The paradox of countertransference: you and me,here and now

Abstract

I am moved to write by Stephen Gross's article ‘Revenge of the fathers: incest and the male therapist’, which appeared in the February 1995 issue of Psychodynamic Counselling     

Siblings of disabled children: Birth order and age-spacing effects

Whereas older siblings of children with congenital disability have lived their earliest years in a normal family environment, younger siblings, especially those in a close age-spacing relationship, were born into families marked by the presence of a disabled child. In this paper, 237 siblings of disabled children are compared to 248 siblings from a random sample of families to examine whether the early family environment of siblings of disabled children, as indexed by relative birth order and age-spacing, has a unique influence on psychological functioning. The findings partially confirmed the expected relationships: Younger male siblings, specifically those in close age-spacing relationship to the disabled child, scored higher on psychological impairment than older male siblings. Among female siblings, a similar influence was not in evidence: Younger female siblings were psychologically better off than older female siblings and their age-spacing was not significantly related to psychological functioning. However, the results suggest that siblings' later response to early life experience may be sex-contingent, with males demonstrating interpersonal aggression and females experiencing depressive-anxious feelings.This study was supported by grants from the Cleveland Foundation and the C. S. Mott Foundation. The helpful comments of Joanne C. Gersten are gratefully acknowledged.     

Birth order effects in dominance: failure to support Sulloway's view

Contrary to Sulloway's 1996 assertion that firstborns should score higher than laterborns on measures of dominance, the dominance scores for 76 firstborn undergraduate students (50 women, 26 men) did not differ significantly from the scores of 75 laterborn students (48 women, 27 men) on the 16PF dimension of Dominance vs Submissiveness (Factor E). Further research into possible differences in performance strategies between laterborns and firstborns in childhood vs adulthood is necessary to evaluate Sulloway's theory of ordinal position definitively.     

On representationalism,common-factorism,and whether consciousness is here and now

Philosophical Studies - A strong form of representationalism says that every conscious property of every mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational...     

Birth order and introversion-extraversion

The relationship between birth order and introversion-extraversion was investigated. Subjects were 70 male and 77 female undergraduates, all from three-child families. The measure of introversion employed was the Social Introversion Scale (Scale 0) of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. A two-way analysis of variance indicated that first borns were more introverted than either middle-horns or last-horns, with no difference between the latter two groups. It was suggested that inconsistent results in this area may be due to the use of different measures of introversion.     

Birth order, family structure and personality variables

The birth order and family structure variables assessed included first or only child, position in multi-child family, position in dyadic family, age of parents at birth of given child, whether reared by one or both parents, whether reared under permissive or authoritarian family atmosphere. The personality variables assessed included Sociability, Anxiety, Dominance, Superego, Phlegmatic Temperament, Involvement, Self-Regard and other scales measured by the Howarth Personality Questionnaire. One hundred seventy female and 142 male undergraduates were tested. Significant relationships found included: anxiety lower in firstborns; superego higher in firstborns; persistence higher in those not dominated by elder sibling; phlegmatic temperament higher in permissive families; involvement and phlegmatic temperament lower in single parent families; self-pride higher in the elder of a sibling pair; individual tolerance higher in children reared by both rather than single parent.     

Birth order,sex of child,and maternal help-giving

As part of a larger study of birth order, sex of child, and mother—child interaction, mothers were asked to supervise their child's performance on memory and puzzle tasks. Subjects were 56 5-year-old boys and girls and their mothers, half with a same-sex older sibling, half with a same-sex younger sibling. Mothers showed no differences in spontaneous help-giving as a function of sex or birth order of child, but were more likely to give requested help and support to daughters than sons, and to respond contingently to daughters' mistakes. Implications of greater reinforced help-seeking for girls' orientations to achievement and problem-solving are considered.The work for this study was financed in part by Public Health Service Predoctoral Fellowship 5F1MH20, 971-02 and Special Fellowship 1-F03-HD-49722-01 from the National Institutes of Health. The authors wish to express gratitude for the assistance of Dan Eisenberg in performing data analysis.Portions of this paper were presented at meetings of the Western Psychological Association, San Francisco. 1974.