Viktor Frankl and Interactional Group Therapy

Although Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy concepts have been described as a basis for support groups and for small sharing groups, they have seldom been reported in the literature as a basis for the practice of interpersonal group psychotherapy. In this article the author overviews and outlines the treatment elements and dynamics of a Logotherapy approach to interpersonal group therapy. Clinical material is provided to give a flavor of the described treatment approach.     

Hands up! A study of witnesses' emotional reactions and memories associated with bank robberies

This article presents some empirical findings concerning memory for violent real-life events. Witnesses who had observed a bank robbery, either as a victim or a bystander, were interviewed and studied with respect to emotional reactions and memory for detailed information about the robbery. The consistency of the witnesses' accounts was measured by a comparison of information gathered in the police reports and the recollection given in a research interview. Overall, the results showed relatively high accuracy rates after an extended time interval with respect to specific details about the robbery (e. g. action, weapon, clothing). For some details, however, the witnesses showed a rather low performance (e. g. colour of eyes and hair, and details of the surrounding circumstances). There was no significant relationship between rated degree of emotion and the number of details remembered. These findings contradict the negative relationship between stress and memory that many experts on eyewitness testimony believe in (Kassin, Ellsworth, and Smith, 1989). Points of commonality in findings from real-life studies and simulation studies are discussed.     

The normal distribution in scaling subjective stimulus differences: Less “normal” than we think?

The Gaussian, or “normal,” distribution is routinely used to model distributions of subjective quantities. This practice rests on a trust in the central limit theorem, yet this theorem does not cover the case of a mixture of Gaussian distributions with different standard deviations, which yields a distribution that is heavier tailed than the Gaussian. In psychophysical judgment experiments, this may result, for example, from fluctuating or interindividually varying attention. Two candidates for describing this commonly encountered type of distribution are the logistic distribution and thet distribution with a small number of degrees of freedom. In reanalyses of experimental data on three-category loudness comparisons, as well as in a Monte Carlo simulation,t(4) was found to model the underlying mixed inter- and intraindividual-distribution of subjective loudness differences quite satisfactorily.     

Franklian treatment with Vietnam veteran couples

In this article, the Franklian treatment method of existential reflection is described as it can be used in marital therapy with Vietnam veterans. The author also provides information about treatment results with twenty-three Vietnam veteran couples from 1974 to 1987.     

Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—Young men's embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality

Introduction

Mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety with interlinked suicidality, are the leading cause of health-related disability among young men. Knowledge of the interaction between emotional, bodily, social and gendered mental health processes in young men is limited and therefore needed.

Aim

This study aimed to explore young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality, and to conceptualise these by integrating affective–emotional, physiological, social and gendered processes.

Methods

Semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 13 young men who had sought professional help for mental disorders and suicidality. Grounded theory (GT) was used with a social constructivist perspective.

Results

The results comprise one core category—Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—with related categories “battling with the emotional body,” “suffering in social silence” and “balancing embodied darkness and distress.” The GT illustrates how young men navigate and manage their embodied and emotional suffering in a context of “regulative” masculine and social norms alongside insufficient social support.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality can be understood as a dynamic process of internal and external “(dys)regulation and alienation.” The generated GT provides a broad tentative explanation model, contributing to theory development, and serves as a basis for gender-sensitive interventions—in both psychotherapy and physiotherapy—integrating body, mind and the social context.     

Police officers and civilians as witnesses: intergroup biases and memory performance

To compare police officers and civilians with respect to intergroup biases and memory performance in a witness situation, two versions of a film with a simulated, violent robbery were shown to experienced police officers and civilians (university students and police recruits). The perpetrator was either an immigrant or a native Swede. Results showed that the police officers were less ethnocentric in their evaluations of the perpetrator than the civilians. Moreover, police officers showed higher accuracy in their recollections of crime-relevant information in the film. It is suggested that police officers' knowledge of, and experience with, crime incidents helps them to sort out the relevant information in the situation, and this in turn enhances their memory for crime-relevant information. Policing experience may also result in reduced levels of psychological stress, giving police officers more room to form an individuated, rather than stereotypic, interpretation of the perpetrator's behaviour. Alternatively, it may be that police officers have become aware of biasing effects in the presence of outgroup members, and due to the social disapprobation such ethnocentric reactions can elicit, are more motivated to avoid or inhibit such expressions than civilians. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Semantic Normativity

Philosophical Studies -