White Clinical Psychologists, Race and Racism

Racism within the UK remains structurally embedded in the fabric of society. The history of colonisation and race science, and current socio-political climate, influence how Clinical Psychologists are trained, how mental health services are structured, and how racialised individuals are ‘treated’ when accessing therapy. It is well known that racism is a contributing factor to distress and mental health difficulties yet there is very little research examining how racism is talked about in therapy. Whiteness enables power and privilege to dominate, to the detriment of racialised individuals, and exists as an invisible norm. With this in mind, the researcher was interested in the experiences of white clinical psychologists talking about race and racism in therapy. This study interviewed fifteen self-identified white clinical psychologists about their experiences of talking about race and racism within therapy. Interviews probed participants on what hindered and facilitated these experiences. Thematic analysis from a critical realist perspective identified three overarching themes, each with their own subthemes: ‘I’m not a racist, even when I get it wrong’ (‘managing feelings of unease’, ‘certainty in audience’, ‘what my whiteness does’) ‘Proximity to racism’ (‘easier to do nothing’ ‘integral to clinical psychologist’s role’) and ‘Commitment: “anti-racism is a lifelong journey” ’ (‘holding the power for change’, ‘stuckness: don’t stop there’). Experiences were influenced by supervisory relationships, team dynamics, participant’s DClinPsy training, and personal values and upbringing. The findings were linked to previous research on whiteness, power and talking about race within other therapy professionals and discussed in relation to Ryde’s White Awareness Model (2009). Recommendations for training, clinical practice and policy were made, and the researcher concluded by signposting to anti-racism resources and a call to action for clinical psychologists

Determinations of upper critical field in continuous Ginzburg-Landau model

Novel procedures to determine the upper critical field $B_{c2}$ have been proposed within a continuous Ginzburg-Landau model. Unlike conventional methods, where $B_{c2}$ is obtained through the determination of the smallest eigenvalue of an appropriate eigen equation, the square of the magnetic field is treated as eigenvalue problems so that the upper critical field can be directly deduced. The calculated $B_{c2}$ from the two procedures are consistent with each other and in reasonably good agreement with existing theories and experiments. The profile of the order parameter associated with $B_{c2}$ is found to be Gaussian-like, further validating the methodology proposed. The convergences of the two procedures are also studied.Comment: Revtex4, 8 pages, 4 figures, references modified, figures and table embedde

Corticostriatal Transmission Is Selectively Enhanced in Striatonigral Neurons with Postnatal Loss of Tsc1.

mTORC1 is a central signaling hub that integrates intra- and extracellular signals to regulate a variety of cellular metabolic processes. Mutations in regulators of mTORC1 lead to neurodevelopmental disorders associated with autism, which is characterized by repetitive, inflexible behaviors. These behaviors may result from alterations in striatal circuits that control motor learning and habit formation. However, the consequences of mTORC1 dysregulation on striatal neuron function are largely unknown. To investigate this, we deleted the mTORC1 negative regulator Tsc1 from identified striatonigral and striatopallidal neurons and examined how cell-autonomous upregulation of mTORC1 activity affects their morphology and physiology. We find that loss of Tsc1 increases the excitability of striatonigral, but not striatopallidal, neurons and selectively enhances corticostriatal synaptic transmission. These findings highlight the critical role of mTORC1 in regulating striatal activity in a cell type- and input-specific manner, with implications for striatonigral pathway dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disease

Phase diagram of spin-11 chains with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

We investigate an antiferromagnetic spin-$1$ Heisenberg chain in the presence of Dyzaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMI) and an external magnetic field. We study the resulting spin chain using a combination of numerical and analytical techniques. Using DMRG simulations to determine the spectral gap and the entanglement spectrum, we map out the phase diagram as a function of magnetic field strength and DMI strength. We provide a qualitative interpretation for these numerical findings by mapping the spin-$1$ chain on a spin-$1/2$ ladder and using a bosonization approach.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure