Attachment and emotional regulation: examining the role of prefrontal cortex functions, executive functions, and mindfulness in their relationship.

Attachment is a prominent area of psychological research, with its relevance linked to executive functions, mindfulness, and emotional regulation. The purpose of this study is to examine this relationship among these aforementioned four constructs and propose a model to be tested in the future. Based on the current trends using the Interpersonal Neurobiology approach, which assumes prefrontal cortex functions to include other socioemotional resources such as empathy, morality, insight, behavior, and body regulation. Our study included prefrontal cortical functions alongside executive functions. The assessment instruments used were Attachment-Based Cognitive Representations Scale, Prefrontal Cortex Functions Scale, Webexec, Five Facet Mindfulness Scale, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. We hypothesized that attachment would be the strongest predictor of emotional regulation. The participants in the study were 539 college students (mean = 20.21; sd = 1.57); (68% female and 32%, male). Our a priori research hypothesis was supported, with an additional finding that trait mindfulness was also a significant predictor. The strongest correlations with attachment styles were with trait mindfulness and emotional regulation. We conducted path analyses of two different models for secure and insecure attachment. The path analyses showed that secure attachment scores were negatively related, and insecure attachment scores were positively related to difficulties in emotional regulation scores. Furthermore, trait mindfulness and prefrontal cortex functions also mediated this relationship. However, there was no significant relationship between executive functions and difficulties in emotional regulation scores, even though it was significantly related to attachment. Results and implications are discussed.

COVID-19 disruption on college students: Academic and socioemotional implications.

Objective: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic represents an acute worldwide public health crisis causing an immediate disruption to every demographic group. One group significantly affected both educationally and psychosocially is college students, as they experienced an abrupt cancellation of in-person courses, were forced to leave their dormitories, and witnessed a loss of social activities. Method: This study utilizes survey data from college students in the throes of COVID-19-based home schooling collected for a Belgium-based international study including more than 134,000 participants from 28 countries around the world. Two hundred fifty-seven college students from a U.S. university participated in this study. Results: Results indicate that college students are affected by COVID-19 on several levels, including fear of themselves or others in their social network contracting the virus, apprehension about the changes in coursework delivery and unclear instructional parameters, overall loneliness, compromised motivation, and sleep disturbances, as well as anxious and depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Analyses reveal a positive relationship between academic frustrations and mental health symptoms, the latter also negatively related to trust in the government regarding the preventive measures being implemented. Worries about becoming infected were positively related to mental health symptoms and negatively related to trust in the government. Results and implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

HYPNOTIC RESPONSIVENESS AND NONHYPNOTIC SUGGESTIBILITY: DISPARATE, SIMILAR, OR THE SAME?

This study examined if participants respond to different types of suggestions, including hypnosis, uniquely or similarly. This study used 9 suggestibility measures and hypothesized a 3-factor model. It was hypothesized that hypnosis, Chevreul's pendulum, and body-sway would load on the first factor; the odor test, progressive weights, and placebo on the second factor; and conformity, persuasibility, and interrogative suggestibility would load on the third factor. The study comprised 110 college students. Factor analyses failed to result in three factors. Additional attempts at two and three-factor models were also rejected. Hypnosis had no strong relationship with the various suggestibility measures. Thus, no clearly delineated factor structure of suggestibility emerged, indicating that the domain of suggestibility seems to be neither a single attribute, trait, or group of related abilities. Implications are discussed.

The Relationship between Theoretical Orientation and Countertransference Expectations: Implications for Ethical Dilemmas and Risk Management.

UNLABELLED: Countertransference (CT) awareness is widely considered valuable for differential diagnosis and the proactive management of ethical dilemmas. We predicted that the more practitioners' theoretical orientation (TO) emphasizes insight into the dynamics of subjective mental life, the better they will be at using their CT expectations in differential diagnosis with high-risk patients. To test this hypothesis, we compared psychodynamic therapy (PDT) practitioners who emphasize insight into subjective mental life with practitioners who do not emphasize this epistemology. Results indicated that PDT practitioners expected significantly more CT than practitioners of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and other practitioners (e.g., family systems, humanistic/existential and eclectic) to patients with borderline personality organization overall. PDT practitioners had significantly more CT expectations to patients with borderline-level pathologies as compared with neurotic-level patients than both CBT and other practitioners. PDT practitioners were significantly more expectant of CT issues than CBT practitioners with respect to the personality disorders most associated with acting out and risk management problems (e.g., paranoid, psychopathic, narcissistic, sadistic, sadomasochistic, masochistic, hypomanic, passive-aggressive, counterdependent and counterphobic). The other practitioners generally had CT expectations between PDT and CBT. These findings suggest that clinical training into CT may be useful in differential diagnoses and in helping to avoid ethical dilemmas regardless of one's theoretical preference. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE: Insight into countertransference can be used to help with differential diagnoses and to help prevent possible management problems with acting out patients. The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual is a useful taxonomy in that it includes countertransference as a diagnostic aid.

Hypnotizability and somatic complaints: a gender-specific phenomenon.

The relationship between hypnotizability and somatic illness was measured in 45 college students. Several weeks after completing the Waterloo-Stanford Group C Scale (WSGC), participants filled out a somatic-complaint checklist and measures of psychopathology. Results indicated a positive correlation between hypnotizability and somatic illness, and the relationship was stronger for female participants. In contrast to the quadratic model proposed by Wickramasekera, the current data demonstrated a linear relationship between hypnotizability and somatic complaint. Further analyses showed that somatic complaints were associated with hallucination and imagery items, corresponding to the perceptual-cognitive factor identified in Woody, Barnier, and McConkey's (2005) factor analysis of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C. The results call into question some claims that high hypnotizability is an adaptive and healthy trait.