A look at social support patterns

The issue of how to provide support for patients with a life-threatening illness continues to be a problem for pastors and chaplains. The authors discuss the significance and reasons for looking at the present day social support patterns as an unnatural problem. Unless the unnatural nature of support in the modern medical setting is understood pastors and chaplains can miss the target on answering the question of how to provide support. The authors conclude the article by addressing this question from the position of reserving the unnatural nature of providing support.Dr. Bergen is Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755. Dr. Nelson is affiliated with the Chaplain Service, Veterans Administration Center, White River Junction, VT 05001 and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School.     

Within-family reproductive technologies as a solution to childlessness due to infertility: Psychological issues and interventions

Patients choosing new reproductive technologies benefit from psychological consultation as they face unforeseen emotional and interpersonal sequalae from these procedures. This paper focuses on those patients who choose family members or close friends (i.e., known donors) to donate sperm or eggs or uteri in order to conceive and produce their babies. Medical family therapy offers these patients and families a framework from which to examine the biological, psychological, and interpersonal issues involved in these within-family solutions to childlessness due to infertility.This paper is a revision of a talk, Medical Family Therapy, Infertility, and the New Reproductive Technologies, given at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on August 4 in Los Angeles, CA, as part of the Mini-convention on Families panel on Clinical Issues in Families and Health.     

A study of “Belief” and “Non-belief” items from the jones irrational beliefs test with implications for the theory of RET

Evidence supporting the fundamental position of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) that dysfunctional emotions and behaviors are heavily influenced by irrational beliefs has been questioned due to the fact that many measures of beliefs contain items that actually refer to emotions and behaviors. In this study individual items on the Jones Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT) (Jones, 1968/69) were rated by a panel of experts in RET as to whether they referred to beliefs, behaviors, emotions, or were ambiguous. Then Belief items and Non-belief items from the responses of 368 participants were extracted and scored separately. The Non-belief scores, based on items mostly referring to emotions and behaviors, were strongly related to measures of distress, as would be expected. But scores based on items unequivocally referring to beliefs were also significantly related to measures of emotional distress, psychosomatic symptoms, and suicidal contemplation. These findings are interpreted as clear support for RET's position on the relationship between irrational beliefs (B's) and dysfunctional emotions and behaviors (C's).Co-Editor of thisJournal, is a Fellow of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York City, a Professor of Psychology at Hollins College, and a Licensed Psychologist in independent practice in Roanoke, Virginia.     

Endogenous Ketamine-Like Compounds and the NDE: If So, So What?

This commentary on Karl Jansen's ketamine model for the near-death experience expands upon and raises additional questions about several issues and hypotheses: self-experimentation as a source of data; ketamine's similarities to and differences from classical hallucinogens; the need for quantification of unusual subjective states; clinical research and toxicological implications of this model; drugs as gateways to religious states; and evolutionary versus religious significance of naturally occurring compounds released in the near-death state. I suggest future research that could help explicate several of these areas.Formerly Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine     

Countering perfectionism in research on clinical practice II: Retrospective analysis of treatment progress

A simple correlational study is described which has methodological advantages, when compared with an equivalent manipulative (i.e., quasiexperimental) research design, for examining exploratory questions about treatment outcome. These advantages stem from the fact that retrospective designs, when compared with prospective ones, are much less likely to involve ethical problems due to offering relatively ineffective or unnecessary treatment, and less likely to involve confounds from newly hypothesized differential expectations about treatment. Based on Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) scale scores, clients with high levels of histrionic or narcissistic (and possibly also those with antisocial, compulsive and paranoid) personality traits seemed to profit more from RET than those without such traits. Clients with high levels of schizoid, avoidant, and schizotypal traits (and probably also clients with strong passive-aggressive traits, and possibly also clients with strong dependent and borderline traits) seemed to profit less from RET than those without such marked traits. We have previously shown that the relatively healthy personality traits and disorders are associated with global self-upping and the relatively sick ones with global self-downing, as well as contrasting patterns of positive and negative reactions to stressful events. Our findings here support the concept that clients who consistently handle life situations well will tend to progress most rapidly in therapy, and those who generally handle life situations badly will tend to progress slowly. Personality traits may be especially significant markers for therapeutic attention to problems stemming from global self-rating. Expectations based on the severity of global self-upping and/or self-downing may be good predictors of therapeutic progress. In contrast, expectations about RET outcomes based on severity of distress or neediness will probably be less accurate.Dr. Russell C. Leaf is Associate Professor of Psychology at Rutgers. He also directs a research project at the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy, in collaboration with the four other authors of this article, on the relationships between intake personality and mental health. He is an Institute Fellow and Supervisor, and previously served as a staff therapist and as the Institute's Director of Clinical Evaluation.Albert Ellis is President of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.Roslyn Mass is Professor at Middlesex County College. She is in charge of data processing and analysis for the collaborative research of this authorial team, and is a Fellow of and previously served as Administrative Director of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.Raymond DiGiuseppe is Associate Professor of Psychology at St. Johns and Director of Research and Director of Training at the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.Diane Alington is Assistant Director and a member of the core faculty of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers, where she conducts a research program on sex differences in adult development.     

Heidegger's Brightness as a Responsibility of the Therapist in Existential Family Therapy

The author reflects upon the Heideggerian concepts of thrown-ness, death imagery, arrogance and brightness and their usefulness in existential family therapy. The article describes and illustrates with clinical material the process of helping a couple or family to move from an arrogance response to thrownness and death imagery to the response of brightness as attendants of Being. The responsibilities of the therapist in facilitating such a process are also described.Director of the Worthington Logotherapy Institute, co-director of Lantz and Lantz Counseling Associates, and a professor at The Ohio State University. College of Social Work     

Resistance revisited

It was a coincidence that I was asked to talk about resistance at Ground Rounds at the University of Texas, Department of Psychiatry, on the tenth anniversary of mailing the first version of Death of Resistance to a journal in 1979. Although the paper was subsequently rejected 17 times and revised six times, it was eventually published inFamily Process (de Shazer, 1984). I still insist that the concept of resistance was a bad idea for therapists to have in their heads.This paper was presented April 14, 1989, at Ground Rounds, University of Texas, Southwest Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas.     

The endorsement of irrational beliefs in a general clinical population

Burgess' Attitude and Belief Scale, a measure of Ellis' irrational beliefs, was administered to a large sample of outpatients. All 13 subscales demonstrate very adequate internal consistency. A factor analysis yielded one factor accounting for 83% of the variance, which was labeled irrationality. Clients endorsed focused items more than overgeneralized items, self-referential items more than non-self-referential items, and preferential items more than irrational items. Clients also received higher scores on the irrational process of demandingness than they did on the irrational process of awfulizing, self-worth and low frustration tolerance. The results were consistent with new formulations in Rational-Emotive theory. Suggestions were made for the construction of measures of irrational beliefs.     

Cognitive variables related to suicidal contemplation in adolescents with implications for long-range prevention

In a series of studies with college and high school students (Total N=808) consistent and strong relationships were found between suicidal contemplation and the irrational beliefs considered by Rational-Emotive Theory & Therapy (RET) to underlie emotional distress. Suicidal contemplation was measured first by an item from the Beck Depression Inventory and subsequently by the Suicide Probability Scale. Irrational beliefs were measured by the Jones Irrational Beliefs Test and, in the third study, by the new Attitudes & Belief Scale-II as well. Groups formed on the basis of increasing indices of suicidal contemplation were found to be consistently, increasingly more irrational on both measures. Also groups created according to low, medium, and high levels of irrational beliefs (the B in RET) were found to be markedly different on C variables such as anxiety, depression, hopelessness, anger, psychosomoatic symptoms and suicidal contemplation. The findings were interpreted as strongly inferring a causational relationship from attitudes and beliefs to emotional distress and the contemplation of suicide. The implications of the findings for RET theory and for therapeutic and preventive strategies related to emotional distress and suicidal contemplation are clear. Other approaches to the explanation of suicide are cited and reference is made to a previous critical summary of them (Woods & Muller, 1988).Paul J. Woods, Ph.D., Co-Editor of this Journal, is a Fellow of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York City, a Professor of Psychology at Hollins College, and a Licensed Psychologist in independent practice in Roanoke, Virginia.Ellen S. Silverman, R. N., C. & M.A. collaborated in Study III for a Master's thesis at Hollins College. She is currently in a Ph.D. program in psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University.Julia M. Gentilini, B. A. collaborated on Study I for an Honors' thesis in psychology at Hollins College.Deborah K. Cunningham, M. A. collaborated on Study II for a Master's thesis at Hollins College. She is currently in a Ph.D. program in psychology at the University of Memphis.Russell M. Grieger, Ph.D., Co-Editor of this Journal, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in independent practice in Charlottesville, Virginia, and a Fellow of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York City.     

Retour(s) sur “Mir Rose” ou comment analyser et représenter le texte argumentatif (écrit)?

The main purpose of this paper is to account for the varying analysis and formalisations of a same advertisement text, Mir Rose, by Jean Michel Adam. First, we draw the methodological frame of this psycholinguistic approach of composing and understanding-memorizing texts. We refer to the notions of prototypical textual schema, semantic macrostructure and superstructure. Then we point out the differences between argumentative text and argumentative discourse. Last, we try to explain why it has been possible for Adam to analyse and formalise the same text first as a narrative one and a few years later as an argumentative one. We suggest that his narrative approach is not specific and textual narrative means here temporal-causative sequence or problem solving, i.e., deeper and more general psychological devices than those involved in processing narrative text per se. From Toulmin and van Dijk approaches of argumentation, we propose our own analysis and formalisation of Mir Rose, the psychological validity or plausibility of which should be tested in experimental tasks of reading-memorising.

     

A New Representation Theorem for Contranegative Deontic Logic

The logic of an ought operator O is contranegative with respect to an underlying preference relation if it satisfies the property Op & (¬p)(¬q) Oq. Here the condition that is interpolative ((p (pq) q) (q (pq) p)) is shown to be necessary and sufficient for all -contranegative preference relations to satisfy the plausible deontic postulates agglomeration (Op & OqO(p&q)) and disjunctive division (O(p&q) Op Oq).     

Sexual coercion in high school dating

Retrospective data from a survey of Australian undergraduate university students indicated that sexual coercion leading to sex play and sexual intercourse is a feature of dating behavior in high school. Fifty-three percent of 217 females reported that a boy had overestimated the level of sexual intimacydesired, while 45 percent of 72 males reported that a girl had underestimated the level of sexual intimacydesired. While data was not gathered on ethnic origin, the majority of students were Australian born, although family of origin would have been culturally varied. The data illustrate sexual coercion leading to both sex play and intercourse, with a number of factors being implicated in its occurrence, including alcohol and drugs and males saying things they didn't really mean, through to threat and use of force. They support that the existence of sexual coercion among high school students, a population that has received little research attention in this area, is comparable to its existence in the college/university years.     

Modifying Violent Communities by Enhancing Altruism: A Vision of Possibilities

A model for diagnosing and treating violent communities is outlined. The treatment consists of enhancing a form of pragmatic altruism by building relationships and mutual understanding between community leaders who are derived from task groups called community stabilizing systems, defined as groups essential for peaceful, creative stability in a community. Two examples of an intervention derived from this theory are described.     

Is “some-other-time” sometimes better than “sometime” for proving partial correctness of programs?

The main result of this paper belongs to the field of the comparative study of program verification methods as well as to the field called nonstandard logics of programs. We compare the program verifying powers of various well-known temporal logics of programs, one of which is the Intermittent Assertions Method, denoted as Bur. Bur is based on one of the simplest modal logics called S5 or sometime-logic. We will see that the minor change in this background modal logic increases the program verifying power of Bur. The change can be described either technically as replacing the reflexive version of S5 with an irreflexive version, or intuitively as using the modality some-other-time instead of sometime. Some insights into the nature of computational induction and its variants are also obtained.This project was supported by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research, Grant No. 1810.     

Family therapy for the “Truncated” nuclear family

The truncated nuclear family is the commonest or gardenvariety family psychopathology observed by therapists, and consists of a two-generation group in which heated, prolonged conflict has produced a polarization of values which has generated pathogenic relating, raising the potential for a family member to become scapegoated and react in a disorganized or disoriented manner. Although many so-called intact families are of the truncated variety, the single-parent family is at special risk. Go-between process is a useful family therapy for the truncated nuclear family because it enables the therapist to depolarize sharply conflicted values and is a mechanism for reducing pathogenic relating.This article was originally an invited presentation for the Third Annual Research Symposium of the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, held in Philadelphia on February 22, 1980.     

Modal Logics of Succession for 2-Dimensional Integral Spacetime

We consider the problem of axiomatizing various natural successor logics for 2-dimensional integral spacetime. We provide axiomatizations in monomodal and multimodal languages, and prove completeness theorems. We also establish that the irreflexive successor logic in the standard modal language (i.e. the language containing and ) is not finitely axiomatizable.     

O pojęciu zdania analitycznego

Rezultaty przedstawione w pracy niniejszej pokrywaj si czciowo z wynikami osignitymi przezR. Wójcickiego w pracy:Analityczne komponenty definicji arbitralnych. Studia Logica, t. XIV. Dotyczy to gównie rezultatów zawartych w czci pierwszej. Chciabym podkreli, i wyniki R. Wójcickiego uzyskane zostay cakowicie niezalenie od rezultatów przedstawionych w pracy obecnej.Allatum est die 16 Aprilis 1962     

Die Rechtsansichten der Eurasier -- Rechtsordnung oder Wertordnung?

In their juridical doctrines, the members of the Evrazijstvo movement advocated the idea of a Russian special path criticizing at the same time the formalism and coldness of the western conception of law, based principally on Roman law. Their views are characterized by an evident priority accorded to justice over law, to the order of values over legal order.     

On the relation between recent neurobiological data on perception (and action) and the Husserlian theory of constitution

The phenomenological theory of constitution promises a solution for the problem of consciousness insofar as it changes the traditional terms of this problem by systematically correlating subject and object in the unifying context of intentional acts. I argue that embodied constitution must depend upon the role of kinesthesia as a constitutive operator. In pursuing the path of intentionality in its descent from an idealistic level of pure constitution to this fully embodied kinesthetic constitution, we are able to gain access to different ontological regions such as physical thing, owned body and shared world. Neuroscience brings to light the somatological correlates of noemata. Bridging the gap between incarnation and naturalisation represents the best way of realizing the foundational program of transcendental phenomenology.