Soul Healing: A Model of Feminist Therapy

A feminist psychospiritual model of therapy that can be used in working with clients who value the spiritual dimension in their lives is offered. The history, philosophy, and work of Women for a New World, a multidisciplinary team of women representing the areas of psychology, religious education, and the arts is presented. Using examples drawn from the developmental history of our retreat-workshop paradigm and from some of our programs, including a weekend retreat for women and a day of reflection for persons affected by AIDS (including family and friends of those with AIDS), the metaphor of therapy as soul healing is developed.     

The Pinocchio Syndrome: Lying and Its Impact on the Counseling Process

Surprisingly little has been written in the counseling journals on the topic of lying: that is, why some clients consciously choose to be either dishonest with their counselors or deliberately hold back (i.e., keep secrets) important information from their counselors. This article discusses the dynamics of lying and offers suggestions to counselors on how to work with clients who lie.     

Conditioned taste aversions support drug discrimination learning at low dosages of morphine.

The present experiment shows that a conditioned taste aversion procedure can support discrimination learning at dosages of morphine comparable to those required to produce motivational effects. Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with 4.0 mg/kg morphine sulfate prior to a saccharin-lithium chloride pairing, and physiological saline prior to a saccharin-saline pairing. The rats avoided the saccharin solution following the administration of morphine and consumed significantly more saccharin following saline administration after four discrimination cycles. After this initial discrimination the subjects were trained with progressively lower doses of morphine. Discrimination learning was apparent at doses of 2.0, 1.5, 1.0, 0.75 and 0.5 mg/kg. Animals initially trained with 1.0 mg/kg morphine also learned the discrimination but required 10 training cycles. After this initial discrimination the subjects were trained with progressively lower dosages of morphine and showed a discrimination at a dosage of 0.5 mg/kg.     

An ephemeral sex pheromone in the urine of female house mice (Mus domesticus).

From previous research, the ultrasonic vocalizations of male mice (Mus domesticus) to female mouse urine were hypothesized to be learned as a result of classical conditioning during adult heterosexual encounters. According to this interpretation, a previously neutral conditioned stimulus in female urine comes to elicit vocalizations as a result of its association with some other unknown unconditioned stimulus associated with adult females. However, the research from which this hypothesis was derived utilized urine collected from females housed in metabolic cages. Three experiments further examined the classical conditioning hypothesis using two types of female urine: (i) metabolic-cage-collected urine and (ii) freshly voided urine. Experiment 1 demonstrated that, in contrast to vocalizations to metabolic-cage-collected urine, adult heterosexual experience was not necessary for males to vocalize to freshly voided female urine. In addition, unlike metabolic-cage-collected urine (Experiment 3), freshly voided urine remained a potent stimulus for eliciting vocalizations during repeated testing (Experiments 2 and 3). Finally, freshly voided urine appeared to cause a previously neutral stimulus (cotton swab) to acquire ultrasound eliciting properties (Experiment 2). We suggest from these findings that two chemosignals that elicit vocalizations from males may exist in female mouse urine: (i) a potent, but volatile or easily degraded, unconditioned stimulus to which males vocalize without sexual experience and (ii) a nonvolatile, chemically stable conditioned stimulus.     

A social-cognitive,attributional model of personal goals: An empirical evaluation

A model of cognitive and affective antecedents and consequences of personal goals, which integrates constructs from social-cognitive and attribution theories, was examined. Data were gathered before and after course examinations in a large university class. Hierarchical and moderated regression analyses supported the model indicating that (1) relationships between self-efficacy, goals, and performance were positive during repeated trials over 4 1/2 months in a naturally occurring setting; (2) the stability dimension of causal attributions moderated the relationship between goal-performance discrepancies and self-efficacy; and (3) the locus of causality dimension of causal attributions moderated the relationship between goal-performance discrepancies and affective responses.We thank Susan Ashford, Jim Austin, Donald Fedor, Ruth Kanfer, Edwin Locke, Paul Nystrom, Donna Randall, Christina Shalley, Masoud Yasai-Ardekani and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. We also thank Eric Dietenberger for his help with graphics.     

Visual hemispheric asymmetries depend on which spatial frequencies are task relevant

Observers classified sine-wave and square-wave gratings on the basis of fundamental frequency (Are the bars wide or narrow?) or on the basis of higher harmonic frequencies (Are the bars sharp or fuzzy?). Stimuli were presented in either the left (LVF) or right (RVF) visual field. When the classification was made on the basis of the fundamental frequencies (1 or 3 c/deg), there was a LVF/right hemisphere advantage. However, when the classification was on the basis of a sharp/fuzzy distinction which involved searching for the higher harmonic frequencies, then a RVF/left hemisphere advantage was found.     

Electroencephalogram asymmetry during emotionally evocative films and its relation to positive and negative affectivity

The purpose of the present study was to determine if there were differences in hemispheric lateralization during the experience of emotions and if those differences were related to personality style. College-age adult subjects selected for high positive and negative affectivity on Tellegen's Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982) viewed video stimuli selected for their emotionally evocative nature and rated the intensity of the emotions they experienced. The ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded while they watched the video clips. Analyses of the EEG data revealed that there were differences in regional activation during the emotional video clips, especially for those stimuli selected to elicit either happy or disgust emotions. These results support the hypothesis that the right hemisphere is specialized for the experience of certain negative affects, whereas the left hemisphere is specialized for the experience of certain positive affects. The findings also indicated some support for the theory that individual differences in personality style are related to differing levels of hemispheric arousal.     

Fluency versus conscious recollection in the word completion performance of amnesic patients

To examine the relative contribution of fluency and recollection to the word completion performance of amnesics, we administered a task in which patients were told specifically not to utilize previously presented words during stem completion (an Exclusion condition). This condition was contrasted with a standard word completion task in which patients were encouraged simply to complete the stem with the first word that came to mind (an Inclusion condition). Since the exclusion condition necessitated controlled respecification of the initial presentation, it was hypothesized that amnesics would be less able than controls to exclude study list items. Consistent with this hypothesis, the results indicated that the amnesics' performance, unlike that of the alcoholic controls, did not significantly differ as a function of task condition. To examine whether amnesics' conscious recollection could be enhanced, Experiment 2 presented the study list five times. The amnesics now were able to exclude a significant number of items from the study list; however, they still did so considerably less frequently than alcoholic controls. For the alcoholic controls, increasing the number of study trials had little additional effect on their exclusion performance, but it significantly enhanced their inclusion performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that for control subjects, word completion performance is likely mediated by a combination of fluency and recollection, while for amnesic patients, performance is almost exclusively based on the fluency with which an item comes to mind.