Quality of Internalized Object Representations and Suicidality in Individuals With Anaclitic and Introjective Personality Styles.

Research has shown differences in the characteristics of suicidal behavior in individuals with dependent (anaclitic) versus self-critical (introjective) personality styles. Questions remain, however, as to what factors distinguish suicidal from nonsuicidal individuals within each personality style. The current study examined clinical and interpersonal correlates of suicidality in 124 patients attending residential treatment for complex psychiatric disorders, with the aim of clarifying how social cognition and quality of internalized object representations relate to suicidality in individuals with anaclitic versus introjective personality organizations. Higher anaclitic and lower introjective traits each predicted higher frequency of prior attempts. Furthermore, higher anaclitic and lower introjective traits interacted with the affective-interpersonal quality of object representations to predict prior attempts, such that each trait was associated with more frequent past attempts in the context of poorer quality of object relations. The treatment implications of these findings are discussed, and areas for future research are considered.

The Impact of Pathological Narcissism on Affect Following Social Rejection.

Previous research has shown that narcissism is associated with interpersonal difficulties and maladaptive affective responses to social rejection. In the current studies, the authors examined two phenotypes of pathological narcissism, narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability, and their impact on individuals' affective responses in two distinctive social rejection paradigms. Participants from Study 1 (N = 239), recruited from a multicultural university and Amazon's Mechanical Turk, completed Cyberball, a computerized social rejection paradigm. Participants from Study 2 (N = 238) were recruited from a multicultural university and participated in an in vivo group rejection paradigm in a laboratory. Results indicated that following the rejection in both studies, narcissistic vulnerability positively predicted explicit negative affect and state anger. In addition, the positive relationship between narcissistic vulnerability and explicit negative affect was moderated by greater implicit negative affect in Study 2. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Sex differences in hedonic judgement of odors in schizophrenia cases and healthy controls.

The neurocircuitries subserving affective and olfactory processes overlap, are sexually dimorphic, and show disruptions in schizophrenia, suggesting their intersection may be a window on the core process producing psychosis. This study investigated diagnostic and sex differences in hedonic judgments of odors and smell identification in 26 schizophrenia cases and 27 healthy controls. Associations between olfaction measures and psychiatric symptoms were also examined. Cases and controls had similar identification accuracy of unpleasant odors, but cases were significantly less accurate in naming pleasant odors. In cases, greater negative symptom severity was related to abnormal hedonic judgments; specifically, higher pleasantness ratings for unpleasant odors and higher unpleasantness ratings for pleasant odors. Greater positive symptom severity was associated with lower pleasantness ratings for neutral odors. Regarding sex differences, male cases and female controls rated pleasant odors as significantly more unpleasant than male controls. Correlations between depression severity and pleasantness ratings of neutral odors were in opposite directions in male and female cases. These results suggest that a normal sexual dimorphism in the circuitry for hedonic odor judgments may interact with schizophrenia pathology, supporting the utility of olfactory hedonics as a sex-specific biomarker of this pathology.

Impairments in Object Relations and Chronicity of Suicidal Behavior in Individuals With Borderline Personality Disorder.

While studies have demonstrated connections between impairments in object relations and self-destructive behaviors in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), few have investigated whether these impairments relate to actual suicidal behaviors. The current study utilized the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Method to investigate object relational functioning and suicidal behaviors in 131 residential treatment patients. Cognitive but not affective aspects of internalized representations predicted past suicidal behavior in BPD subjects; no relationships were found between quality of object representations and suicide in other-PD subjects. Implications of these findings for research, theory, and treatment of suicidal individuals are discussed.

Beyond the unexplainable pain: relational world of patients with somatization syndromes.

Somatization syndromes are highly prevalent disorders with unknown etiology and are challenging to treat. Integrating previous findings on alexithymia, attachment, and trauma, we hypothesized that somatization syndromes are associated with a specific internal representation of relationships-the unmet need for closeness with others (desire for interpersonal closeness combined with the fear of being rejected, hurt, or abandoned). Twenty patients with DSM-IV somatization syndromes and 20 well-matched healthy controls completed the Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm/Core Conflictual Relationship Themes interview and measures of interpersonal relatedness, alexithymia, and history of trauma. The results showed that the unmet need for closeness with others was the main internal representation of relationships in 90% of the patients and in only 10% of controls; it was also the strongest predictor of somatization syndrome diagnosis. This suggests that somatization syndromes are strongly associated with the interpersonal representation of the unmet need for closeness with others, which has direct implications for their treatment and future research on their etiology.

Review of The psychotherapist's own psychotherapy: Patient and clinician perspectives.

Reviews the book, The psychotherapist's own psychotherapy: Patient and clinician perspectives by Jesse D. Geller, John C. Norcross, and David E. Orlinsky (2005). The editors of this book have two aims: 1) "to synthesize and explicate the accumulated knowledge on psychotherapy with psychotherapists," and 2) "to provide clinically tested and empirically grounded assistance to psychotherapists treating fellow therapists, as well as to those clinicians who seek personal treatment themselves." The editors seem to be walking a fine line between asserting their own integrative conclusions and setting the conditions for readers to arrive at conclusions on their own. The tendency is toward the latter. With this propensity in mind, readers might approach the book as a truly encyclopedic collection- best approached in piecemeal (nonintegrative) fashion, focusing on fascinating morsels that can stand alone. In contrast, for those readers who are drawn toward integration, the book may elicit contrasting experiences of deep familiarity and understanding, and disorienting befuddlement about what was just read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Left hemisphere specialization for response to positive emotional expressions: a divided output methodology.

An extensive literature credits the right hemisphere with dominance for processing emotion. Conflicting literature finds left hemisphere dominance for positive emotions. This conflict may be resolved by attending to processing stage. A divided output (bimanual) reaction time paradigm in which response hand was varied for emotion (angry; happy) in Experiments 1 and 2 and for gender (male; female) in Experiment 3 focused on response to emotion rather than perception. In Experiments 1 and 2, reaction time was shorter when right-hand responses indicated a happy face and left-hand responses an angry face, as compared to reversed assignment. This dissociation did not obtain with incidental emotion (Experiment 3). Results support the view that response preparation to positive emotional stimuli is left lateralized.

On-Line Monitoring of the Photolysis of Benzyl Acetate and 3,5-Dimethoxybenzyl Acetate by Membrane Introduction Mass Spectrometry.

Membrane introduction mass spectrometry (MIMS) allows on-line monitoring of the products of photolysis (254 nm) of benzyl acetate in aqueous methanol and 3,5-dimethoxybenzyl acetate in water. The reaction mixture is continuously exposed to a silicone membrane through which analyte molecules permeate into a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Ionization is achieved by either isobutane or ammonia chemical ionization, and ions characteristic of the reactant ester and its products are monitored simultaneously and continuously. Three products, benzyl methyl ether, ethylbenzene, and bibenzyl are observed in the benzyl acetate photolysis. Two products, 3,5-dimethoxybenzyl alcohol and 3,5-dimethoxyethylbenzene, are formed in the photolysis of 3,5-dimethoxybenzyl acetate. Quantitation is achieved through calibration using external standard solutions and, in the case of benzyl methyl ether, tandem mass spectrometry is used to verify product identification. During the photolysis of benzyl acetate, benzyl methyl ether and ethylbenzene are produced at onset with similar efficiencies. For the 3,5-dimethoxy ester photolysis, performed in aqueous solution, the efficiency of formation of the polar product 3,5-dimethoxybenzyl alcohol is about 300 times greater than that of the nonpolar product 3,5-dimethoxyethylbenzene. The results show that the relative reaction rates are dependent on the solvent and on the photon intensity and are consistent with earlier off-line experiments by Pincock et al. which showed that the photolysis proceeds through both ion and radical pair intermediates. To the best of our knowledge, the work reported here describes the first analysis of the photochemistry of an aralkyl ester in water and the first use of on-line mass spectrometry in a mechanistic study.