Negativism and countertransference

The purpose of this work is to explore the phenomenon of negativism and the analyst's response to it during the course of analytic work with a patient in whom negativism is a central behavioral pattern. Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," describing in telling detail the response of a sympathetic lawyer to profound and pervasive negativism in his legal scribe, is discussed as a literary analogy to the analyst-analysand dyad. Aspects of the concept of negativism within psychoanalysis are discussed. The potential usefulness of understanding certain unexpected countertransference responses to pervasive negativism is explored, as this is a relatively neglected area of psychoanalytic technique. A case is presented describing the analysis of a patient whose character, like Bartleby's, is a mixture of profound negativism along with schizoid, obsessional, and masochistic elements.     

Complex decision making: A longitudinal study of process and performance

Two studies using a computer-simulated, strategy-formulation game and business students were conducted using simultaneous verbal protocols. It was found that a number of information-processing and information-evaluation thought processes were significantly related to game performance. Consistent with what is known about individual decision making, the present results suggest that, for the task used in this study, individuals who engage in causal analysis perform better than those who do not. But those who focus on negative emotions, blindly repeat previously successful decisions, and engage in illogical through processes perform more poorly than those who do not. Causal replication using real managers within organizational settings, however, is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn from this research.     

Certifying Juveniles for Adult Court: An Attribution Analysis1

Certification is the process whereby older juveniles who have committed felony offenses are transferred from juvenile courts to adult courts. The present study examined the variables that influence decisions in these cases and used attribution theory to conceptualize the process. Data were obtained from files of 150 youths on whom certification petitions had been filed from January 1981 to October 1984. Of these, 125 had been certified and 25 had not. The sample comprised 148 males and 2 females. Data included seriousness of the offense, previous offenses, potential for aggressiveness, level of involvement in the offense, age, court in which the case was heard, year in which the case was heard, IQ, family income and sex. Level of involvement, seriousness of the offense and potential for aggressiveness had the strongest association with certification outcomes, with those high on these measures significantly more likely to be certified. The cluster that predicted outcomes best included level of involvement, seriousness of the offense, potential for aggressiveness, IQ, year in which the case was heard, court in which the case was heard, sex and previous offenses. The most explicitly behavioral variable—how actively the child participated in the offense—was the best single predictor of outcomes.     

PSYCHOLOGY AND HEALTH: CONTRIBUTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE

Psychology as both a science and a profession has been closely identified with other disciplines in the broad field of health since the turn of the century. Recent advances in health care have reinforced the growing belief that the promotion of health and the prevention and treatment of illness can be greatly enhanced by incorporating the scientific findings and modern technology of psychology into everyday practices. Outlining the contributions of psychology to health care throughout the world is the primary purpose of this report. In this brief survey, only some of the most timely and relevant issues can be mentioned, together with examples of current work in the field. The reader interested in pursuing these psychological contributions more thoroughly is encouraged to review pertinent references from the citations at the end of this report. After an introductory overview, special attention is given to each of the major areas within the broad field of health care where psychological applications have been particularly useful.     

Psychosocial risk factors, natural immunity, and cancer progression: Implications for intervention

One of the more important and emerging fields in which psychologists collaborate with other disciplines is psychoimmunology. Centuries of clinical anecdote and decades of psychosomatic hypotheses have gained credibility in the eyes of the medical establishment—and many patients—by the systematic investigation of mechanisms potentially explaining how events intrapsychic and interpersonal could affect physical disease processes. The central nervous system is connected with the immune system by both neuronal and endocrinological pathways. The immune system has been found to mediate the organism’s response to aberrations of its own normal functions, as well as to invading organisms from without. AIDS, arthritis, asthma, lupus, and herpes are some of the illnesses in which research is demonstrating important relationships among psychosocial and immunological factors and disease course. In this article, we first discuss the immunological apparatus in order to provide a base for subsequent discussions of the effects of stress on immune function. Then we discuss malignant diseases and current evidence that disease course is related to both psychosocial stressors and immune function. We next discuss a model of these interactions, and finally we talk about interventions incorporating psychosocial factors aimed at influencing immune status and, thus, disease course.     

Case Study: New Directions For the College Counselor at CCNY

Community mental health concepts suggest that college counselors may move towards preventive activity rather than remaining focused primarily on response to established symptoms in troubled students. Preventive activity views the college, its policies, and its administration as legitimate areas of counselor-involvement. Experience indicates there is room on the campus for both functions: (a) traditional one-to-one interactions within the counseling office; and (b) outreach programs affecting large numbers of students and administrators. Outreach has shown itself effective in reaching students who might not spontaneously seek out the counseling office. Several areas of counselor involvement at City College in which the staff has experimented with the outreach philosophy are discussed.     

A REPLY TO JASPER HOLLEY'S DEFENSE OF THE G INDEX

Holley argues that the appearance of effects related to person means in the factor analysis of G indices is due to Levy's failure to adopt the procedure of 'double extending' the score matrix in Q analysis. Holley also points out that this same procedure has no effect upon the G indices. Therefore there is no argument and Levy's results and conclusions stand unaltered.