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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2015 Street Code Adherence, Callous-Unemotional Traits and the Capacity of Violent Offending versus Non-Offending Urban Youth to Mentalize About Disrespect Murder Zoe A. Berko Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/523 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Street Code Adherence, Callous-Unemotional Traits and the Capacity of Violent Offending versus Non-Offending Urban Youth to Mentalize About Disrespect Murder by Zoë A. Berko A dissertation proposal submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Clinical Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 © 2015 Zoë A. Berko All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted by the Graduate Faculty in Clinical Psychology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy __________________ ________________________ Date Steven Tuber, Ph.D. Chair of Examining Committee __________________ ________________________ Date Joshua Brumberg, Ph.D. Executive Officer in Psychology Arietta Slade, Ph.D. L. Thomas Kucharski, Ph.D. Elliot L. Jurist, Ph.D., Ph.D. Diana Puñales-Morejon, Ph.D. Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract STREET CODE ADHERENCE, CALLOUS-UNEMOTIONAL TRAITS AND THE CAPACITY OF VIOLENT OFFENDING VERSUS NON-OFFENDING URBAN YOUTH TO MENTALIZE ABOUT DISRESPECT MURDER By Zoë A. Berko Advisor: Steven Tuber, Ph.D. National statistics are not available on the proportion of violent juvenile offenses driven by the experience of being disrespected. However, the New York Police Department estimates that about 40% of the city’s shootings involve members of violent crews of 12 to 20 year olds with most of this gun violence driven by incidents of disrespect. Mentalization, defined as the ability to envision mental states (i.e., feelings, beliefs and intentions) in oneself and others, is viewed as underlying affect regulation, impulse control, self-monitoring, and the experience of self-agency, all of which are implicated in interpersonal violence (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, 2002). From a developmental psychodynamic perspective, the capacity to mentalize is seen as developing within the context of secure early attachment relationships via the process of caregiver affect attunement (Fonagy et al., 2002; Stern, 1985; Winnicott, 1963) with further scaffolding optimally provided by secure social contexts such as school and the wider socio- cultural environment (Twemlow, 2003). This mixed-methods pilot study investigated the extent and nature of breakdowns in mentalization in the context of street violence in a community sample (N = 18) of violent offending versus non-offending male adolescents from low-income New York City neighborhoods and the degree to which these breakdowns are shaped by level of street code iv adherence and callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Secondary analyses examined the relationship of CU traits with street code adherence and with the capacity to mentalize in the context of attachment relationships given the limited investigation of social-cultural and relational factors that may shape the development of CU traits. Self-report measures assessed participants' level of street code adherence, CU traits and the capacity to mentalize in attachment relationships. Mentalizing capacity in the context of street violence was assessed through a semi-structured interview using movie clips of disrespect murders involving teenaged perpetrators that was coded for level of reflective function by an independent rater as well as analyzed qualitatively. Violent offenders presented with significantly lower overall mentalizing capacities (M = 3.30, SD = .67) than controls (M = 4.19, SD = .88), t (df) = -2.41, p = .03) in the context of street violence. Qualitatively, violent offenders exhibited more frequent and extensive breakdowns than controls when called upon to mentalize both the perpetrators’ and victims’ experiences ranging from a more limited affective repertoire to the complete collapse of mentalization and greater defensive distancing (e.g., yawning). A higher level of street code adherence was found to be moderately related to a lower capacity to mentalize in the context of street violence. A medium effect size was found for the relationship between higher levels of CU traits and lower capacity to mentalize the victim’s (though not the perpetrators) experience. While this latter finding was not statistically significant it is suggested that with a larger sample size this effect may be statistically significant. Lower mentalizing capacities in the context of attachment relationships were found to be associated with higher levels of street code adherence. From this perspective, individuals whose early attachment related experiences did not support the acquisition of adequate mentalizing capacities may be more drawn to the predictable yet organizing framework for interpersonal interactions provided by street code. Finally, a case v study of one of the violent offender participants is presented to demonstrate how impoverished emotional responses among high CU and high street-code adhering youth may, in part, represent a “turning off” of emotions secondary to the trauma of community violence. Implications for the adaption of mentalization-based therapy for street code-invested violent youth are discussed. Key Words: Mentalization, Disrespect Murder, Street Culture, Callous-unemotional traits, Juvenile Offenders. vi Acknowledgements I am indebted to the many people who have provided their support, guidance and professional expertise both during my doctoral training at the City College of New York and in bringing this study to its completion. This study was inspired by my clinical work with violent juvenile offenders within the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice (NYC-DJJ) before coming to City College. I would therefore like to start by expressing my thanks to my former clinical supervisors and colleagues at NYC-DJJ for all they taught me about working with juvenile-justice involved youth: Ron Carter, Kali Council, Cindy Gordon, Marion Jamison, Keri-Ann Ket Ying, Petrice Knight, Shelby Morgan, Sara Blumberg-Peterson, Jose Quinones, Dr. Monique Terrell, Dr. Sean Turner and Linda VanDemark. I would like to express my gratitude to my committee members, Dr. Steven Tuber, Dr. L. Thomas Kucharski and Dr. Arietta Slade for the incredible mentorship that they provided throughout my doctoral journey. I am immensely grateful to my chair, Dr. Steven Tuber for all he has taught me about psychodynamic work with children and adolescents, and his consistent support of my development as a clinician, researcher and parent. I would like to thank Dr. Kucharski for his guidance in crafting the callous-unemotional traits piece of the study and for his academic and clinical training in Forensic Psychology. I would like to thank Dr. Slade for her investment in helping me develop as a writer and for her inspiring teaching of attachment theory that formed the theoretical foundation of my dissertation. To my readers, Dr. Elliot Jurist and Dr. Diana Punales-Morejon, I would like to express my thanks for your close reading of my work, and thought provoking questions about my study that I hope to be able to incorporate into future, vii related research projects. In particular, I would like express my appreciation to Dr. Jurist for his scholarship on mentalization that shaped my thinking about this topic. I would also like to thank the professors within the CUNY Clinical and Forensic Psychology Doctoral programs at City College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice in whose courses I was able to develop the different components of this project: Dr. Angela Crossman, Dr. Mark Fondacaro, Dr. Iris Hellner, Dr. Jeffrey Rosen, and Dr. Louis Schlesinger. In addition, I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. Mary Kim Brewster and Dr. Salomon Bankier for their supervision of my clinical training in family therapy and psychodynamic therapy with at-risk adolescents while at City. My dissertation would not have been possible without the candid and vulnerable testimonies of the study participants about their experience of street violence. I am enormously grateful to you for sharing your stories and hope that my study gives accurate voice to your experiences. Thanks to Gisele Castro, Sarah Deming, Nadia Encarnacion and Nathanial Quinn for their assistance in connecting me to the initial study participants. I would like to thank Dr. Olga Poznansky for her coding of the MASVI measure and Dr. Sarai Batchelder for her assistance with data analysis. I would also like to express my appreciation for the grants awarded by the CUNY Graduate Center and the Far Fund that allowed me to fund this study. I need to thank my parents, John and Sue Barlow, my brother, Nick Barlow and my in- laws, Eugene and Amelia Berko, for their invaluable support and encouragement throughout this process. Special thanks to my dear friends, Dr. Kahlila Robinson and Dr. Elizabeth Freidin- Baumann. It was a privilege sharing my doctoral journey at City College with you. Special thanks also to Dr. Sara Pappas for your friendship and encouragement to pursue graduate studies in the United States. I am particularly grateful to Johanna Miller, Brenda Bardwell and the staff viii of the CUNY Graduate Center Child Development Center for their loving and dedicated care of my sons as I worked on my dissertation. Most importantly, I need to express my deepest gratitude to my husband, Steve Berko and to our sons Reuben and Gabriel. Steve, I could never have done this without you. Finally, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my maternal grandfather, Nelson Gunn, and my cousin, Matthew Richardson, whose own educational journeys were an inspiration to me.

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