Energy and psychical pain

Several relationships between energy and psychical pain are developed in this paper. These concepts are a-structural and existential in spirit, although developed in the framework of some analytic formulations on personality. A key concept developed is that the nature of psychical pain is determined, in part, by the manner in which the state of psychical energy associated with the pain departs from a given healthy ideal.     

A reappraisal of Teresa of Avila's supposed hysteria

This essay offers a reassessment of Teresa's severe seizures which were such a characteristic feature of her mysticism. The diagnosis of hysteria is no longer viable, at the very least given its abandonment by clinicians. An alternative analysis is developed by phenomenologically comparing Teresa's seizures to parallel experiences of subjects in LSD-assisted psychotherapy. Using Stanislav Grof's categories, it is argued that Teresa's seizures are perinatal symptoms. As such, they represent the emergence and reintegration of extremely primitive psychological systems and might be described as the growing pains of transpersonal consciousness. They reflect not degenerative psychopathology but progressive movement toward higher states of consciousness.He has published articles in the fields of metaphor and the psychology of mysticism. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the national meeting of the American Academy of Religion in New York in 1982.     

The escape-to-Israel syndrome: Variations on the geographic cure

The author conceptualizes a pattern of thought and behavior that can be called the escape-to-Israel syndrome. This pattern is a contemporary variety, appearing primarily in the Jewish population, of the geographic cure: that is, one can solve one's personal dilemmas by moving from one place to another. The syndrome is characterized by a tendency to idealize life in Israel. This idealization, and the viewers' fantasy of their own future in Israel, deflect solid confrontation with genuine personal problems. If, in fact, they do move to Israel, they may experience shock and trauma at the gap between expected reality and the discovered one. This may only compound their emotional difficulties.The author wishes to express his gratitude to Professor Shamai Davidson, Clinical Director of the Shalvata Mental Health Center, Hod HaSharon, Israel, for his critical comments during the preparation of this article.     

The Attitudes Toward Women Scale for Adolescents (AWSA): A study of reliability and validity

This study describes the development of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale for Adolescents (AWSA), an instrument based on the short form of the Spence-Helmreich Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS). The AWSA has been tested in four samples of adolescents. Internal consistency estimates and test-retest stability indicated high reliability. Hypotheses formulated to test the construct validity of the scale were largely supported. AWSA permits the examination of how boys' and girls' attitudes toward women influence the life paths that adolescent girls begin to pursue.This research was supported by grants to A. Petersen from the Spencer Foundation, the National Institute of Mental health (MH 30252/38142), and the Judith Baskin Offer Fund.     

A longitudinal comparison of couples with sex-typical and non-sex-typical orientations to intimacy

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship experience of males and females who do not conform to sex-typical orientations to intimacy. One hundred sixty-three couples' and 88 nondating singles' (total N=414) responses to the Relationship World Index—Version 2 (RWI-2) were analyzed via discriminant analysis to determine if subjects' sex could be predicted accurately upon the basis of their RWI-2 scores. One discriminant function was found which was significant by the Wilks' lambda test [x²(60)=140.57, p<.001]; the procedure correctly classified 76% of the respondents. Those who were classified correctly were considered sex-typical and the remaining 24% of the sample was considered non-sex-typical in their orientations to intimacy. Additional analyses using data from a 6-month longitudinal study located qualities which significantly distinguished sex-typical from non-sex-typical subjects and couples in which at least one member was non-sex-typical from couples in which both members were classified as sex-typical.     

Motivation and performance: Two consequences of winning and losing in competition

The present study examined the effects of competitive outcome—either a win or a loss—on intrinsic motivation. Winning was hypothesized to facilitate both performance and intrinsic motivation. Fifty-four participants, 29 females and 25 males, competed against a same-gender confederate in a puzzle-solving contest. Following the competition, participants' intrinsic motivation was surreptitiously measured by the amount of time spent playing with the puzzle while alone. Results showed that winning facilitated both actual competitive performance and intrinsic motivation relative to losing. The importance of considering the outcome when predicting intrinsic motivation after competition is discussed.     

Ventral scent marking in Meriones unguiculatus may contribute to thermoregulation

Three experiments were conducted with adult male Meriones unguiculatus in an attempt to demonstrate that ventral scent marking can act to transfer body heat to the object marked. Experiment 1 showed that surgical removal of the ventral gland pad reduced the amount of heat transferred by 50%, even though intact and glandless animals did not differ in the average frequency of scent marking. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the difference in heat transfer due to the presence or absence of the scent pad was not due to differential pressure applied to the substrate during marking. Experiment 3 showed that the pattern of ventral hair spread that occurs as an animal moves over an object is different between intact and glandless animals but that this difference does not account for the difference in heat transfer. It is suggested that heat transfer to the environment with ventral scent marking may increase thermoregulatory competence and also may function to volatilize sebum used in chemocommunication.     

Color discrimination on Mangaia

Bornstein’s hypothesis that there is a loss of color discrimination in tropical areas was not supported in earlier research in the Cook Islands. Using a more sensitive color vision test (the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test), a loss of color discrimination in the red-purple and blue-green regions of the spectrum was found. The lack of sex differences in this color discrimination loss supports a physiological rather than a genetic explanation of the observed decrement.     

Contextual stimulus control of conditional vasomotor and electrodermal reactions to angry and friendly faces

An experiment with 42 human Ss used the transswitching procedure to examine tonic stimulus control of phasic and tonic conditioned vasomotor heart rate, and electrodermal reactions. The conditional stimulus (CSs) were photos of angry and friendly human faces, and the unconditional stimulus (US) was a human scream. In one tonic context (blue light), the CSs were paired with the US, in the other context (yellow light), the CSs were presented unpaired. Following acquisition, an extinction series was run with the US omitted during both tonic contexts. Phasic vasomotor and skin conductance reactions differed in the positive and negative tonic segments (stronger in positive). The skin conductance responses also differed during extinction, but the vasomotor responses did not. Tonic differences (following onset of the tonic stimuli) in unelicited skin conductance response frequency, finger pulse volume, and heart rate were also found, although these developed more slowly than the phasic differences. The finger pulse volume tonic difference was greater in extinction than the skin conductance response frequency. There was no effect of the angry-friendly facial expressions, either directly or in interaction with the transswitching effects. The results were interpreted to mean that the transswitching phenomenon is not limited to one another autonomic effector, but is more generalized across the ANS (sympathetic branch). The absence of influence of the facial expressions indicates the relative weakness of the “preparedness” hypothesis in comparison with more influential contextual factors.