Online data collection for psychotherapy process research.

A preliminary investigation addressed the feasibility of using a specially designed online database to collect psychotherapy session impact and therapist-client alliance data and compared these online measures to published results of their paper-and-pencil counterparts. Participants drawn from a psychology department clinic, a student counseling center, and community agencies visited an online site to report on each of their sessions. Some clients and therapists visited the online database on a regular basis; however, client recruitment and participation was problematic. Equivalence between the online and paper-and-pencil forms was supported, with minor qualifications, by comparable distributions of participant responses on the measures' scales. More direct contact with clients might increase their participation.     

When theory and practice diverge: gender-related patterns of referral to psychoanalysts.

This study tests the hypothesis that female analysts, relative to male analysts, receive a disproportionately small percentage of male referrals. Referral patterns for 170 analysts from four institutes accredited by the American Psychoanalytic Association were examined. One thousand, five hundred and ten patients referrals were studied. The findings were extremely robust and offered dramatic confirmation of our hypothesis. The major implications of the study are as follows: (1) Women analysts receive relatively few adult male referrals, making it difficult for them to gain requisite clinical experience with men. (2) Analysts and nonanalysts alike demonstrate a reluctance to refer male patients to female analysts. (3) Adult referrals, including those made by analysts, are significantly influenced by the issue of gender match between patient and analyst. (4) Analysts' behavior with regard to making referrals does not correspond to explicit clinical theory regarding how analysts make referrals--specifically, the extent to which gender influences the referral process is not adequately described by theory. We believe that these findings are of some concern from the standpoint of analytic education and that they also raise questions regarding unacknowledged aspects of how gender match between patient and analyst enters into clinical decision making.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Explanatory style and gambling: How pessimists respond to losing wagers

Fifty-three patrons of a harness racing track completed two measures of explanatory style prior to an afternoon's races. One measure assessed general explanatory style, using bad events taken from the Attributional Style Questionnaire, and the other measure assessed betting-specific explanatory style, using bad events specific to harness race betting. Subjects then kept a diary during the first eight races. After each race, they reported how much they had bet, whether they had won or lost, the major cause of the outcome, their confidence about winning future bets, and whether they were ruminating about past or future races. Explanatory style assessed in both ways had similar correlates. Explanatory style predicted the specific attributions made by subjects for losses. Pessimistic explanatory style (internal + stable + global attributions) predicted rumination following a lost bet, but it was unrelated to expressed confidence. Rumination after a loss was in turn associated with larger wagers on subsequent races and a tendency toward less successful wagers. These results clarify one way in which pessimistic explanatory style results in helplessness, and suggest a path by which problematic gambling may develop.     

Developmental issues in psychotherapy research

Research on psychosocial interventions with children requires attention to developmental principles such as age-specific competence, maturational shifts, increasing cone of relevant contacts, and socioeconomic context of biological stages. Research strategies that include such variables should lead to ecologically sound investigations and the correct selection of outcome variables. A consideration of the specificity of treatment and controlled design alone are not sufficient to guide the study of the psychological treatment of developing organisms and persons.     

The moral journey of the first Viennese psychoanalysts.

By exploring the cultural concerns of Freud's first Viennese disciples, this article explains how these concerns helped inspire both intellectual conviction in Freudianism and inner commitment to the psychoanalytic movement. In this way, it illuminates an important underlying identity between medical practitioners and laypersons within Freud's circle. At the same time, it brings to light the tension between values and science in Viennese psychoanalysis.     

Antisemitism in psychoanalyses. On the identity of Austrian psychoanalysts today

Jews living in present day Austria represent "uncanny"--repressed and dangerous--instinctual wishes as well as reminders of the mass murder in which the previous generation of non-Jews was implicated. This results in an intensification, rather than an abatement, of antisemitic prejudice. Non-Jewish analysts partake of this dynamic as well.     

How to do basic medical research

The following editorial is a reprint of an article inLegacies in the Study of Behavior: The Wisdom and Experience of Many (edited by Joseph Warren Cullen and published by Charles C Thomas (1975) Springfield, Illinois) by Irvine H. Page, born 1901, a graduate of Cornell Medical College, and editor of “Modern Medicine.” The life of Dr. Page has been an enviable one and extremely colorful, reminiscent of the more comprehensive, less technically oriented careers of a bygone era. Beginning as Director of the Chemical Division of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Munich from 1928 to 1931, later Director of the Research Division of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (1945–1966), he pioneered in the mechanism of arteriosclerosis and hypertension, the isolation of serotonin, and in the research on angiotensin. Having been a successful experimental investigator as well as an eminent clinician, he speaks with a direction and brevity from a long experience. Because of the great value of his counsel, his article is reprinted here with his permission and that of the editor, J. W. Cullen, and the publisher Payne Thomas.

     

Attitudes towards psychotherapy manuals among clinicians treating eating disorders

Clinicians have relatively low uptake and implementation of evidence-based psychotherapies for the eating disorders, and this problem appears to be associated with low use of manualized approaches. This study examines clinicians' positive and negative attitudes to manuals, and possible beliefs and emotional factors that might drive those attitudes. The participants were 125 psychological therapists working with eating-disordered patients. Each completed standardised measures of attitudes to manuals and emotional states. A number of beliefs about the content of manuals were associated with both positive attitudes to the outcome of treatment and negative attitudes to their impact on the treatment process. In addition, a more positive mood was associated with more positive attitudes. Suggestions are made regarding how attitudes might be made more positive, in order to facilitate the use of evidence-based therapies for eating disorders.     

如何对艺术家进行心理传记分析

如何对艺术家进行心理传记分析,是心理传记学研究的一个关键问题。Schultz在总结前人研究的基础上,提出了几种研究的基本范式,这对当前对艺术家的心理传记研究,具有重要的实践意义。