Getting a good night’s sleep is a typical recommendation during times of stress, especially after a unsettling or traumatic experience. A new study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, questions this standard thinking. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst showed 106 participants unsettling images, then showed them again 12 hours later. Subjects who stayed awake during those 12 hours had less emotional reactivity to the same stimuli than did subjects who went to sleep—particularly those who had more time in REM sleep. The same pattern was noted for recognition accuracy 12 hours later—it was better in participants who slept than in those who didn’t.  The study concludes that “sleep enhances emotional memory while preserving emotional reactivity.”

“It is common to be sleep-deprived after witnessing a traumatic scene, almost as if your brain doesn't want to sleep on it," said Rebecca Spencer, one of the authors of the study. In fact, going to sleep may “lock in” the negative emotions associated with the traumatic event.

Have you found this to be true in your practice? Do patients who get more rest after a negative event have a harder time recovering than those who get little sleep? Could insomnia be considered as a recommended treatment for people with PTSD?

Research from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has found that following a steady increase in the number of hospitalizations for eating disorders from 1999 to 2007, the number of individuals checking into hospitals with these principal diagnoses has fallen by 23 percent from 2007 to 2009, the latest year for which numbers are available. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, with anorexia specifically being the leading cause of mortality in women between the ages of 15 and 24. During this time period, the severity of reported eating disorders decreased, as well.

However, patients found to have eating disorders were often hospitalized for other presenting conditions, such as depression, fluid or electrolyte disorders, schizophrenia, or alcohol-related issues. Statistics showed that although 90 percent of those suffering from eating disorders were female, eating disorders in men increased 53 percent since 2007.

In light of the recent decrease in eating disorders, from 1999 to 2009, hospitalizations skyrocketed 93 percent for the disorder pica. Pica is usually diagnosed in women and children and causes them to eat inedible materials like clay, dirt, chalk, or feces. During the 10-year period, the number of hospitalizations for patients with pica increased from 964 to 1,862.

Why do you think the number of eating disorders in general has gone down while the number of individuals diagnosed with pica has increased?

Although touch-screen phones have only been in existence for about the past three years, and iPads only hit the market within the last two years, these digital tools have completely changed the way people look at the world – including how we learn.

According to new research, 40 percent of all 2 to 4-year-olds have used touch screen technology. About 10 percent of babies less than a year have used it as well. Many schools have introduced iPads in the classroom. At the Catherine Cook School in Chicago, they teach kids to write letters, identify shapes, and interact with each other using the tablet technology.

Although the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends limiting screen time for those in the 2 to 4-year-old bracket, the organization says that it can be enriching if there is interaction with an adult. Though proponents of technology in the classroom believe that access to these tools at younger ages may spur growth and development in children’s abilities to use and create technology, any real research on the topic is still years away – and by then, today’s technology will be obsolete.

However, there is a growing opposing school of thought, and it comes from a very interesting place – the heart of technology in the U.S. The Waldorf method, nearly a century old, uses a teaching philosophy that focuses on physical activity and learning through hands-on, creative tasks. Proponents believe that computers inhibit creative thinking, human interaction, and attention spans. Of the 160 Waldorf schools in the country, 40 of them are in California, many of those in tech-heavy Silicon Valley, where 75 percent of the students have parents with careers in high-tech fields (students include offspring of executives from Google, Apple, Yahoo, and more). Waldorf schools have no computers, frown upon home use of screen technology, and only begin to introduce the use of gadgets in the eighth grade. Instead of iPads, Waldorf schools employ blackboards, pencils, even encyclopedias.

Is learning through activity more effective than learning with technology? It’s hard to compare – as Waldorf schools are private schools, they do not administer standardized tests. Furthermore, they admit that their youngest students may not perform well on such measures, as they do not cover a standardized curriculum. However, advocates will point to the schools’ effectiveness by showing that 94 percent of graduates from Waldorf high schools from 1994 to 2004 attended college, with 91 percent stating that they are active in lifelong education.

What is your take on technology in the classroom? Is it a distraction or is it the new way of learning?

When do suspicions about a client’s behavior become serious enough to warrant calling the authorities? An employee of Three Rivers Mental Health Solutions in Missoula, Montana is asking herself the same question. The employee was fired after reporting a client’s computer search history for child pornography to police.

The employee, concerned about two children the client babysat, became alarmed after noticing the client’s Web search for “female child nude” and “preteen nude girls.” The mental health worker approached her supervisor to report her concerns, but was advised not to report the client because the situation did not meet the criteria for notifying the authorities. Namely, because no actual child abuse was observed and there were no names or addresses of possible victims, the supervisor said the incident did not warrant calling the police and could be considered engaging in dual roles.

The employee was particularly worried about the safety of the children the client babysat, so she went against her supervisor’s advice and reported the client to police. The client was charged with sexually abusing a child after a DVD of child pornography was found in his home. The employee was consequently fired for her actions.

What do you think about this case? Was this a breach of patient confidentiality? Was the employee right for going to police? Should she have been fired for her actions? How would you have handled this situation?

There’s no need to read between the lines when you are trying to decipher whether your significant other is right for you or not. According to new research from University of Texas at Austin social psychologist James W. Pennebaker, the truth may be somewhere in the pronouns.

In a recent experiment, Pennebaker and his team gathered 187 students and asked them to partake in a speed dating event at Northwestern University. During the four-minute dates, Pennebaker focused on the use of personal pronouns (e.g., I, you, and me), articles, preopositions, conjunctions, and other small words. According to Pennebaker, although these words are processed rapidly and subconsciously, our use of them can reveal whether a relationship will work or how well two individuals might work together. Couples whose language styles matched – those who used similar levels of personal pronouns, prepositions, and articles – were three times as likely to express an interest in dating each other than those couples who language styles did not match.

Language style matching (LSM) may be better at predicting love connections than even the individuals involved! LSM was able to determine relationships that weren’t a match even when one speed dater showed interest that was not reciprocated by the other.

Want to see how you and your partner stack up? You can try LSM yourself by entering e-mails, text messages, or even general writing samples to get an idea of how your score stacks up. Click here to see how you do.

APA style seemed fairly straightforward when you were just citing books and journal articles. But with the advancement of digital media, there’s a score of new sources that don’t necessarily fit into the procedures you’ve grown accustomed to using. Here’s a quick primer on how to cite two new media sources.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

Have you noticed a long string of numbers and letters at the end of citations recently and wondered what that was? A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique link that identifies content and its location on the Internet. A DOI address will provide information over time as to where to find a digital object, making it easier and more convenient to locate digital information (while URLs may change, DOI addresses will not). When journal articles are published now, they are assigned a DOI address – a persistent link that will always lead investigators to the same piece of digital information. To locate an article using a DOI address, simply append the DOI string with http://dx.doi.org/ (and then enter the numeric string immediately following).

When making a reference list, simply add DOI, followed by a colon, the DOI number string, and put the date retrieved in parenthesis. Close this phrase with a period. Here’s an example:

Author name. (Year). Article name. Journal Title, page numbers. doi: XX.XXX/XXXXXXXXXX

Citing E-books

With the advent of e-readers, many people are getting their information in hi-tech ways. It isn’t as simple as citing a page number in a print product. When formulating your reference list, make sure you know the type of e-book version you use (Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle DX are two popular kinds). Instead of publisher information, include the book’s DOI address or the site where you downloaded the book originally. Here’s an example:

Author name. (Year). Title [Adobe Digital Editions version]. doi: XX.XXX/XXXXXXXXXX

In-text citations get a bit more difficult because e-books often lack page numbers, and those that have page numbers are usually only the same for people using the same device you are using. To cite in text, follow APA’s rules for using direct quotations in materials without pagination. Give the reader the major sections, such as chapter, section, and paragraph number in lieu of a true page number.

More questions on how to cite digital sources? Check out www.apastyle.org.

The physical benefits of yoga, such as increased strength, greater flexibility, and surges in feel-good chemicals like dopamine, have been proven through science. But is there a psychological component to this type of exercise, as well?

The Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living is attempting to scientifically evaluate the effects yoga has on those who practice. The institute supports a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School who are researching the impact yoga has on a wide range of mental health issues.

One such study funded by the institute is using brain-imaging studies to better understand how contemplative practices such as yoga and meditation can alter behavior, mood, and states of consciousness. Dr. Sara Lazar, principal investigator, is analyzing these images to assess if a yoga practice can change the actual structure of the brain. If so, how do these changes influence attention, fluid intelligence, and cognitive and emotional functioning? Previous work by Dr. Lazar has shown that the brains of individuals who regularly practiced Buddhist meditation are different from the brains of a control group who did not. This study will evaluate a group of highly experienced yogis to investigate whether they show similar changes to the meditation group.

Several other studies focusing on the link between yoga and mental health are ongoing. One study is attempting to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder severity and symptoms through yoga, and is currently recruiting military veterans for the next phase of research. Another study is using yoga as a preventive mental health measure in high school students — and initial results show that it improves mood states and resiliency when compared to traditional physical education. A third study involving yoga in mindful eating and weight gain prevention programs has documented changes in participants physical and mental health.

Do you recommend yoga to your clients? Do you think yoga helps psychologically as well as physically?

 

Christian Boer, a graphic designer from the Netherlands, has created a new font called Dyslexie that decreases the number of errors made by dyslexics while reading. As a student at the University of Twente, Boer developed the typeface as a way to address his own dyslexia; it later became his graduate school project.

The font works by changing the appearance of some letters of the alphabet that are commonly confused or reversed by dyslexics. For example, Boer has added weight to the bottom of the letters so that there is a sense of “gravity,” which helps readers avoid misconstruing similar letters such as “p” and “d.” Other changes include enlarging the opening of some letters such as “e” and “c,” and increasing the length of the descenders in letters like “g” and “y.” The space between letters and between words has been increased to allow readers more time to process information; punctuation is also more prominent.

Originally developed for the Dutch language, Boer has recently released the font in English, and U.S. users can purchase it online.

According to a recent article in Scientific American, a fellow student at the University of Twente has conducted an independent study and discovered “a significant reduction in reading errors by dyslexics when reading Dutch text typed in Dyslexie as opposed to the Arial font” (Scientific American online edition, October 26, 2011).

To see an example of Dyslexie and a short video about how it helps dyslexics to read more easily, visit Boer’s Web site, www.studiostudio.nl/project-dyslexie/, and click on the English language icon at the top of the page.

What do you think? Could a specially designed font help your dyslexic clients? Leave a comment—PAR wants to hear from you!

 

Some of the world’s best ideas happen by accident – as did the creation of animal-assisted therapy (AAT). In the 1950s, psychologist Boris Levinson discovered that his dog, Jingles, was able to engage a child with autism in a way that humans had not been able to. Since that time, the theory and practice of using animals in therapeutic ways has grown and a substantial body of research has documented the health benefits unique to the human-animal bond.

The Delta Society is an organization dedicated to improving people’s lives through positive interactions with animals. The society trains dogs, the most frequently used therapy animals, but also trains cats, birds, reptiles, and more. According to their research, when people hold or stroke an animal, their blood pressure lowers, their ability to be more extroverted and verbal increases, and the individual reports a decreased sense of loneliness and an increase in self-esteem. Another organization, the Equine Assisted Growth & Learning Association (EAGALA), focuses specifically on how horses and humans work together to improve mental health.

The benefits of animal-assisted therapy have been documented through studies with many different groups, from children with pervasive developmental disorders to senior citizens in assisted living situations. Studies have even gone so far as to say that statistics show that individuals exposed to AAT in psychiatric rehabilitation settings exhibit better outcomes than those in a control group that did not have the benefit of AAT, with the AAT group scoring higher on interaction, sociability, and responsiveness to surroundings. EAGALA has found that equine-assisted therapy has been helpful with at-risk youth, military, veteran, and trauma populations.

Do you use animals in your practice? How have they helped your clients?

 

Those who practice meditation tout the benefits of this practice, but is there any truth to the idea that meditation can influence one’s psychological health?

In a study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness, 16 healthy individuals were given MRIs two weeks before beginning a mindfulness-based stress reduction course. During this course, individuals took part in weekly classes, listened to guided meditation audio recordings, and logged the amount of time they meditation on their own each day, with the average being about 27 minutes. The same participants were given a second MRI two weeks after completing the course.

The brain scans showed some interesting findings. The hippocampus, important in learning and memory, showed an increase in brain cell mass. Other areas that showed an increase in brain cell mass were structures linked to self-awareness, introspection, and compassion. Some areas – such as the amygdala, which controls anxiety and stress –  showed a decrease in mass, an interesting finding since most participants rated themselves as less stressed after taking part in the program.

The study shows that the psychological benefits people are reporting are very real shifts in the biological structure of the brain. While the underlying mechanisms that cause the brain to change in response to meditation need further research, it is an important step to know that individuals practicing meditation can play an active role in their well-being.

To read more about this study, you can read more in the January 2011 issue of Psychiatric Research: Neuroimaging.

Do you use meditation with your clients? What kinds of outcomes have you witnessed?