Mothers and Daughters from Today's Psychoanalytic Perspective

In this paper, I review and synthesize findings that may help us remodel the way we think about the vicissitudes of the mother-daughter relationship. Although exciting new ideas are burgeoning in the literature, there seems to be a lag between discoveries and their integration into clinical practice. Older theories emphasizing separation and the girl's “change of libidinal object” from mother to father reflect linear models that do not encompass the development we observe and experience. Newer theories depict development as interactive and relational throughout the life cycle—leading not to separation but to autonomy with connectedness. Applying male models to the female superego or speaking of the “female Oedipus complex” is misleading. New myths are being proposed to describe the conflicts integral to the girl's triangular situation. Applying the myth of Persephone and Demeter has been especially instructive. Many analysts tend to pathologize or infantilize the woman's ongoing tie to her mother and tend to misunderstand the intense ambivalence between daughter and mother. Once we recognize that the course of development is not linear, we should expect to see the woman revisiting, reexamining, and resynthesizing representations of self-versus-mother and self-with-mother over her lifetime.     

Validation of Self-Report Measures of Emotional and Physical Distress Tolerance

The Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) and Discomfort Intolerance Scale (DIS) are self-report measures developed for the assessment of emotional and physical distress tolerance, respectively. However, little evidence exists for their construct and specifically criterion-related validity. The current study examined the associations of these self-report measures with lab-based assessments of perceived emotional tolerance and physical discomfort tolerance. Undergraduate participants (N?=?166) were administered four film clips intended to induce sadness, disgust, fear, and anger, and a handgrip persistence task intended to elicit physical discomfort. The DTS, but not the DIS, was significantly associated with self-reported emotional tolerance and perceived threat associated with each film after controlling for emotional intensity. Among DTS subscales, the absorption subscale was the only subscale incrementally predictive of negative perceptions of the sad film, the appraisal subscale was incrementally predictive of negative perceptions of the other three films, and little support for the incremental validity of the tolerance and regulation subscales was found. The DTS also incrementally predicted tolerance and perceived threat of film-elicited emotions across films after controlling for anxiety sensitivity. The DIS was only marginally predictive of handgrip task persistence and was unrelated to emotional film perceptions. Overall, these findings uniquely add to the empirical literature on the construct and criterion-related validity of the DTS and DIS.     

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones but Words Relate to Adult Physiology? Child Abuse Experience and Women's Sympathetic Nervous System Response while Self-Reporting Trauma

Child abuse predicts a wide range of long-lasting deleterious outcomes, including disruptions in the biological systems central to emotion arousal and regulation. However, little is known about the specific ways in which child abuse affects adulthood sympathetic reactivity and recovery. This study investigated the association between child abuse experience and adult skin conductance level and habituation in 85 at-risk women as they completed a self-report trauma questionnaire. Childhood emotional abuse was independently associated with blunted skin conductance habituation over the course of survey completion after controlling for other abuse subtypes and current trauma symptoms. These results suggest that women emotionally abused as children experience prolonged emotional arousal and poor physiological regulation of emotion in response to reminders of traumatic experiences.     

Randomized Controlled Trial of Cognitive–Behavioral Group Therapy for Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a Medical Setting

Standard medical treatments have not been effective for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients. Though individualized cognitive–behavior therapy is an empirically supported treatment option, cognitive–behavioral group therapy (CBGT) has yet to be established as an effective alternative in a randomized controlled trial. This study compared the efficacy of a 10-session CBGT with a home-based symptom monitoring with weekly telephone contact (SMTC) treatment for IBS, extending previous quasi-experimental research in this area. Twenty-eight refractory IBS patients, evaluated and referred by gastroenterologists using the Rome criteria, participated in the study. IBS symptoms, psychological functioning, and health-related quality of life were assessed pre- and posttreatment, and at 3-month follow-up. CBGT patients reported significantly more gastrointestinal (GI) symptom improvement than SMTC patients on posttreatment global measures and had significantly reduced daily diary pain scores at 3-month follow-up. Based on MANOVA, there was significant improvement in psychological distress and health-related quality of life for the CBGT patients in comparison to the SMTC patients. These improvements were also maintained at the 3-month follow-up. Reductions in GI symptoms, psychological distress, and improved health related quality of life may contribute to less behavioral avoidance, disability, and health care utilization in refractory IBS patients.     

Quintupling the speed of the PDP-8 DF32 disk system for real-time use

The author has noted some inefficiencies in the operation of the DF32 hardware/software disk system on the PDP-8. While such inefficiencies are not significant when the disk is used only as a store for programs which are called into core from the keyboard, they become important when the disk is used as a real-time backup for core. This paper isolates some of the problems, gives rules for avoiding them, and then describes how the system software was modified to obey these rules. The speed of the modified system is noticeable even when SAVEing and CALLing programs from the keyboard; successive blocks can be transferred between disk and core in one-fifth the previously required time.     

Intersensory effects in the psychological refractory period

Two experiments examined reaction time (RT) to each of two stimulus events separated by short interstimulus intervals (1SI). The essential contrast was RT to the second visual signal, RT₂, in auditory-visual (A-V) vs visual-visual (V-V) sequences. With response, certain pairings in Experiment 1, an effect apparently demonstrating a single-channel process (Welford, 1952), was noted. RT₂ was generally faster for A-V as opposed to V-V sequences especially when Ss were uncertain as to the sequence that would occur. At 0-msec ISI, the RT₂ difference between sequences approached the RT! difference. More rapid RT₂ to A-V sequences was also observed with go vs no-go pairings in Experiment 2 when the initial event was a go signal. However, the RT difference disappeared upon error correction, making the RT₂ sequence difference of questionable relevance to the hypothetical single-channel process. RT₂ was more rapid following a null no-go signal when the no-go signal was contrasted with a visual as opposed to auditory go signal. The latter effect was independent of error and is consistent with channel-switching theory (Kristofferson, 1967).