It is spring and Nordic Psychology blooms with five exciting articles. “Family dynamics when a child becomes chronically ill: impact of type 1 diabetes onset in children and adolescents” by Peter Sand, Maria Dellenmark Blom, Gun Forsander, and Carina Sparud Lundin is the first article in this issue. The aim of the study was to explore the process of family dynamics when a child has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). The study sample consisted of family members of 21 children with T1DM aged 3–17 years. Twenty-nine parents and seven siblings participated in nine focus group interviews. Five individual interviews were conducted. The findings show that preconceptions about T1DM played a critical role when trying to grasp and respond to the diagnosis. Most cohabiting mothers reported a psychological reaction of shock, which neither the single mother nor the separated mothers did not. Fathers paid more attention to the siblings and to the lifelong disease. Mothers of older children with T1DM were more concerned about the child’s future than the mothers of the younger children. “Comparison of Audio-Visual Short-Term and Active Memory in Multiple Sclerosis Patients and Non-Patients Regarding their Depression, Stress and Anxiety level” by Roghieh Nooripour, Mahdieh Azizpour, Mohamad Ali Mohammadyfar, and Mahmood Najafi is the second article of this issue. The study outlined in the article compared audio-visual short-term and active memory in multiple sclerosis patients and non-patients regarding their depression, stress, and anxiety level measured by depression, anxiety and stress scales and a Wechsler Memory Scale. The findings from the study showed a significant difference between the two groups in audio-visual short-term and active memories. Similarly, a significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of their levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. “Exploring implicit mentalizing as an online process” by Christina Fosgerau, Antje Schöps, Poul Bak, and Annette Davidsen is the third issue of this issue. The aim of this article was to demonstrate how online implicit mentalizing processes could be explored by applying the method of Conversation Analysis (CA). CA uses a sequential approach to study the establishment of understanding in interactions between people. In this article it was shown that a systematic exploration of implicit mentalizing processes can be done by applying sequential approach and the underlying knowledge of CA on interactional phenomena and their functions and meanings. Based on analysis of empirical material, the article argues that there exist a theoretical link between mentalizing processes and the phenomenological understandings of inter-subjectivity and empathy, and it is suggested that this phenomenological understanding could develop the understanding of implicit mentalizing as a phenomenon. “Could grief be a mental disorder?” by Svend Brinkmann is the fourth article in this issue. The topic of the article is the new diagnosis for complicated grief introduced in DSM 5 in 2013 “Persistent complex bereavement disorder” and the diagnosis “Prolonged grief disorder” expected to be published in ICD 11 in 2018. Firstly, the article presents the emerging diagnostic criteria for grief and situate the rise of the psychiatric grief diagnoses in the context of what has been called the “diagnostic culture” of contemporary society. Secondly, the article discusses the question about the legitimacy of diagnoses for complicated grief and, finally, the article ends with a general discussion of grief as a mental disorder and recommend a cautious approach, according to which grief should primarily be thought of as an existential condition that may lead to mental disorders, but which is not a mental disorder in itself. “Associations between trait emotional awareness and automatic emotion processing” by Uta-Susan Donges, and Thomas Suslow is the fifth and final article of this issue. The article explored the relationship between emotional awareness and automatic or implicit emotion processing. In the study outlined in the article, priming techniques were used to assess the processes of automatic evaluative shifts due to masked emotional faces and automatic response facilitation based on masked emotional words. A face- and a word- priming task were administered to 49 healthy women, along with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS). The findings of the study suggested that individuals with a high level of emotional awareness exhibit heightened automatic sensitivity for negative facial expressions with respect to influence affective judgments. More emotionally aware individuals also tended to manifest heightened automatic affective processing on a semantic level. The results of the present study add to the understanding of the reflective awareness of emotions by revealing links to basic processes of emotion perception that are rapid and occur without intention or effort.
Editor-in-chief
Department of Psychology, Aarhus University
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