Assessment of Long-Term Psychosocial Sequelae Among POW Survivors of the Korean Conflict

Psychological and psychiatric assessments were performed among 20 prisoner-of-war (POW) Korean-Conflict survivors. Results revealed extraordinary biological and psychological abuse with weight losses exceeding 35% of preservice weights and long-term cognitive, emotional, and behavioral sequelae. The full range of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms was seen in 90% to 100% of the cases with high prevalence of co-morbidity, specifically mood (75%), other anxiety disorders. Documented by clinical investigators at (45%), and alcohol abuse (20%) POW release and now more than 30 years later, symptoms of apprehensiveness, confusion, detachment, and depression reflect the persistence of psychiatric morbidity over time.     

Motor Performance and Response Consistency as a Function of Age

The specificity versus generality of motor performance and motor response consistency was investigated as a function of age. 120 Ss, 30 each at age 7, 11, 15, and 19 yr., were given 120 practice trials (60 trials per session with 24 hr interpolated between sessions) on both simple and choice RT tasks. For motor performance the reliability of individual differences was high in both tasks at all ages, while the amount of generality was moderately high in the two younger groups but diminished with age. The reliability coefficients for motor response consistency were low for both tasks but, with two exceptions, statistically significant. There was no evidence for generality in motor response consistency at any age.     

Continuous Orthogonal Complement Functions and Distribution-Free Goodness of Fit Tests in Moment Structure Analysis

It is shown that for any full column rank matrix X ₀ with more rows than columns there is a neighborhood $\mathcal{N}$ of X ₀ and a continuous function f on $\mathcal{N}$ such that f(X) is an orthogonal complement of X for all X in $\mathcal{N}$ . This is used to derive a distribution free goodness of fit test for covariance structure analysis. This test was proposed some time ago and is extensively used. Unfortunately, there is an error in the proof that the proposed test statistic has an asymptotic χ ² distribution. This is a potentially serious problem, without a proof the test statistic may not, in fact, be asymptoticly χ ². The proof, however, is easily fixed using a continuous orthogonal complement function. Similar problems arise in other applications where orthogonal complements are used. These can also be resolved by using continuous orthogonal complement functions.     

The Psychosexual Identification of Preschool Boys

It was hypothesized that increases in level of arousal should lead to improvement in the performance of intellectual tasks and to decrements in the performance of creative tasks because of the effect of drive level on range of cue utilization and availability of remote associates. Subjects were given the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and a version of the WAIS Similarities subtest under low arousal (relaxed), medium arousal (stress), and high arousal (white noise) conditions. Trends were as predicted, but reached acceptable levels of significance only for the effects of high arousal on creative performance. Evidence for the validity of the RAT was provided by the finding that RAT and intellectual performance are affected in opposite ways by the same experimental manipulations. It is suggested that flexibility in changing level of arousal may be a determinant of both creativity and intelligence and that this common trait may explain the tendency of tests of the the two to correlate.     

Interference Effects from Observed Movement in Parkinson's Disease

Previous research has demonstrated that Parkinson's disease patients have an increased susceptibility to response conflict. In the present study, the authors investigate whether Parkinson's patients have a similar sensitivity to interference from observed movements. In all, 10 patients and 10 controls performed horizontal and vertical arm movements while watching a video of either a person performing similar movements or a moving dot. Movements were performed in the same plane (congruent) and orthogonal to the observed movement (incongruent). The off-axis variance of movements was our index of interference. Although patients tended to exhibit more off-axis variability than did controls, both groups demonstrated similar congruence effects, with greater variance in incongruent conditions. These results indicated that increased susceptibility to interference in Parkinson's disease does not extend to interference from observed movements.     

A Simple Measure of Interviewer and Interviewee Speech Durations

A hypothesis that peer pressure affects delay-of-gratification behavior was tested by comparing the private vs. public responses of Cree children to the offer of an immediate reward or a larger delayed reward. One group of children was twice tested in private. Another group was first tested in private and then in public. In both testings approximately 65% of the control group chose an immediate reward. The experimental group, however, although preferring an immediate reward in private, in public elected to go along with the choices of their classmates, many reversing themselves and choosing a delayed rather than immediate reward.     

Psychotherapy of an adolescent presenting a mystical delusion: an illustration of splitting processes and their consequences

The paper discusses the psychotherapy of an adolescent who, during a psychotic breakdown, developed a mystical delusion on a religious theme. Splitting processes and the narcissistic defences that accompany them are illustrated. After showing how the patient had recourse to splitting and how the split-off parts of the ego took refuge inside an internal object, the ego's efforts to make contact once more with these split-off aspects and to reintegrate them are highlighted. With the help of certain concepts developed by, for example, Rosenfeld and Meltzer - specifically those relating to the organization of internal groupings or 'gangs' and their destructiveness and the compartmentalization of internal objects - the author shows how certain particularities of the patient's internal world can be understood in terms of these splitting processes. In addition the clinical material presented raises several technical questions, in particular those relating to dissociative processes and delusion or delusional theories as they become manifest in the treatment.     

Using online social media,Facebook, in screening for major depressive disorder among college students

This study explored the feasibility of using Internet social networking media in an online program for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) screening and psychoeducation targeting college students. A Facebook advertisement targeted students at five colleges in the United States to complete a mental health research survey that screened for MDD using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Students who screened positive for MDD were offered an eightweek follow-up survey. Of the 259 students who consented to participate in the study, 26.7% screened positive for MDD, while only 14.2% were receiving treatment. The use of Facebook to advertise for online screening for MDD required very little start-up time, and the average cost was $11.45 per subject recruited. It is feasible to use online, commercially available social networking media such as Facebook for online screening for MDD among college students. However, conducting online screening and offering treatment resources alone did not increase treatment rate in this population.     

Creativity,mental health,and alcoholism

Abstract

Findings from a research project on the creative process spanning a 25‐year period are applied to considerations regarding mental health and creativity. Two specific creative functions are described: (a) homospatial process‐actively conceiving two or more discrete entities occupying the same space, a conception leading to the articulation of new identities; and (b) janusian process‐actively conceiving multiple opposites or antitheses simultaneously. Both of these processes are healthy, adaptive ones, indicating that mental illness does not facilitate creativity but interferes with it. Verbatim data from intensive interviews with the author, fohn Cheever, are presented to illustrate the relationship of that author's alcoholism to the writing of his outstanding creative achievement, the novel Falconer.