Psychological Phenomena and Processes Commons^™

Understanding Why Individuals Maltreated As Children Do Not Retrospectively Self-Report, Kristin S. Lynch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Individuals with documented histories of childhood maltreatment who do not retrospectively self-report these childhood experiences demonstrate better emotional and psychological outcomes in adulthood. Understanding why these individuals do not retrospectively self-report is important for the development of effective interventions focused on mitigating the long-term consequences of maltreatment. The current study compared maltreated individuals who did not retrospectively self-report (O-R group) to those who did retrospectively self-report (O+R group) to examine theoretical explanations related to intentional nondisclosure (i.e., social desirability and discomfort during the interview) and memory processes (i.e. infantile amnesia, use of mental health services, avoidant coping …

Failure To Mourn: Challenges To The Work Of Mourning In Twentieth-Century Italian Literature, Mattia Mossali

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project brings together, in a novel combination and through a comparative and transnational perspective, three Italian authors from the Twentieth century who around the same years have produced texts in an effort to verbalize the pain caused by the loss of a loved one: Gina Lagorio (1922-2005), Lalla Romano (1906-2001), and Pier Vittorio Tondelli (1955-1991). Through a variety of literary forms, from fictional self-representations in “autobiographical” novels to the desire for authenticity that characterizes so-called grief memoirs, each of them confronts the challenge of how to write about the deeply painful experience of mourning. After witnessing death, they look …

Attenuated Typicality Effect In Category-Based Inferences: Implications For Autism Spectrum Disorder, Janani Rajagopalan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often encounter challenges in assimilating atypical exemplars into their categorical prototypes, a cognitive hurdle that can impact their interpretative and integrative capacities. Addressing this problem, the present research sought to develop a robust methodological approach to reduce the effect of this disparity. We examined the elements embedded within the category's internal structure, with the intention of experimentally attenuating the pronounced typicality effect, which is often exaggerated in ASD.

Across four experiments, the thesis investigated the cognitive and neural underpinnings that shape the access to the typicality gradient intrinsic to a category's structure. The …

A Gift To My Self: A Psychoanalytic Approach To Understanding The Experiences Of Women Who Choose Not To Have Children, Irina D. Tchania

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although motherhood has long been a normative female experience, individual decisions regarding bearing and mothering children vary among women. Partly due to shifts in gender roles and contemporary societal expectations, the conflation of womanhood with motherhood – and the centrality of motherhood within female identity – is being increasingly challenged. Women who choose to remain childless make up a growing, unique, and understudied population group. Decisions regarding intentional childlessness have been considered through the lenses of sociology and feminist critique, while psychologically and psychoanalytically oriented scholarship is more limited. This study aimed to further our understanding of the voluntarily childless …

A Survey Study Of Speech-Language Therapists’ Experiences With Teletherapy At The Onset Of The Covid-19 Crisis, Jason A. Rosas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study aimed to understand how delivering pediatric treatment services via ‘teletherapy’ affected speech-language therapists (SLTs) during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in 2020. SLTs reported on their experiences with the change from in-person to remote service delivery via two national surveys distributed at the start of the pandemic between April 2020 and July 2020. To explain SLTs’ survey responses, this dissertation introduced the Professional Adaptation Model (PA Model). The PA Model facilitated evaluation of the SLTs’ professional environment and the psychological constructs of their professional identity believed to influence the transition to speech-language teletherapy. Specifically, …

The Impossible Situation? Impasse As Psychotherapeutic Paralysis, Possibility, And Progress, Leo Cancelmo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychotherapeutic impasse has long been understood in the clinical literature as treatment stagnation and even failure, both from one-person and two-person psychodynamic perspectives. However, there is a dearth of empirical research that delves deeper to understand this complex and rich phenomenon. Using semi-structured interviews with nine psychodynamic therapists speaking about individual adult patients, this study examined experiences of impasse to better understand treatments that become embroiled in a kind of paralysis. Qualitative analyses revealed dyads where patients were conceptualized as struggling chronically with negative feelings about themselves and others, and who experienced traumatic personal histories. Impasse in and of itself …

Effects Of Chronic Stress On Safety Processing And Physiology In The Medial Prefrontal-Amygdala-Basal Forebrain Circuit, Itamar S. Grunfeld

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chronic stress increases generalization of fear to non-threatening cues, a key symptom in numerous psychiatric mood disorders. However, the mechanisms through which stress impacts safety learning remain poorly understood. To probe the relationship between stress and safety learning, this dissertation employed multiple behaviors, in conjunction with in-vivo multisite physiology during explicit safety and fear discrimination learning. In Chapter 1, I outline the role of chronic stress in driving neurological adaptations that result in generalized fear and highlight how this occurs because of impaired safety cue encoding. In Chapter 2, I show that chronic stress in the form of social defeat …

Reducing Fear Overgeneralization With Safety Learning: Attention Bias As A Moderator, Boyang Fan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental health condition and affect one out of nine individuals around the world. Fear generalization is a neurocognitive mechanism thought to maintain and exacerbate anxiety, and thus is an important target of therapeutic interventions. Yet, intervention research and practice place relatively little emphasis on its importance. Given that a significant proportion of individuals do not respond to extant treatments of anxiety disorders, a strengthened focus on fear generalization may inform the development and personalization of new treatment approaches. Recent notions have linked fear generalization to failures in distinguishing between signals that predict the occurrence …

Training And Individual Predictors Of Attitudes Toward Serious Mental Illness Amongst Clinical Psychology Doctoral Students, Lauren K. O'Connor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Clinical psychologists are grossly underrepresented in treatment provision for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI; Roe, Yanos, Lysaker, 2006). Systemic (e.g., emergence of managed care) and training-based (e.g., limitations to SMI specific training) factors contribute to the establishment of this underrepresentation, while mental health stigma amongst psychologists may play a role in perpetuating it. Many individual and experiential factors have been found to impact clinicians’ attitudes toward those with SMI (Henderson et al., 2014; Schulzes, 2007). Though many of these factors are present and relevant from the beginning of one’s career and may involve elements related to training, little research …

Food Restriction And Body Image Distortion In Pregnant Mothers: Outcomes For Exposed Children, Kathryn M. Dana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Developmental trajectories in the growing child do not originate at birth. Rather, critical periods may exist in pregnancy, during which the determinants of malnutrition are especially vulnerable to the effects of stress and other complications. Prenatal malnutrition has been consistently associated with negative consequences for the growth, development, and overall physical and mental health of affected offspring in both human and animal models. While most available literature on human prenatal malnutrition comes from famine research, there is some evidence that restrictive eating disorders in pregnant women may be associated with similar outcomes.

Hypotheses: We hypothesize that prenatal exposure to …

Attachment, Exploration, And Internalized Homonegativity, Gregory J. Gagnon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Internalized homonegativity (IH; a.k.a. internalized homophobia), has been implicated in health disparities between lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons (LGBs) and their heterosexual peers. Yet, little available research has explored factors that may increase or decrease IH.

Objective: This dissertation investigates relations between child and adult attachment and IH. It further examines the mediating and moderating roles of exploration and mentalization, respectively, in the attachment–IH relation.

Method: One hundred fifty cisgender LGB adults participated in two waves of an online survey. The first assessed recalled child–maternal and child–paternal attachment and current attachment to the romantic partner. The second, conducted two …

Object Relations, Identity Formation, And Transitional Space In Religious Conversion, Arielle Rubenstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Conversion between broad religious groups is a life transformation undertaken by 15% of Americans, yet it has seldom been studied closely from a psychodynamic perspective. The psychological study of conversion began with a Protestant paradigm of sudden and total transformation of the self, and over time came to characterize different manifestations of conversion to more diverse religious groups. Research on conversion has primarily sought to understand whether conversion is essentially a psychopathological phenomenon, and has led to a multiplicity of both positive and negative, at times contradictory, findings. Research has shown that conversion is associated with insecure attachment, neurotic personality …

The Development Of Face Morphing Task To Assess Self Other Differentiation, Esen Karan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Self-Other Differentiation (SOD) refers to a developmental process of acquiring a consolidated, integrated, and individuated sense of self. SOD develops at a) perceptual (e.g., facial perception) and b) representational (e.g., traits, mental states, and beliefs) levels. Impairments in representational SOD (R-SOD) are associated with many forms of psychopathology, particularly borderline personality disorder (BPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Few studies to date have examined the perceptual aspects of SOD (P-SOD), which are hypothesized to develop from infancy onwards in tandem and in interaction with R-SOD. Given that the human face is one of the key characteristics that humans use to …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Mindfulness In Medicine: Modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Mbsr) Program Among Future Doctors, Virtue Sankoh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Medical trainees are at particular risk for stress-related illness, including mental health problems such as suicidal ideation, substance abuse, and mood disorders. A vast literature on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), consisting of mindfulness education and structured meditative practices, has consistently demonstrated that MBSR and related mindfulness-based interventions improve mental and physical health, as well as one’s overall sense of well-being. Moreover, theorists and researchers have begun to suggest further that mindfulness plays a particular role in social cognition, or social-emotional learning. Medical schools have long been interested in ways to improve the “soft skills” related to interpersonal connectedness that are …

Casualties Of Racism: Racial And Ethnic Discrimination And Suicidal Thoughts And Behaviors Among Racial And Ethnic Minority Emerging Adults, Lillian Anais Polanco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The evidence demonstrating that experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination is detrimental to the mental health of racial/ethnic minority youth is unequivocal. What remains unclear, however, is whether racial/ethnic discrimination increases vulnerability for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in particular, and if so, what are the underlying mechanisms to explain this relation. Drawing upon the Race-based Traumatic Stress Theory (Carter, 2007), which suggests that some individuals may experience racial/ethnic discrimination as a traumatic stressor, and thus, eliciting a traumatic stress response, the present study examined posttraumatic stress reactions (i.e., posttraumatic stress, depression, dissociation, stress sensitivity) as mediators in the relation between racial/ethnic discrimination …

What’S Your Story? Assessing Childhood Maltreatment Using The Thematic Apperception Test In An Adult Inpatient Population., Thachell C. Tanis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a robust evidence that childhood maltreatment contributes to the development of adult psychopathology (Brown & Anderson, 1991; Johnson, Cohen, Brown, Smailes, & Bernstein 1999; Johnson, Smailes, Cohen, Brown, & Bernstein, 2000; Ruggiero et al., 1999). However, the identification of childhood maltreatment remains a methodological problem that results in inconsistencies in the reported incidence and psychological sequelae of maltreatment. A primary method for identifying histories of childhood maltreatment among adults is retrospective self-report measures which are susceptible to multiple biases (Briere, 1992; Cicchetti & Rizley, 1981; Shaffer, Huston, & Egeland, 2008). This present study suggests that childhood maltreatment can …

Diagnosing The Will To Suffer: Lovesickness In The Medical And Literary Traditions, Jane Shmidt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout Western medical history, unconsummated, unreturned, or otherwise failed love was believed to generate a disorder of the mind and body that manifested in physiological and psychological symptoms. This study traces the medical and literary history of lovesickness from antiquity through the 19^th century, emphasizing significant moments in the development of the medical discourse on love. The project is part of the recent academic focus on the intersection between the humanities and the medical sciences, and it situates literary texts in concurrent medical and philosophical debates on afflictions of the psyche. By contextualizing the fictional works within the scientific …

Psychosocial Correlates Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms And Well-Being Among Hispanic World Trade Center Rescue And Recovery Workers, Dianne Ciro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Thousands of first responders are estimated to have endured extremely distressing experiences during their recovery efforts at the 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC) site. While the effects of 9/11 continue to be studied, few studies have examined how rescue and recovery workers have been coping since 9/11 and how their coping is associated with their psychological well-being. Moreover, we do not know how distinct coping patterns may be associated with post-traumatic growth, experiences of positive emotion, or quality of life among WTC responders.

This study compared coping differences among Hispanic, Non-Hispanic White, and Non-Hispanic Black first responders. In addition, it …

Cortical Thickness Abnormalities Within The Salience And Reward Networks In Older Depressed Adults With Apathy, Monique A. Pimontel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background and Significance: Apathy is a common comorbidity in late-life depression. Among older depressed adults, apathy is associated with a number of adverse outcomes, including increased disability, comorbid illness, and mortality. The etiological substrates of apathy in late-life depression nonetheless remain poorly understood, and little is known about its optimal treatment. To this end, the aim of the current study was to examine cortical abnormalities within the salience (SN) and reward networks (RN), two brain systems involved in the processing of incentive salience that may underlie the syndrome of apathy in older depressed adults.

Methods: We examined the association between …

Women’S Sexual Fantasies In Context: The Emotional Content Of Sexual Fantasies, Psychological And Interpersonal Distress, And Satisfaction In Romantic Relationships, Sarah Constantine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Psychoanalytic thinkers propose that aspects of an individual’s sexual fantasies are related to her psychological and interpersonal functioning. The present study aims to elucidate the significance of sexual fantasies with respect to women’s emotional and interpersonal lives. The study evaluated a model, which hypothesized that internal representations of self and others (e.g. attachment security, maturity of object relations) along with psychological and interpersonal factors would predict both the emotional content (guilt, fear, affection) of written sexual fantasy narratives, and overall romantic satisfaction in heterosexual women. Methods: Five hundred and thirty four women completed self-report questionnaires online. Subsequently, the sexual …

Weight Loss Maintenance: Women's Experience During Perimenopause, Karren B. Liebert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Women’s health may be at risk during middle age, a time when women in the United States often gain weight. Being overweight or obese during perimenopause increases a woman’s vulnerability to disabling health sequela in later life, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression and osteoarthritis, all of which increase morbidity, mortality, health care costs and decrease quality of life. Stigma and discrimination related to overweight and obesity are associated with delay and avoidance of health care, and with poorer quality health care. Weight loss often is followed by weight regain within three to five years. This qualitative study was designed …

Observational Assessment Of Empathy In Parent-Child Verbal Exchanges And Their Influence On Child Behavior, Patty Carambot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Empathy, the ability to both experientially share in and understand others’ thoughts, behaviors, and feelings, is vital for human adaptation. Deficits in empathy development have implications across the lifespan for the development of prosocial behavior, social functioning, mental health disorders, and risk for antisocial behavior (e.g., Guajardo, Snyder, & Petersen, 2009; Moreno, Klute & Robinson, 2008). In light of these societal and individual burdens, it is imperative to foster and strengthen the development of this ability early in life to prevent or ameliorate such negative outcomes. This type of prevention can take a variety of forms, but parent and child …

Object Relations In Children's Projective Testing: Applying The Mutuality Of Autonomy Scale To The Thematic Apperception Test, Lily A. Thom

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychodynamic assessment of object relations on projective tests has consistently been shown to contribute to a better understanding of children’s psychological functioning and to guide therapeutic interventions (Tuber, 1992). This research examines the enhanced utility of applying a psychodynamically-derived scale of children’s object relations to a commonly used projective assessment tool, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (Morgan & Murray, 1935; Murray, 1943). The current study investigates the adaptation and application of the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (MOA) (Urist, 1977; Urist & Shill, 1982), commonly used as a Rorschach Inkblot Method object relations scale, to examine verbal narratives on the TAT. …