Functional Status, Receipt of Help, and Perceived Health

We model the effects of disability, functional limitation, and receipt of help on perceived health. This analysis specifies a model with two dimensions of disability and three dimensions of functional limitation, including upper body disability, lower body disability, basic activities of daily living (ADLs), household ADLs, and advanced ADLs. The latent variables of receiving help are modeled for each of the ADLs as intervening between limitations and perceived health. The results show that instrumental social support in the form of receiving help for ADLs has no substantive independent effect on perceived health. In addition, receiving instrumental social support shows a pattern of task-specific responses to individual measures of need. Implications for both caregiver and care recipient are discussed.     

Reframing the question of forbidden knowledge for modern science

In this paper I use the concept of forbidden knowledge to explore questions about putting limits on science. Science has generally been understood to seek and produce objective truth, and this understanding of science has grounded its claim to freedom of inquiry. What happens to decision making about science when this claim to objective, disinterested truth is rejected? There are two changes that must be made to update the idea of forbidden knowledge for modern science. The first is to shift from presuming that decisions to constrain or even forbid knowledge can be made from a position of omniscience (perfect knowledge) to recognizing that such decisions made by human beings are made from a position of limited or partial knowledge. The second is to reject the idea that knowledge is objective and disinterested and accept that knowledge (even scientific knowledge) is interested. In particular, choices about what knowledge gets created are normative, value choices. When these two changes are made to the idea of forbidden knowledge, questions about limiting or forbidding lines of inquiry are shown to distract attention from the more important matters of who makes and how decisions are made about what knowledge is produced. Much more attention should be focused on choosing directions in science, and as this is done, the matter of whether constraints should be placed on science will fall into place.     

Effect of familiarity and category contrast on stimulus and response priming

In a letter-symbol classification task, flanking incompatible symbols slowed response latencies to letter targets, whereas incompatible letter flankers did not slow the classification of symbol targets. The conditions surrounding this asymmetry in response competition were investigated in five experiments. The results showed that: (1) the asymmetry was not related to the familiarity of the symbol targets or to the prime-target interval; (2) when the classification involved familiar and unfamiliar symbols, the asymmetry remained (i.e., there was less interference associated with the unfamiliar symbol targets), but there was now significant response competition associated with both symbol categories; and (3) with a mixed-category task (i.e., letters and symbols assigned to both responses), the symbol targets continued to be less interfered with by both letter and symbol incompatible flankers. These findings were interpreted as suggesting that response competition can be influenced by both classification decision rules and cohesiveness of exemplars comprising a category.     

Electromyographic and vasomotor activity in tension, migraine, and combined headache patients: The influence of postural variation

Electromyographic (EMG) and temporal artery vasomotor activity was evaluated in three groups of headache patients (tension, migraine and combined) and nonheadache control subjects while in reclining, sitting and standing positions. Analysis of the EMG data revealed that at all measurement sites (bilateral frontalis, bilateral trapezius) the three headache groups demonstrated significantly higher levels than the nonheadache group but did not differ from each other. A secondary analysis of the trapezius EMG data revealed that a large percentage of headache patients had “normal” EMG levels in the reclining position but showed abnormalities in the sitting and standing positions. Analysis of the left temporal artery vasomotor activity revealed that all three headache groups vasoconstricted to a significantly greater extent than the nonheadache group in the sitting and standing positions. However, a diagnosis by position interaction was found for the right temporal artery with the migraine group demonstrating a unique pattern of activity.     

Psychological Differential Diagnosis: Alternatives to the DSM System

This article discusses the question of diagnosis of mental disorders and argues for the development of alternatives to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. A selected review of this issue is presented along with various alternative conceptions of psychopathology. It is suggested that the categorical and medical orientation of the DSM do not adequately describe psychological processes. It is recommended that Psychology and other health care disciplines, advance alternative conceptions and models of psychological disturbance to educate the public and guide further scientific inquiry.     

Rational-Emotive Assessment with Religious Clients

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), when practiced effectively and flexibly, can be an excellent treatment modality for religious clients. Most of the American population acknowledges some religious belief and/or practice and religious clients sometimes present with unique disturbances and concerns about psychotherapy. In this article we discuss the rapidly changing literature relative to religiousness and mental health and highlight the ethical-professional risks of failing to carefully assess and responsibly manage client religiousness when it is personally and clinically salient. We conclude by outlining a model for focused assessment of religiousness early in REBT and recommend that REBT practitioners consider different components of religiousness and the manner in which they may impact response to treatment.     

The Primacy of the “Shoulds”: Where Is the Evidence?

A central tenet of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) has always been that irrational beliefs which express demands through absolutistic shoulds, musts or oughts are the basic cause of emotional disturbance. This premise is characteristic of Ellis' theory but is not always supported by other REBT writers or other writers within the cognitive therapy field. This paper reviews a range of research findings which appear to call into question Ellis' tenet of the primacy of the shoulds and which, in turn, raise theoretical and methodological difficulties in the measurement of beliefs. This along with the current theoretical debate regarding irrational belief processes may preclude the possibility of testing the proposition that demandingness is the primary irrational or dysfunctional belief.