HIV and Aging Research in Women: An Overview

This paper reviews some background issues as a foundation to place the ensuing supplement papers of this special issue section in context. The articles in this special supplement issue deepen and expand our understanding of biomedical, neurocognitive, and psychosocial aspects involved in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) of older women, primarily through the use of the Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) prospective cohort study. As it relates to research on the intersection between HIV and aging in women, we discuss (i) epidemiology as introduction, (ii) the cohort study design featuring the WIHS, (iii) definitions, (iv) models, and (v) section articles.     

Reflections on Treatment Integrity in a Dissemination and Implementation Framework

This commentary reflects on issues related to linking the conceptual frame for treatment fidelity presented in the special issue articles to the most current thinking on treatment fidelity within the emerging field of implementation science. The commentary presents several aspects of treatment fidelity in implementation science that generally were not discussed or addressed in the special issue articles, such as the placement of treatment fidelity as only one among several critical implementation outcomes, the relationship of treatment fidelity to design elements such as external validity as well as internal validity, and the importance of considering implementation issues in the measurement of treatment fidelity even in the earlier stages of efficacy and effectiveness research. The excellent in‐depth discussion of treatment fidelity in the special series is a promising start to linking this critical concept to the emerging field of implementation science.     

Men in (and out of) therapy: central concepts, emerging directions, and remaining challenges

This article introduces the special issue on recent conceptual, practical, and research developments relevant to men and therapy. The paper reviews the considerable shifts that have emerged in our understanding and measurement of masculinity as it pertains to men's health and therapy. In addition, this introduction outlines the primary focus of each article in this special issue and describes the general guidelines offered to the contributors. Collectively, these special-issue articles describe promising paradigms, provide useful examples, and stress the need for further research on men, masculinity, and the therapeutic process.     

Issues in Understanding and Treating Comorbidity in People With Serious Mental Illness

Medical and substance abuse comorbidity are highly prevalent and significant problems among people with serious mental illness. This article provides commentary on several articles in this special issue, and highlights some important issues involved in understanding the impact of dual disorders and in treatment needs. Data are presented that illustrate the ability of people with serious mental illness to provide reliable and valid information about their substance use and attitudes about their motivation and willingness to change. Questions are raised about the impact of motivation enhancement interventions, and the need for extrinsic motivation for change versus extrinsic motivation and environmental supports.     

HIV/AIDS interventions for midlife and older adults: current status and challenges

Drawing on both domestic and global international perspectives, this special issue is devoted to articles that confront the challenges of understanding, preventing, and intervening, with HIV/AIDS as an epidemic that carries increasingly serious consequences for a growing number of adults who are 50 years of age or older. This issue builds on papers first presented at an HIV/AIDS and aging conference sponsored in the fall of 2000 by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. The editors have selected articles that focus dually on what is currently known and what needs to be known to successfully address the needs of persons 50 years of age or older who are vulnerable to the virus's effects. This special issue is organized around a series of subsections representing key issues and research findings related to HIV/AIDS and aging issues, including the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS and aging, HIV/AIDS risk and risk behavior, settings and situations as social contexts of risk, clinical challenges with older populations, living with and managing HIV/AIDS, interventions and research methods, new frontiers and challenges, and strategies for action. Some articles are data driven, whereas others are reflective pieces that recount personal experiences in living with the virus or point to new directions for research and practice. In this introduction, the editors highlight findings and approaches from each article and further add to our knowledge by setting these articles within the context of major themes relevant to the study of HIV/AIDS in an aging population.     

A great pioneer of clinical science remembered: introduction to the special issue in honor of Paul E. Meehl

In this special issue, the seminal contributions to clinical psychology of Paul E. Meehl, who passed away in 2003, are commemorated. The nine articles comprising this special issue chronicle Meehl's remarkable intellectual biography and examine his influence on diverse domains of psychology, including the clinical versus actuarial prediction debate, the cognitive activity of the clinician, personality assessment and trait theory, the etiology of schizophrenia, the shortcomings of statistical significance testing, and the use of metascientific methods to evaluate competing models of human nature. These articles illustrate not only Meehl's legendary brilliance but also his pivotal role in forcing clinical psychologists to think more clearly and incisively about their subject matter.     

Introduction to the special issue on spirituality and psychotherapy

Religion and spirituality have been topics of interest to psychologists since the inception of the field, and this special issue devoted to spirituality and psychotherapy reflects the maturation of decades of research. Psychotherapy clients would like to discuss religious or spiritual issues with therapists, but therapists feel poorly prepared to do so. This special issue hopefully represents a step towards bridging the needs of clients and the expertise of providers. The seven articles in this issue reflect the progress psychologists have made toward understanding religion and spirituality, and they represent state-of-the-art attempts at integrating these dimensions into treatment.     

Neural Correlates of Memory Development and Learning: Combining Neuroimaging and Behavioral Measures to Understand Cognitive and Developmental Processes

This special issue includes 4 articles addressing the general theme of neural correlates of memory development and learning. Taken together, the articles represent a broad range of development, including infants, children, adolescents, and adults as participants. Each line of research examines relations between brain activity and cognitive functions using both physiological measures, event-related potentials or functional magnetic resonance imaging, and behavioral measures of memory and learning. This introduction sets the stage by briefly reviewing historical trends in memory development research, discussing major issues associated with neuroimaging research, and providing an integrated perspective of some specific contributions of the investigations included in this special issue, arguing that combining neuroimaging and behavioral measures advances research on memory development and learning in terms of understanding cognitive and developmental processes. The article concludes with a brief discussion of potential future directions for this type of research.     

Neural correlates of memory development and learning: combining neuroimaging and behavioral measures to understand cognitive and developmental processes

This special issue includes 4 articles addressing the general theme of neural correlates of memory development and learning. Taken together, the articles represent a broad range of development, including infants, children, adolescents, and adults as participants. Each line of research examines relations between brain activity and cognitive functions using both physiological measures, event-related potentials or functional magnetic resonance imaging, and behavioral measures of memory and learning. This introduction sets the stage by briefly reviewing historical trends in memory development research, discussing major issues associated with neuroimaging research, and providing an integrated perspective of some specific contributions of the investigations included in this special issue, arguing that combining neuroimaging and behavioral measures advances research on memory development and learning in terms of understanding cognitive and developmental processes. The article concludes with a brief discussion of potential future directions for this type of research.     

“Well I Got a Few of My Own”: Therapists' Reactions to Attraction,Sex, and Love in Psychotherapy

This article serves as an introduction to this issue of the journal on sex, love, intimacy, and attraction in psychotherapy, with a particular emphasis on therapists’ reactions to these subjects. A common theme throughout this special issue is that such topics are natural, common, challenging, and potentially dangerous. I call attention to a few of the highlights of each of the articles in the issue, and I offer suggestions on how therapists might effectively manage their own reactions to these challenging topics.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Psychopathological Posttraumatic Reactions

Research over the past 30 years has changed the landscape of trauma and general stress studies, leading to the new conceptual and clinical questions regarding the nature of psychopathological reactions to trauma. In this introduction to this special issue, we review several well‐documented scientific findings that continue to surprise laypeople and mental health experts alike. The articles in this special issue will further our understanding of modern psychological responses to adversity.     

Introduction to the special issue: work-family research in occupational health psychology.

In this introduction, the authors discuss work-family research in the context of occupational health psychology (OHP), describe the special contributions of articles in this special issue, and outline directions for the next generation of research in the field of OHP.     

Prediction, perception and agency

The articles in this special issue provide a rich and thoughtful perspective on the brain as an inference machine. They illuminate key aspects of the internal or generative models the brain might use for perception. Furthermore, they explore the implications for a sense of agency and the nature of false inference in neuropsychiatric syndromes. In this review, I try to gather together some of the themes that emerge in this special issue and use them to illustrate how far one can take the notion of predictive coding in understanding behaviour and agency.     

Williams syndrome: 15 years of psychological research

Williams syndrome is a rare genetic disorder caused by a microdeletion of about 20 genes on chromosome 7q11.23. The importance of this syndrome for theories and models of cognition became apparent about 15 years ago, when Bellugi, Sabo, and Vaid (1988) argued that Williams syndrome was a paradigm case of the independence of language from cognition. In particular, it was argued that individuals with Williams syndrome have "intact" language despite severe mental retardation. More recent findings indicate a more complex relation between language and characteristics associated with this syndrome. The articles in this special issue form 3 overlapping clusters: articles concerned with language development relative to cognitive development, articles concerned with other aspects of cognition, and articles concerned with interpersonal relations and personality. Together, these articles provide strong evidence of the importance of the study of neurodevelopmental genetic disorders for enhancing understanding of the complex manner in which initial genetic differences impact both behavior and processing strategies from infancy through adulthood. Our hope is that this issue will motivate further studies, informed by the genetic-developmental approach, on both Williams syndrome and other neurodevelopmental genetic disorders.     

Isoprostanes and related compounds: update 2006

Last year Antioxidants and Redox Signaling devoted a special Forum issue (Volume 7, 2005) to reviewing the current literature on isoprostanes (IsoPs) and related compounds. Awide variety of topics provided readers of that issue with important information on the chemistry and biology of these molecules. During the past year, more than 200 articles have been published in the field of IsoP research, and noteworthy advances in the area have been made. This editorial highlights selected aspects of these advances as they relate to the Forum issue. The main focus of this discussion is on the role of the IsoPs as biomarkers and mediators of oxidant stress in human disease, their mechanism of formation and metabolism, and their biologic activities.