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From its very beginnings, British and American common law have attempted to deal with the mind-state of perpetrators of crime. This has taken various procedural and statutory forms that have often been characterized by confusion and contradictions in purpose. Clarification of the psychological and legal issues may assist in bringing the criminal treatment process to a more rational basis.
A population survey before the start of the Changing Minds campaign showed that negative opinions about people with mental illnesses were widely held, and that opinions about different disorders differed in important ways. We repeated the survey 5 years later, when the campaign had ended. Interviews were again conducted with a representative population sample (1725 interviews; response rate 65%), enquiring about demographic variables, about eight opinions concerning seven common mental disorders, and whether the respondents knew anyone with one of these mental disorders. The pattern of response in this second survey resembled that in the first. However, there were significant changes. Though often small, apart from reported opinions concerning treatment and outcome, they were all reductions in the percentages of stigmatizing opinions. Seventy seven percent of respondents reported knowing someone with one of the seven disorders. Those who did so in respect of severe depression or panic and phobias were less likely to have stigmatizing opinions about people with the corresponding disorder, but the same did not apply to the other disorders. The greatest proportion of negative opinions was in the 16-19 year age group, and respondents with higher education were less likely than the rest to express such views. We conclude that stigmatizing opinions are frequent in the community but the various disorders are not stigmatized in the same way. Campaigns to reduce stigma should take account of these differences, and of the need to address young people.
Behavioural disturbance following TBI is common. Theory of mind(ToM) deficits have been noted in autism where difficulties with social interaction and communication are evident. It was hypothesised that TBI patients with behavioural disturbance would show deficits on ToM tasks independent of executive function. Twenty TBI patients with behavioural disturbance and 20 TBI patients without were assessed on verbal (stories) and non-verbal (cartoons) ToM tasks,standard psychometry, and measures of executive function.TBI patients were unimpaired on the ToM tasks. Both groups were unimpaired on standard tests of executive function (verbal fluency and trail making test) but were impaired on the Behavioural Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS). Groups did not differ significantly on these tests. It is concluded that ToM ability does not predict behavioural disturbance and may be independent of executive functioning.
Since 1988, the family practice department of the Brussels Free University organizes Balint minded workshops for second cycle finishing students. The context, the frame, the goals, the results, the limits are described.
The application of theories of complexity to the study of cognition has only recently started but it has already caused high expectations and controversies. Currently an extensive evaluation of the theoretical status of these theories does not exist. In an attempt to fill in that gap, this text develops a meta-theoretical analysis that presents a reconstruction of the theories of complexity applied to cognition, establishing their theoretical status, conceptual cores, basic assumptions and explanation strategies. Freeman's theory of cerebral chaos will be analyzed first. Then a meta-theory generalization to neuro-cognitive theories will be presented. It will be sustained that the central theoretical core of cognitive complexity theories are based on the metaphor of the mind, the brain or cognition as a dynamic system, founded a time-space topology. The framework of this study is based on ontology of processes and an ontological pluralism. The explicative strategies are supported by emergentistic approaches and nomological derivation based on mathematical laws. The prototypes of the theory are strongly backed up by computer simulations. This paper concludes by suggesting the existence of two antagonical perspectives (universalistic and pluralistic) in the core of these theories.
The term "theory of mind" (ToM) refers to the capacity to infer one's own and other persons' mental states (e.g. their beliefs, feelings, intentions or knowledge). It was found that children in the autistic spectrum have deficits in ToM. One of the suggestions was that unlike autistic people, ToM skills are normally developed in schizophrenia patients, but "lost" in the first psychotic episode. The deficit may disappear on remission from the acute phase, as described in some studies. A substantial body of research has highlighted the impaired ToM in schizophrenia. There is good empirical evidence that ToM is specifically impaired in schizophrenia and that many psychotic symptoms--for instance, delusions of alien control and persecution, the presence of thought and language disorganization, and other behavioral symptoms--may best be understood in light of a disturbed capacity in patients to relate their own intentions to executing behavior, and to monitor others' intentions. However, it is still under debate how an impaired ToM in schizophrenia is associated with other aspects of cognition, how the impairment fluctuates with acuity or chronicity of the schizophrenic disorder, and if it is a state or trate marker. The paper reviews the current literature and suggests potential implications and future research areas.
A case-control study was carried out to determine the child-minding practices and their relationships with nutritional status of children between 6 and 12 months old. Sixty-five percent of the mothers go to the farm and 25 percent of, them bring their children with them. Only 42.8 percent of the children were looked after by their mothers. The odds of being malnourished were greater among children who were not looked after by their mothers. It is suggested that nutrition education be given in the village so that the other child-minders can benefit from it.
There is an interrelationship between the mind, body and emotions in the fight against cancer. Stress seems to play a key role in the generation and continuation of cancer and there appear to be cancer-prone personality patterns associated with the propagation of increased stress levels. Psychological intervention methods have been developed to help patients cope, and the health care team can make a difference.
2 experiments examined children's understanding of the expression of speaker certainty and uncertainty and its relation to their developing theory of mind. In the first experiment, 80 children between 3 and 6 years of age were presented with a task in which they had to guess the location of an object hidden in 1 of 2 boxes. As clues to location, the children were presented with contrasting pairs of statements by 2 puppets. Different trials contained all of the possible pairwise combinations of either the modal verbs must, might, and could or the modal adjuncts probably, possibly, and maybe. Results showed that while 3-year-olds did not differentiate between any of the modal contrasts presented, 4-year-olds and older children were able to find the hidden object on the basis of what they heard. Performance was best for contrasts involving a highly certain term (either must or probably) paired with a less certain term (might, could, possibly, and maybe). Experiment 2 was designed to determine whether competence with modal terms was related to competence with mental terms in the same task, and whether performance on the certainty task was related to other aspects of the child's understanding of the nature of beliefs. 26 4-year-olds were presented with the certainty task, involving both modal and mental terms, and with tasks assessing their understanding of false beliefs, representational change, and the appearance-reality distinction. Results showed that all of these tasks were intercorrelated, implying that what may develop at 4 years of age may be a general understanding of the representational nature of belief.
This paper presents a proposal regarding a concept of mind-body relationships which can be employed in clinical psychosomatics. Taking into account advances in the empirical sciences, it is termed nominalistic or constructivistic correspondence theory. Arguments are developed on the basis of several assertions: a) The "problem" has shifted from an ontologic to an epistemologic one; b) Psychical and somatic spheres are ways of dealing with experiences of an observer-agent which constitute "theories" to account for them; c) Both domains exhibit causal regularities, albeit of a different nature, and their elements show a "semiotic correspondence", not a material interaction. Their bonds stem from relational constructs developed in action, interaction and reflection. The discourses so created can be integrated into theories dealing with clinical phenomena. Differences between the outlined approach and others are pointed out, along with some of its advantages, shortcomings, and applications.
E. G. Schmidt criticizes my critique of the wholist-emergentist solution for the mind-body problem. Against my repudiation he proposes an emergentist system theory solution apparently solving the so-called Bieri trilemma. I contend that his solution falsely introduces "psychogenic" causality into the wholist-emergentistic theory.
In medical discoveries, two elements may be distinguished: (1) the state of science and the available methods and tools of research at a given moment, and (2) the personal and original intellectual achievement. The relative importance of these two factors is discussed in the light of historical examples. It is apparently rare that a discovery results more or less automatically from a given state of science and research (as in the case of insulin). Nearly always the personality of the research worker turns out to be the determinant factor. Essential traits of this personality are an independent mind capable of liberating itself from dogmatic tenets universally accepted by the scientific community; the capacity and courage to look at things from a new angle; powers of combination, intuition and imagination; feu sacré and perseverance--in short, intellectual as well as moral qualities. The personality of a great scientific discoverer, furthermore, integrates the spirit of his epoch into his individuality. About half the research workers considered here were aged below 35 at the time of their discoveries. The author therefore hopes that our universities will, in the future, provide opportunities for young research workers as well as for somewhat older individualists.
Although Freud's neurological education had a great impact on his thinking, a review of Freud's early writings reveals that: (1) Freud adhered to a mind-body interactionist position that was not in accord with the mechanistic neurology of his medical school education; (2) Freud saw psychical processes as intentional, not completely determined by mechanical brain processes--but interactive with them; (3) Freud made functional and psychological interpretations freely without accepting a need to "neurologize" his psychological insights by providing specific neuroanatomical or neurophysiological correlates for such interpretations; and (4) Freud sought the organic base for his evolving psychology in sexual physiology, not neuroanatomy or neurophysiology.
Psychological and biological components of psychiatric illness must be integrated to avoid the perils of reductionism in diagnosis and treatment. With the decline of dualism, a number of creative thinkers have conceptualized the mind-body problem in a manner that values perspectives derived from psychoanalytic thinking as well as from the neurosciences. Similarly, modern studies of the etiology and pathogenesis of major psychiatric disorders suggest that only through a sophisticated synthesis of psychosocial and genetic/biochemical points of view can causation be comprehensively understood. In light of this accumulating knowledge, the author concludes that treatment must be informed by psychotherapeutic approaches as well as by pharmacotherapy.
New conceptualizations of the so-called "mind/body problem" have resulted from research findings in psychoneuroimmunology, from theoretical speculations of the postmodernists, and from an examination of other cultural perspectives on "mind" and "body". The interaction between the two may lead to a wholistic perspective not unlike the one proposed by humanistic psychologists and appearing in their journals, their conferences, and their clinical practice.
Although the roots of the Mind-Mapping approach (MMA) reach back into the depths of psychology, it is our growing understanding of the human brain, how it functions, what affects it, how we can assist it--which has become the real foundation for the model discussed in this paper. By finding ways of creating environments that are brain compatible--or rather--brain enhancing, we can begin to serve the whole person in all his dimensions. In this paper the need for language and culture "free" therapeutic techniques will be discussed. Reference is made to the author's research where the MMA was used very successfully with a closed head injured (CHI) client in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique. The problem of CHI is also discussed. In addition, a brief theoretical review of the brain as it pertains to the concept of the MMA is offered. In the conclusion, it is suggested that global techniques such as the MMA, which are based on fundamental and universal principles, are the route to finding language and culture "free" techniques.
Recent physiological studies of the human mind-brain lend support to the theory of object relations, and in particular to the manner in which the object of the early period enters the infant's dawning psyche to elicit a perdurable pattern of both positive and negative response to stimuli. The psychoanalytic concept of reactivation, and the psychoanalytic view of language as (in part) a substitute for the absent object, are linked with specific cerebral mechanisms to disclose the bodily realities that underlie emotive disturbance.
A experiments investigated children's understanding of the mind-body distinction. Children of ages 4 and 5 recognized not only the differential modifiability of changeable versus unchangeable human properties and bodily versus mental properties, but also the independence of activities of bodily organs from a person's intention (Experiment 1). When presented 3 types of causal explanations (i.e., intentional, vitalistic, mechanical), 6-year-olds chose most often as most plausible for bodily functions vitalistic explanations (i.e., those ascribing the phenomena to a relevant bodily organ's initiative and effortful engagement in activity); 8-year-olds chose the vitalistic explanations second most often, following mechanical ones (Experiment 2). However, 6-year-olds, as well as 8-year-olds and adults, did not always choose vitalistic explanations over intentional explanations (Experiment 3); whereas they tended to prefer vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena, they predominantly accepted intentional ones for psychological phenomena (Experiment 3A). These results suggest that children as young as 6 years of age have acquired a form of biology as an autonomous domain which is separate from that of psychology.