No abstract

In recent times, social skills training (SST) has been used in the treatment of unipolar non-psychotic depression. We outline the rationale for SST in such treatment, provide definitions of SST, and outline the assessment and training procedures. Published studies are reviewed and their shortcomings discussed. We examine four theoretical issues arising from the review, and guidelines for improvements in future studies are suggested.

The paradigmatic system of societal abuse occurs in totalitarian state systems. The relational systems of subjugation that maintain such states of terror must, of necessity, destroy any authentic civic space in which individuals can flourish. Similar dynamics characterize child abuse within families. Survival requires the use of varied strategies, the most extreme of which are dissociative in nature, and that result in marked distortions of developmental trajectories across all psychological domains. Such dynamics are mirrored in dissociative systems that, in the absence of intervention, perpetuate the trauma of non-recognition by subjugation and self-objectification, or by omnipotent denial of others' subjectivity. All abusive systems are facilitated by bystanders, whose awareness of what is disavowed is always partial, resulting in a state of knowing and not-knowing. As dynamics shift, bystanders may behave like victims-passive, helpless, frightened and frozen, or like perpetrators-taking vicarious and voyeuristic pleasure in abuse or actively aiding and abetting the abusers.

In recent times, social skills training (SST) has been used in the treatment of unipolar non-psychotic depression. We outline the rationale for SST in such treatment, provide definitions of SST, and outline the assessment and training procedures. Published studies are reviewed and their shortcomings discussed. We examine four theoretical issues arising from the review, and guidelines for improvements in future studies are suggested.

This is the second of three articles on recovered memories of child sexual abuse. The phenomenology of recovered memories is distinct from other, non-traumatic, memories and is most usefully considered in the context of the nature of memory and forgetting. A number of experimental paradigms and approaches that attempt to elucidate the mechanisms of recovered memory are described, and the evidence for the creation of false memories is examined and found wanting. The article concludes with a case study. The third article will consider the role of trauma and dissociation in recovered memories of child sexual abuse.