The Psychologist March 2017

the

psychologist march 2017

A brave new world of sleep?

Gareth Gaskell on memory consolidation

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

the psychologist

the

psychologist march 2017

march 2017

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A brave new world of sleep?

Gareth Gaskell on memory consolidation

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

The Psychologist is the magazine of The British Psychological Society It provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’

The Psychologist needs you!

We rely on your submissions throughout the publication, and in return we help you to get your message across to a large and diverse audience.

For details of all the available options, plus our policies and what to do if you feel these have not been followed, see www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute The main message, though, is simply to engage with us.

Contact the editor Dr Jon Sutton on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, tweet us on @psychmag or call / write to us at the Society’s Leicester office.

Managing Editor Jon Sutton Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Production Mike Thompson Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera

Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Alison Torn Interviews Gail Kinman Culture Kate Johnstone, Sally Marlow Books Emily Hutchinson, Rebecca Stack International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus, Asifa Majid The Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Emma Beard, Phil Banyard, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Peter Olusoga, Richard Stephens

the

psychologist march 2017

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Letters

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News

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A brave new world of sleep?

Gareth Gaskell on memory consolidation

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Making a difference Top psychologists on their most important contributions

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Why aren’t we beating bullying?

Stephen James Minton argues for more consideration of prejudice

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Children of alcoholism Alan Price

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One on one… …with Daisy Best

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Culture We meet the presenters and producers of BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind and Digital Human; plus much more

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‘The turf wars in psychology have been as intellectually silly as they have been disastrous’ An interview with the Open University’s Frederick Toates

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Careers Gabriela Misca on her Fulbright year in the US

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Vacancies, and featured job

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Looking back Huw Green on ‘thinking ourselves insane’

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A to Z

I sleep a lot. I mean, nine hours a night. Other people, like Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump, have claimed to get by on four. Wouldn’t it be great if I could use all that extra time to do something really useful, like learn a new language? On p.22, Gareth Gaskell considers emerging evidence in the field of memory consolidation.

Professor Gaskell is from one of the so-called Russell Group universities.

I sometimes hear the view that such psychologists don’t read or contribute to the magazine. This is demonstrably false, and in any case I am very proud of how we have worked to increase the diversity of authorship over the years. But maybe it’s true that in those departments there are fewer Society members, and many prominent psychologists who have never featured in our pages. If you work in one, why not pass your copy round, so they can see how we have changed?

And set us a challenge: fire a name at me, and I’ll persuade them that we can help them reach a large and professional audience.

Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag

On the edge of knowledge T

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here were more than a few veiled warnings against the danger of mindless political support and dwelling solely in self-serving echo chambers in the answers to this year’s Edge question: What scientific term or concept ought be more widely known? Among the 206 eminent academics, artists, journalists and scientists who answered, many psychologists highlighted concepts and theories to make us question ourselves, and those around us.

Adam Waytz, psychologist and Associate Professor of Management and Organizations (Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University) pointed to the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IOED), or the fact most people believe they understand the world in greater depth than they actually do. While many people say they know how a refrigerator works, in reality very few can produce a step-by-step guide. Waytz points out this doesn’t just apply to objects, but also scientific fields, mental illnesses, economic markets and virtually anything we are capable of misunderstanding. This phenomenon, he continued, is particularly pervasive in an era of access to mind-boggling amounts of information that is too-often consumed in a superficial way.

He wrote: ‘Understanding the IOED allows us to combat political extremism. In 2013, Philip Fernbach and colleagues demonstrated that the IOED underlies people’s policy positions on issues like single-payer health care, a national flat tax, and a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions… Fernbach and colleagues first asked people to rate how well they understood these issues, and then asked them to explain how each issue works and subsequently re-rate their understanding of each issue. In addition, participants rated the extremity of their attitudes on these issues both before and after offering an explanation. Both self-reported understanding of the issue and attitude extremity dropped significantly after explaining the issue – people who strongly supported or opposed an issue became more moderate.’

The IOED, Waytz said, gives us some much-needed humility: ‘At a time where political polarization, income inequality, and urban–rural separation have deeply fractured us over social and economic issues, recognizing our only modest understanding of these issues is a first step to bridging these divides.’

In the 1750s Adam Smith, and later Charles Darwin, pointed out the amazing contagious properties of emotion, and the fact that this may be fundamental to human survival in transmitting information among group members. More recent findings have demonstrated the mechanisms by which we’re affected by, and affect, the emotions of others. June Gruber, Assistant Professor of Psychology (University of Colorado, Boulder), wrote of her choice: ‘emotion contagion matters: it is in the service of

critical processes such as empathy, social connection, and relationship maintenance between close partners…

With the rapid proliferation of online social networks as a main forum for emotion expression, we know too that emotion contagion can occur without direct interaction between people or when nonverbal emotional cues in the face and body are altogether absent.’

Gruber and her colleagues have been trailblazing in the lesser-studied area of positive emotional contagion.

‘Given the vital role positive emotions play in our wellbeing and physical health, it is critical to better understand the features of how we transmit these pleasant states within and across social groups. Like waves, emotions cascade across time and geographical space. Yet their ability to cascade across psychological minds is unique and warrants wider recognition.’

Alison Gopnik (University of California, Berkeley) pointed to an often-ignored trait of human beings, our life history. Asking readers to imagine a scientist visiting earth from Alpha Centauran 150,000 years ago, she wrote: ‘She might note, in passing, that the newly evolved Homo sapiens were just a little better at tool use, cooperation, and communication than their primate relatives. But, as a well-trained evolutionary biologist, she would be far more impressed by their remarkable and unique “life history”.’

'Life history' is the term biologists use to describe how organisms change over time – how long an animal lives, how long a childhood it has, how it nurtures its young, how it grows old. As Gopnik points out, human life history is particularly weird. We have a childhood twice as long as any primate, we also developed pair bonding and alloparenting to care for these children – unlike many other species, she wrote, fathers and unrelated kin help to care for human children. Another oddity is the fact women live past the menopause, the killer whale being the only other animal we know of that outlives fertility. So we have both an extended childhood, and an (increasingly) extended old age. Gopnik wrote: ‘In fact, anthropologists have argued that those grandmothers were a key to the evolution of learning and culture. They were crucial for the survival of those helpless children and they also could pass on two generations’ worth of knowledge.’

This unique journey through life in humans has led to huge differences in the way we live and behave, Gopnik said: ‘One hundred and fifty thousand years ago the Alpha Centauran biologist wouldn’t have seen much difference between adult humans and our closest primate relatives – art, trade, religious ritual, and complex tools were still far in the future, not to mention agriculture and technology. Our long childhood, and our extended investment in our children, allowed those changes to happen… Each human generation had a chance to learn

the psychologist march 2017 news a little more about the world from their caregivers, and to change the world a little more themselves. If the Alpha Centauran biologist made a return visit now, she would record the startling human achievements that have come from this long process of cultural evolution.’

As Gopnik points out, evolutionary psychologists tend to focus on adult men, but what of the many children and grandmothers involved with our eventual development to the humans we are today? Gopnik wrote that new studies suggest that both the young and old may be adapted for the purpose of transmitting and receiving wisdom: ‘We may have a wider focus and a greater openness to experience when we are young or old than we do in the hurly-burly of feeding, fighting and reproduction that preoccupies our middle years… A human being isn't just a collection of fixed traits, but part of an unfolding and dynamic story. And that isn’t just the story of our own lives, caregiving and culture link us both to the grandparents who were there before we were born and the grandchildren who will carry on after we die.’

Matthew D. Lieberman (Professor of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles) put forward naive realism as a term that should be much better known.

He opened with a quote from comedian George Carlin who noted that: ‘Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot and anyone going faster than you is a maniac’ – naive realism is our propensity to see other people as unintelligent or crazy. While this term, which dates back to at least the 1880s, was once used to suggest people take the world at face value, it actually represents an important error in thinking that often causes conflict.

While people generally perceive the physical world in the same way, when we move into the social world things become much more complex. Lieberman wrote: ‘When confronted with trees, shoes, and gummy bears, our brains construct these things for us in similar enough ways that we can agree on which to climb, which to wear, and which to eat. But when we move to the social domain of understanding people and their interactions, our “seeing” is driven less by external input and more by expectation and motivation… In short, we are just as confident in our assessment of Donald Trump’s temperament and Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty as we are in our assessment of trees, shoes, and gummy bears. In both cases, we are quite certain that we are seeing reality for what it is.’

And therein lies the issue: if we believe our perception of the world is reality, and someone disagrees, we’re likely to think their reality is somehow broken, that they are crazy, or biased. Lieberman wrote: ‘Although there are real differences that separate groups of people, naïve realism might be the most pernicious undetected source of conflicts and their durability. From Israel vs.

Palestinians, to the American political left and right, to the fight over vaccines and autism – in each case our inability to appreciate our own miraculous construction of reality is preventing us from appreciating the miraculous construction of reality happening all around us.’ ER Read more at www.edge.org/annual-questions

A phrase born out of psychological research made it into the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year shortlist – being trumped for the top position by ‘posttruth’. 'Glass cliff', a term first coined by University of Exeter psychologist Michelle Ryan and Alexander Haslam (University of Queensland), describes the propensity for women and other minorities to be found in leadership positions where there is a high risk of failure.

Although Professor Ryan first coined the term in a British Journal of Management article in 2004, it is in recent years that 'glass cliff' has come to be more widely used. Ryan told us the phrase had fluctuated in its popularity in the last 13 years, but with Theresa May becoming Prime Minister in the wake of the EU referendum and Hilary Clinton running for US President, it had become even more commonly used.

Ryan explained: ‘We do lots of work to promote the research and the terms with the media and the wider public. Over time, as people find out about the term, it has now become part of common parlance and its usage has a life of its own. After a media article, where perhaps we do an interview, you can see the usage of the term spreading over social media.’

And the phrase hasn’t only struck a chord in Englishspeaking countries: ‘There is a lot of coverage in the UK, the USA, and Australia, Canada and the Netherlands – because this is where we work and travel often. But the term is used in research and the media across the world – including India, China, Spain, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Singapore. This suggests to us that it is a term and a phenomenon that crosses international boundaries and crosses cultures.'

With her work attracting such broad interest, I asked Ryan how academics can achieve wide reach with their research. She said it was important to engage not only with the media but with the public more generally: ‘Alex Haslam and I have always worked closely with the media – doing newspaper, radio and TV interviews on request, but also pitching stories through press releases. Both Alex and I are active on Twitter. We also work closely with organisations and the general public, speaking at industry events and public science events. It’s also very important to situate the research in current circumstances – using up-to-date examples and explaining how the research is relevant.’ ER

Ups and downs of space flight At the Science Museum’s spectacular IMAX cinema, the inherent psychological, biological and sensory challenges of human space flight were up for discussion thanks to a collaboration between the UK Space Agency and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). With technological advances making space flight more likely for more people, Professor Barry Smith (AHRC Science in Culture Leadership Fellow) said we need to better understand space on a human level.

Balance, a sense we often take for granted, particularly balance in a low- to zero-gravity environment, was the focus for Laurence Harris (York University, Canada), who took an experiment from lab to space revealing fascinating results. He explained that while on earth we use gravity and cues from our bodies and eyes to balance, in microgravity or zero-gravity situations these three things are thrown into flux. Who knows which way is ‘up’ while living on the International Space Station (ISS)?

Professor Harris and colleagues expected that while in space astronauts would rely much more heavily on visual cues than while on earth – where the added benefit of gravity helps us orient ourselves. He has tested this effect on earth: having people lie down removes the gravitational pull on the long axis of the body, participants are then shown a letter ‘p’ slowly revolving. They then indicate when this ‘p’ instead appears as a ‘d’, revealing their ‘perceptual upright.’ When participants do this test

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lying down they use their vision to reveal where ‘upright’ is, much more than they do when standing.

Harris explained the next stages of his work – having a DVD of his experiment sent to astronauts on the ISS. There were huge amounts of planning and red tape involved in such experiments being approved, and then when the DVD reached the astronauts it wouldn’t work!

Thankfully, after some fiddling back on earth, seven astronauts carried out the experiment while in space – as well as before their journey and months after returning to the planet. While Harris expected to see increased reliance on visual cues to determine perceptual upright in the absence of gravity, this actually wasn’t seen. In fact, it seemed that in the time between arriving at the ISS and their first test, astronauts had recovered the ability to use visual cues to discern upright. However, the astronauts did rely more on their bodily orientation cues than they would on earth. Another interesting finding was that astronauts, even weeks after returning to earth, still relied overly on bodily cues in the task.

As well as the senses, space plays havoc with the human body. Amazingly it’s only in recent years that astronauts have admitted that zero or micro gravity gives a majority of them motion sickness throughout their voyages. Similarly the effects of low gravity on vision are just being discussed with many astronauts admitting poor vision, which can persist for years after returning to earth.

Professor Simon Evetts, Managing Director of SeaSpace Research, the research and development branch of Blue Abyss – a group that explores extreme environments, particularly space and deeper parts of the ocean – gave a fascinating tour of what space does to humans, from solar radiation to the deterioration of bones and muscles.

Lauren Reinerman-Jones, Director of the University of Florida’s Institute for Simulation and Training, has been working towards recreating the feelings of awe and wonder astronauts often report while in space. She and her colleagues carried out several simulations in which subjects saw the earth as if from space. Participants’ readings on EEG, ECG and fNIRS were collected, as well as survey data on religiousness and more in-depth interviews about their experience. She and her team found differences between people who experienced awe and wonder in the simulation, including different theta and beta wave activity in their brains. Interestingly they also found that participants who scored highly on measures of religiousness and spirituality experienced less awe and wonder.

In the latter part of the conference Libby Jackson (Astronaut Flight Education Programme Manager for the UK Space Agency), who was responsible for publicising Tim Peake’s voyage to the ISS, particularly to schoolchildren, gave an insight into his journey. Finally, food chemist and celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal [see also https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/down-culinaryrabbit-hole] was interviewed about the experience of developing meals for Peake to eat while aboard the ISS. ER

the psychologist march 2017 news

The impact of revenge A recent post that featured on our Research Digest blog (www.bps.org. uk/digest) on the potential moodenhancing effects of revenge stirred up international media interest.

We spoke to one of the paper’s authors, Dr David Chester (Virginia Commonwealth University) about his work and its impact.

Chester and Dr C. Nathan DeWall’s work, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, saw 156 participants receiving fake negative or positive feedback on essays they had written; following this, participants in the negative group could carry out revenge using a voodoo doll to symbolise the negative reviewer.

Afterwards participants’ mood was fully recovered and comparable to that in the positive group.

In further work to look into motives for revenge, subjects were given a placebo pill and told it would enhance their thinking in the upcoming tests. Some of those were told that the pill, once it kicked in, would cause their mood to become fixed and unchanging.

Following this, all subjects took part in a computer game where they, and two computerised players, passed a ball between them. Some of these were in a ‘rejection’ condition where the other players wouldn’t pass the ball to them, in the 'accepted’ condition participants had the ball an equal amount of time.

Later, participants had the chance to take revenge against one of their previous playmates, in a ‘first to the buzzer’ reaction game.

In each round of the game the losing player was punished with a loud noise blasted in their headphones.

The participants, if they won, could choose the volume of this noise up to 105 decibels (the same level as a jackhammer).

Participants who experienced earlier rejection inflicted louder sounds on their opponents most of the time. But for those who were

told the pill would fix their mood this wasn’t the case. These 'fixedmood' participants still felt the same levels of rejection as other rejected participants, but they perhaps believed they had no chance of improving their mood via revenge.

So, maybe even seemingly pointless aggression can have a purpose, and could potentially explain other contexts where aggression may be seen as an avenue to improving mood. Chester told us he wanted to understand why people hurt each other with an aim to eventually design better tools to prevent it. Revenge, he added, is the most common form of aggressive behaviour and a massive cause of harm to humankind.

And the research obviously struck a chord: after its appearance on the Research Digest the piece was summarised by New York Magazine and the Daily Mail. These articles were subsequently linked to by dozens of websites and Vice also reached out to him for an interview.

He said the Digest appearance had a huge impact on the visibility of his and DeWalls’ findings.

Chester said: ‘People want to understand the reasons behind their own behaviours and the behaviours of others. Our research shed light onto why people engage in some of the most cruel and costly acts in the human behavioural repertoire. I hope that armed with this information, people will be better equipped to prevent their own revengeful acts and help others who might be at risk.’

He also had advice for those wanting to improve the impact of their own work: ‘Share your work early and openly. Once a paper is accepted, tweet and share your findings on social media. Share your manuscript freely with those around you and make yourself available to media outlets that want to cover your research. The more you give, the more coverage you will get, increasing the impact of your work.’

Around the Society conferences Those who work under bosses with narcissistic and psychopathic traits feel depressed, have lower job satisfaction and are more likely to engage in counterproductive behaviours at work, a team from the University of Manchester’s Business School found. Lead researcher Abigail Phillips presented the findings at the Division of Occupational Psychology’s conference in Liverpool.

During the same conference Dr Fiona Beddoes-Jones, Managing Director of the Cognitive Fitness Consultancy reported on findings that around 80 per cent of managers think other leaders and managers should be taught how to be compassionate towards their staff. In a study of more than 300 leaders and managers, a majority felt not enough warmth and care was shown at work: they said their wellbeing would be improved with more love.

Occupational psychologists Dr Almuth McDowall (Birkbeck, University of London) and Professor Gail Kinman (University of Bedfordshire) also presented. More than 370 UK organisations took part in a survey that found less than 50 per cent of companies provided their employees with advice on how to switch off from work. The authors suggested companies should do more to help employees become more e-resilient and manage technology in a healthier way.

A free Psychology Fringe Festival was held for the public during the Division of Clinical Psychology’s annual conference, also in Liverpool.

Events encompassing poetry, dance, theatre, music and photography were held at venues across the city and explored issues such as sexuality, homelessness and mental health.

A paper presented during the conference revealed that, generally, men want a quick fix from psychological therapy, while women prefer to discuss their feelings. Katie Holloway (University of Portsmouth) and colleagues asked 20 therapists to note any gender differences they had experienced during their careers. One interesting result was that 80 per cent of therapists showed a reluctance to talk about gender differences in the needs of their clients – perhaps discussion of gender similarities is more acceptable in academic circles.

Along similar lines a study by Louise Liddon and colleagues (Northumbria University) asked 347 members of the public about the kind of therapy they would prefer if they required help.

Men and women showed many similarities but there were differences – women preferred the idea of psychodynamic psychotherapy while more men showed a preference for informal groups to share advice. ER

Detectives on the toll of investigating child deaths – it only gets harder There has been little research into what it’s like for police detectives to investigate the death of a child. As bluntly stated in official police guidance documents, 'children are not meant to die', and coping with these circumstances, especially as a detective and parent, could involve emotional and psychological demands beyond those experienced when investigating adult murders.

For a new exploratory study in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Jason Roach and his colleagues surveyed 99 police detectives from 23 forces across England and Wales: most of them were white and male, and they had conducted investigations into an average of 30 adult murders and 7 unexplained child deaths.

Compared to dealing with adult homicides, the detectives said they felt more pressure to solve cases involving children, found them harder to deal with emotionally, and thought more about them after the cases had ended.

The detectives also considered child cases to be more complex and said they were more likely to handle them by turning to formal guidance, such as the Murder Investigation Manual, which was published by the Association of Chief Police Officers in 2006. This suggests they wanted to do things by the book rather than relying on intuition, which seems sensible given the relative rarity of such cases.

Some of the emotional effects of child cases were weaker when detectives had experienced them within the last six months. This seems counterintuitive, but the researchers speculated that while dealing with any violent crime can deliver an emotional load in the short term, the impressions of a case involving a child are harder to shake, so its severity becomes more obvious over time.

The research shows that seniority provided no

bulwark against being shaken by these cases. In fact, the more senior detectives reported higher levels of impact on their home life, and had significantly more trouble sleeping and more ruminative thoughts. They were even more likely to turn to the Murder Investigation Manual and other guidance to support them in these cases, suggesting that they accepted these are high-grade cases to handle. The effects of rank were also found in investigations of adult cases, but to a lesser extent.

The 83 per cent of the detectives who had children of their own, had a slightly different take from their childless counterparts, reporting that they were less able to control their emotions when working on the child cases, and that they were more focused on them. So the cases hit closer to home, making them both harder and more important.

The younger their own children, the more emotional blowback the detectives reported experiencing.

This is an exploratory study so the findings need to be treated carefully. But the research reveals a world that before now most of us have only encountered through the imaginations of screenwriters. Unlike their fictional counterparts, the real-life detectives didn’t report becoming hardened to child death, but if anything were more sensitive later in their careers, which suggests they may benefit from psychological support services just as much as early-career officers.

The research also suggests that there may be value in targeting support downstream from difficult cases, to help detectives work through residual experiences that are proving hard to shift. As Roach and his team conclude, 'further research must continue to explore how investigative decisions are made in such difficult and stressful circumstances if we are to give those good enough to do it as much self-protection as possible'.

Alex Fradera for the Research Digest www.bps.org.uk/digest To read the full journal article see tinyurl.com/zpths6s

How we develop

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A newly published collection of essays, written by psychologists and other leading scientists, aims to replace the centuries-old nature–nurture debate with a new developmental argument.

The free How We Develop series argues that everything about us, from brain and body structure to traits and preferences, is a product of a dynamic, developing system. Its 24 essays were co-edited by Professor John Spencer of the University of East Anglia’s School of Psychology,

Professor Mark Blumberg from the DeLTA Center (University of Iowa) and science writer David Shenk.

Among the contributions from psychologists are an essay on wordlearning by Larissa Samuelson and Bob McMurray, a fascinating insight into imitation in infants by Susan Jones, and a discussion on whether we can improve executive functioning through training by Clancy Blair.

Sir Patrick Bateson, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Angela Duckworth, and K. Anders Ericsson also feature

among the contributors who present the latest views of what has been termed a ‘developmental systems’ perspective. This provides a framework for thinking about individual development on several levels – molecular, neural and behavioural – and across multiple timescales, from second-to-second behaviour to years of development to centuries of evolutionary change. ER To read the collection see http:// wires.wiley.com/go/howwedevelop

the psychologist march 2017 news

A busy month for… Donald Trump Psychologists and psychiatrists are speaking out about Donald Trump’s potential mental health issues in an unprecedented move, which they say is for the good of the public and their own professional integrity. However, others argue this type of labelling increases stigma towards mental health issues and actually reduces professional integrity.

As Gersh Kuntzman wrote in New York Daily News a number of experts have become so concerned about Trump they are willing to face reprisals from their organisations for breaking the so-called 'Goldwater Rule'. Psychotherapist John D. Gartner has said Trump displays signs of 'malignant narcissism', also reportedly stating: ‘Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being President.’ An alliance called 'Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism', has released a manifesto stating: ‘We cannot remain silent as we witness the rise of an American form of fascism.’

Kuntzman also spoke to Dr Julie Futrell, a clinical psychologist who has never treated Trump, but who said: ‘You can't use logic to persuade someone like that… The

maintenance of self-identity is the organizing principle of life for those who fall toward the pathological end of the narcissistic spectrum.’

However not all psychologists and psychiatrists approve of diagnosing Trump from afar. Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has said: 'We want to be positioned in the public mind as being a calm, authoritative voice, and speculating on the mental health of celebs does exactly the opposite.’

Professor Peter Kinderman, President of the British Psychological Society, said: 'Trump should be judged, and condemned, as any other politician would be, on his political decisions. I am sceptical of the validity of psychiatric diagnosis per se, and I agree with those colleagues who condemn arms-length celebrity pseudodiagnosis. But I'd go further. We should not smear those of us struggling with psychological problems by association with people of the calibre of Donald Trump.

There is nothing contemptible about problems that lead to the use of diagnostic labels in our work in mental health.

There is a lot contemptible in Donald Trump's behaviour, and the two issues should be kept entirely separate.' ER

If you like sick jokes, maybe it’s because you’re just so smart Understanding jokes requires a certain amount of mental agility, psychologists tell us, because you need to recognise a sudden shift in meaning, or appreciate the blending of odd contexts that don’t normally go together. A new study in the journal Cognitive Processing has tested whether intelligence plays the same role in the appreciation of sick or black humour: the kind of jokes that make light of death, illness and the vulnerable. Consistent with past research linking intelligence with joke appreciation, the participants who most liked cartoons based on black humour also scored highest on verbal and non-verbal IQ. Fourteen researchers, led by Ulrike Willinger at the Medical University of Vienna, asked 156 participants, with an average age of 33 and including 76 women, to rate their comprehension and enjoyment of 12 black humour cartoons taken from The Black Book by Uli Stein.

For instance, one cartoon depicted a confused man holding a public telephone, the voice coming from the phone saying: 'Here is the answering

machine of the self-help association for Alzheimer patients. If you still remember your topic, please speak after the tone.' The participants also completed basic tests of their verbal and non-verbal IQ and answered questions about their mood, aggressive tendencies and educational background.

The researchers identified three distinct groups of participants based on their understanding and appreciation for the sick cartoons (incidentally, age and gender appeared not to be relevant factors).

One group showed the highest sick humour appreciation and comprehension, and they also scored the highest on verbal and non-verbal IQ, were better educated, and scored lower for aggression and bad mood.

This fits with past research showing that sense of humour correlates with IQ, but refutes the somewhat commonly held belief that people who like black humour tend to be grumpy and perhaps a little prone to sadism.

A second group showed moderate comprehension and the lowest sick

joke enjoyment. These people had average intelligence scores, but showed the most negative mood and the highest aggression. So perhaps opposite to what you might expect, this research found no evidence that grumpy, aggressive people enjoy sick or black humour. Meanwhile, the final group showed moderate sick humour comprehension and preference, and they had average intelligence scores, generally positive mood and moderate aggression scores.

Willinger and her team said their findings suggested black humour processing is a 'complex information-processing task', and were consistent with past research suggesting that low mood impairs humour appreciation, this seeming to be true even in the case of sick jokes.

Apparently it takes a certain amount of intelligence, good mood and calmness to recognise and enjoy the 'playful fiction' of black humour.

Christian Jarrett for the Research Digest www.bps.org.uk/digest To read the full journal article see tinyurl.com/gmr3hao

Further reading via: https:// thepsychologist. bps.org.uk/ psychologistsand-donaldtrump

5 minutes with… Vivian Hill A recent report in Schools Week (tinyurl.com/hrm2r6z) outlined a slump in the number of educational psychologists employed in local authorities, decreasing from 1900 in 2010 to 1650 in 2015. Journalist Freddie Whittaker also pointed to a survey from the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) which showed an increased demand for their services. Ella Rhodes spoke to the Chair of the British Psychological Society's Division of Educational and Child Psychology, Vivian Hill, who also trains educational psychologists at the Institute of Education (UCL).

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Why might we be seeing a reduction in educational psychologists hired by local authorities?

This is the consequence of the austerity period and associated reluctance to increase the numbers of people in training. There’s also a historical context – we’ve reached a point where there’s a large number of educational psychologists (EPs) retiring, greater than the number of people the government is funding to train.

Recently, we've had a slight increase in the number of training places nationally, provided by the DfE. Furthermore, a number of local authorities have devolved their responsibilities for providing educational psychologists, and increasing numbers of EPs are working independently, for social enterprises or for companies. There are some risks and threats with this model, it’s rather like the notion of privatising the NHS. The concern is to ensure continued access to EP services for the unsponsored and vulnerable children in our society. What I would hope to see is a guaranteed level of access to educational psychology for all children, irrespective of how much funding there is in a school at a given time. I’d have profound concern if we reached a point where there was not a fully qualified educational psychologist attached to every local-authoritymaintained school in the UK.

What is the current uptake of educational psychology services?

What we have seen in recent years is a huge increase in demand for educational psychologists from schools, and that, to me, is the evidence base for training more educational psychologists. What we were finding was that schools were buying in additional time from educational psychology services, particularly for work that was focused on meeting children’s mental health needs. Increasingly, educational psychologists are trained in therapeutic approaches and techniques, like cognitive behavioural therapy and play therapy, and those were the additional services schools were choosing to buy.

We are facing a crisis in CAMHS services, in some parts of the country, waiting lists range between six and 12 months. And at a time when school budgets are going to be decreased I would be concerned about ensuring access to an educational psychologist.

The Prime Minister has suggested the introduction of a psychological first aid kit that teachers will have to implement. This would be huge responsibility for teachers and most would want the support and guidance of an EP in making sense of children's behaviour.

What impact could this lack of psychologists have on children, schools and families?

Children would face huge delays in having their special educational needs identified and gaining access to appropriate provision through an education, health and care plan, which is their statutory right. Local authorities that don’t have enough EPs and are unable to recruit will be in breach of their statutory responsibilities to children in that area – these are very serious consequences.

Furthermore, we might have children presenting with marked mental health needs whose needs may not be properly understood and managed. We may have children who are presenting with a profile

of behaviours that actually aren’t reflective of mental health needs, but who are being referred into over-subscribed CAMHS services by teaching staff. In many cases teachers would not have the expertise to make the judgement about whether the behaviour of an individual is an appropriate response to adversity or whether it’s a genuine glimpse of a young person with the onset of a mental health need.

What can be done to assure the future of EPs in schools?

I believe we have a clear commitment from ministers and the government to the continued support of children’s educational needs. Making it a service that’s bought-in risks some children having lesser rights, access and entitlements. We need a clear commitment to funding sufficient training posts to sustain the delivery of EP services.

The consequences of unmet mental health needs in childhood are huge, in terms of future public expenditure and a lifetime of suffering and difficulty for an individual.

However, a timely response can turn around a young person and give them a life of happiness and wellbeing.

the psychologist march 2017 news

Psychologists honoured This year’s New Year’s Honours list included three psychologists recognised for their careers in mental health, offender management and higher education.

A proud cognitive psychologist and neuropsychologist, Janice Kay was recognised with a CBE for her services to higher education. Now Provost at the University of Exeter, and formerly Senior Deputy ViceChancellor and Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychology, Kay told us about her award and work with the academics of tomorrow. She said it was a 'surprise and delight' to be recognised for her work.

Many of Kay’s achievements have come about thanks to a real belief in improving the student experience.

This has involved her work with the 1994 group, a collection of researchJanice Kay intensive universities that focused on improving the student experience as well as improving conditions for staff. Later she has set up projects in the university all aimed at improving life for students, including encouraging students to be so-called change agents, whereby students can raise any issues they have with the way things are taught, and if this is a majority view, and research backs up their thoughts, they can set about changing it.

Kay said, overall in her career she has been proud to empower people to improve their own learning experience, but she added working at Exeter had been a real highlight.

She said: ‘The really exciting thing is just how much Exeter has grown Miranda Wolpert to become in the top 1 per cent of universities, it’s recognised now for its work on climate change, diabetes and medical humanities. I’m just really excited to have been part of the development of the institution, it is about students, but also about working with our very talented staff too.’

Forensic psychologist Dr Siriol David was awarded an OBE for services to offender management, having worked across public sector prisons and the National Probation Service for 31 years. David retired from her role as Lead Psychologist for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in Wales last year. As part of this role, David was responsible for the development of a 'through the gate' forensic psychological service to high and very high risk offenders in the community in Wales.

This service improves the overall management of high-risk offenders across the criminal justice system and positively promotes the value of forensic psychology in a wide range of settings and organisations. David has also influenced professional practice across the criminal

justice system by conducting and contributing to highprofile investigations that have resulted in significant changes to practice, one such change being the ensuring of psychological objectivity by separating the risk assessment process from the delivery of therapeutic interventions.

David is described by colleagues as a consummate professional, and won the Civil Service Professional of the Year Award in 2014. She has a reputation for offering unwavering support to her colleagues and her team, and nominees for her award told us that David 'demonstrates leadership by actively seeking to provide an ethical and client focused service, ensuring her staff are exceptionally well trained and that they work constructively within a multi-disciplinary framework'.

Clinical psychologist Professor Miranda Wolpert was recognised with an MBE for her 25 years of service to improving mental health support for children, young people and families. Among her many achievements, she founded the Evidence Based Practice Unit (www. ucl.ac.uk/ebpu), based at UCL and the Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families. She is also co-founder and director of the Child Outcomes Research Consortium and National Informatics Lead for the Children and Young People’s Mental Health programme at NHS England. She told us it had been both a surprise and an honour to receive the award.

Wolpert has worked closely with young people who have experience of mental health issues to make sure their voices are heard by service providers. She told us that while working as a clinical psychologist she realised there was little information about whether the approaches used with children and young people were actually working.

However, she said, in recent years there had been a paradigm shift towards thinking about child mental health care: ‘I hope what we’re moving towards is a way to help a range of professionals and organisations, such as schools and communities, to support young people both in more actively preventing mental health problems from developing but also how to live with and manage ongoing difficulties that many will continue to experience.' ER

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A brave new world of sleep?

Gareth Gaskell reviews the evidence on memory consolidation during sleep

Does sleep provide an opportunity to reorganise the mind?

22

S

leep is an enigma. Ask a set of experts a simple question like ‘What is sleep?’ and you get a remarkable range of answers.

Similarly, researchers will provide a multitude of responses to the question ‘Why do we sleep?’. Some will point to the value of energy conservation, with an analogy to hibernation or dormancy.

Others will argue that sleep provides an opportunity to repair cells, either across the body or more specifically in the brain.

To some extent, the expectation of a single purpose of sleep is unrealistic. What is the purpose of a mouth?

One could point to the central role of the mouth in eating, drinking, breathing and speaking, as well as many other more subtle roles (e.g. smiling, kissing, fighting, holding). The truth is that sleep – like the mouth – has many purposes, but it is becoming clear

‘Glitchdo’ G. Iafigliola/www.iafigliola.com

the psychologist march 2017 sleep

that one of the key benefits that sleep confers is the opportunity to revise, reorganise and strengthen our memories so that we can extract the most useful information from recent experiences and optimise our use of these memories when we wake up.

Research on this process of consolidation has a rich history, but our understanding of the specific involvement of sleep in this process has only really been identified in the last decade or so, with recent developments leading to a clearer understanding of both the cognitive impact of sleep on memory and the brain mechanisms that underpin this process. In this article I will describe some of the landmark studies that have helped us to reach this position, and discuss some of the new areas in which we need to conduct more research in order to evaluate the role of sleep in memory consolidation.

Sleep and consolidation As part of the wonderfully named series of ‘Minor studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Cornell University’, Jenkins and Dallenbach in 1924 reported a historic study comparing forgetting of nonsense syllables after different time intervals spent awake during the day or asleep at night. Despite testing only two participants, their results were very clear.

Forgetting increased as a function of time spent awake in a very orderly fashion. However, time spent asleep led to substantially less forgetting, and beyond a certain point there was no further cost to extra time spent asleep. The authors, quite properly, argued that this result could be explained in terms of interference: when we are awake we form new memories, and these may obscure or overwrite our previous memories. In sleep we are protected from this interference by the sensory barrier that sleep imposes.

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But is there more to the involvement of sleep recorded brain activity from patients undergoing than merely a passive barrier? For decades, this issue surgery for epilepsy and was able to characterise remained stubbornly resistant to a solution. However, the brain mechanisms underlying consolidation an increasing conceptualisation of sleep as a structured in unprecedented detail. They found a beautiful hierarchy of states and events rather than as a single interplay of neural oscillations, with three different entity has eventually led us to the understanding components acting in perfect synchrony to make sure that there is indeed more to sleep than just passive that the hippocampus and cortex are prepared to talk protection. For example, we tend to have quite to each other before a swift pulse of activity transfers different sleep properties early in the night compared information from one to the other. with closer to the morning. Soon after falling asleep we tend to descend into deep or slow-wave sleep, which is marked by very strong oscillations with a Can we enhance our memories in sleep? low frequency across the surface of the brain. Later in The sad truth is that despite consolidation many of the night the oscillations in the brain have a broader our memories are forgotten or at least weakened to the range of frequencies, often coupled with rapid eye point where we find it hard to retrieve them. But what movements (REM sleep), which are strongly associated if we could hook ourselves up to brain enhancement with dreams. An ingenious study from Jan Born’s lab systems to boost our memories? Given that we are now in Bamberg exploited this dissociation to see whether beginning to understand the mechanism by which the early night and later night sleep would have the same brain consolidates memory, this kind of acceleration effect on forgetting as the passive account would of consolidation has become a realistic goal. predict. In fact they found that the benefit of sleep One method builds on our understanding of the depended on the type of memory. Early sleep was oscillations in the brain that relate to consolidation. It particularly useful for preserving memories of facts is fairly straightforward to enhance these oscillations, or associations, whereas late sleep was useful only for by electrical stimulation or even repeated bursts of retaining newly acquired skills. This kind of result is sound at a particular frequency (a bit like a bedroom hard to explain in terms of simply clock running slightly slow). The resistance to interference. Instead stimulation strengthens the natural “Early sleep was we now think of sleep as having waves in the brain and results in an active role in the protection of better consolidation, making a particularly useful for memories, through the process of measurable difference to people’s preserving memories memory consolidation. performance in memory tests the of facts or associations, Current thinking on the following morning. mechanisms underlying this active The enhancement of whereas late sleep was process requires even further oscillations is a fairly blunt tool useful only for retaining fractionation of the state of sleep. in that all it can do is strengthen newly acquired skills” There is a strong and fruitful consolidation across the board tradition of thinking about sleep in (and to be honest, the effects on terms of a handful of stages, with memory are not dramatic – it’s REM and slow-wave sleep being key examples. But not going to be a way of acing an exam if you haven’t even these divisions are too broad, and one key theory done the work). A second method is if anything even of memory consolidation developed in Italy by Tononi more exciting in that it provides a way of picking out and Cirelli focuses on oscillations within a particular specific memories for preferential treatment. This frequency band as a means of refreshing the plasticity targeted reactivation method works by associating new of synapses ready for the next day of learning. memories with a stimulus that can then be presented Another theory, which probably dominates to people as they sleep. Smells work well for this, as thinking at the moment, builds on generations of do sounds. For example, a study at Northwestern research on amnesia and conceptualises sleep as University led by John Rudoy had people learn about playing a vital role in the cross-talk between different the location of various objects on a screen in front of parts of the brain. According to the notion of systems them with the typical sound of each object (e.g. the consolidation we have one part of the brain centred whistle of a kettle) being played as they learned. Some on the hippocampus that is particularly effective at of these sounds were then played over loudspeakers forming new memories and retaining them in the during sleep, and the memories associated with these short term. However, long-term retention depends on sounds were retained better than the control memories building links in the cortex, and hippocampal replay that were not reactivated in sleep. during sleep offers an opportunity for newly formed This method is promising (if slightly disturbing) memories to be transferred from hippocampus to in that it provides a way of manipulating memories cortex. This transfer isn’t completed overnight, but we as we sleep. It could be used to select the aspects of are still able to find memory changes as a consequence the day’s experience to be enhanced, possibly to the of sleep after one night, or even sometimes after a detriment of the unselected aspects. The potential for short nap. A recent study by Staresina and colleagues therapy has so far just been touched on by looking at

the psychologist march 2017 sleep

whether negative gender or race biases could be counteracted by ‘In recent forming more positive associations years I have that were then reactivated during branched out the vast bulk of psycholinguistic sleep using this method, with into sleep research has failed to consider some modest success. Nonetheless, and memory the memory processes involved the immediate benefit of all these research after in language learning beyond the enhancement methods has been to becoming first encoding. Furthermore, first contribute to our understanding of intrigued by the question of language learning is not merely how sleep operates to consolidate how we can learn and retain a matter of concern in child memory. new words. York has a newly development. Even in adulthood Targeted reactivation comes built three-bedroom Sleep, we are expanding our vocabulary close to the idea of sleep-learning Language and Memory lab, at a rate of perhaps a word every or hypnopaedia, as featured in where willing volunteers sleep couple of days. Work in our lab many works of fiction such as in style (covered in electrodes!) in York has shown that overnight Huxley’s Brave New World. The after learning new languages.’ consolidation is an important key difference is that the targeted aspect of learning vocabulary, and memories are already in place by the changes that take place through the time of reactivation. Sleepconsolidation are more than Gareth Gaskell learning refers to the idea that we simply a strengthening of word is a Professor of Psychology at could form a new memory via representations. One important the University of York. He has first exposure during sleep. Is this property is the connection of new a longstanding interest in all possible? Certainly a quick web words to their neighbours in the aspects of the psychology of search will find plenty of websites mental dictionary or ‘lexicon’ of language, and edited the Oxford and apps that try to convince you the language user. It is useful to Handbook of Psycholinguistics. to part with your money to give think of the lexicon as a network gareth.gaskell@york.ac.uk it a try. However, real scientific of interconnected nodes. When studies have for decades suggested we hear a word, we activate this that the only cases where learning appears to take network and a competitive process separates the place overnight are ones where the participants are identified word from its similar sounding neighbours. momentarily awoken. It seems that we cannot form For example, in order to recognise the spoken new memories in our sleep. This makes a lot of word breakfast we need to separate it from similar sense, given what we now know about consolidation. alternatives such as bread, breath and breast, and this The great advantage of sleep as an offline state competition process takes time. For many people in for consolidation is the fact that we can use the the UK and beyond, this competition process got just hippocampus in replay rather than record mode. a little bit harder over the last year when a new word Doing both at the same time may be too much to ask.

Brexit suddenly became a very common word and Having said that, there are a few suggestions that so acted as a competitor to breakfast, slowing down very simple forms of learning are possible in sleep. its recognition. This may be the one and only way Arzi and colleagues in Israel have studied the learning in which Brexit can be argued to have led to greater of associations in sleep using conditioning techniques, integration. finding that new associations can be formed Our work has shown that this integration of a new between tones and smells. Again the therapeutic word is not a property that is immediately available angle is interesting, with a later study from this after encoding. Instead it emerges after consolidation, group suggesting that aversive conditioning in sleep associated with sleep. Returning to the systems (associating the smell of cigarettes with rotten eggs) consolidation model, this makes sense. The words that can influence smoking behaviour on subsequent days. we have known for years such as breakfast and bread So there is really a slight blurring of the boundaries reside in certain parts of the cortex, and a new word between sleep and wake. Wake is largely for encoding is unable to contact these words easily to engage in of memories (but actually quiet wakefulness can competition without some transfer from hippocampus help consolidation a little) and sleep is largely for to neocortex taking place. This is an example of how consolidation of memories (but perhaps we can encode sleep can do more than just make a new memory the simple stuff). robust. It may also alter the structure of memory and its relationship with other memories, old and new, often leaving the consolidated memory better able to Learn a language while you sleep serve us in our everyday life.

Our own work on consolidation has focused on The influence of sleep also shows up in tests of the relationship between sleep, consolidation and automaticity in access to word meanings. For example, language learning. The ability to communicate through new colour words learned as part of a foreign language language is one of the defining human traits, and show stronger Stroop effects after a consolidation

Key sources

period, suggesting that their meanings are more readily available and accessed in a more obligatory manner when they have become consolidated. Again this might reflect the properties of the neural routes to information. Access to meaning via the hippocampus is likely to be less direct and perhaps more intentional than a direct cortical route that emerges after consolidation.

Furthermore, the effects of consolidation are not just seen for words. All languages have constraints about the ways in which speech sounds can combine to form words. For example, in English /sl/ is an acceptable combination of sounds as in the word sleep, but /sr/ is not. These constraints are not just abstract facts about the language; they have psychological reality and even influence our speech errors (e.g. when intending to say ‘sleep’ you might mistakenly say ‘sneep’ but you are very unlikely to say ‘sreep’). It also turns out that these constraints are quite malleable, so that people can pick up on new constraints in the lab with their speech errors again influenced. Sleep once again has a role to play in this plasticity of the language system. Simple constraints involving single sounds can be picked up straight away, but complex constraints involving combinations of sounds emerge in our speech errors only after sleep. So sleep here seems to be taking a set of examples from our recent experience in language and extracting the abstract core of this knowledge in order to use this knowledge in a more effective and generalised way after sleep.

Davis, M.H. & Gaskell, M.G. (2009).

A complementary systems account of word learning: neural and behavioural evidence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 364(1536), 37733800.

Henderson, L., Powell, A., Gaskell, M.G. & Norbury, C. (2014). Learning and consolidation of new spoken words in autism spectrum disorder.

Developmental Science, 17(6), 858-871.

Gaskell, M.G., Warker, J., Lindsay, S. et al. (2014). Sleep underpins the plasticity of language production. Psychological Science, 25(7), 1457-1465.

Mander, B.A., Winer, J.R., Jagust, W.J. & Walker, M.P. (2016). Sleep: A novel mechanistic pathway, biomarker, and treatment target in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease? Trends in Neurosciences, 39(8), 552-566.

Rasch, B. & Born, J. (2013). About sleep’s role in memory. Physiological Reviews, 93(2), 681.

Schreiner, T. & Rasch, B. (in press). The beneficial role of memory reactivation for language learning during sleep: A review. Brain and Language.

Full list available in online / app version.

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Where next?

Although we are building towards a good understanding of how and why sleep aids in the consolidation and integration of memories, this understanding largely applies to healthy adults, and indeed in many cases adults of a typical university student age, since these are the people who tend to sign up for sleep experiments. Researchers have certainly looked at a wider range of ages, but evidence remains patchy. For example, there are substantial changes in the quality and quantity of sleep as we age, and some of the oscillations that turn out to be so important for memory consolidation can wax and wane across the lifespan. One example is slow oscillation activity, which may operate to orchestrate the chain of events that lead to hippocampal replay and memory consolidation. This activity is very strong in children and peaks at

about 10 years of age, before gradually declining as we get older. What is the significance of this developmental change?

It is tempting to argue that the heightened activity in childhood can mean stronger memory consolidation effects for humans just when they really need it, but comparative studies are few and far between.

We know for example that children, like adults, can show consolidation effects in the integration of new vocabulary items, and these effects look on face value to be stronger. But we still know very little about the neural events that underpin these effects in children, and there are many other differences between children and adults (e.g. the size of their vocabulary) that could also have an explanatory role. There are also important changes that take place in the development of the brain’s circuitry that need to be taken into account, particularly related to the development of the hippocampus.

In parallel with research into the developmental trajectory of sleep and consolidation, it is becoming increasingly important to examine the involvement of sleep in individual differences in learning, and in the subgroups of children and adults where learning development is impaired. Here we are in a state of substantial ignorance. All kinds of developmental disorders are associated with overt sleep problems, such as difficulty establishing a bedtime routine or difficulty maintaining sleep. But the studies that have examined the structure of sleep – which has turned out to be so important in understanding memory consolidation – have been very small scale and hard to interpret. Most of these disorders will not be defined by the sleep problems, nonetheless atypical consolidation might play a role in the progress of the disorder and the development of the symptoms. As a small step in this direction our group recently investigated the role of consolidation in the learning of vocabulary in autism. Whereas a control group of children showed the standard pattern of integration of new words only after sleep, children with autistic spectrum disorder showed almost the reverse pattern, and most importantly did not demonstrate a consolidation effect in terms of our measure of how well new words have been integrated with the ones that are already known (the ‘Brexit’ test).

Finally, a similar argument can be made for a greater focus on older adults. It is well understood that slow-wave sleep becomes scarcer in the older people, and the slow oscillations themselves become weaker.

A handful of studies have also looked at memory

‘Glitchdo’ G. Iafigliola/www.iafigliola.com

the psychologist march 2017 sleep

consolidation on older adults, with the evidence suggesting that sleep has the same beneficial effect on memory as we grow older. So sleep still helps to retain memories at this age, but there is less of the really beneficial sleep to stimulate consolidation. Intriguingly, a few studies have looked at some of the ways in which

sleep oscillations can be enhanced as described above to see whether memory is improved in older adults.

Unfortunately though the evidence is mixed, and more research here is needed. The stakes are high, as researchers at Berkeley have found evidence that sleep disturbance may be causally implicated in the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, and have argued that specific tests for sleep disruption could provide an early indicator of susceptibility to Alzheimer’s.

This recent development is a good example of how sleep and memory research is extending its tentacles into areas of science that a decade or two would have seemed fanciful or laughable. I remember reading a psychology textbook at University in the late 1980s that covered the cognitive psychology of sleep in a couple of turgid paragraphs. There was simply nothing to say. Now it seems like everywhere we look there is a potentially significant sleep angle and sleep is portrayed in the popular press as a universal panacea.

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40

the psychologist march 2017 bullying

Why aren’t we beating bullying?

T

Stephen James Minton feels that attending to prejudice could be the key to improving anti-bullying research and action

he problem of bullying at school is serious and widespread. Each year, towards the end of the school summer holidays, the ‘back to school’ features of the popular print and television media will usually include at least a brief focus on the issue, sometimes reporting the tragedies of young people who have taken their own lives, rather than having to face being bullied (see Marr and Field’s 2001 book Bullycide).

It’s also a pervasive issue. Many of us who went to school in the 20th century, and experienced or witnessed bullying at school, will have read a fictional description of bullying that dated from the mid-19th century (i.e. that perpetrated by the character Flashman in Tom Brown’s Schooldays). And when the results of the systematic research into the issue of school bullying that began in the 1970s confirmed the impression that many of us had – that if you hadn’t been bullied yourself at school, then you must at least have known someone who had been – almost no one was surprised.

Internationally, according to a study of 35 countries conducted by the World Health Organization in 2004, over one third of young people reported having taken part in the bullying of others at least once in the previous couple of months, and over one third reported having been bullied at least once in the same period.

So what is being done, and can we make interventions more effective?

The Scandinavian approach Large-scale research into bullying at school began with the pioneering efforts of Professor Dan Olweus, in his native Sweden and especially in Norway, where he has been a long-term resident. Olweus has influenced the ways in which school bullying has been defined (usually, as repeated aggression involving a

Large-scale anti-bullying interventions, stemming from psychological research, have been with us for several decades now. But how effective are they, and is enthusiasm on the wane?

power imbalance between the perpetrator(s) and the target(s)), researched (generally, through the largescale implementation of self-report measures with school students) and tackled (see Peter K. Smith and colleagues’ 1999 summary of interventions).

Famously, three tragic school bullying-related suicides in Norway in 1982 prompted the government to support and fund the first nationwide anti-bullying programme, designed by Olweus, and informed by the data that he had collected. From the late 1980s, researchers elsewhere in Europe, and also in Australasia and North America, used Olweus’s methods (and often, translated versions of his data-collection instruments) in establishing the incidence rates of school bullying in their countries, and developing their own anti-bullying programmes, often with largescale regional or national implementation ambitions.

Peter K. Smith and colleagues, in Sheffield and then Goldsmiths University of London, were key to these efforts.

Central government support continued for antibullying efforts in Norway, and with the announcement of the Manifesto against Bullying in 2004, a package of central government-supported measures at a nationwide level, Norway cemented its position as the

Key sources

world’s leader in the field. Legal reform was a key part of these measures; ultimately rooted in Norwegian perceptions of their responsibilities under international law (i.e. as a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child), section 9A-1 of the 2002 Education Act spelled out responsibilities for schools and the state in guaranteeing a satisfactory physical and psychosocial environment for all those enrolled in the nation’s schools. The implementation of anti-bullying programmes in schools was effectively mandated, with Olweus’s programme and the then newly developed ‘Zero’ programme being offered to all schools in Norway.

Whilst there are differences between the two programmes, both are based on the creation of local networks trained by small groups of experts. There’s an emphasis on awareness-raising at a ‘whole-school’ level (i.e. amongst students, parents, and teaching and non-teaching staff alike) and the adoption of behaviour management strategies in the schools (i.e. the development of anti-bullying policies, that incorporated measures to deal with and prevent bullying behaviour amongst students). I reviewed such programmes in my 2016 book.

Farrington, D.P. & Ttofi, M.M. (2009).

School-based programmes to reduce bullying and victimisation. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2009:6. Available from www.campbellcollaboration.org Hutchings, J. & Clarkson, S. (2015).

Introducing and piloting the KiVa bullying prevention programme in the UK. Educational and Child Psychology, 32(1), 49–61.

Minton, S.J. (2014). Prejudice and effective anti-bullying intervention: Evidence from the bullying of ‘minorities’. Nordic Psychology, 66(2), 108–120.

Minton, S.J. (2016). Marginalisation and aggression from bullying to genocide: Critical educational and psychological approaches. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

O’ Moore, A.M. & Minton, S.J. (2004).

Dealing with bullying in schools: A training manual for teachers, parents and other professionals. London: Paul Chapman.

Salmivalli, C.; Kärnä, A. & Poskiparta, E. (2011). Counteracting bullying in Finland: The KiVa program and its effects on different forms of being bullied. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 35, 405.

Smith, P.K., Pepler, D. & Rigby, K. (2004). Bullying in schools: How effective can interventions be? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Full list available online

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Enthusiasm begins to wane?

There was a large-scale antibullying programme in schools in Sheffield as early as 1990-1992, yet in more recent years, the UK has not progressed down the route of a nationally-implemented anti-bullying programme. The experience gained in the Nordic countries would support that, and for many years I have argued for it in Ireland, where I live (see O’ Moore & Minton, 2004).

In the absence of such measures, probably the highest profile anti-bullying effort, in the British public conscience, is AntiBullying Week, held in schools in the third week of November since 2004. It’s organised in England by the Anti-Bullying Alliance (www. anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk) and in Northern Ireland by the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum (www.endbullying.org. uk). With a different theme each year, there is an emphasis on the generation of resources and events for and by participating schools.

Whilst perhaps not adhering to the emphasis that Olweus has consistently placed on the need for evidence-based, evaluated

interventions, we can see the ongoing influence of the Norwegian research and practice in many strategies and resources implemented in British schools in AntiBullying Week.

Yet 13 years after the measures of the 2003 Manifesto against Bullying, the enthusiasm for direct anti-bullying measures seems to be reduced in Norway, at least in some quarters. In 2016 the national newspaper Aftenposten reported that whilst in 2003, 380 schools started the Zero programme, since 2013, no new schools have done so; and that the number of schools that run the Olweus programme, which was 400 in 2005, has also reduced. The newspaper also claimed that the Norwegian State has spent in excess of 200 million kroner (around £18.4 million) over the last decade on anti-bullying programmes.

Has the Norwegian taxpayer been getting value for their money? In other words, how effective have antibullying intervention programmes been in Norway, and elsewhere?

Worldwide, a 2008 meta-analysis of anti-bullying programmes conducted between 1980 and 2004

by Kenneth Merrell and colleagues concluded that programmes may produce ‘modest’ positive outcomes, but that they are more likely to influence knowledge, attitudes and self-perceptions than they are to influence actual bullying behaviours. David Farrington and Maria Ttofi’s 2009 meta-analysis of 44 anti-bullying intervention programmes conducted between 1983 and 2009 showed that school-based programmes succeeded in reducing self-reports of having bullied others by between 20 per cent and 23 per cent, and self-reports of having been bullied by others by between 17 per cent and 20 per cent.

Given the misery caused by school bullying, it can of course be argued that a reduction of up to 20 per cent in the proportion of students reporting that they had been bullied is important. However, on the basis of data collected from the Norwegian National Student Surveys of 2007, 2008 and 2009 (around 260,000 7th–10th grade student participants), Berit Lødding and Nils Vibe have concluded that bullying is not a problem that could be solved by adopting a specific programme; instead, attention should be paid to making improvements generally in the school environment. Perhaps predictably, Dan Olweus attacked Lødding and Vibe’s logic as ‘untenable’, provided evidence of the ‘strong effect’ of the Olweus anti-bullying programme, and described their conclusions as ‘pure speculation’.

A different emphasis The message that ‘bullying can happen to anyone’ is undoubtedly helpful in many respects. It can, for example, underscore the general need for us to do something about the issue, and defuse the feelings of being somehow to blame for one’s own bullying.

However, over the past two decades in particular, a body of evidence has emerged to support an idea that

implementation resources for many feel they have always known: schools, interactive parental advice that bullying happens to some and support websites, and online people (and significantly, to some games have all been developed, groups of people) more than others. as well as detailed procedures for When we consider the case of groups who are more generally schools and teachers in dealing with actual incidents of bullying marginalised, and subject to prejudice outside of the school (see Hutchings & Clarkson, 2015).

Since 2015, KiVa has been gates and environment, those implemented in 90 per cent of students report that they have been Stephen James Minton comprehensive schools in Finland, bullied in disproportionately higher is a Chartered Psychologist in and since its first nationwide rolling frequencies (Minton, 2014, 2016). the School of Education, Trinity out in 2009 evaluations have Given the extraordinarily and College Dublin shown year-on-year reductions in pervasively high prevalence rates of students’ self-reports of having been homophobic bullying in schools, bullied, and having taken part in the bullying of others. by addressing bullying behaviour in general is one KiVa currently has licensed partners in many countries simultaneously addressing the issue of homophobic across the world. In north and south Wales, 14 primary bullying? I would argue not, and back in 2006 Gerald schools have piloted it, along with three Cheshire Walton asserted that ‘even though homophobia is a prominent feature of schoolyard bullying, it is also one primary schools, with pre- and post-test evaluations (using the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire) of the most unchallenged forms of bullying’. showing statistically significant reductions in all There is also evidence to indicate that members participating schools of students’ self-reports of having of other so-called ‘minority groups’ – people with been bullied, and having taken part in bullying others physical disabilities and special educational needs, students who belong to ethnic minorities, and students (see Hutchings & Clarkson, 2015).

Through its structured work who belong to alternative subcultures – report having with students in particular, KiVa been bullied more frequently than their ‘majority’ seems to offer the possibility of a peers. Ketil Hansen and Tore Sørlie’s 2012 finding that more thorough working through of children of indigenous Sami ethnicity are at least twice students’ knowledge, attitudes and as likely to report having been bullied in Norwegian behaviour. I feel that it would be schools than are their majority Norwegian ethnicity peers has raised questions as to whether the provisions interesting to see how students who belong to ‘minorities’ fare in KiVa regarding the guarantee of a safe psychosocial schools; whilst such variables have environment made in the Education Act of 2002 work not been included in evaluations as well for Sami (and, potentially, other minority) to date, the finding that there was children as they do for the majority. Clearly, from the a 27 per cent reduction in the evidence regarding the bullying of those belonging proportion of students who report to various minorities, we cannot be confident that in having been bullied on the basis terms of anti-bullying measures, ’one size fits all’, or at of their ethnicity or country of least, we cannot continue to assume that the ‘one size’ origin in the first year of the that we have traditionally had will ‘fit all’.

KiVa seems to offer the possibility implementation of KiVa (Salmivalli Things move on, however, and these days the of a more thorough working through world’s most widely implemented anti-bullying et al., 2011) seems to be an of students’ knowledge, attitudes programme is one that originated in one of Norway’s encouraging indication. and behaviour neighbouring countries. The ‘KiVa’ anti-bullying I have come to see school programme was developed between 2006 and 2009 bullying as just one of the many

by Christina Salmivalli and her colleagues at the aspects of the aggressive marginalisation of ‘minority’ University of Turku, Finland – you may recall it from populations, so it seems to me that large-scale antibullying programmes provide an opportunity to the interview with Salmivalli in the April 2014 issue of The Psychologist. KiVa incorporates 10 structured challenge ‘us and them’ thinking and interactions, lessons (of approximately 90 minutes’ duration) amongst large groups of people, at formative ages. I for the age groups 7–9, 10–12 and 13–15 years, also believe that this potential has not, as yet, been covering topics such as being part of a team, having fully realised. It’s not enough to rely on the strategies respect for others, learning about emotions, group of awareness-raising and behavioural management. It interactions, peer pressure, types of bullying and their is for these reasons that I see a continued role for anticonsequences, and how individuals and groups can bullying programmes in schools, but in a strategically play their parts in reducing bullying. The delivery revised form – with thorough attention being given of the sessions is via small-group and whole-class to the importance to the role of prejudice as an discussion, role-play, film clips, groupwork, written underlying factor in bullying, and in other forms of assignments and whole-class activities. Training and aggressive marginalisation.

KiVa koulu, Finland. www.kivaproogram.net

the psychologist march 2017 bullying

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1056 pages of the print edition 941,760 web users (73 per cent up on 2015) 7.1 million Twitter impressions 15 free special app editions 19 minutes of Latitude Festival podcast A maturing picture of emotion Louisa Lawrie and Louise H. Phillips on how we process emotions in ourselves and others as we age

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Ruling the airwaves Our editor Jon Sutton pauses to appreciate two long-running psychological BBC Radio 4 programmes – Digital Human and All in the Mind We have reviewed BBC Radio 4’s Digital Human and All in the Mind in these pages before, and met the presenters (and psychology graduates) Aleks Krotoski and Claudia Hammond. But they’ve been churning out high-quality episodes for so many years now that it seems passé to simply say ‘they’re great, listen to them’. Instead, I thought I would speak to Aleks and Claudia, and their producers (Peter McManus on Digital Human, and Adrian Washbourne for All in the Mind), to find out the secrets of their success.

They will be referred to throughout by their initials.

Within 10 minutes of waking each morning, I have encountered half a dozen amazing things that I take for granted (namely electricity, stairs, mobile phones, coffee, locks, and poo bags for dogs). As I wend my way to work, it’s usually the turn of bicycles, headphones and radio/podcasts.

In particular, there are two enduring marvels which we should never overlook.

Is it easy to find new topics to cover after all these years?

CH: There’s so much interesting psychological and neuroscientific research being published at the moment, and also so much happening in the field of mental health, that the difficulty is choosing which subjects to choose from all those we want to cover.

We are on air for two nine-week series a year, so between series we save up topics, and by the planning stage the producer and I each have a stack of ideas.

Then as soon as the series begins, listeners suggest even more topics. We can’t fit them all in.

AK: We have an ongoing Slack channel and a Google doc that runs in the background during and between series… we throw ideas and links and fragments of thought into them. It’s rich pickings for the meetings when we get together and hack through the next series’ topics.

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PM: The clue is in the title Digital Human – I’d struggle to think of an aspect of modern living that isn’t affected by technology or that some tech company doesn’t have in its sights, so the possibilities are endless. But we go through a very thorough process of checking a theme ticks all the boxes and have had to drop ideas when they don’t measure up. In terms of interviewees we always like to throw in the unexpected; from our very first episode where we had a nature diarist commenting on our urge to take pictures of everything around us.

Has your subject matter or approach changed?

CH: In my early days on All in the Mind very few other programmes ever covered mental health. Now that coverage is more widespread, we are freed up from covering the basics so often, and we’re able to take a more nuanced approach, based on years of experience within the team. As a long-running programme, we’re also able to revisit topics and look at how things have changed because we remember covering it the first time.

I also have the frustration of seeing some things that don’t seem to change, however much good work people are doing in the hope that they will. On the positive side, one of the biggest differences I’ve seen in my time on the programme is the willingness of people to come on the programme to talk about their difficulties without asking for their name to be changed. That suggests attitudes to mental health are changing.

AK: I think we’ve been really consistent throughout the 10 series. The balance of psychology and digital observation is approximately the same, I’d argue. We also get the opportunity to explore the philosophical, anthropological and social phenomena – we’ve got the soft sciences covered! I don’t think psychology has changed, but I would say I have a better understanding now of the vast range of topics tackled by psychology because of the series. Our audience is global, which was always the intention from the beginning. It’s gained great traction all over the world – thank goodness for podcasting!

PM: I don’t immediately think of it as a series about psychology, but more what it’s like to be living in the modern world – psychology just often seems the best language to describe that. On listenership it’s surprising how big a proportion of our ‘download’ audience is international, it’s much bigger than similar Radio 4 series. One really gratifying piece of feedback we’ve got is from schools and universities who use the programmes not just as a means of discussing the impact of digital technology but also as examples of how to explore an idea.

How do you keep it fresh?

CH: One way is by constantly covering topics which are just emerging. I chair a lot of public events where people come up afterwards and tell me about interesting things that are happening or things that concern them. And of course people use Twitter to contact me; we get lots of emails; and we still get handwritten letters too, letters

the psychologist march 2017 culture

over which people have clearly taken a lot of care. We do read it all, and this contact with our audience definitely makes a difference to the programme.

But we also work to ensure the sound of All in the Mind evolves too. Listening back to the programmes from the archive you can hear how much it’s changed over the years. Recently we’ve started having a guest in the studio sometimes who stays throughout the programme, commenting on each item and also bringing some new research to talk about [including Dr Catherine Loveday, Chair of the Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee]. This means we can cover six or seven topics in one programme instead of three or four. We are also doing the occasional outside broadcast with a live audience, which I really love. There’s nothing like having people there in the room with you to get a sense of what audiences really want to know. And finally, the All in the Mind Awards have given us the opportunity to feature individual stories of mental health and recovery at length. The response we had was extraordinary, and if we can secure the funding, we would love to continue having awards every two years.

AK: We are lucky to have a vast pool of content: the everchanging human in the constantly evolving digital world!

We are all also constant audio listeners; I always have my ear to new sounds. It’s literally thrilling to be part of the podcast space and hear the new ways people are telling stories through this glorious and immersive medium.

PM: One of the delights of making the show is finding the stories and devising the soundscapes that will bring the ideas we’re exploring to life. It’s a constant creative challenge, but one we love meeting, so the freshness comes from that passion.

Do the psychologists you invite onto the programme usually say yes?

CH: We’re very lucky…

I can’t think of the last time a psychologist we invited on said no.

There’s no doubt that psychologists are becoming far more confident about being interviewed and better at explaining their work in lay language, but it is the case that for a few, unfortunately, past experience with the media has made them wary. We have the advantage of being a specialist programme, made by the BBC’s Radio Science Unit, which means academics know we’re going to take their work seriously. Sometimes psychologists have told us they have a policy of saying no to interview requests, but have made an exception for All in the Mind.

Any particular challenges along the way?

AW: In terms of a challenge, it’s probably managing our listeners’ expectations – always getting the balance between claims made about a new breakthrough but then examining the reality of access to it and its impact.

Also getting accurate representative first-person testimony within the field of mental health – that takes time and careful sensitivity. A lot of effort has to go into researching the right contributors and gaining their trust and confidence to come on and discuss particularly sensitive issues surrounding their condition.

Mental health diagnosis isn’t always an exact science so we have to be extremely careful with contributors’ use of general terms like depression and psychosis. No single person’s testimony is fully representative, but we hope that elements of their stories are enough for people to be able to identify with.

What do you think your programme is best at?

AK: We really like to look at a question from lots of different angles, and always take a step further than the most obvious case study. I think what we are best at is asking a provocative and unexpected question, and then supporting it – or disputing it – with curious and unexpected evidence.

AW: Perhaps it’s the wide range of topics that the programme is able to cover. Neurophysiology, for instance, seems to be going through a rich period producing results that translate into real potential to get at the heart of some current psychological conundrums and mental health conditions. I’m very proud that we create a programme that appeals to a general listener through a mix of items that can offer up surprise, can be extremely moving, and reflect both the current news agenda as well as issues in psychology and mental health which get covered nowhere else.

Any powerful moments from across the years?

CH: It’s wonderful when people tell us they heard something in our programme that really spoke to them.

Just this week a man emailed to say he lay on his bed and cried for his teenage years when he heard two teenage girls speaking about mind-wandering and ADHD. He said that suddenly everything he had experienced made sense.

So we invited him to come into the studio to tell us about it.

AK: We have the benefit of having a really broad listenership, in terms of age and location, so when I hear directly from listeners that a subject has been revelatory to them, or the way we asked a question has provoked new thinking about our selves in the modern era, I am excited about the programme all over again.

Both Digital Human and All in the Mind return in April on BBC Radio 4, and hundreds of past episodes are available to download via their websites.

A novel fusion of art and science exhibition Beyond My Brain London Brain Project

The London Brain Project is a not-for-profit social enterprise founded by three developmental cognitive neuroscientists and an award-winning artist. They use art to promote awareness and conversation about neurological and mental health issues. Beyond My Brain is the third in the project’s Beyond series. It’s an exhibition of expressive pieces of art (large and small) created collaboratively by people with brain injury, their families and professionals, funded by the Arts Council England and NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre.

We were delighted to the opening night and see the art first hand. It is a fun, user-friendly exhibition revolving around questions posed by children with brain injury such as ‘What caused this?’ and ‘What does the future hold?’.

On arrival, you are issued with a colourful map of the route around the small intimate gallery. We took a detour

Universalise that human experience music Overview Effect Roger Goula

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The ‘overview effect’ is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often when viewing the earth from orbit. The term, coined by Frank White in 1987, has inspired psychologists such as Nick Kanas (tinyurl. com/zcusemr). Composer and multi-instrumentalist Roger Goula’s Overview Effect is a debut release on Cognitive Shift Recordings.

The album bridges modern classical and electronic music, with swelling strings offset by disquieting scratches and stabs of noise that evoke the eerie void of space. Titles such as ‘Awe’, ‘Looking back to self awareness’ and ‘Something about silence’ reflect the centrality of the psychological, and Goula tells me: ‘Unconsciously I always relate my music to a psychological experience

by trying to universalise that human experience.

Somehow it is like if both magnitudes, the universal and the inner human one, are so far away that they meet again at the other side of each end, and so, very close together.’

Goula also says that he initially wanted to focus the album on recordings of events that changed us as humans, and he came across one of Gagarin on his first trip around earth. Listen to his album alongside Public Service Broadcasting’s Race for Space, which takes a similar approach, and you can see where Goula is coming from when he says ‘the subjective human experience of the cosmos answers me many questions and of course, opens new ones.’

Reviewed by Jon Sutton, Managing Editor

because the gallery was bustling with people discussing art and neuroscience; a stimulating blend. The journey guides you first through information about brain injury, then into the art. Helpfully, ‘big words’ are spelled out phonetically and explained (e.g. hy-druh-sefuh-luh-s). We learned new things, such as that Roald Dahl was one of the inventors of the modern shunt. Sadly, we also learned that 36 per cent of children with traumatic brain injury sustain it as pedestrians on the footpath.

Activities in the exhibition help people learn about language and executive problems. For example, saying the alphabet backwards, and following a new route with steps missing. We walk under rollercoaster tracks twisting amongst an enormous string of red and white blood cells; a touching representation of the fragility of our nervous system. There is tearjerking poetry, photographs and singing. We liked it all, especially a piece with layers of fabric symbolising layers of emotion, produced from discussion about when we reveal our deeper emotions. Much like a support group, the workshops appear to have been empowering, informative and energising. Other viewers explained how the art connected with them, on a visceral level, with the personal impact of neurological disability.

It reminded us, as clinical neuropsychologists, of the powerful use of group art; offering shared expression and a sense of belonging. The collaborative painting concept could potentially transfer into clinical settings. Metaphors found here could helpfully be shared with other injured families too. Themes of loss, growth, acceptance and identity emerged, as they also do in published research about family adjustment to TBI. The metaphor of ‘learning to live on a houseboat’ stays with me because it simply captures, without negativity, how much a family system is required to adapt to a new, more intimate, lifestyle.

The evening was completed by a superb theatrical performance, pictured above, by a group of talented drama students portraying the lived experience of brain injury. A production by OffTheWallCo tells the story of Grace, a young woman with encephalitis portrayed so authentically in the play, and her sister. In many years of working within the field, I have not seen or heard such an accurate portrayal of the family perspective in brain injury.

Overall, the London Brain Project exhibition presents a novel, unpretentious, fusion of art and science. The process of creation seems to be reciprocally therapeutic and informative for professionals and families.

Future projects include dementia (2017) and anxiety (2018): see www.londonbrainproject.com and #tracinggrace.

Reviewed by Siobhan Palmer and Jo Johnson, St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust

the psychologist march 2017 culture

Life after heroin film T2 Trainspotting Danny Boyle (Director)

T2 Trainspotting has been one of the most anticipated sequels in the British film industry, not only because Trainspotting was considered a cult classic, but because we wonder: How can it continue? We last saw Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) in 1996 betraying Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Begbie (Robert Carlisle), by escaping with £16,000 from a heroin deal. The message was clear. Mark was starting a new life, free from heroin and the destructive environment surrounding him and his unruly friends.

Refraining from trouble for 20 years, T2 sees Mark returning to Edinburgh and rekindling old friendships with Sick Boy and Spud. Unfortunately for Mark, it seems that his path might also cross Begbie’s, still raw from the 20-year-old betrayal. Mark quickly returns to his life of trickery and robbery – but this time without the heroin. It becomes obvious very quickly that old habits die hard.

T2 demonstrates that it was not just the heroin that was the problem, but addiction to danger and chaos.

This summarises one of the many problems with drug addiction: it’s not just abstaining from the drug, it’s abstaining from the lifestyle. This culminates in a scene during which the men pay tribute to Tommy and baby Dawn, heroin-related deaths from Trainspotting. They are clearly traumatised by memories, and Mark and Sick Boy

try heroin once again. This is in stark contrast to Spud, who, after listening to Mark’s advice, begins channelling his ‘addiction’ into something positive: writing.

In terms of cinematography and spirit, T2 lives up to the original. Aided by the revamped yet quirky-as-ever soundtrack and integration of old footage, the film feels highly nostalgic. The characters remain their eccentric selves, and director Danny Boyle returns to the symbolic shots of sordid tower blocks, nightclubs and local pubs filled with the walking dead. He also balances humour and the whirlwind of events without distracting from the devastation of drug abuse.

For those working with addiction and mental health, T2 provides insight into the dynamic world of addiction and recovery, adding a sinister and realistic dimension to life after heroin use. In terms of real-life impact, it rings as true as its predecessor in portraying drug use for what it really is: a penetrating yet reversible problem heavily influenced by one’s environment. As Mark puts it: ‘You are an addict. If you’re going to be addicted, be addicted to something else… It’s not getting it out of your body that’s the problem, it’s getting it out of your mind.’

Reviewed by Katie East, a PhD student at the National Addiction Centre, King’s College London

Fright without solution tv The Cult Next Door BBC Two

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Time and again we hear vivid accounts of the trauma of those held captive in cultic situations. Once again, this week, I watched another of these: a poignant series of interviews with survivors of a tiny London-based cult led by Aravindan Balakrishnan supposedly devoted to the revolution and the unlikely scenario of eventual liberation by Mao’s communist forces.

Of the handful of women who were held captive by him in a flat in Brixton, two died and one was born and raised – for 30 years – in this impossible environment.

Although a moving programme, The Cult Next Door, like so many others, had little to offer in helping the viewer understand how such things can happen. Yet it is not beyond our understanding. These situations are extreme versions of the same dynamics that we know as Stockholm syndrome or that we see in cases of controlling domestic violence (as has been recently addressed by the 2015 law criminalising coercive control: see tinyurl.com/hnorr5a). This law is as good a place as any to start understanding this phenomenon, which consists of: ‘a purposeful pattern of behaviour which takes place over time in order for one individual to exert power, control or coercion over another’ (Home Office, 2015). This law limits criminalisation of this behaviour to that which occurs in an intimate or family relationship.

However I argue that in any cult, the cult becomes the intimate or family relationship and that therefore this law should also apply to criminalising the extreme levels of control we see in these groups.

As noted in the programme, any normal family ties were broken – between those inside and outside the cult, and those within the cult.

In particular, and most moving, Katie Morgan-Davies, who was born in it, was prevented from knowing that Balakrishnan and Sian Davies, another member, were her parents.

As a baby she was not allowed to be cuddled, except by the leader. As one former captive said, ‘Bonds were not encouraged with Katie.’ And in

general there was, as in so many cults, an edict not to be attached to family.

Meanwhile Balakrishnan exerted complete control over every aspect of life and punished the women with beatings and threats, warning them against escape with dire curses of what would happen to them in the outside world.

In my own analysis, which I detail in my new book Terror, Love and Brainwashing, I draw on John Bowlby’s attachment theory and Mary Main’s extension of this, by using the lens of disorganised attachment to clarify the behaviours of the psychopathic leaders who create these oppressive systems and the effects on those within them.

Put simply, this states that a situation of ‘fright without solution’ is set up in these groups. All previous ties with family and friends are broken off, then the now-isolated follower is engulfed within the cult through a variety of means (endless meetings, prayers, work, chanting, meditation, study, etc.) and, finally, the cult leader creates a chronic sense of threat – of the outside world, an apocalyptic future, of potential punishment, of one’s inner sin, failure or badness. Having removed all of a follower’s previous ‘safe havens’ to whom they might turn when fearful, the cult leader presents themselves or the cult as proxy, as the only remaining safe haven.

But turning for comfort to the source of fear is maladaptive – it creates ‘fright without solution’ rather than calming the feelings

of fear. There are two effects from this. First is the tendency to remain seeking comfort from the feararousing figure (in the absence of any other) and thus bonding to that figure – what we can call a trauma or disorganised bond. Second, ‘fright without solution’ or chronic trauma can result in dissociation – a cognitive freeze state – regarding the frightening situation. This means the person literally cannot think about their condition.

These effects are powerful and disabling. It is critical for therapists and other professionals to learn about and to understand this in order to help victims. Without appropriate help the disorganised bond and the frozen cognitive state in regard to the group can last for many years even after leaving. It is a state of complex post-traumatic stress – also welldocumented in Judith Herman’s classic 1992 book Trauma and Recovery.

Programmes such as The Cult Next Door are valuable as case studies, but I continue to hope that future programmes add some analysis – without this we risk becoming voyeurs to terrible human suffering rather than increasing public awareness and knowledge in order to prevent future tragedies.

Reviewed by Dr Alexandra Stein (Birkbeck, University of London), whose new book is Terror, Love and Brainwashing. She is also author of and Inside Out, her 2002 Memoir of Entering and Breaking Out of a Minneapolis Political Cult.

the psychologist march 2017 culture

Professional Development Core workshop programme for 2017

Our popular supervision skills, expert witness and working in private practice workshops are available to book online at www.bps.org.uk/cpd. The programme includes: Supervision skills Workshop 1 – Essentials of supervision Workshop 2 – Enhancing supervision skills Workshop 3 – Models of supervision Workshop 4 – Ongoing development Expert witness Part 1 – Responsibilities and business Part 2 – Report writing Part 3 – Court room evidence Part 4 – Using psychometrics Working successfully in private practice Setting up or working in private practice? These workshops cover the challenges and pitfalls of working as an independent practitioner.

Could you run a workshop for us?

We would like to invite proposals for professional development activities in the following areas: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Brain injury and justice Dementia End of life care Mental Capacity Act Mental Health Act Migrants and refugees

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Obesity Research Excellence Framework Safeguarding Writing for publication Work and health

More information can be found at www.bps.org.uk/cpd. Please send proposals to learning@bps.org.uk using the proposal form at the web address above (Closing date 28 February).

Reviewers We are also looking for a bank of reviewers to consult over the submitted proposals. This voluntary role will peer review submitted proposal abstracts and advise on a number of pre-defined criteria to uphold the BPS values and quality assure BPS Professional Development Centre workshops. If you have expertise in the above topic areas and are interested in assisting with reviewing proposals, please register your interest at www.bps.org.uk/cpd.

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www.bps.org.uk/cpd

Job Title: Two psychologists for autism service Employer: Midlands Psychology

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Angela Southall, Director of Services at Midlands Psychology, is understandably enthusiastic about the organisation. ‘We’re a unique health provider – a not-forprofit social enterprise, committed to localism. We aim to understand the communities we work in, in depth. These roles are real, and rare, opportunities for psychologists to use a psychosocial model. We don’t medicalise clients – we have a strong belief that children are ordinary children first and foremost. Because of our approach, we often find we are the only people who “join the dots” together and try to make sense of children’s experiences.’

Midlands Psychology covers a fairly wide geographical area. It has been up and running since 2009 and now employs about 30 staff. ‘We’re small but that suits us.

We offer a range of services, including a young people’s forensic service and psychological services for lookedafter children. We have a nationally recognised strength in addressing children’s feeding disorders. Our new supported living service is offered in partnership with The Big Issue. That says something about our ethos. So does the fact that we don’t sit in offices or clinic rooms: we do our work in many different locations in the community.

I recently saw a family in a brewery!’

These jobs are going to be busy. ‘Our autism service offers an open-access system to all families, once their child has a diagnosis. We see about 1500 families a year, about 50:50 diagnosis and intervention. The core element of these roles is assessment of children who may or may not have an autism spectrum condition, as well as planning and delivering a range of follow-on psychological interventions. There are training and research activities as well. We have a well-developed stream of research.

We publish widely, leading nationally on publications on feeding disorder and edit the first UK Paediatric Psychology series for Radcliffe Publications. I’m particularly excited about a new research project we are

Highly Specialist Clinical / Counselling / Educational Psychologist (\[PZT :LY]PJLZ `LHYZ Âś :V\[O :[HɈ VYKZOPYL 5/: JVTT\UP[` JVU[YHJ[ Salary: Band 8a – Spine point dependent on experience We...

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We are unique, how about you?

For an information pack please contact Abbey Boss: 01785 748447 or email enquiries@midlandspsychology.co.uk Deadline for applications 17.03.2017

about to embark on with the National Autistic Society and Aston University. ‘Shared values are critical to ďŹ nding the right people to ďŹ ll these roles, but, of course, some experience of working with children who have autism will be useful. We have a very full and energetic internal training programme and we take external training very seriously.’ Angela’s obvious pride in what Midlands Psychology does is externally validated by awards. ‘In 2014 we won the NHS Lean Healthcare award for Best Impact on Patient Experience, as well as two awards from the National Autistic Society in the categories of Clinical Excellence and Innovative Family Support.’ Midlands Psychology is holding a Recruitment Day on Friday 3 March 2017 at 12.00pm in Stafford. For further details of this, ring Abbey Boss on 01785 748447.