Psychosis and sexual abuse: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: J. E. Rhodes, N. D. O’Neill, and P. W. Nel, ‘Psychosis and sexual abuse: An interpretative phenomenological analysis’, Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, March 2018, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2189. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the first-person perspective of psychosis sufferers who survived childhood sexual abuse. Methods: Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to explore the experiences of 7 women with a history of sexual abuse and psychosis. Results: Analysis generated six themes: (a) degradation of self, interlinking shame, guilt, and sometimes disgust; (b) body-self entrapment, experiencing bodily constraint and distortion; (c) a sense of being different to others, involving interpersonal problems; (d) unending struggle and depression, a pervasive sense of defeat; (e) psychotic condemnations and abuse, describing psychotic phenomena related to harm and sexual abuse; and (f) perception of links to the past, the links made from past abuse to current functioning. Conclusion: Participants suffered extreme psychological, physical, and interpersonal difficulties past and present. Psychotic experiences reported exhibited themes of condemnation by external entities and reflected the topic of sexual abuse. Participants did not generally link psychosis to their past abusive experiences.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Childhood adversity and psychosis: generalised or specific effects?

Background. This study examines relationships between childhood adversity and the presence of characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia. It was hypothesised that total adversity exposures would be significantly higher in individuals exhibiting these symptoms relative to patients without. Recent proposals that differential associations exist between specific psychotic symptoms and specific adversities was also tested, namely: sexual abuse and hallucinations, physical abuse and delusions, and fostering/adoption and delusions. Method. Data were collected through auditing 251 randomly selected medical records, drawn from adult patients in New Zealand community mental health centres. Information was extracted on presence and subtype of psychotic symptoms and exposure to ten types of childhood adversity, including five types of abuse and neglect. Results. Adversity exposure was significantly higher in patients experiencing hallucinations in general, voice hearing, command hallucinations, visions, delusions in general, paranoid delusions and negative symptoms than in patients without these symptoms. There was no difference in adversity exposure in patients with and without tactile/olfactory hallucinations, grandiose delusions or thought disorder. Indication of a dose–response relationship was detected, in that total number of adversities significantly predicted total number of psychotic symptoms. Although fostering/adoption was associated with paranoid delusions, the hypothesised specificity between sexual abuse and hallucinations, and physical abuse and delusions, was not found. The two adversities showing the largest number of associations with psychotic symptoms were poverty and being fostered/adopted. Conclusions. The current data are consistent with a model of global and cumulative adversity, in which multiple exposures may intensify psychosis risk beyond the impact of single events. Implications for clinical intervention are discussed

Reliability and Validity of the Korean Version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form for Psychiatric Outpatients

Objective The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) is perhaps the most widely used and well-studied retrospective measure of childhood abuse or neglect. This study tested the initial reliability and validity of a Korean translation of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-K) among non-psychotic psychiatric outpatients.Methods The CTQ-K was administered to a total of 163 non-psychotic psychiatric outpatients at a university-affiliated training hospital. Internal consistency, four-week test-retest reliability, and validity were calculated. A portion of the participants (n=65) also completed the Trauma Assessment Questionnaire (TAQ), the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, and the Dissociative Experiences Scale-Taxon.Results Four-week test-retest reliability was high (r=0.87) and internal consistency was good (Cronbach's alpha=0.88). Each type of childhood trauma was significantly correlated with the corresponding subscale of the TAQ, thus confirming its concurrent validity. In addition, the CTQ-K total score was positively related to post-traumatic symptoms and pathological dissociation, demonstrating the convergent validity of the scale. The CTQ-K was also negatively correlated with the competence and safety subscale of the TAQ, confirming discriminant validity. Additionally, we confirmed the factorial validity by identifying a five-factor structure that explained 64% of the total variance.Conclusion Our study indicates that the CTQ-K is a measure of psychometric soundness that can be used to assess childhood abuse or neglect in Korean patients. It also supports the cross-cultural equivalence of the scale. Psychiatry Investig 2011;8:305-311This work was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University (HY-2010-I)

Revisiting Agency and Stewardship Theories: Perspectives From Nonprofit Board Chairs and CEOs

Using principal-agent theories, this study examined differences in the perceptions of nonprofit chief executive officers (CEOs) and board chairs on key governance aspects, including board performance, leadership, satisfaction with diversity, and board meetings. Using data from the CEOs and board chairs of 474 nonprofit organizations, we found statistically significant differences in the governance perceptions of these leaders of nonprofit organizations. The findings provide support for an agency theory explanation about the differing interests of principals (board chairs) and agents (CEOs). The findings suggest that these two sets of nonprofit actors frequently operate from different perspectives, potentially affecting the governance of their organizations. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

'Here be dragons, here be savages, here be bad plumbing: Australian media representations of sport and terrorism

As 'Propaganda Theorists argue, an examination of key discourses can enhance our understanding of how economic, political and social debate is shaped by mainstream media reporting. In this essay we present content and discourse analysis of Australian media reporting on the nexus of sport and terrorism. Examining newspaper reports over a five-year period, from 1996-2001, which included the 11 September 2001 terrorist tragedy in the United States (9/11), provides useful insights into how public discourse might be influenced with regard to sport and terrorism interrelationships. The results of the media analysis suggest that hegemonic tropes are created around sport and terrorism. The distilled message is one of good and evil, with homilies of sport employed in metaphors for western society and its values. The reactions and responses of sport administrators and athletes to terrorist acts and the threat of terrorism to sport are used to exemplify these ideals, providing newspaper readers a context within which to localize meaning and relevance

1-(2-Hy­droxy­eth­yl)-3-phenyl­thio­urea

The title compound, C9H12N2OS, was obtained unexpectedly in a multicomponent reaction of an equimolar ratio of phenyl isothio­cyanate, malononitrile and amino­ethanol. The –C(H2)–N(H)–(C=S)–N(H)– methyl­thio­urea–methane group is almost normal to the phenyl ring, with a dihedral angle of 71.13 (9)°. The N—C—C—O torsion angle is 72.8 (2)°. In the crystal, mol­ecules are connected by N—H⋯O, O—H⋯S and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional network

Wilms Tumor Chromatin Profiles Highlight Stem Cell Properties and a Renal Developmental Network

Wilms tumor is the most common pediatric kidney cancer. To identify transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms that drive this disease, we compared genome-wide chromatin profiles of Wilms tumors, embryonic stem cells (ESCs), and normal kidney. Wilms tumors prominently exhibit large active chromatin domains previously observed in ESCs. In the cancer, these domains frequently correspond to genes that are critical for kidney development and expressed in the renal stem cell compartment. Wilms cells also express “embryonic” chromatin regulators and maintain stem cell-like p16 silencing. Finally, Wilms and ESCs both exhibit “bivalent” chromatin modifications at silent promoters that may be poised for activation. In Wilms tumor, bivalent promoters correlate to genes expressed in specific kidney compartments and point to a kidney-specific differentiation program arrested at an early-progenitor stage. We suggest that Wilms cells share a transcriptional and epigenetic landscape with a normal renal stem cell, which is inherently susceptible to transformation and may represent a cell of origin for this disease

Practice-based research network solutions to methodological challenges encountered in a national, prospective cohort study of mothers and newborns

Finch SA, Lalama C, Spino C, Schwartz HC, Wasserman RC, McCormick MC, Bernstein HH. Practice-based research network solutions to methodological challenges encountered in a national, prospective cohort study of mothers and newborns. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 2008; 22 : 87–98. The emergence of practice-based research networks (PBRN) has facilitated the execution of multifaceted community-based studies. As study complexity increases, so does the number of methodological barriers encountered. This paper's goal was to delineate methodological barriers and to evaluate the effectiveness of selected strategies and approaches developed and implemented in allowing a prospective, national PBRN cohort study to succeed in enrolling geographically dispersed mother/healthy term infant dyads ( n  = 4300) on the day of post-partum discharge. Specific methodological barriers included: (1) obtaining multiple Institutional Review Board (IRB) approvals; (2) gathering longitudinal data from multiple individuals; (3) soliciting multiple perspectives on discharge decision making; and (4) bolstering minority enrolment. The most effective strategies and approaches we employed to address these methodological challenges were: (1) preparing and distributing the ‘IRB Packet’; (2) recruiting multiple practices covered by the same IRB; and (3) obtaining supplemental funding for increasing minority enrolment. We expect that other PBRN investigators can benefit from our experience and solutions in the successful conduct of this multifaceted community-based study.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75714/1/j.1365-3016.2007.00894.x.pd

PcG Proteins, DNA Methylation, and Gene Repression by Chromatin Looping

Many DNA hypermethylated and epigenetically silenced genes in adult cancers are Polycomb group (PcG) marked in embryonic stem (ES) cells. We show that a large region upstream (∼30 kb) of and extending ∼60 kb around one such gene, GATA-4, is organized—in Tera-2 undifferentiated embryonic carcinoma (EC) cells—in a topologically complex multi-loop conformation that is formed by multiple internal long-range contact regions near areas enriched for EZH2, other PcG proteins, and the signature PcG histone mark, H3K27me3. Small interfering RNA (siRNA)–mediated depletion of EZH2 in undifferentiated Tera-2 cells leads to a significant reduction in the frequency of long-range associations at the GATA-4 locus, seemingly dependent on affecting the H3K27me3 enrichments around those chromatin regions, accompanied by a modest increase in GATA-4 transcription. The chromatin loops completely dissolve, accompanied by loss of PcG proteins and H3K27me3 marks, when Tera-2 cells receive differentiation signals which induce a ∼60-fold increase in GATA-4 expression. In colon cancer cells, however, the frequency of the long-range interactions are increased in a setting where GATA-4 has no basal transcription and the loops encompass multiple, abnormally DNA hypermethylated CpG islands, and the methyl-cytosine binding protein MBD2 is localized to these CpG islands, including ones near the gene promoter. Removing DNA methylation through genetic disruption of DNA methyltransferases (DKO cells) leads to loss of MBD2 occupancy and to a decrease in the frequency of long-range contacts, such that these now more resemble those in undifferentiated Tera-2 cells. Our findings reveal unexpected similarities in higher order chromatin conformation between stem/precursor cells and adult cancers. We also provide novel insight that PcG-occupied and H3K27me3-enriched regions can form chromatin loops and physically interact in cis around a single gene in mammalian cells. The loops associate with a poised, low transcription state in EC cells and, with the addition of DNA methylation, completely repressed transcription in adult cancer cells

An Integrative Genomic and Epigenomic Approach for the Study of Transcriptional Regulation

The molecular heterogeneity of acute leukemias and other tumors constitutes a major obstacle towards understanding disease pathogenesis and developing new targeted-therapies. Aberrant gene regulation is a hallmark of cancer and plays a central role in determining tumor phenotype. We predicted that integration of different genome-wide epigenetic regulatory marks along with gene expression levels would provide greater power in capturing biological differences between leukemia subtypes. Gene expression, cytosine methylation and histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9) acetylation were measured using high-density oligonucleotide microarrays in primary human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) specimens. We found that DNA methylation and H3K9 acetylation distinguished these leukemias of distinct cell lineage, as expected, but that an integrative analysis combining the information from each platform revealed hundreds of additional differentially expressed genes that were missed by gene expression arrays alone. This integrated analysis also enhanced the detection and statistical significance of biological pathways dysregulated in AML and ALL. Integrative epigenomic studies are thus feasible using clinical samples and provide superior detection of aberrant transcriptional programming than single-platform microarray studies