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  Nonlinear Biopsychosocial Resilience: Self-Organization as the Basis for a Common Framework

  Adam W. Kiefer and David Pincus

  Recently, calls have been made for a common framework to understand human resilience through the lens of dynamical systems theory. This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the concepts and tools necessary for such an approach. It builds on an existing theoretical framework of biopsychosocial resilience grounded in self-organization theory. This theoretical framework is applied to the formalization of four types of resilience – robustness, resilience, antifragility and grit. Next, important features of stability, structural integrity, and flexibility are discussed as empirically measurable characteristics of a systems-based approach to resilience, which provide a foundation for further applications, including metastability and, ultimately, growth of system adaptability across timescales. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of continuing empirical investigation to advance an understanding of how behavioral states emerge, self-regulate, and evolve over time.

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  Integrity, Flexibility, and Balance: How Change Works in Psychotherapy

  David Pincus

  Psychotherapy may be the most tested form of health intervention and also one of the most mysterious. Clinical trials, and meta-analyses of these trials, have repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of psychotherapy, while also failing to uncover any clear-cut and consistent understanding of how psychotherapy works. This lack of understanding has driven the field to develop 500 supposedly distinct, yet equivalently effective “theories.” The field suffers from barriers to scientific discovery, barriers to therapist training, and barriers to people seeking help for their psychosocial problems. This chapter tackles the mystery of how therapy works by examining the shortcomings of modern medical science, most notably reductionism. By grounding the substance of psychotherapy in a more holistic and logical foundation rather than a fruitless search for active and common ingredients, the question of how therapy works becomes much simpler to answer. It is well understood that each of the approaches to psychotherapy targets one or more “channels” of human experience: emotion, cognition, behavior, and self- and interpersonal relations. When one applies a nonlinear dynamical systems perspective to these experiential domains, it becomes clear that psychotherapy works by increasing the flexibility and the structural integrity of experience, leading to improved experiential balance and resilience.

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  The Scientific Study of Positive Psychology, Religion/Spirituality, and Physical Health

  Kevin S. Masters, Julia K. Boehm, Jennifer M. Boylan, Kaitlyn M. Vagnini, and Christina L. Rush

  Humans have long been interested in relations among religion/spirituality (R/S), positive psychological constructs, and physical health. Furthermore, many religions attempt to influence behavior through health-related prescriptions about food choices, sexual activity, substance use, and resting. Similarly, positive psychological constructs have been discussed in light of their presumed benefits on both mental and physical health (Ryff & Singer, 1998). However, R/S and positive psychological constructs have only recently become objects of scientific investigation of their associations with physical health.

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  Prenatal Programming of Neurodevelopment: Structural and Functional Changes

  Catherine H. Demers, Özlü Aran, Laura M. Glynn, and Elysia Poggi Davis

  Prenatal maternal stress is highly prevalent and predicts many child psychopathologies. Here, we apply the fetal programming hypothesis as an organizational framework to address the possibility that exposure to maternal stress during pregnancy affects fetal neurodevelopmental pathways that enhance risk for subsequent psychopathology. This chapter evaluates the empirical literature assessing the ontogenetic influences of prenatal maternal stress on child brain maturation. We conducted a systematic review investigating prenatal stress broadly defined and any direct measure of brain development including electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potential (ERP), structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Lastly, we propose the following areas as promising avenues of future research to further elucidate the underlying etiology of such findings: investigation of sex/gender specific mechanisms, genetic interactions, pre- and postnatal effects, and opportunities for intervention.

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  Hedonic Adaptation

  Karynna Okabe-Miyamoto and Julia K. Boehm

  An encyclopedia entry about hedonic adaptation, where "an individual's emotional response to positive and negative stimuli lessens with the passage of time".

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  Does Anhedonia Presage Increased Risk of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?

  Victoria B. Risbrough, Laura Glynn, Elysia P. Davis, Curt A. Sandman, Andre Obenaus, Hal S. Stern, David B. Keator, Michael A. Yassa, Tallie Z. Baram, and Dewleen G. Baker

  Anhedonia, the reduced ability to experience pleasure, is a dimensional entity linked to multiple neuropsychiatric disorders, where it is associated with diminished treatment response, reduced global function, and increased suicidality. It has been suggested that anhedonia and the related disruption in reward processing may be critical precursors to development of psychiatric symptoms later in life. Here, we examine cross-species evidence supporting the hypothesis that early life experiences modulate development of reward processing, which if disrupted, result in anhedonia. Importantly, we find that anhedonia may confer risk for later neuropsychiatric disorders, especially posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Whereas childhood trauma has long been associated with increased anhedonia and increased subsequent risk for trauma-related disorders in adulthood, here we focus on an additional novel, emerging direct contributor to anhedonia in rodents and humans: fragmented, chaotic environmental signals (“FRAG”) during critical periods of development. In rodents, recent data suggest that adolescent anhedonia may derive from aberrant pleasure/reward circuit maturation. In humans, recent longitudinal studies support that FRAG is associated with increased anhedonia in adolescence. Both human and rodent FRAG exposure also leads to aberrant hippocampal function. Prospective studies are underway to examine if anhedonia is also a marker of PTSD risk. These preliminary cross-species studies provide a critical construct for future examination of the etiology of trauma-related symptoms in adults and for and development of prophylactic and therapeutic interventions. In addition, longitudinal studies of reward circuit development with and without FRAG will be critical to test the mechanistic hypothesis that early life FRAG modifies reward circuitry with subsequent consequences for adolescent-emergent anhedonia and contributes to risk and resilience to trauma and stress in adulthood.

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  Fetal Programming of Gender

  Molly Fox and Laura M. Glynn

  An encyclopedia entry detailing the programming of gender in the womb, including the determination of biological sex, behavior and cognition, sexual orientation, gender identity, and psychopathology.

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  The Neuropsychology of Conscious Volition

  Aaron Schurger

  "The modern neuropsychology of conscious volition, beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century, has begun to tell a very different story -- one in which the processes in the brain that are responsible for initiating actions and the conscious feeling of being responsible for initiating actions are considered, at least conceptually, distinct. This chapter will cover the important landmarks in the history of neuropsychological research on conscious volition, from the mid-1960s to the present, and will also include an introduction to the core concepts and to closely related topics such as the neuropsychological disorders of volition. By the end of the chapter the reader should have a basic working knowledge of modern research on conscious volition, the key discoveries, controversies, and open questions."

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  The Science of Female Orgasms: Please Female Partners in Casual and Long-Term Relationships

  Jes L. Matsick, Terri D. Conley, and Amy C. Moors

  "In this chapter, we critically examine gender differences in orgasm and, in doing so, provide science-based suggestions for individuals and relationship partners to close the orgasm gap between heterosexual men and women. We will begin our examination of women's orgasm with providing an overview anatomy and orgasms, with a particular focus on the clitoris. For the remainder of the chapter, we consider orgasm frequency in the context of both short-term (casual sex and hookup scenarios) and long-term relationships. Throughout, we offer suggestions for women and their sexual partners to increase women's orgasm frequency across both short-term and long-term relationships."

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  Neurobehavioral Consequences of Fetal Exposure to Gestational Stress

  Curt A. Sandman, Laura M. Glynn, and Elyssia Poggi Davis

  Through intimate communications with the mother, the fetus receives information that is integrated into its neurodevelopmental program to prepare for life after birth. Because the fetal nervous system develops at rapid speed, at precise times and in a specific sequence from conception to birth, disruption in the timing or sequence of development results in tissue remodeling and altered function. Fetal exposures to maternal signals of psychobiological stress are associated with increased risk for behavioral disorders and alterations in brain structures. We have devoted nearly three decades exploring the effects of psychobiological stress in several large cohorts of mothers and their offspring. The focus of this chapter is on the persisting developmental plasticity induced by fetal exposure and adaptation to signals of stress and adversity. Specifically the emphasis is on the emotional, cognitive, and neurological consequences for the newbom, infant, toddler, and child, exposed as fetuses to maternal stress. We review evidence that maternal psychological states and experiences during pregnancy, including stress exposures, mood, fears, and concerns about the course of her pregnancy as well as the level of biological stress signals, exert programming influences on the developing fetus.

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  Fertility Counseling for Couples

  Brennan Peterson

  "The purpose of this chapter is to provide fertility counselors with the tools necessary to effectively assess and treat couples experiencing fertility problems so that these couples can improve their relationships, reduce psychological and infertility related distress, and regain control and direction in their lives. The chapter will outline the challenges unique to couples experiencing infertility, and will integrate several case vignettes which portray common profiles of couples who fertility counselors may encounter. Gender differences in how couples communicate and cope with infertility distress will be presented. The chapter will also examine the impact of infertility on a couple’s sexual relationship, strategies to help couples best share infertility related treatment information with others and the importance of working through grief and loss. The challenges unique to couples experiencing age-related fertility decline will also be presented, as will the usefulness of mindful meditation as a method for approaching fertility related thoughts and feelings."

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  Understanding and Treating the Psychosocial Consequences of Infertility

  Arthur L. Greil, Lone Schmidt, and Brennan Peterson

  Psychological distress and infertility are linked in a complex pattern, such that distress may be a cause of infertility and reduce the probability of achieving a pregnancy at the same time that infertility may be a cause of psychological distress. Although infertile women are not more likely to be characterized by psychopathology, they are more likely to experience higher levels of distress than comparison groups. Infertile men also experience psychological distress, but women experience more infertility distress than men. Both infertility and its treatment are stressors putting a heavy psychological strain on couple relationships. Whereas there is general agreement about the need for psychological interventions to treat infertility distress, little is known about the efficacy and effectiveness of psychosocial intervention. Given the prevalence of infertility and the fact that the numbers of individuals and couples seeking infertility treatments are increasing, it is essential that mental health professionals understand the emotional challenges faced by this population.

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  On Reporting the Onset of the Intention to Move

  Uri Maoz, Liad Mudrik, Ram Rivlin, Ian Ross, Adam Mamelak, and Gideon Yaffe

  "In 1965, Hans Kornhuber and Luder Deecke made a discovery that greatly influenced the study of voluntary action. Using electroencephalography (EEG), they showed that when aligning some tens of trials to movement onset and averaging, a slowly decreasing electrical potential emerges over central regions of the brain. It starts 1 second ( s) or so before the onset of the voluntary action1 and continues until shortly after the action begins. They termed this the Bereitschaftspotential, or readiness potential (RP; Kornhuber & Deecke, 1965).2 This became the first well-established neural marker of voluntary action. In that, the RP allowed for more objective research on voluntary action rather than its previous dependence on subjective introspection.

  Two decades later, the RP captured the attention of the wider neuroscience community as well as of philosophers, legal scholars, and laypeople. This is because it was associated with a key question in the debate on free will: Is human voluntary action caused by the conscious intention to act? Or does the conscious experience only follow unconscious neural activity, which is the true origin of that action, and over which humans have only-limited immediate control?"

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  Assimilation

  Shari Paige and David Frederick

  This chapter looks into the everyday occurrences of the American family.

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  Conflict Theory

  Shari Paige and David Frederick

  This chapter examines the problems and conflicts that arise in American family life.

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  The Importance Of Female Choice: Evolutionary Perspectives On Constraints, Expressions, And Variations

  David Frederick, Tania A. Reynolds, and Maryanne L. Fisher

  This chapter introduces the reader to some of the influential perspectives on female mate choice in human evolutionary biology, including parental investment theory. We then present two key theories in evolutionary psychology that have been applied to understand variations in women’s mating preferences and choices: sexual strategies theory and strategic pluralism theory. Although the importance of female choice has gained widespread acceptance in the biological sciences, the influence that female choice has on mating systems can be limited by many factors, such as control over mating decisions by parents and men’s control over women’s sexuality. Despite these constraints on female choice, women are able to exercise their mate preferences through extramarital affairs and influencing parental attempts to arrange marriages.

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  The Advantages and Disadvantages of Breastfeeding for Maternal Mental and Physical Health

  Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, Christine Dunkel Schetter, and Martie G. Haselton

  "This chapter presents the state of the evidence concerning the advantages and disadvantages of breastfeeding for mothers."

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  Complexity Science in the Future of Behavioral Medicine

  David Pincus and Stephen J. Guastello

  "Complexity science offers a new, broader paradigm emerging from the traditional biomedical model of medicine. This new paradigm will inform research and intervention, particularly for the most complex medical conditions such as type-II diabetes (DT2), heart disease, pain, and anxiety-depression spectrum (ADS) disorders. Traditional medical interventions, including those from behavioral medicine, utilize the framework ofdiseaseto understand etiology and treatment. The disease framework is based on the idea that some exogenous agent, such as a germ, intrudes upon an otherwise healthy body and causes illness. Etiological concerns for health care providers are then logically aimed at identifying these disease agents as simple material causes, and treatment is aimed at protecting against their intrusion, mitigating their harmful effects, or removing them from bodily systems where they may cause harm."

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  Blindsight

  Aaron Schurger and Alan Cowey

  "Blindsight, as the name implies, is a parado -- a sort of seeing without 'seeing.' Ever since the term was first coined in the early 1970s it has raised profound and intriguing questions about what it means to 'see,' and what it means to 'guess.' ... [T]he phenomenon of blindsight has enriched our understanding of consciousness, vision, and the brain, and has been fodder for a rich scientific and philosophical debate. This entry will cover the essential concepts from neurology that are relevant to blindsight, describe the defining characteristics of blindsight and how these might be explained by the architecture of the brain, and discuss the possibility of blindsight in normally sighted individuals as an emerging distinction in blindsight research."

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  Labels

  S. Yousefinejad and David Frederick

  This chapter focuses on the labels and stereotypes that ethnic groups have been given in America.

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  Variety is the Spice of Happiness: The Hedonic Adaptation Prevention (HAP) Model

  Kennon M. Sheldon, Julia K. Boehm, and Sonja Lyubomirsky

  "By now, it has become a bromide that the U.S. constitution and culture are built on the pursuit of happiness (Myers, 1992). According to this political philosophy, government should allow citizens to strive towards their own conception of happiness, and should assist them as much as possible to reach this goal. In return, citizens ought to make the most of the opportunity, ultimately contributing to the common good of all. The enduring appeal of this American ideal rests on the very plausible assumption that happiness is the fundamental objective of all human effort and activity, in all cultures, whether people are aware of it or not. By taking action, humans aim towards more positive conditions and feelings than they currently experience, or towards more positive future feelings than what they might otherwise experience if they failed to act (Carver & Scheier, 1998). Accordingly, becoming happier is not only a hugely popular topic on the self-help shelves, it is increasingly becoming a stated policy goal of world governments, with the gross national happiness of the country (rather than its gross domestic product) as the primary quantity to be maximized "

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  Orbital Decomposition for the Comparison of Multiple Categorical Time-Series

  David Pincus, David L. Ortega, and Annette M. Metten

  Orbde is an analysis based on symbolic dynamics that identifies recurring patterns of events in nominally-coded time series data.

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  Snakes, Spiders, Strangers: How the Evolved Fear of Strangers May Misdirect Efforts to Protect Children from Harm

  Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, Colin Holbrook, and Jesse Bering

  "In this chapter, we will argue that stranger fear is an evolved predisposition that increased fitness over the course of human history. In modern, developed societies, however, the same native bias against strangers may obscure perception of the greater threat of child harm posed by familiar peers, acquaintances, friends and kin."

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  Imagery for Pain Relief: A Scientifically Grounded Guidebook for Clinicians

  David Pincus and Anees A. Sheikh

  Imagery for pain relief, the first book of its kind, familiarizes the reader with basic scientific information about pain and mental imagery and shows why imagery is a valuable tool for pain management. Scientifically grounded and easy to read, it provides readers with a wealth of practical information, including imagery techniques that have been successfully used in the past. This is a useful text not only for physicians and clinical psychologists, but also for counselors, social workers, nurses, and graduate students in all health-related fields, including sports medicine.

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  The Promise of Sustainable Happiness

  Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky

  From ancient history to recent times, philosophers, writers, self-help gurus, and now scientists have taken up the challenge of how to foster greater happiness. This chapter discusses why some people are happier than others, focusing on the distinctive ways that happy and unhappy individuals construe themselves and others, respond to social comparisons, make decisions, and self-reflect. We suggest that, despite several barriers to increased well-being, less happy people can strive successfully to be happier by learning a variety of effortful strategies and practicing them with determination and commitment. The sustainable happiness model (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005) provides a theoretical framework for experimental intervention research on how to increase and maintain happiness. According to this model, three factors contribute to an individual's chronic happiness level: (a) the set point, (b) life circumstances, and (c) intentional activities, or effortful acts that are naturally variable and episodic. Such activities, which include committing acts of kindness, expressing gratitude or optimism, and savoring joyful life events, represent the most promising route to sustaining enhanced happiness. We describe a half-dozen randomized controlled interventions testing the efficacy of each of these activities in raising and maintaining well-being, as well as the mediators and moderators underlying their effects. Future researchers must endeavor not only to learn which particular practices make people happier, but how and why they do so.