d/Deaf people(s), as well as practitioners in the fields of deaf education, social work and allied health professions.

Community psychology emphasizes an ecological approach to mental health by focusing on the individual in the environment and the influences that shape and change behavior. This book brings together the work of the author, one of the founders of community psychology. It unites 13 of his publications from 1968 to 2002, as well as four new essays on current issues in the field: the theory, research, practice, and education of community psychologists. The author introduces the work by offering connections between his personal experiences and the topics he chose to focus on throughout his long career. He begins each of the 13 previously published essays with commentary that sets the article in its original context so that the reader has a historical perspective on why certain ideas were salient at a particular time and how they are still timely today. The author concludes with a “summing up” section integrating the previously published articles with the four new essays. Throughout, he presents examples of how to plan and carry out research and practice in the community. The principles underlying the examples both enhance the relevance of the research and practice and increase the potential of community residents to use the findings for their own purposes.

This book argues that forgiveness has been accepted as a therapeutic strategy without serious, critical examination. It hopes to provide a closer, critical look at some of these questions: why is forgiveness so popular now? What exactly does it entail? When might it be appropriate for a therapist not to advise forgiveness? When is forgiveness in fact harmful? It includes many previously unpublished chapters by both philosophers and psychologists that examine what is at stake for those who are injured, those who injure them, and society in general when such a practice becomes commonplace. These chapters offer cautionary tales about forgiveness therapy, while others paint complex portraits of the social, cultural, and philosophical factors that come into play with forgiveness. The value of this volume lies not only in its presentation of a nuanced view of this therapeutic trend, but also as a general critique of psychotherapy, and as a valuable testimony of the theoretical and practical possibilities of an interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophy and clinical psychology.

Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) is a brief psychodynamic psychotherapy developed for the treatment of mood disorders. It is being rolled out as part of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative as the psychodynamic model for the treatment of depression. This book is a practical guide for the implementation of a brief psychodynamic intervention in routine clinical practice as well as in research protocols. It sets out clearly the theoretical framework, as well as the rationale and strategies for applying DIT with patients presenting with mood disorders (depression and anxiety). Throughout, it is illustrated with examples that help with implementing the approach in practice.

We have assembled an interdisciplinary group of distinguished authors—all experts in the field—who have been testing the efficacy of cognitive and working-memory training using a combination of behavioral, neuroimaging, meta-analytic, and computational modelling methods. This edited volume is a defining resource on the practicality, utility, and validity of the field of cognitive training research in general, and working memory training in particular. Importantly, one focus of the book is on the notion of transfer-namely, the extent to which cognitive training generalizes to learning and performance measures that were decidedly not part of the training regimen.

Community Power and Empowerment is the most comprehensive treatment of empowerment theory to date. The book begins by situating empowerment with regard to community power, thereby addressing a long-standing ambiguity within empowerment theory, research, and practice. Next, chapters examine psychological, organizational, and community aspects of empowerment processes. A new orienting framework for studying and comparing community empowerment processes is developed. The outcomes and impacts of empowerment processes are specified across multiple pathways. Finally, the book provides recommendations for integrating research and practice to achieve the goals of empowerment: building and exercising social power for systemic change and improving community well-being.

This volume explores the field of community mental health from the perspective of community psychology. The focus of the book is on the transformation of the field of mental health from professional practice rooted in a biomedical model to a new approach based on community psychology values and the principles of ecology, collaboration, empowerment, and social justice. The book is divided into several sections: theoretical perspectives, consumer participation, practice, community inclusion, social conditions, and social policy. The book outlines a conceptual and historical framework for understanding and promoting transformative change in the first two chapters, and it synthesizes the lessons learned from the chapters and indicates directions for the future of transformative change in community mental health in the final chapter.

The goal of Diverse Careers in Community Psychology is to (1) highlight the diversity of career options for someone with community psychology training; (2) provide details about the different types of careers (e.g., tasks involved, benefits and challenges, salary range, and so on); and (3) list the steps one can take to develop skills and position oneself for such a career. This text provides a better understanding of the diverse career options available for people who train in community psychology (CP), and how the CP competencies are put into practice across the full spectrum of job titles and career paths that a community psychologist might follow. The book includes 23 chapters authored by 30 different community psychologists with various backgrounds, interests, and areas of expertise, who provide examples of what it is like to work in their settings. The book also includes a summary of a first-of-its-kind career survey of over four hundred individuals in the field. It is our hope that this text will help current, prospective, and former students in community psychology and related fields, as well as professionals interested in expanding or changing their careers, to find an ideal career path.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of human diversity by examining how issues of race, ethnicity, disability, religion, and sexual orientation affect daily interactions. With the increased awareness of cultural diversity, chapters focus the reader on the many factors to consider in our ever-expanding society. Rather than adopting an elaborately theoretical style to explore these issues, the chapters address the question of interaction in a clear and accessible style. Each chapter, written by a leading scholar in the field, presents a different perspective on how appreciating and understanding human variety can enhance the quality of interactions between social groups.

Awareness of violence against women has never been greater, yet rates of such violence persist at jaw-dropping levels. In Every 90 Seconds, Dr. Anne P. DePrince argues that to end violence against women, we must fundamentally redefine how we engage with the problem—starting by abandoning the idea that awareness is enough to cause change or that such acts are someone else’s problem. Instead, she argues that we must come to see that we share a common interest in ending violence against women, which diminishes individuals and communities. DePrince traces the links between violence against women and the most important public health and economic issues of our time, including healthcare, education, and legal system reform as well as gun control and immigration. Drawing on research from her own work as well as across disciplines, DePrince explains how violence against women directly and daily affects each of us. In a call to action, the author offers new ways to work together to restore and ensure dignity, fairness, opportunity, and safety for women, girls, and our communities. The book is organized around the connections between violence against women and challenges facing the United States in terms of healthcare (Chapter 1), gun violence (Chapter 2), education access and success (Chapter 3), immigration policy (Chapter 4), economic justice (Chapter 5), and legal system reform (Chapter 6).

The subject of the book is the culture of crisis and controversy that exists in contemporary mental health research, following the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and the National Institute of Mental Health’s declaration of it as unfit for guiding research in psychiatry. The book explores both the nature and sources of the crisis as well as whether and, if so, how, it can be overcome. It brings together a collection of original articles that develop and apply various analytical ideas and strategies from the philosophy of science, and from other relevant areas of philosophy and science, with the aim of clarifying some aspects of the current crisis and the associated extraordinary science. The themes of the chapters include understanding the research domain of mental illness, clarifying the nature of the problems that constitute the current crisis, identifying key substantive and methodological assumptions concerning classification and research focused on the domain of mental illness, identifying ideas bearing on how best to respond to the current crisis with respect to the scientific research agenda, and constructively addressing the tension between pursuing a progressive scientific research program concerning mental illness and maintaining a place of prominence for individual persons and their contexts.

This book assembles a group of researchers to discuss the origins, development, and outcomes of extreme fear and shyness. By selecting the foremost experts from disparate fields, the editors provide a thorough and timely examination of the subject and present state-of-the-art research for psychologists, neuroscientists, and clinicians interested in the development and outcome of these emotions in mental health. The book is divided into three parts. Part I investigates the development of fear and shyness in childhood; Part II examines the endocrine and neural bases of fear; and Part III provides clinical perspectives. This is one of the only books which covers the development and outcomes of extreme fear and shyness, explains the basic neuroscience of fear, and documents the clinical outcomes of social phobia.

This book presents an early psychoanalyst's session-by-session notes on a case of hysteria caused by severe sexual trauma and incest, offering a vivid portrait of psychoanalytic practice in the second decade of the twentieth century. Accompanying these notes are insightful commentaries by Elizabeth Lunbeck and Bennett Simon that situate the case historically and throw light on the many difficulties that both analyst and patient encountered in the treatment.

The book focuses primarily on the ways in which children and families experiencing the challenges of economic disadvantage use hope as a way to manage and overcome adversity. The author asks important questions relevant to program development and policy. Such questions include “Are we wired to hope?” and “Can friendships ameliorate the effects of problematic parenting styles?” The centerpiece of the book is the interviews with family members who have experienced adversity but have managed to overcome these experiences through the support of targeted programs and evidence-based interventions. In addition, student leaders participating in focus group discussions provide unique perspectives on the important role parents and teachers play in motivating youth to succeed. Finally, the professionals who work with children and families experiencing adversity share their insights and observations on effective intervention approaches and provide insights regarding the roles of culture and spirituality in fostering positive outcomes. Excerpts from these interviews are used to make the research accessible and to help call attention to processes that promote hope and foster resilience.

Anne Treisman has been one of the most influential cognitive psychologists in the last fifty years. She is best known for her work on attention, and she has been especially concerned with the interactions among visual perception, attention, and memory as they relate to conscious and unconscious experience. Her feature integration theory has been one of the organizing ideas in the field for three decades. While still a graduate student at Oxford, she helped launch the modern study of attention. In this book, several of her most influential papers are reprinted (including some of the harder-to-find early work). To accompany these reprints, other experts comment and/or show how their own work has been shaped by Treisman's ideas and findings. The chapters include discussions of auditory and visual attention, the role of features in selection, parallel and serial processing, and automaticity. The roots and evolution of Feature Integration Theory and related models like Guided Search are described, and the chapters explore the interactions of attention and perception at the cognitive, neuropsychological, and biological levels. The chapters consider the critical role of binding in perception, the role of attention in scene perception, as well as the influence of cognitive load, memory, reflection, and perceptual learning on early and late processing. The book shows how methods to study conscious perceptual awareness have evolved over the years.

The functional dialectic system approach to therapy has been widely embraced and is now used internationally, with individuals and couples as well as with families. It differs substantially from the common psychotherapeutic models that have prevailed in the West for more than a century. According to the system model, an individual who is in treatment is not considered to be the primary focus of interest but is seen instead as part of a social context, the network of relationships that play significant roles in his or her life. This book offers a view of the contemporary system approach—from theory to practice—and shows how it can be applied to a variety of psychological problems and in a variety of therapeutic modes. The system approach to therapy concentrates on the present situation of a client, aware that people are always in transition yet seeking order, safety, belonging, and identity. Their behavior is thus goal oriented and functional. The principles of dialectics assert that everything includes its opposite, that there is an ongoing conflict between the poles, and that this inevitable conflict creates pressure that leads to a continuous alteration. These principles show how the system approach is optimistic in its orientation and is designed to help clients change their lives by broadening their understanding of themselves, their situations, and their options.