Using machine-learning strategies to solve psychometric problems.

Validating scales for clinical use is a common procedure in medicine and psychology. Through the application of computational methods, we present a new strategy for estimating construct validity and criterion validity. XGBoost, Random Forest and Support-Vector machine learning algorithms were employed in order to make predictions based on the pattern of participants' responses by systematically controlling computational experiments with artificial experiments whose results are guaranteed. According to these findings, these approaches are capable of achieving construct and criterion validity and therefore could provide an additional layer of evidence to traditional validation approaches. In particular, this study examined the extent to which measured items are inferable by theoretically related items, as well as the extent to which the information carried by a given construct can be translated into other theoretically compatible normative scales based on other constructs (thereby providing information about construct validity); as well as the replicability of clinical decision rules on several partitions (thereby providing information about criterion validity).

Paranoia and risk of personality disorder in the general population.

BACKGROUND: We hypothesized that paranoia is associated with personality disorder (PD) in the general population. METHOD: This was a population-based cross-sectional survey carried out in Andalusia (Spain) using a representative sample of 4 507 participants. Paranoia was measured using the Green Paranoid Thought Scale, and risk of having a PD was screened using the Standardized Assessment of Personality Abbreviated Scale whilst borderline personality disorder (BPD) was measured with the CEPER-III Exploratory Interview of Personality disorder. Adjusted Pearsons' correlations between paranoia and PD or BPD were calculated. RESULTS: Paranoia was associated with the risk of having PD and, more robustly, with BPD. Both associations held true for both personality outcomes (PD and BPD) when tested for two Green Paranoid Thought Scale paranoia subtypes (persecutory and reference) after accounting for the effects of age, sex and child abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Paranoia seems to either augment the risk for, or be part of, PD/BPD. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

From Querulous to Suicidal: Self-immolation in Public Places as a Symbolic Response to the Feeling of Injustice.

Aim: This paper sheds light on the context that leads some querulous patients to self-immolate in front of, or into, public buildings (e.g., tribunals, city halls, and employment agencies). Method: The author defines paranoid querulousness. A psychoanalytic perspective, but also a judicial and a psychiatric point of view, over querulous claimants is presented. The links between political or social claims and self-immolation are studied. The expression of suicidal thoughts voiced by four querulous subjects is analyzed. Eight examples of self-immolation are presented. Results: The querulous subjects' self-aggressive behaviors seem to be caused by a loss of hope to obtain compensation for a prejudice they allegedly suffered. Querulous individuals tend to self-immolate in front of, or into, public buildings when no answer is given to their claims. These gestures may be both a consequence of some personal distress and triggered by a difficult social or professional context. Discussion: Five sets of assumptions derived from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theories are advanced. The status of the object over which the querulous claimants wish to assert their rights is clarified. The meaning of self-aggressive gestures is outlined by making reference to the concepts of instinct for mastery, symbolic other, chain of signifiers, masochism, pleasure principle, and reality principle. Conclusion: Prevention of self-immolation could involve that members of the legal professions, social workers, civil servants, and mental health professionals in contact with querulous subjects openly show their will to listen to these claimants' voice: self-aggressive gestures might be avoided by supporting the querulous person's hope to obtain compensation for the prejudice allegedly suffered.

How to facilitate the orientation of elderly subjects with psychical disabilities to a health alternative to hospitalization?

This paper is aimed to improve the socio-psycho-therapeutic support for older patients with heavy psychiatric disability. First, we review the literature to question the specific grounds reported by professionals regarding the orientation of these vulnerable subjects. Secondly, we emphasize that integration of these subjects within alternatives to hospitalization requires a type of support similar to that usually proposed, an accompaniment of psychosocial rehabilitation. Then, we propose to build an indicator called the psychosocial age, which reduces the weight of the chronological age for the orientation of these subjects. Ultimately, we question the health policies in psychiatry.

Child Sexual Abuse, Baby Gender, and Intergenerational Psychic Transmission: An Exploratory, Projective Psychoanalytic Approach.

The aim of this article is to present a French psychoanalytic model of how and to what extent the sequellae of sexual abuse by a male during a girl's childhood are transmitted to the next generation, as a function of the gender of the abused mother's children. The authors conducted a qualitative exploratory study based on the longitudinal follow-up of a woman who had two boys and a girl. They focused on the impact of two general sequellae: separation anxiety and negativity-disqualification of the paternal and/or male figures. From the methodological standpoint, they used a clinical interview to assess the mother, and a projective tool, a storytelling test, to assess the child's personality using content analysis. The results confirm both the merits of the theoretical framework and the relevance of the projective methodology for grasping sequellae transmitted to the child. The sequellae turned out to be markedly different for the two baby genders: rejection for the male, overprotection and ghostly encryption for the female. Avenues for using this tool and model in future quantitative, comparative studies are suggested.