Factors Contributing to Domestic Violence Attitudes

Domestic violence is a highly prevalent issue in the United States. The influences of cultural values and religious beliefs make the Arab and Muslim American women a vulnerable population for domestic violence. Among these influences, sexist gender role attitudes, and variance in the definition of domestic violence contribute toward explaining domestic violence attitudes within this population. A systematic search, through PsychINFO and Google Scholar was conducted to identify literature that examines gender role attitudes, perceptions of domestic violence, and beliefs about domestic violence, among the Arab and Muslim populatio

Reflection and Recovery from Psychosis during the Time of COVID-19: Adaptation in Psychotherapy in the United States

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic several adaptations have allowed us to continue to provide one form of recovery-oriented psychotherapy to persons with psychosis: Metacognitive Insight and Reflection Therapy (MERIT). These successful adaptations have included the incorporation of patients’ experience of the pandemic and the exploration of challenges from temporary changes in therapy platforms to deepen reflections about patients’ self-experience, their experience of intersubjectivity and their own agentic responses to psychosocial challenges

Metacognitive deficits and social functioning in schizophrenia across symptom profiles: A latent class analysis

Functional deficits are a hallmark of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, but much debate still exists over why and how they originate. One model suggests that disturbances in social functioning are a result of metacognitive deficits or a failure to integrate information to form more complex ideas of themselves and others. It is unclear if this social dysfunction is present across different symptom presentations. We examined the relationship of metacognition, symptoms, and social functioning among a sample of adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (N ¼ 334). A latent class analysis produced a four-class model. Groups were classified as follows: diffuse symptoms/moderately impaired social functioning (Class 1), positive and hostility symptoms/mildly impaired social functioning (Class 2), minimal symptoms/good social functioning (Class 3), and negative and cognitive symptoms/severely impaired social functioning (Class 4). Class 3 demonstrated better overall metacognitive capacity than both Classes 1 and 4 but did not differ significantly from Class 2. Classes 2 and 3 both demonstrated better interpersonal functioning than Classes 1 and 4. Together, these findings provide support for models of poor functioning that stem from fragmentation of an individual’s experience, leading to diminished abilities to form meaningful connections with others. Additional interpretations, limitations, and research implications are discussed

Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy: A Recovery-Oriented Treatment Approach for Psychosis

Recent research has suggested that recovery from psychosis is a complex process that involves recapturing a coherent sense of self and personal agency. This poses important challenges to existing treatment models. While current evidence-based practices are designed to ameliorate symptoms and skill deficits, they are less able to address issues of subjectivity and self-experience. In this paper, we present Metacognitive Insight and Reflection Therapy (MERIT), a treatment approach that is explicitly concerned with self-experience in psychosis. This approach uses the term metacognition to describe those cognitive processes that underpin self-experience and posits that addressing metacognitive deficits will aid persons diagnosed with psychosis in making sense of the challenges they face and deciding how to effectively manage them. This review will first explore the conceptualization of psychosis as the interruption of a life and how persons experience themselves, and then discuss in more depth the construct of metacognition. We will next examine the background, practices and evidence supporting MERIT. This will be followed by a discussion of how MERIT overlaps with other emerging treatments as well as how it differs. MERIT’s capacity to engage patients who reject the idea that they have mental illness as well as cope with entrenched illness identities is highlighted. Finally, limitations and directions for future research are discussed

The Intimate Partner Violence Experience of Arab Immigrant Women in the U.S.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant problem for immigrant women in the U.S. There are a number of unique risk factors and help-seeking barriers (e.g., patriarchal beliefs, lack of social support, immigration status, language as a barrier, limited knowledge about and access to resources) that contribute to the likelihood of immigrant women being in and remaining in violent relationships. As a result, immigrant women often feel isolated, alone, and silenced in their attempt to address their IPV. However, we know less about the IPV experience of Arab immigrant women in the U.S. as these women hold multiple marginalized identities (e.g., racial/ethnic, gender, immigration status) and their IPV experiences may be potentially more complicated. Therefore, it is critical for researchers and practitioners to understand better about the intersectionality of these identities and their IPV experience. While many theories use a one-dimensional approach to understand the cause of IPV (e.g., individual-based, feminist), Heise’s (1998) ecological model suggests the cause of IPV is at the integration of individual, microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem factors. Using this ecological model as a theoretical framework, I examined the IPV experience of Arab immigrant women in the U.S. using a qualitative framework. The focus of this study is to examine how the individual, microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem factors impact the lived experience of Arab immigrant women who are survivors of IPV

The Intimate Partner Violence Experience of Arab Immigrant Women in the U.S.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant problem for immigrant women in the U.S. There are a number of unique risk factors and help-seeking barriers (e.g., patriarchal beliefs, lack of social support, immigration status, language as a barrier, limited knowledge about and access to resources) that contribute to the likelihood of immigrant women being in and remaining in violent relationships. As a result, immigrant women often feel isolated, alone, and silenced in their attempt to address their IPV. However, we know less about the IPV experience of Arab immigrant women in the U.S. as these women hold multiple marginalized identities (e.g., racial/ethnic, gender, immigration status) and their IPV experiences may be potentially more complicated. Therefore, it is critical for researchers and practitioners to understand better about the intersectionality of these identities and their IPV experience. While many theories use a one-dimensional approach to understand the cause of IPV (e.g., individual-based, feminist), Heise’s (1998) ecological model suggests the cause of IPV is at the integration of individual, microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem factors. Using this ecological model as a theoretical framework, I examined the IPV experience of Arab immigrant women in the U.S. using a qualitative framework. The focus of this study is to examine how the individual, microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem factors impact the lived experience of Arab immigrant women who are survivors of IPV

Factors Contributing to Domestic Violence Attitudes

Domestic violence is a highly prevalent issue in the United States. The influences of cultural values and religious beliefs make the Arab and Muslim American women a vulnerable population for domestic violence. Among these influences, sexist gender role attitudes, and variance in the definition of domestic violence contribute toward explaining domestic violence attitudes within this population. A systematic search, through PsychINFO and Google Scholar was conducted to identify literature that examines gender role attitudes, perceptions of domestic violence, and beliefs about domestic violence, among the Arab and Muslim populatio

Metacognitive deficits and social functioning in schizophrenia across symptom profiles: A latent class analysis

Functional deficits are a hallmark of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, but much debate still exists over why and how they originate. One model suggests that disturbances in social functioning are a result of metacognitive deficits or a failure to integrate information to form more complex ideas of themselves and others. It is unclear if this social dysfunction is present across different symptom presentations. We examined the relationship of metacognition, symptoms, and social functioning among a sample of adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (N ¼ 334). A latent class analysis produced a four-class model. Groups were classified as follows: diffuse symptoms/moderately impaired social functioning (Class 1), positive and hostility symptoms/mildly impaired social functioning (Class 2), minimal symptoms/good social functioning (Class 3), and negative and cognitive symptoms/severely impaired social functioning (Class 4). Class 3 demonstrated better overall metacognitive capacity than both Classes 1 and 4 but did not differ significantly from Class 2. Classes 2 and 3 both demonstrated better interpersonal functioning than Classes 1 and 4. Together, these findings provide support for models of poor functioning that stem from fragmentation of an individual’s experience, leading to diminished abilities to form meaningful connections with others. Additional interpretations, limitations, and research implications are discussed

Meaning-Making Processes Across the Lifespan: An Investigation of the Developmental Course of Metacognitive Capacity

Deficits in metacognitive capacity (i.e., the ability to integrate knowledge of oneself and others into a cohesive whole) have been shown to lead to poor functional outcome in psychosis. However, there is a gap in the literature concerning the role of metacognition in typically developing populations, which makes it difficult to define what level of metacognition is normative and at what point deficits in metacognition suggest pathology. To explore this issue, we utilized cross-sectional design to assess metacognitive capacities among 69 neurotypical adults whose ages varied from 18 to 65 using the Metacognitive Assessment Scale – Abbreviated (MAS-A) and then compared those with MAS-A scores from a second previously gathered sample of 360 adults diagnosed with psychosis across four key developmental windows: emerging adulthood, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. Our findings suggest that in our overall sample, individuals with psychosis had significantly lower levels of metacognitive capacity across all domains assessed by the MAS-A in comparison to neurotypical individuals. Additionally, our data suggest a deleterious effect of psychosis such that individuals with psychosis showed significantly lower metacognition in each developmental stage. Additionally, these differences were largest in emerging and late adulthood and for both groups awareness of others stood out as the single metacognitive domain which was significantly less impaired among older groups. Our results suggest a developmental course for metacognitive capacity such that awareness of others is the sole domain that grows over the lifespan