The New York Experience

SUMMARY

In response to changes in health care delivery, a coalition of therapists in New York City mounted a campaign to network with peers on the local, state and national level to exchange information and resources. The Mental Health Task Force explored new models of practice such as psychiatric home care, developed alliances with consumers and monitored regulatory agencies and legislation.     

The ecology of rape victimization: a case study of Buffalo, New York

Official crime report data gathered from the Buffalo Police Department for the year 1975 were used to analyze variations in risk of rape victimization. The ecological structuring of routine activities and the victimogenic factors possessed by rape victims were examined to account for observed differences in risk. The results showed that rape victimization is associated with the routine activities of victims in that women who are highly mobile (working women, students, and younger women in general) are at a much greater risk than women who are less mobile. The risk of rape varies with respect to location within the city, and nonwhite females are victimized more than their white female counterparts. Differential risk of rape victimization was accounted for by the routine activities of victims. Rape victimization requires the convergence in space and time of likely offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians for preventing rape.     

The New York Psychoanalytic Civil War.

The goal of this contribution is to give an overall survey of the analytic schisms in the New York area from 1934 on. The general background, laying the groundwork for potential schisms, is described. There were several major schisms in the New York area. The first related to Horney's departure from the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. There were multiple splits in this group which eventuated in a psychoanalytic facility at the New York Medical College, as well as the establishment of the William Alanson White Institute. Then there was the establishment of a psychoanalytic training facility at Columbia University, one at the Downstate Medical Center, and another at the New York University School of Medicine. The various factors that played a role in the splits are discussed. Finally, there is a discussion of why psychoanalytic schisms take place.     

The type A behavior pattern, physical fitness, and psychophysiological reactivity

Joint effects of the Type A behavior pattern and aerobic fitness were examined with regard to heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) changes elicited by laboratory challenges. Sixty-one college students were classified as Type A or B using the Structured Interview (SI), and as physically fit or sedentary using self-reports of activity level and estimated VO2max values obtained on a step test. Subjects were challenged with the SI, presentation of a snake, mental arithmetic, a cold pressor task, and two competitive card games. Significant A-B differences were found only on the SI and the card games. During the SI: As displayed significantly greater BP increases than Bs; sedentary subjects showed greater BP increases than fit subjects; and sedentary As revealed greater BP increases than either fit As, fit Bs, or sedentary Bs. In contrast, during the competitive games, physically fit As showed reliably greater BP increases than either sedentary As, sedentary Bs, or fit Bs. Since the physically fit subjects were almost exclusively varsity athletes and the sedentary subjects were college students who reported following a sedentary lifestyle, the differences between sedentary and fit groups may have been due to differences in aerobic fitness or to the improved ability of competitive athletes or those engaged in fitness training to match arousal level to task requirements.     

The New York Jewish Student Syndrome: Stereotype and Facts

Psychiatric professionals at a midwestern university outpatient clinic consistently describe certain symptom characteristics for New York Jewish (NY-J) students. All student applicants during 1966-67 completed pre-intake questionnaires, which included a previously validated 20-item symptom checklist. Neither NY-J male or female students could be distinguished on stated symptoms from urban non-Jews or other Jewish students more than expected by chance. Differences obtained were mainly in expressive style, including a search for “meaning” by the NY-J students; however, the forces inherent in “studenthood” appeared to make the various ethnic and demographic groups more similar than different.     

An exploratory study of the health decision-making variables of New York and Montana ninth-graders

The health decision-making dynamics of adolescents in New York and Montana are assessed. Ninth-grade students were asked to make a decision on a hypothetical dilemma scenario. From their choice they were classified as either health-promoting decision makers (HPDM) or health-risky decision makers (HRDM). They were subsequently asked a series of questions dealing with future health choices, degree of reflection, the effect of stress upon choice selection, and type of cognition during decision. Results indicate that HPDM intended not to engage in future, risky sexual behavior or drinking and driving behavior(s). Health-risky decision makers were, however, more reflective in making their initial choice. The variable of stress was not definitive for either group, and significant regional differences were not evident. Implications for the design of school health education program curricula are presented along with suggestions for future investigation.     

The cognitive-behavioural treatment of low self-esteem in psychotic patients: a pilot study

Low self esteem in individuals with a psychotic disorder is common and may be related to poorer clinical outcomes. However, there has been little research on devising treatment methods to improve self-esteem either generally or in psychotic patients in particular. The aims of this study were to evaluate the efficacy of a simple cognitive behavioural intervention to improve self esteem in psychotic patients who scored poorly on a self-esteem measure. This pilot study was a randomised control trial with a convenience sample of chronic psychotic inpatients. The cognitive behavioural self-esteem intervention, as an adjunct to treatment as usual (TAU), was compared to TAU alone in patients with psychosis. The individual self-esteem intervention as described by Tarrier (The use of coping strategies and self-regulation in the treatment of psychosis. (2001)) consisted of working with participants to elicit positive self-attributes and then identify specific behavioural examples to provide evidence of this attribute. Emphasis was given to any consequential change in the patient's belief that they had the attribute. The results indicated that this cognitive behavioural treatment for self-esteem used as an adjunct treatment in psychosis, resulted in clinical benefits in terms of increased self-esteem, decreased psychotic symptomatology and improved social functioning. These benefits were largely maintained at 3-month follow-up.     

New York Prophecies: The Imaginary Future of Artificial Intelligence

The conflicts which have erupted over hacking, cracking and filesharing offer a stepping-stone for rethinking the involvement of users in innovation processes. As technical design processes invariably proceed in the shadow of established relations of social power, we can expect them to encompass conflicts over what constitutes the creative use of technology versus its misuse. The figure of the misuser calls attention to the importance of antagonistic relations in the mutual shaping of technology and society. Constructivist STS research has been criticised for neglecting the importance of antagonistic relations in favour of an emphasis on the limitless mutability of human/machine hybrids. The transformative effects of innovation processes on interests and subjectivities cannot be denied. But the induction of such transformations might be interpreted as a method through which struggles are conducted. This dynamic is particularly forthcoming in the case of filesharing, where users innovate precisely in order to overthrow the material practices upon which intellectual property law is founded. It is the intervention of law enforcement agencies in the process of drawing the line between users and misusers that makes the presence of an antagonistic relation manifest.     

A longitudinal study of time estimation in psychotic disorders

5 healthy subjects and 9 patients with hospital diagnoses of schizophrenia were studied by means of repeated measurements of time estimation (production method) during a 1- to 2-yr period. The healthy subjects exhibited moderate variability in their time estimations and tended to over- or under-estimate somewhat. Both over- and under-estimation were also found among patients, but the patients were often more variable in their estimations and in some cases deviated more from the correct estimation than the healthy subjects. Two patients were decided under-estimators. They were both young, subchronic schizophrenics. Chronic schizophrenic patients tended to over-estimate time, but the amount of over-estimation had no noticeable correlation to the degree of clinical disturbance. Two patients gradually changed from under- to over-estimation during the observation period. One patient was evidently misdiagnosed. He suffered from a bipolar affective disorder, and his time estimations seemed to depend on his clinical state during the course of the disorder. The results are discussed in the context of earlier findings and physiological disturbances in chronic schizophrenia.     

The relationship between cognitive inhibition and psychotic symptoms

Cognitive models of schizophrenia have highlighted deficits of inhibitory attentional processes as central to the disorder. This has been investigated using "negative priming" (S. P. Tipper, 1985), with schizophrenia patients showing a reduction of negative priming in a number of studies. This study attempted to replicate these findings, but studied psychotic symptoms rather than the broad diagnostic category of schizophrenia. Psychotic individuals exhibiting positive symptoms were compared with asymptomatic psychiatric patients and with a normal control group. As predicted, the symptomatic group failed to show the usual negative priming effect, which was present in the asymptomatic and normal groups. A modest but significant correlation was found between negative priming and delusions. Neither diagnosis, nor affective or negative symptoms, nor chronicity, nor medication, was related to negative priming. These data replicate previous findings that positive symptoms are related to a reduction in cognitive inhibition, although considerable variability was observed among the psychotic patients.