Language and Movement Synchronization in Dyadic Psychotherapeutic Interaction – A Qualitative Review and a Proposal for a Classification

In individual psychotherapy verbal communication and movement synchronization are closely interrelated. The microanalysis of timing, rhythm and gestalt of movement has established dynamic movement coordination as a systemic property of the dyadic interaction. Movement synchronization supports and enhances the unfolding of linguistic meaning. In order to substantiate the importance of the concept of synchrony for adult psychotherapy we review evidence from developmental psychology and discuss approaches to measure synchrony with particular reference to the naturalistic setting of dyadic psychotherapy. As the concept of synchrony is still ambiguous, and the respective interactional phenomena are ephemeral and fluid, in the current paper we suggest a set of five criteria for the description of synchronization in general terms and eight additional criteria which specifically enable the description of phenomena of movement synchronization. The five general dimensions are: (1) context, (2) modality, (3) resources, (4) entrainment, and (5) time-lag. The eight categories for the description of movement synchrony are: (1) spatial direction, (2) amplitude, (3) sinuosity, (4) duration, (5) event structure, (6) phase, (7) frequency, and (8) content. To understand the process of participatory sense-making and the emergence of meaning in psychotherapy, synchrony research has to cope with the multimodality of the embodied interaction. This requires an integrated perspective of movement and language. A system for the classification of synchrony phenomena may contribute to the linking of variations and patterns of movement with language and linguistic utterances.

Pulling Apart

The ninth chapter considers polarization as a systemic property, manifested by the proportion of votes collected by anti-political-establishment parties. We find that virtually all party systems that collapsed had high levels of polarization. We also detect a clear tendency towards increasing polarization during the last half century, with important regional variations. According to our data, the degree of polarization is negatively related to closure, even though the systems that combined openness with high anti-political-establishment support have typically collapsed in the past in Europe. Low polarization appears to help the development of closure even in fragmented systems.

Interpretation of the Category of Stress Resistance in Psychology

The relevance of the study is determined by the ambiguity of the interpretation of the concept of “stress resistance”, as a result of which there are difficulties in providing assistance to persons suffering from extremely difficult situations. The purpose of the study is to provide the author's interpretation of the category “personality stress”, which summarises the various definitions. To achieve this goal, the author relies on a methodology of a systematic approach that provides clarity in the understanding of the studied category, order and the ability to summarise research information that existed in the form of disparate elements of the disclosure of something more holistic. The author's definition of stress resistance as a complex integrative systemic property of personality, where the components of its structure (psychophysiological, emotional, cognitive, volitional) are in a certain ratio and form a holistic structure – a stable internal organisation that determines the quality and development of the system. It has been found that different definitions of the term are used in relation to the conditions of stress and areas of mental personality. It is confirmed that vitality is used to denote the adaptive properties of a person who overcomes extremely difficult living conditions. It is substantiated that stress resistance in extreme conditions indicates physiological endurance and depends on the skills of self-regulation to restore homeostasis in life-threatening situations. It is noted that the term “resilience” is better used in difficult communication, which violates the emotional balance of the individual. It is stated that spiritual stability determines the strength of will of a person seeking freedom. The practical value of the research is that the scientific developments on the subject matter have received a clear structural and systemic basis, which makes provision for opportunities to more objectively and holistically approach the solution of problems related to stress

Life competency formation in the period of emerging adulthood

The article is devoted to the age peculiarities of formation of the life competency in young adults. Life competency is systemic property of an individual, integrating autobiographical knowledge and related strategies for solving developmental problems, as well as the aspirations and assessments arising in the course of their decision-making. It is in the empirical level justified that life competency in the period of emerging adulthood changes in terms of increasing the volume of autobiographical knowledge, development and increment of the repertoire of strategies for solving developmental problems, increasing internal motivation. For the first time the psychological content and genesis of life competency have been studied in the context of making decisions and solving age problems of development of young people in the period of entry into adulthood. The materials' theoretical significance lies in the study of life competency as a factor of personal development of young people; while the practical significance, in testing of the diagnostic tool of the life competency development levelduring adulthood.

Heterosis is a systemic property emerging from nonlinear genotype-phenotype relationships: evidence from in vitro genetics and computer simulations

Heterosis, the superiority of hybrids over their parents for quantitative traits, represents a crucial issue in plant and animal breeding. Heterosis has given rise to countless genetic, genomic and molecular studies, but has rarely been investigated from the point of view of systems biology. We hypothesized that heterosis is an emergent property of living systems resulting from frequent concave relationships between genotypic variables and phenotypes, or between different phenotypic levels. We chose the enzyme-flux relationship as a model of the concave genotype-phenotype (GP) relationship, and showed that heterosis can be easily created in the laboratory. First, we reconstituted in vitro the upper part of glycolysis. We simulated genetic variability of enzyme activity by varying enzyme concentrations in test tubes. Mixing the content of “parental” tubes resulted in “hybrids”, whose fluxes were compared to the parental fluxes. Frequent heterotic fluxes were observed, under conditions that were determined analytically and confirmed by computer simulation. Second, to test this model in a more realistic situation, we modeled the glycolysis/fermentation network in yeast by considering one input flux, glucose, and two output fluxes, glycerol and acetaldehyde. We simulated genetic variability by randomly drawing parental enzyme concentrations under various conditions, and computed the parental and hybrid fluxes using a system of differential equations. Again we found that a majority of hybrids exhibited positive heterosis for metabolic fluxes. Cases of negative heterosis were due to local convexity between certain enzyme concentrations and fluxes. In both approaches, heterosis was maximized when the parents were phenotypically close and when the distributions of parental enzyme concentrations were contrasted and constrained. These conclusions are not restricted to metabolic systems: they only depend on the concavity of the GP relationship, which is commonly observed at various levels of the phenotypic hierarchy, and could account for the pervasiveness of heterosis.