Response Inhibition and the Rorschach ‘M’ Response

Previous research indicated that a relationship existed between production of the Rorschach M response and inhibition of motor activity. The present study investigated this relationship under conditions which approximated those involved in the normal process of impulse control. Volunteer college students were used as subjects. Ss who engaged in a response inhibition task subsequently produced significantly more M responses than did Ss who had engaged in a noninhibitory task. This supported the hypothesis that M is an indication of the tendency to deal with impulses through fantasy.     

Developmental Group Therapy with Autistic and Other Severely Psychosocially Handicapped Adolescents

During adolescence, some of the barriers to social and emotional contact in severely handicapped autistic and other comparably developmentally disabled persons are lowered. A highly modified version of group therapy, in which multiple coleaders actively plan and direct the group process, is proposed as a method of enhancing the emotional experience of such youngsters. A case study of a developmental therapy group is presented, followed by discussion of treatment results and directions for future research.     

Moral psychiatry: Justice in the modern world,in Hebraic civilization and in psychiatric practice,Part 1

Abstract

The question is raised whether justice is possible. Attitudes to justice are described, and examples of justice and injustice in French psychiatric practice before and during World War II are presented and discussed.     

Spinoza and the Feeling of Freedom

We seem to have a direct experience of our freedom when we act. Many philosophers take this feeling of freedom as evidence that we possess libertarian free will. Spinoza denies that we have free will of any sort, although he admits that we nonetheless feel free. Commentators often attribute to him what I call the ‘Negative Account’ of the feeling: it results from the fact that we are conscious of our actions but ignorant of their causes. I argue that the Negative Account is flawed. The feeling of freedom also depends on a vacillation of the mind. When the mind forms too many incompatible associations, it vacillates between them. When we act, the mind vacillates back and forth between the kinds of actions that we associate with our present mental state. We then mistake this subjective vacillation for an objective feature of ourselves—namely, the power to do otherwise.     

The use of picture prompts and prompt delay to teach receptive labeling

The current study extended research on picture prompts by using them with a progressive prompt delay to teach receptive labeling of pictures to 2 teenagers with autism. The procedure differed from prior research because the auditory stimulus was not presented or was presented only once during the picture‐prompt condition. The results indicated that the combination of picture prompts and prompt delay was effective, although 1 participant required a procedural modification.