Treatment of atypical and neurotic depression

Hitherto it has not been usual to talk in the German language about the therapy-oriented concept of two forms of the progress of atypical depression (Type A and Type V). The characteristic symptom of Type A is angst, together with phobias, physical complaints, etc. In Type V there are vegetative symptoms, often towards evening (Hypersomnia, difficulty in getting to sleep, increased appetite, increased weight, increased libido), accompanied by hysterical extrovert personality traits, and of intermittent occurrence. These clinical pictures are amenable to psychopharmalogical therapy. In conformity with the assumption of "somatic accommodation" treatment with antidepressives is recommended in the case neurotic depression, too, at least in the initial stages of treatment.     

Aspects of process diagnosis in the psychotherapy of psychosomatic diseases

15 patients with psychosomatic diseases and the phenomenon of alexithymia, together with neurotic patients are treated psychotherapeutically in half-open groups. Contrary to the neurotics the patients show some special features regarding the process diagnostics. In assessing the wished and really experienced nearness to the group members there is a deficient ability to differentiate. During the therapeutic process the intrapsychic tension (EMI - Inventory of Emotionalities) is subject to great fluctuations or doesn't change. The occurrence of fluctuations in the EMI and of greater differentiations in the N-D-Test (Nearness-Distance-Test) suggest a good prognosis. A therapy of psychosomatic patients together with neurotic patients seems to be more effective than the treatment in homogeneous groups.     

Narcissism and the personal myth

Kris (1956) described the concept of the personal myth as an autobiographical story built around a family romance fantasy seen specifically in obsessive characters and serving a defensive function. In this paper the concept of the personal myth was expanded to include similar defensive constellations originating from within the grandiose self, built around omnipotent and omniscient fantasies and occurring in character formations with pregenital, narcissistic pathology. The case of a known author and poet, Nikos Kazantzakis, was used to illustrate the thesis of the paper. The available biographical material and the work of the author offer evidence to support the claim that the author's personal myth was a protective shield against anxiety originating in early narcissistic traumata.     

Sensory-substitution systems for the sensorily impaired: the case for the use of tactile-vibratory stimulation

A case is made for the use of tactile-vibratory stimulation in devising sensory-substitution systems for sensorily impaired humans.     

A family of chance-corrected association coefficients for metric scales

A chance-corrected version of the family of association coefficients for metric scales proposed by Zegers and ten Berge is presented. It is shown that a matrix with chance-corrected coefficients between a number of variables is Gramian. The members of the chance-corrected family are shown to be partially ordered. The author is obliged to Jos ten Berge for helpful comments.     

Binocular vision and spatial perception in 4- and 5-month-old infants

Four experiments investigated the relation between the development of binocular vision and infant spatial perception. Experiments 1 and 2 compared monocular and binocular depth perception in 4- and 5-month-old infants. Infants in both age groups reached more consistently for the nearer of two objects under binocular viewing conditions than under monocular viewing conditions. Experiments 3 and 4 investigated whether the superiority of binocular depth perception in 4-month-olds is related to the development of sensitivity to binocular disparity. Under binocular viewing conditions in Experiment 3, infants identified as disparity-sensitive reached more consistently for the nearer object than did infants identified as disparity-insensitive. The two groups' performances did not differ under monocular viewing conditions. These results suggest that, binocularly, the disparity-sensitive infants perceived the objects' distances more accurately than did the disparity-insensitive infants. In Experiment 4, infants were habituated to an object, then presented with the same object and a novel object that differed only in size. Disparity-sensitive infants showed size constancy by recovering from habituation when viewing the novel object. Disparity-insensitive infants did not show clear evidence of size constancy. These findings suggest that the development of sensitivity to binocular disparity is accompanied by a substantial increase in the accuracy of infant spatial perception.     

The Rotter locus of control scale: The comparison of alternative response formats and implications for reliability, validity, and dimensionality

Participants completed the Rotter internal/external (IE) instrument using three different response formats before and after completion of the Outward Bound program, and were evaluated by external observers at the end of the intervention. Multitrait-multimethod analyses indicated that five specific IE facets identified in previous research were consistently distinguished with each of the response formats. While responses were substantially more internal after the intervention, effect sizes varied with the IE facet and with the response format. Observer responses were significantly correlated with self-responses, and provided additional support for the construct validity of responses to the Rotter instrument and the interpretation of the intervention effect. Nevertheless, problems with the Rotter instrument were identified, and the implications for further research were discussed.     

Glucose effects on memory: behavioral and pharmacological characteristics

Recent findings indicate that post-training glucose injections can modulate memory storage for inhibitory (passive) avoidance training. Experiment I extended these findings to determine whether glucose, like other memory modulating treatments, enhances memory storage when administered after training with low footshock and impairs memory storage after high footshock training. In Experiment I, male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained in a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task using either a brief footshock (0.5 mA, 0.7 s) or slightly more intense footshock kept on until escape (0.7 mA, mean escape latency = 3.4 s). Immediately after training, each rat received a subcutaneous injection of glucose (100 mg/kg). When tested for retention performance 24 h later, the glucose-injected animals exhibited enhanced retention performance for low footshock training and impaired retention for high footshock training. Experiment II determined whether pretreatment with adrenergic antagonists blocked the effects of glucose on memory. Pretreatment with the alpha- or beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists, phenoxybenzamine, or propranolol, respectively, had no effect on acquisition or retention in animals trained with the brief footshock and did not affect glucose facilitation of that memory. In animals trained to escape footshock, phenoxybenzamine did not attenuate the amnesia produced by glucose. Propranolol-pretreated animals had impaired retention whether or not they received post-training amnestic injections of glucose; glucose had no effect on retention in these amnestic animals. These findings add further support to the view that glucose release after training and treatment may represent a physiological response subsequent to epinephrine release in modulating memory storage processing.     

Counseling Clients with AIDS

The authors discuss issues and suggestions relative to counseling clients with AIDS. Several psychosocial issues are presented, and a psycho-educational model of treatment to meet the needs of AIDS clients is described.