Empowering the Older Adult Through Folklore

An opportunity exists for those working with older adults in nursing homes to significantly encourage independence in the older adult using a creative approach. The use of folklore is suggested as a means for assisting the older adult toward a reconnection with the individuation process.     

Group focal conflict theory: Description,illustration and evaluation

Group focal conflict theory makes use of a set of interrelated concepts to contain, order, and introduce meaning into the evolving dynamics of therapeutic groups and to relate and connect group and individual dynamics. Key terms are group focal conflict, disturbing motive, reactive motive, enabling or restrictive solution, individual nuclear and derived individual focal conflict, and resonance. The relationships between these are shown. Two illustrations are offered. The first shows the therapist attending mainly to the dynamics of the group-as-a-whole in order to facilitate a newly formed group to develop into a fruitful medium for therapeutic work. In the second, a period of resonance between group and individual focal conflicts shows how an intensive mutual transference between two patients is embedded in whole-group dynamics and how such an episode can be used profitably both by those centrally and not so centrally involved. Criteria for evaluating a theoretical model are described, and group focal conflict theory is discussed in the light of these. The usefulness of the model for research is discussed.     

Resistance in group psychotherapy

The authors view resistance generally as healthy and a sign of a more or less intact ego. A brief review of the psychoanalytic literature and the group therapy literature presents resistance as a mechanism that closes off aspects of the internal and external world seen as potentially dangerous. Patient resistances are identified as coming from cultural values, fear of strangers, fear of regression, and resentment toward the therapist. Clinical vignettes of group patients and group interaction are presented. Finally, resistance of therapists and indications of such resistance are also explored.     

EMG scanning: Normative data

Surface EMG was recorded from both right and left aspects of 18 muscle groups for the purpose of establishing a data base of normative EMG levels. A scanning electrode permitted easy and rapid EMG measurement from 52 male and 51 female college students, both sitting and standing. Several a posteriori analyses of variance revealed sex differences in the masseter, occipital, posterior cervical, upper trapezius, latissimus dorsi, and anterior tibialis. Similarly, there were side differences for the anterior temporalis, occipitalis, splenius capitus, trapezius, paraspinalis, and soleus. The analyses also revealed interactions among sex, position, and side for various measures on the trapezius. The data show that females tend to muscle brace more than males in the upper extremities. The study provides data for normative comparisons and helps to plan and interpret future EMG studies.     

Gender differences,mediation, and disciplinary styles in children's responses to television

A sample of kindergarten and first-grade children was studied in a research center and at school to determine the extent to which family communication mediated their comprehension of television, as well as a series of cognitive skills necessary for such comprehension. Separate analyses were conducted for boys and girls, and results indicated that certain styles of family mediation facilitated comprehension more effectively for boys than for girls. Additionally, differential effects of two styles of discipline were found for each sex.This research was funded by a grant to Jerome and Dorothy Singer from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation entitled Television and Family Living Patterns.     

Parallel processing in visual same-different decisions

Two to 13 geometrical shapes were exposed simultaneously to S who decided whether all shapes were the same or whether one was different from the rest. Correct different decisions were usually faster than correct same decisions, but latency was independent of the number of shapes presented. We conclude that input from all the shapes was simultaneously processed into either one or two shape categories, and that a decision-theory choice was made between “same” (one shape category) and “different” (two shape categories) independent of the total number of shapes. This parallel processing is thought to be a characteristic of codable stimuli. Some observed same-different latency reversals were probably caused by a shift in the same-different criterion on the continuum for one- vs two-category decisions.