Filial Trauma: The Experience of Adoptive Parents of Children with Complex Behavioral and Relational Problems.

Children adopted from out-of-home care may present symptoms of developmental trauma that affect their functioning. This puts their adoptive parents at risk of experiencing secondary trauma. The purpose of this research was to understand the experience of adoptive parents who self-report symptoms of secondary trauma in relation to their child's symptoms of developmental trauma. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's (Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101, 2006) thematic analysis method. Ten adoptive parents were recruited from four community organizations providing support for adoptive parents or parents of children with attachment disorder. All participants reported feeling strong emotions related to secondary trauma, as well as physical and mental health issues that appeared after the child's arrival in the family. Participants reported experiencing aggression from their child, which greatly disturbed the parent-child relationship and led to the child being placed in residential care for half of the families involved in the study. Secondary trauma was insufficient to fully capture the experience of these parents as it failed to account for the suffering and distress linked to their efforts to establish a parent-child relationship. Instead, filial trauma was used to describe this experience. The authors conclude that a better understanding of filial trauma can contribute to improving post-adoption services for parents struggling to fulfill one of the most important roles of their lives: being the parent of their child.

Intersectional Analysis of the Life Course of LGBTQ+ Parent Families in Québec: Partial and Homonormative Inclusion.

Over the past 20 years, Québec has seen significant legislative changes that have led to an increase in the number of families with LGBTQ+ parents. Moreover, Québec has been a pioneer in recognizing LGBTQ+ families since 2002 with Bill 84. In fact, no nation had gone as far in terms of recognition. However, despite this avant-garde legal context, which has made it possible for many same-sex couples to establish their families with greater ease and recognition, unequal access to this institution still affects LGBTQ+ parents. In fact, these parents do not all experience the same realities, and the possibilities for forming a family remain complex for many, especially for trans and non-binary parents. Based on 38 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ parents, this article explores the multiple forms of families and the different experiences of oppressions these families encounter based on their different social locations. These data are part of the important SAVIE-LGBTQ research partnership (SSHRC 2016-2023), which aims to identify the different experiences of inclusion and exclusion encountered by LGBTQ+ communities in Québec.

Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor reduces the affinity of SHP-2 for the ITIM of CLECSF6 in neutrophils: a new mechanism of action for SHP-2.

Proteins that bear immunoreceptor tyrosine based inhibitory motifs (ITIM) are believed to participate in the repression of cell activation via phosphatases such as SHP-1, SHP-2 and/or SHIP-1. CLECSF6, also called DCIR, is a transmembrane protein expressed on leukocytes and predominantly on neutrophils that bears one ITIM pattern. This feature confers to CLECSF6 a role in the repression of cell activation. In order to better understand its role in neutrophil signalling, we analysed the binding of phosphatases to the ITIM of CLECSF6. We showed that a peptide bearing the ITIM of CLECSF6 in its phosphorylated form associates with both SHP-1 and SHP-2. Phosphorylated SHP-1 binds the ITIM whereas phosphorylated SHP-2 does not. In addition, granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) reduces the binding of SHP-2 to the ITIM of CLECSF6 while enhancing the phosphorylation level of SHP-2. GM-CSF is known to recruit SHP-2 to its receptor. These data suggest that the phosphorylation of SHP-2 by GM-CSF promotes the binding of SHP-2 to the GM-CSF receptor to the disadvantage of CLECSF6. Therefore, upon a treatment with GM-CSF, SHP-2 could move from a CLECSF6 associated signalosome with a repressor function to a GM-CSF receptor associated signalosome with an activator function.

Effects of local and global factors in the Pinna illusion.

The Pinna illusion (Pinna & Brelstaff, 2000) consists of two concentric rings of micropatterns that appear to counter-rotate when the observer moves towards the stimulus. There have been several reports that the illusion is stronger when the retinal expansion is produced by observer self-motion than when produced on a computer screen without observer self-motion. In fact, we found that the illusion is as strong (or stronger) when the retinal expansion is produced on a computer screen without observer self-motion. In a second series of experiments the strength of the Pinna illusion was inferred from the amount of physical counter-rotation required to null it. The strength of the illusion is relatively unaffected by changes to the global structure of the display but minor changes to the micropatterns comprised in the display can effectively eliminate the illusion. We provide a simple model of optical flow that is in very good agreement with many of the results reported.