Michael R. Nash

Long-term sequelae of childhood sexual abuse : perceived family environment, psychopathology, and dissociation

In this study, 105 abused and nonabused women were examined for patterns of adult psychopathology associated with childhood sexual abuse and to test the extent to which these patterns are independent of other pathogenic properties of the family environment. Clinical and nonclinical Ss completed the Family Environment Scale, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Rorschach, and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale. Greater nonspecific impairment among abused women may be a consequence, at least in part, of pathogenic family structure rather than sexual abuse per se. However, MMPI and Rorschach responses suggest sexual abuse may render victims especially vulnerable to specific disturbances i involving soma and self. Abuse was associated with greater use of dissociation, but covariance analysis revealed this effect to be accounted for by family pathology. There was no evidence that sexual trauma is associated with hypnotizability.

Clinical Practice as Natural Laboratory for Psychotherapy Research: A Guide to Case-Based Time-Series Analysis.

Both researchers and practitioners need to know more about how laboratory treatment protocols translate to real-world practice settings and how clinical innovations can be systematically tested and communicated to a skeptical scientific community. The single-case time-series study is well suited to opening a productive discourse between practice and laboratory. The appeal of case-based time-series studies, with multiple observations both before and after treatment, is that they enrich our design palette by providing the discipline another way to expand its empirical reach to practice settings and its subject matter to the contingencies of individual change. This article is a users guide to conducting empirically respectable case-based time-series studies in a clinical practice or laboratory setting.

Individual differences in imagination inflation.

Garry, Manning, Loftus, and Sherman (1996) found that when adult subjects imagined childhood events, these events were subsequently judged as more likely to have occurred than were not-imagined events. The authors termed this effectimagination inflation. We replicated the effect, using a novel set of Life Events Inventory events. Further, we tested whether the effect is related to four subject characteristics possibly associated with false memory creation. The extent to which subjects inflated judged likelihood following imagined events was associated with indices of hypnotic suggestibility and dissociativity, but not with vividness of imagery or interrogative suggestibility. Results suggest that imagination plays a role in subsequent likelihood judgments regarding childhood events, and that some individuals are more likely than others to experience imagination inflation.

Comparing Recollective Experience in True and False Autobiographical Memories

This study investigated whether true autobiographical memories are qualitatively distinct from false autobiographical memories using a variation of the interview method originally reported by E. F. Loftus and J. Pickrell (1995). Participants recalled events provided by parents on 3 separate occasions and were asked to imagine true and false unremembered events. True memories were rated by both participants and observers as more rich in recollective experience and were rated by participants as more important, more emotionally intense, as having clearer imagery, and as less typical than false memories. Rehearsal frequency was used as a covariate, eliminating these effects. Imagery in true memories was most often viewed from the field perspective, whereas imagery in false memories was most often viewed from the observer perspective. More information was communicated in true memories, and true memories contained more information concerning the consequences of described events. Results suggest repeated remembering can make false memories more rich in recollective experience and more like true memories. Differences between true and false memories suggest some potentially distinct characteristics of false memories and provide insight into the process of false memory creation.

A validity study of two projective object representations measures.

Two projective measures of object representations, the Concept of the Object on the Rorschach (H. Rorchach, 1942) and the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scales (D. Westen, 1993) were compared with each other, with measures of intelligence (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised; D. Wechsler, 1981), and measures of pathology (Millon Clinical Multiavial Inventory [T. Millon, 1983], Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory [S. R. Hathaway & J. McKinley, 1983] Axis II diagnoses). Analyses focused on the construct validity of object representations and the implications of structural and affective aspects of object representations for psychopathology. Results support the construct validity of object representations and an affective, but not a cognitive-structural, linkage between object representations and pathology.

What, if Anything, is Regressed About Hypnotic Age Regression? A Review of the Empirical Literature

The concept of psychological regression is an important one for the fields of developmental and clinical psychology. Many have cited the dramatic and seemingly compelling childlike performances of hypnotically age-regressed individuals as evidence that under some circumstances, it is possible for an individual to return to a developmentally previous mode of psychological functioning. la the present article, I review 60 years of empirical studies that have investigated whether there is a reinstatement of childhood psychological or physiological faculties during hypnotic age regression, Results suggest that if regression is defined as the extent to which hypnotized subjects conform to childhood norms and control subjects do not, then the mental and physiological activity of hypnotically age-regressed subjects is not regressed; it appears to be essentially adult Although findings might be more compatible with a broader definition of regression as the appearance of primitive mentation or the use of less sequential modes of information processing during hypnosis, there is no evidence for a literal reinstatement of childhood functioning during hypnotic-age-regression procedures.

The Four Causes of Hypnosis

Aristotle’s model of comprehension involves the description of a phenomenon and identification of its efficient causes (triggers), material cause (substrate), formal cause (models of structure), and final cause (function). This causal analysis provides a framework for understanding hypnosis and the hypnotic state. States are constellations of parameters within specified ranges; they name, but do not explain, a phenomenon. Concerns about reification of states arematters of semantics and pragmatics, not ontology. Isolation of efficient causes (e.g., procedure, context, social variables) is but one component of understanding. Experimental, technical, andconceptual advanceshavecarried us into a century where the substrates and functions of hypnosismay be represented in synoptic theories that comprise all 4 causes of hypnosis.

Therapeutic Assessment for Preadolescent Boys with Oppositional Defiant Disorder: A Replicated Single-Case Time-Series Design.

The Therapeutic Assessment (TA) model is a relatively new treatment approach that fuses assessment and psychotherapy. The study examines the efficacy of this model with preadolescent boys with oppositional defiant disorder and their families. A replicated single-case time-series design with daily measures is used to assess the effects of TA and to track the process of change as it unfolds. All 3 families benefitted from participation in TA across multiple domains of functioning, but the way in which change unfolded was unique for each family. These findings are substantiated by the Behavior Assessment System for Children (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004). The TA model is shown to be an effective treatment for preadolescent boys with oppositional defiant disorder and their families. Further, the time-series design of this study illustrated how this empirically grounded case-based methodology reveals when and how change unfolds during treatment in a way that is usually not possible with other research designs.

The Importance of Being Earnest When Crafting Definitions: Science and Scientism Are not the Same Thing

Abstract The APA Division 30 definition of hypnosis is laudable in some respects. For instance, the committee rightly defines the “induction” as nothing more or less than the first suggestion after the introduction. However, the definition stumbles over its nonposition on whether the word hypnosis must be uttered during the procedure. This equivocation invites research designs that preemptively define a hypnotic group and a control group in terms of whether or not the word hypnosis is used in the protocol. These designs represent a backslide into naive operationism; they reveal little new about human nature or hypnosis. The field deserves an optimally heuristic definition that preserves pluralism and is relatively resistant to the teflon shield of preemptive definition. Researchers and practioners require a definition that recognizes the incompleteness of our concepts, generates a level epistemological playing field, and enables hypnosis theories to “reach.” The author is grateful for the comments of Auke Tellegen, Ph.D., and Peter Killeen, Ph.D., on earlier drafts of this work. Indeed, Drs. Tellegen and Killeen influenced every aspect of this paper—they continue to be an enduring inspiration.

Characteristics of Sexual Abuse Associated with Greater Psychological Impairment among Children.

The psychiatric histories and projective test responses of 102 sexually abused girls (ages 5 to 16) were examined to determine if some particular characteristics of sexual abuse were reliably associated with more serious impairment. Characteristics of abuse significantly associated with greater psychological disturbance were: more than one perpetrator, an early age of abuse onset (before age 7 or 8), and periods of intense and frequent abuse episodes (more than 3 or 4 times per month). What enhanced the childs capacity to recover was the presence of a relatively stable two-parent household. Implications for prognosis and treatment are discussed.