Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder associated with significant distress, dysfunction, and treatment utilization. Though, theoretically, BPD is posited to arise from a combination of trait and environmental risk factors, few studies have tested trait-by-environment interactions in BPD. We investigated the roles of rejection sensitivity (RS) and childhood emotional neglect and abuse (ENA) as well as their interaction in BPD. SAMPLING AND METHODS: Eighty-five adults with a lifetime mood disorder who were recruited for outpatient studies in a psychiatric clinic were assessed for ENA using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and for RS with the Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire. BPD diagnoses were made by consensus using data collected on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to test associations between RS, ENA, their interaction and BPD. RESULTS: RS and ENA interacted to predict co-occurring BPD in our sample of mood-disordered patients, with the strength of the relationship between RS and BPD depending on the severity of ENA. In the context of little or no ENA, RS and BPD were more strongly related than when ENA was more severe. CONCLUSIONS: Our results extend previous findings suggesting RS and ENA are risk factors for BPD. They also provide preliminary support for contemporary theories of BPD positing trait-by-environment interactions in the development of BPD. Prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings. (c) 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Presents an obituary of Bel Kaufman, 100-year-old academician, world traveler, a celebrated author, whose historic roots go back to the revered Sholom Aleichem. Ms. Kaufman was the embodiment of humor and aging well. She graduated from Columbia University with highest honors and was an adjunct professor at Hunter College where she taught a course on Jewish humor. Bel Kaufman's humility and sense of humor carried her through her 103 years until her death in July of 2014. Her sense of humor was infused in her approach to life as well as her teaching. As she had noted, "Seeing the humor in situations helps to break the cyclical nature of problematic situations and helps the individual to endure, increases physical health and certainly assists in maintaining mental health." This philosophy meshes with intrinsic social work values that remain timeless. Bel Kaufman will be sorely missed.

The majority of individuals working with justice-involved youth receive limited training addressing the impact of childhood trauma. There is a need for trauma-related training for staff, as well as valid measures to evaluate the effectiveness of training. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network designed a training curriculum, Think Trauma, which educates staff about the impact of trauma on justice-involved youth. A 45-item Think Trauma Evaluation Questionnaire (TTEQ) was developed to assess participants' changes in knowledge and attitudes. This article examines the factor structure and internal consistency of this questionnaire. Two-hundred and ninety-six employees at two secure juvenile detention centers completed the TTEQ. The results suggest that the questionnaire is feasible to administer to a large group and has a factor structure corresponding to areas covered in the curriculum. A reliable and valid measure of trauma knowledge and attitudes is important to identifying the training needs for a particular facility

BACKGROUND: There is a paucity of research on psychosocial treatments for depression in adults with intellectual disability (ID). In this pilot study, we explored the efficacy of a group CBT treatment that involved a caregiver component in adults with mild ID with a depressive disorder. METHOD: Sixteen adults with mild ID and a depressive disorder participated in a 10-week group CBT treatment and 8 adults with mild ID with a depressive disorder served as a treatment as usual (TAU) control group. Adults with mild ID and caregivers completed measures of depressive symptoms, behavior problems, and social skills at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and a 3-month follow-up. Adults with mild ID also completed a series of tasks to measure their understanding of the principles of cognitive therapy pre- and post-treatment. RESULTS: The CBT group demonstrated significant decreases in depressive symptoms and behavior problems from pre-treatment to post-treatment and these effects were maintained at a 3-month follow-up. The CBT group demonstrated significant improvements in their ability to infer emotions and thoughts based on various situation-thought-emotion pairings from pre-treatment to post-treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that adults with mild ID with a depressive disorder benefitted from a group CBT treatment with a caregiver component. Moreover, adults with mild ID appeared to benefit, at least in part, from the cognitive therapy components of the treatment, in addition to the behavior therapy components.

This editorial discuses about psychiatrists. Editor says psychiatrists were once called alienists. It's an interesting word, in some ways more accurate than the Greek portmanteau word psychiatrist, which combines "doctor" (iatros) with a diffuse evocation of spirit, soul, and mind (psyche), a reminder of the uncertainty about, and the magnitude of, what we're treating. Alienist speaks to the absolute stigma of difference afforded the mentally ill: strangers, the estranged, visitors from another world who do not belong, less familiar than animals. Editor says that in this month's Book Forum, they encounter people who are reputedly alienated-the traumatized, the autistic, the hated parent-from writers defying pat notions of alienation and reconsidering the boundaries of recognition.

This article provides an overview of the books featured in the Book Forum section of the present issue of Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. The books seek to understand what one can gain from appreciating the reality of children's immersion in media. The power of the media is enormous for all. Its power comes not from how fantastical or extraordinary or strange it can be, but from how real it is. It is always tempting to think of the media as a vast, undulating metaphor for humanity, but it is not representing humanity: it is humanity.

In this month's Book Forum, the question is raised again: Where does love come from? Francesco Ferrari reviews an academic text on romantic love, full of theories and intellectual curiosity about this most important of topics, and Matthew J. Baker reviews a book that comes at the question from another angle, in a therapeutic guide book for daughters of mothers "who cannot love."