Murder in the family: An analysis of two Poe short stories

Learning to be possessed has been described elsewhere by the writer as a form of pathogenic relating begun when children are taught by adults that they will receive a lesser penalty for misbehavior if they can show they were not responsible, such as if it were caused by an evil agent or the Devil. It was suggested that learning to be possessed can be an underlying cause of psychopathology, the delusion of persecution in particular. Two short stories by the distinguished American writer Edgar Allan Poe are examined to develop the formulation of learning to be possessed, especially when it has passed to a delusion of persecution. Two propositions are offered: (1) Where it appears that a family member is murdered by a delusional assailant by accident, it is not an accident; and (2) the delusion of persecution entails a memory loss so that the murderer not only can claim lack of personal responsibility for the act, but also spares himself the guilt of having broken a fundamental taboo. Further comparison is made between learning to be possessed as a cause of delusion, and the psychoanalytic theory in which the defense mechanism of projection is central. In the latter theory, interpretation of the delusion is critical; whereas in the former, interpretation is counterproductive because it merely reinforces the delusion.Probably a note of appreciation is due the writer's daughter Cary, who at age 14 is an expert at badgering her father for help with homework assignments. For several weeks the writer was alternatively pestered and cajoled to help Cary with her Poe Project for high school English which required an essay analyzing the work of a great American writer denigrated by the author as weird by his recollection formed decades earlier. Cary's persistence required the author to consider Poe anew, to recognize his unwarranted earlier prejudice, and to recognize that Poe offered him a gift of understanding regarding a topic about which the author had been thinking for several years, namely that form of pathogenic relating named learning to be possessed.     

Improvisational therapy: Evolving one's own clinical style

This article offers an invitation to develop one's own unique clinical style, relying less on institutionalized schools of therapy and more on the therapist's own natural resources. An emphasis is placed upon understanding therapy as art, trusting one's imagination, and maintaining a healthy irreverence for professional politics.     

A novel automatic procedure for measuring ocular counterrolling: A computeranalytical method to determine the eye’s roll angle while subjects work on perceptual tasks

In investigations of the perception of space, the consideration of ocular counterrolling-the movement of the eye around its visual axis in response to body movement-is crucially important. The angle of this movement must be known in order for one to determine the precise retinal coordinates of a distal object. Following transformation, this stimulus serves as a reliable cue for visual direction. The otolith organs provide information about body tilt and are responsible for ocular counterrolling. A novel, noninvasive method to measure ocular counterrolling, based on the cross-correlation of digitized video pictures of the eyes, is presented. The resolution attained was ≤ 0.1°. The computer analysis is fully automatic and fast, and it can be performed while subjects work on perceptual tasks. No direct access to the eyeballs is required. Data from 4 subjects showing the counterrolling profile in various body positions are presented.     

Family coping strategies and the rural Appalachian working poor

Naturalistic research methods were used in this study to collect the voices, ideas, and opinions of rural, working poor, Appalachian families from Southeast Ohio about the stress of poverty in family life and family coping in the face of poverty. This data should be of interest to the professional family therapist who practices with the working poor.     

Live supervision in the postmodern era of family therapy: Issues,reflections, and questions

This article asserts that the family therapy field is approaching an epistemological shift from structuralism and positivism to postmodernism and relativism. The confluence of these movements: feminism, constructivism/constructionism, and cultural relativism is cited as a major impetus for the shift. Live supervision is examined within the context of this transformation, with a discussion of implications for the future.     

Supervising the person of the therapist: Issues,challenges and dilemmas

A major critical issue in marriage and family therapy today is the professionalization of the discipline. Thus the focus on training individuals for a career in marriage and family therapy necessitates the revisitation of the debate over personal growth versus skill development. The trend toward training the person of the therapist, however, would suggest that the field is moving toward the integration of self awareness and skill in the therapeutic system. With the popularization of training the person of the therapist comes other issues, challenges, and dilemmas for the field, including the crucial issue of training gender and culturally sensitive therapists. The potential for creating dual relationships when training the person of the therapist is both a dilemma and a challenge.     

Sado-masochism as a defense against merging: Six case studies

This paper reports on several patients who use sado-masochism as a defense against an unconscious wish for and fear of merging. The sado-masochism can be expressed as a sexual perversion or in a difficult ungratifying interpersonal relationship. These relationships have some of the quality of addictions in that the patients have a compulsive need to continue them and find it extremely difficult to leave them. Therapy must focus on helping the patient become more separate, rather than on other problems which may also be present. Initially, the therapist needs to take an educational stance in regard to the process the patient must complete, rather than the more traditional analytic stance.     

The relationship of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other illegal drug use to delinquency among Mexican-American, black, and white adolescent males

This study examined the relationship between drug use and delinquent behavior among 348 high school males (154 whites, 172 Mexican-Americans, and 22 blacks) and 89 adjudicated delinquent males confined to a maximum-security facility for violent and repeat offenders (37 whites, 25 Mexican-Americans, and 27 blacks). Data were collected in the spring of 1986 using self-administered questionnaires. Analyses were performed separately for each racial subgroup. Simple correlations revealed that self-reported alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other illegal drug use were all significantly related to both minor and violent delinquency for all three racial groups. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the use of these substances accounted for 40% to 47% of the variance in minor delinquency and for 59% of the variance in violent delinquency among blacks, 53% of the variance in violent delinquency among Mexican-Americans, and 34% of the variance in violent delinquency among whites. The best predictors of violent delinquency were the frequent use of illegal drugs other than marijuana and use of tobacco, in that order, among Mexican-Americans; the frequent use of other illegal drugs, marijuana, and tobacco, in that order, for whites; and the frequent use of illegal drugs, followed by marijuana, for blacks.