Yvonne Barnes-Holmes

Mistreatment of Older Women in Three European Countries Estimated Prevalence and Service Responses

Evidence concerning the incidence and nature of abuse of the elderly comes mainly from North America. We explored the experiences of abuse of older women and caretakers in three European countries and investigated services available to abused older women. Just less than 20% of our sample of women older than the age of 59 had experienced some form of financial, psychological, or physical abuse. Of those mistreated, 24% reported abuse ongoing over years, and 39% reported distressing effects persisting for years. European support services are only beginning to focus on this problem, and further research is needed to define the best practices.

Comparison of acceptance and distraction strategies in coping with experimentally induced pain

Background This study compared an acceptance-based strategy with a control-based strategy (distraction) in terms of the ability of participants to tolerate a painful stimulus, across two experiments. In addition, participants were either actively encouraged, or not, to link pain tolerance with pursuit of valued goals to examine the impact of pursuing a personally meaningful goal or value on the extent to which pain will be tolerated. Methods Participants in experiment 1 (n=41) and experiment 2 (n=52) were equally assigned to acceptance or distraction protocols. Further, half the participants in each group generated examples from their own lives in which they had pursued a valued objective, while the other half did not. In experiment 2, the values focus was enhanced to examine the impact on pain tolerance. Results There were no significant differences overall between the acceptance and distraction groups on pain tolerance in either experiment. However, in experiment 2, individuals classified as accepting in terms of general coping style and who were assigned to the acceptance strategy showed significantly better pain tolerance than accepting individuals who were in the distraction condition. Across both experiments, those with strong goal-driven values in both protocols were more tolerant of pain. Participants appeared to have more difficulty adhering to acceptance than to distraction as a strategy. Conclusion Acceptance may be associated with better tolerance of pain, but may also be more difficult to operationalize than distraction in experimental studies. Matching coping style and coping strategy may be most effective, and enhancement of goal-driven values may assist in pain coping.

Persistent Rule-Following in the Face of Reversed Reinforcement Contingencies: The Differential Impact of Direct Versus Derived Rules

Rule-governed behavior and its role in generating insensitivity to direct contingencies of reinforcement have been implicated in human psychological suffering. In addition, the human capacity to engage in derived relational responding has also been used to explain specific human maladaptive behaviors, such as irrational fears. To date, however, very little research has attempted to integrate research on contingency insensitivity and derived relations. The current work sought to fill this gap. Across two experiments, participants received either a direct rule (Direct Rule Condition) or a rule that involved a novel derived relational response (Derived Rule Condition). Provision of a direct rule resulted in more persistent rule-following in the face of competing contingencies, but only when the opportunity to follow the reinforced rule beforehand was relatively protracted. Furthermore, only in the Direct Rule Condition were there significant correlations between rule-compliance and stress. A post hoc interpretation of the findings is provided.

Hearing voices, dissociation and the self: A functional-analytic perspective

ABSTRACT In the current article, we review existing models of the etiology of voice hearing. We summarize the argument and evidence that voice hearing is primarily a dissociative process involving critical aspects of self. We propose a complementary perspective on these phenomena that is based on a modern behavioral account of complex behavior known as relational frame theory. This type of approach to voice hearing concerns itself with the functions served for the individual by this voice hearing; the necessary history, such as trauma, that establishes these functions; and the relevant dissociative processes involving self and others. In short, we propose a trauma–dissociation developmental trajectory in which trauma impacts negatively on the development of self through the process of dissociation. Using the relational frame theory concept of relations of perspective taking, our dissociation model purports that trauma gives rise to more coordination than distinction relations between self and others, thus weakening an individual’s sense of a distinct self. Voice hearing experiences, therefore, reflect an individual’s perceptions of self and others and may indicate impairments in the natural psychological boundaries between these critical related concepts. One clinical implication suggested by this model is that therapeutic intervention should understand the behaviors associated with a sense of self that is fragile and threatened by others. Relations with self and others should be a key focus of therapy as well as interventions designed to enhance a coherent distinct sense of self.

Relational Responding: Testing, Training, and Sequencing Effects among Children with Autism and Typically-developing Children

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) proposes that derived relational responding is crucial to the development of verbal behavior. According to RFT, typically developing children acquire the ability to derive relations through natural language interactions. In contrast, children with autism often do not acquire these skills as readily and require interventions to target their development. Limited research has examined the optimal training context for establishing the core relational skills, such as the sequence in which the relations might be optimally trained. The current research comprised 3 studies to investigate the emergence of specific relational responding repertoires in typically developing children and children with autism. The results demonstrate that the typically developing children had a fluent repertoire of these relational skills, while those with autism demonstrated significant deficits. The results shed some light on the possible role of training sequence.

The Impact of Mindfulness and Perspective-Taking on Implicit Associations Toward the Elderly: a Relational Frame Theory Account

Perspective-taking interventions have been shown to improve attitudes toward social outgroups. In contrast, similar interventions have produced opposite effects (i.e., enhanced negativity) in the context of attitudes toward elderly groups. The current study investigated whether a brief perspective-taking intervention enhanced with mindfulness would be associated with less negativity than perspective-taking alone. One hundred five participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions which comprised of an active or control perspective-taking component and an active or control mindfulness component. Participants were then administered an Implicit Associated Test to assess implicit biases toward the elderly. Results supported previous findings in that the condition in which perspective-taking was active but mindfulness was inactive was associated with greater negative implicit bias toward the elderly; however, some of this negativity decreased in the active perspective-taking and active mindfulness condition. The current findings and other mixed effects that have emerged from perspective-taking interventions are discussed from a Relational Frame Theory perspective.

The impact of high versus low levels of derivation for mutually and combinatorially entailed relations on persistent rule-following

The effects of rules on human behaviour have long been identified as important in the psychological literature. The increasing importance of the dynamics of arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR), with regards to rules, has come to be of particular interest within Relational Frame Theory (RFT). One feature of AARR that previous research has suggested may differentially impact persistent rule-following is level of derivation. However, no published research to date has systematically explored this suggestion. Across two experiments, the impact of levels of derivation was examined on persistent rule-following at two stages of relational development: mutual entailment (Exp. 1) and combinatorial entailment (Exp. 2). A Training IRAP was used to establish a mutually entailed relational network in Experiment 1 and a combinatorially entailed network in Experiment 2, and to train these networks to different levels of derivation. This was followed by a contingency switching Match-to-Sample (MTS) task to assess rule persistence. Results from both experiments were generally consistent with the suggestion that lower levels of derivation produce more persistent rule-following. Unexpectedly, however, the findings from Experiment 1 also indicated that persistence was moderated by the type of novel word employed. Variations in results across both experiments and their implications for future research are discussed.

Using the Teacher IRAP (T-IRAP) interactive computerized programme to teach complex flexible relational responding with children with diagnosed autism spectrum disorder

The research used an alternating-treatments design to compare relational responding for five children with diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in two teaching conditions. Both conditions used applied behavior analysis; one was usual tabletop teaching (TT), and one was an interactive computerized teaching program, the Teacher–Implicit Relational Assessment Programme (T-IRAP; Kilroe, Murphy, Barnes-Holmes, & Barnes-Holmes, Behavioral Development Bulletin, 19(2), 60–80, 2014). Relational skills targeted were coordination (same/different), with nonarbitrary and arbitrary stimuli. Participants’ relational learning outcomes were compared in terms of speed of responding and accuracy (percentage correct) in T-IRAP and TT conditions. Results showed significantly increased speed for all five participants during T-IRAP teaching across all procedures; however, accuracy was only marginally increased during T-IRAP. Pre- and posttraining comparison of participant scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition (Dunn & Dunn, 2007), and the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1990) was conducted. An improvement in raw scores on both measures was evident for one participant who learned complex arbitrary relations; no changes were shown for participants who learned only basic nonarbitrary relations.

Understanding and Remediating Social-Cognitive Dysfunctions in Patients with Serious Mental Illness Using Relational Frame Theory

Impairments in social cognition and perspective-taking play an important role in the psychopathology and social functioning of individuals with social anxiety, autism, or schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, among other clinical presentations. Perspective-taking has mostly been studied using the concept of Theory of Mind (ToM), which describes the sequential development of these skills in young children, as well as clinical populations experiencing perspective-taking difficulties. Several studies mention positive results of ToM based training programs; however, the precise processes involved in the achievement of these improvements are difficult to determine. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is a modern behavioral account of complex cognitive functions, and is argued to provide a more precise approach to the assessment and training of perspective-taking, among other relational skills. Results of RFT-based studies of perspective-taking in developmental and clinical settings are discussed. The development of training methods targeting perspective-taking deficits from an RFT point of view appears to provide promising applications for the enhancement of current treatments of people with social-cognitive dysfunctions.

Teaching the Generic Skills of Language and Cognition

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses how to teach the generic skills of language and cognition, focusing on the contributions from relational frame theory (RFT). From the perspective of RFT, arbitrarily applicable relational responding has three defining properties: mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment, and the transformation of stimulus functions. RFT employs the generic term “relational frame” to describe particular patterns of arbitrarily applicable relational responding. Furthermore, RFT suggests that the frame of opposition will emerge later than coordination because the combinatorially entailed relations within frames of opposition are frames of coordination. From the perspective of RFT, over-arching relational skills can be taught, and subsequent improvement in relational responding should lead to improved abilities in areas of cognition and language, as well as in intelligence in general. Establishing a manding repertoire is very important for children with language deficits, because it provides immediate control of the social and non-social environment and it facilitates the development of speaker and listener repertoires.