The experimental model and treatment of neurotic depression

Learned helplessness is at present widely accepted as a model for depression. Depression, however, is a symptom-complex that has many causes. Three general causal categories are distinguished—normal, neurotic and endogenous. Neurotic depressions comprise the main clinical category whose causation is primarily external.

This paper shows that neurotic depression is evidently a function of conditioned anxiety response habits that finds a paradigm in experimental neuroses, not in learned helplessness. Both experimental and clinical neurotic depressions are overcome by deconditioning anxiety.

In a sample of 25 cases treated by the deconditioning of anxiety, 22 recovered from their depressions; and the recoveries were found to have endured in the 19 of them who were followed up for at least 6 months.     

Physical activity and responses to projective stimuli in neurotic vs. psychotic depression

Responses to projective material by neurotically and psychotically depressed patients were scored for fluency, movement, and primary process during light physical activity and inactivity. A depression measure was also obtained. Significant positive correlations were found between fluency, movement, and primary process. Movement scores did not increase significantly during physical activity for either group. No significant correlations were found between level of depression and production of movement and primary process. However, primary process, controlled for fluency, increased significantly during physical activity for neurotic, but not for psychotic depressives.     

Treatment of bipolar depression

Bipolar disorder is underdiagnosed and often mistaken for unipolar depression. Bipolar patients spend 33% of their time in a state of depression compared to 11% of time spent in a manic state. Duration of time depressed and severity of depression are associated with increased risk for suicide, which occurs in 10% to 20% of bipolar patients. Antidepressants are increasingly being used as adjuncts in the depressed phase of bipolar disorder, although they provide a moderate risk for switch into mania. Lithium and some antiepileptics and atypical antipsychotics have shown antidepressant effects in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Other adjuncts for treatment-refractory patients include monoamine oxidase inhibitors and electroconvulsive therapy.     

Self-reported cognitive failures and neurotic symptomatology

Three studies examined the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and its psychopathological correlates. In Study 1, the psychometric qualities of the Dutch translation of the CFQ were evaluated in a student sample. Internal consistency and test-retest stability were found to be satisfactory. Furthermore, CFQ was positively correlated with anxiety symptoms, even when the influence of traditional trait variables (i.e., neuroticism and trait anxiety) was partialled out. Study 2 examined the CFQ as a predictor of treatment outcome in spider phobia. No evidence was found to suggest that high CFQ scores are associated with a less favourable treatment outcome. Also, spider phobics had CFQ scores in the normal range. Study 3 evaluated the CFQ in a mixed sample of anxiety disordered and depressive outpatients. Depressive patients, but not anxiety disordered patients, were found to have heightened CFQ scores. Overall, CFQ scores were positively associated with symptom severity. Yet, there were no indications that patients with high CFQ scores profit less from treatment than those with low CFQ scores. Taken together, the results provide support for the view that the CFQ taps daily cognitive routines that are undermined by anxiety and depression. However, the findings do not point to the CFQ being a cognitive vulnerability measure that is related to treatment success.     

Treatment of neurotic sleep disorders with the use of V. E. Frank's logotherapy

V. E. Frankl's logotherapy is a useful method of treatment in the psychotherapy of neuroses. Its systematic approach to reorientation, the assistance it provides is adopting an optimistic outlook on life, and its dynamic character and comparative limitation in time make it ideal for outpatient therapy. Patients easily adopt its two recommendations, the "paradoxical intention" and "dereflection", and these have a capacity for overcoming symptoms. This frees the patient sufficiently to make it possible for him to deal with the causes of his crisis. Through analyzing his conflict with the environment he can arrive at a new synthesis and find a meaningful philosophy of life.     

Differentiation between primary and neurotic sexual disorders

The object of this paper is to show that there are different forms of sexual anomalies which permit of basic and therapeutic differentiation. Atavisms of responding have been observed to play an essential role in real perversions.